I was TRYING to be SUBTLE. 
10 Likes
…national security implications for the US be damned.
1 Like
It worked!
1 Like
+1
7 Likes
Soon after Trump’s remarks were published, his campaign manager, Paul Manafort, said the Times had misquoted the GOP nominee. On Thursday, Manafort told reporters that Trump was not setting a new bar for the defense of NATO allies, saying, "what Mr. Trump has said consistently is that he thinks NATO needs to be modernized.”
1 Like
I’m not religious but I will say a prayer that we find out what Putin has on him. Let’s all say a prayer. It’s got to be more than laundered money and pee tapes.
5 Likes
Yes, but on the other hand, they’ve been through this before after the breakup of the Soviet Union. A lot of American facilities were on prime real estate – Berlin’s military house was snapped up pretty quickly and very happily. Heidelberg’s housing was also gladly received, because of its prime central location. Others were recommissioned – Hahn airbase became Frankfurt-Hahn commercial airport, for example. There was the same sort of dip as if any major employer went belly-up and withdrew from the area. Initial shock, but then recovery.
The American military presence is scarcely noticeable here outside of the immediate areas of bases, and many/most of the remaining sites have been piecemeal so reduced that their economic footprint isn’t nearly what it used to be. (I used to be with the University of Maryland here in Europe for years and have watched this shrinking process for nearly 30 years via friends and former colleagues.) Our son studied in Bamberg and while there was (is still? not sure…) a US base there at the time, it was not visible locally.
And, right now, America is becoming seen as an instable and unreliable partner, thanks to the Klown in the Oval Office and his band of renegades. So, I am far less certain than you that there would be a huge uproar.
5 Likes
shhhh - He hasn’t told them yet.
1 Like
That’s our POTUS. He’d rather be s punitive peckerhead than keep America safe. A real brain trust that guy.
3 Likes
Yep. I heard that Landstuhl plays a major role in treating wounded soldiers in the immediate term from he wars in the Middle East. Where, exactly, is the military supposed to send soldiers who need severe, trauma care abroad? No matter what the regime wants, this just ain’t gonna happen.
6 Likes
I imagine that our allies cringe whenever something drops that makes Dotard look bad. They know that there will be some insult to make up for it. So far, to my recollection, the only action has been the tariffs, but who knows what will happen as he has to find ways to bolster his authority and assuage his ego. The benefit of the tariffs as opposed to the actual damage to the military is that he can also hurt his supporters while pretending to act in their interest. It would be harder to do with harming NATO. Still too much cold war angst in the GOP.
1 Like
The laundered money could put him in jail. That would be enough, I’d think.
6 Likes
Well, there are couple of locations in Turkey, but, well, Erdogan. And airfields the UK, but, of course, Brexit doesn’t necessarily mean withdrawal from NATO, sooooo…
Who needs European allies when we’ve got Russia - a country, a government, a leader we can always trust and count on to protect our interests and help when we need it?
5 Likes
Trump is simply looking for a pretext to pull out of NATO and the WTO. This will happen eventually if he’s around long enough. Aside from that, my question is, if the allies in Europe say, “all right right, there’s the the door, you can show yourself out,” what’s he going to do with all the troops that will be coming back to the U.S.? Will he eventually shrink the size of military personnel numbers to a size befitting an isolationist nation?
8 Likes
Yea, it’s a puzzler.
I’m guessing they are assuming that Mr. Trump isn’t crazy enough to actually do it. That is kind of hard to understand, giving that reducing troops stationed in Europe and Asia is something he has repeatedly said that he wants to do.
1 Like
[quote=“ralph_vonholst, post:35, topic:74331”]
what’s he going to do with all the troops that will be coming back to the U.S.?
[/quote]He could deploy them to protect North Korea and Russia?
1 Like
I’m curious what people here think of these defense agreements that have us supplying battalions of troops to countries all over the world.
For many years I’ve railed publicly and privately against these agreements, arguing that we’re ‘protecting’ places on the earth where the violence stopped two generations ago.
I’ve also frequently asked people to tell me one thing we’re protecting Europe from and why the hell can’t they protect themselves? Germany is far richer than we are right now and their economy is stronger, so Why TF are we spending our money to protect them from NOTHING???
I still feel very strongly about this but I sense my perceptions changing due to the obvious threat Putin poses.
Please be polite (I’m very sensitive, haha) but tell me what you think. Thanks!
He’s pulling back, or threatening to do so, in many places.
He’ll just have to find somewhere else to employ those troops and the recently bumped-up defense budget. I wonder if NSA Bolton has any ideas for Trumpp.