Thread: Ukraine
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Old 03-22-2022, 12:53 PM   #710
Pete F.
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Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: vt
Posts: 13,069
Quote:
Originally Posted by detbuch View Post
Here we go with tricky Pete's goofy insinuation, slanting, lying by omission stuff.
Trump said much more than tricky Pete quoted:

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said NATO was obsolete because it had not defended against terror attacks, but that the military alliance was still very important to him, The Times of London reported.


Baloney
NATO’s Article V, which states: “an armed attack against one or more [member countries] in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.”
Article V has been invoked only one time in the 70-year history of NATO: on September 12, 2001 by the non-American allies after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S.
In Afghanistan alone, NATO allies have lost around 1,000 service members in support of coalition operations. U.S. allies also form the backbone of support for the global coalition to counter the Islamic State, which consisted of 81 partner nations.


“I took such heat, when I said NATO was obsolete,” Trump told the newspaper in an interview. “It’s obsolete because it wasn’t taking care of terror. I took a lot of heat for two days. And then they started saying Trump is right.”

Trump added that many NATO members were not paying their fair share for U.S. protection.



“A lot of these countries aren’t paying what they’re supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States,” Trump said. “With that being said, NATO is very important to me. There’s five countries that are paying what they’re supposed to. Five. It’s not much.”

More of your Baloney
We do not deploy our forces as mercenaries for hire, simply to defend the territory of U.S. allies. America’s global defense network allows it to more quickly and effectively address a range of global requirements, including protecting American citizens, preventing piracy, deterring violent extremism, and preventing countries like North Korea and Iran from trafficking illicit weapons. U.S. allies work alongside the U.S. in all of these efforts.

America’s allies also defray significant portions of the cost of its overseas military facilities, spending billions of dollars to offset costs the U.S. would otherwise bear alone. Allies contribute to the cost of U.S. facilities both directly and indirectly, through cash payments; in-kind payments such as tax and fee waivers; covering construction costs for U.S. housing and training facilities; and the rent-free provision of valuable real estate to U.S. forces


He said, which Pete left out, that NATO was very important to him. That would not be good for his narrative that Trump is anti NATO. And Russia's invasion and continuing destruction of Ukraine (again) has awoken even prominent members of NATO that it needed to beef itself up and put a strong face against Russia which they were not only not doing when Trump made the statement, but were doing things to economically support Russia and having no effect in forcing Russia to return Crimea. NATO was, indeed, at the time Trump said it, in many respects, obsolete.


As well, on the EU being a foe, Pete left out the part of being a foe on trade. Which creates the false picture of being a foe on everything else, including being a military foe.

BBC headline Donald Trump: European Union is a foe on trade

From the BBC article: Asked to name his biggest competitor and foe globally, the US president said there were "a lot of foes" and named Russia and China among them, but the first on his list was the EU.

"I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade. Now you wouldn't think of the European Union but they're a foe," he said.

"In a trade sense, they've really taken advantage of us and many of those countries are in Nato and they weren't paying their bills and, you know, as an example a big problem with Germany," he said.

He then returned to the theme of Germany's reliance on Nord Stream 2, a pipeline which will increase the flow of gas to EU states and which he controversially criticised ahead of last week's Nato summit.

He said: "There's a lot of anger at the fact that Germany is paying Russia billions of dollars."

I especially can see why Pete left out the part of Trump saying Russia was a foe--not good for a Putin puppet to say such stuff. It's also evident that Pete is a class A propagandist and a tricky liar.
He said that the EU was a foe the week before he met with Putin in Helsinki where Trump standing by Mr. Putin’s side, dismissed the conclusions by U.S. intelligence agencies about Russian meddling.
“They said they think it’s Russia,” Mr. Trump said. “I have President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia.” For good measure, he said, “President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.”


Trump as president:
Illegally withheld weapons from Ukraine
Wanted to let Russia back in the G8
Wanted US to leave NATO
Reduced sanctions to let Russian GDP grow again

So from Paul Manafort in 2016 to Tucker Carlson in 2022, with Trump as a constant throughout, and for reasons both financial and ideological, important parts of the Republican Party and the conservative movement have been pro-Putin. and you don't think this emboldened Putin to act?

I'll also point out that Trump was spouting anti-NATO bile since a Moscow trip in 1987. He also formed an exploratory committee for president at that time.
You should wonder what happened on that trip.

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