Article

2017-01-17 Europe

Trump rattles Europe by branding the NATO alliance ‘obsolete’

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Posted by Steve White 2017-01-17 00:00|| || Front Page|| [7 views ] Top

#1 With all the Islamists President Hussein has imported, we will have our own hands full here for decades to come...

Posted by Jeremiah Bumble4132 2017-01-17 00:44|| 2017-01-17 00:44|| Front Page Top

#2 If he had said that it wouldn't have worked, but he got Merkel to say it for him.

Heh. Thereby avoiding the "Not Invented Here" issue.

Posted by gorb 2017-01-17 01:05|| 2017-01-17 01:05|| Front Page Top

#3 Fuck Europe. Let them choke on their own stink. They freeloaded on us, laughed at us for being such morons to spend our money on defense, and looked down on us for being violent redneck morons who worship the flag and George Washington like good little fascists. They demanded our troops get out. For decades now. They finally get what they wanted all this time, and NOW they're bitching and moaning about it? Europe is getting what it asked for, an America that's going to stop playing world police.

I finally really begin to understand just what anti-Americanism really means. It doesn't mean pro-social justice or pro-equality or any of those things. It just means find out what the Americans are doing and take the opposite view.
If the Americans want to dominate Europe, then that's bad and we need to criticize it. If the Americans want to go home and disband NATO, then we need to criticize that, too. It's such a hateful ideology, but I guess we Americans deserve it. We're bad people. We need to stop oppressing the world, and under Trump that's exactly what we're going to do.

Posted by Thumper Dribble5791 2017-01-17 02:58|| 2017-01-17 02:58|| Front Page Top

#4 Merkel is a traitor.

trump withdrawing help from europe will fast track Marine Le Pen in France (GREAT) geert wilders, and whoever is their equivalent in germany. Pegida?

Posted by anon1 2017-01-17 07:43|| 2017-01-17 07:43|| Front Page Top

#5 For background on how anti-Americanism developed, I highly recommend the late French philosopher-journalist Jean François Revel's book by the same name. An easy read -- he writes in the American style by choice -- but he makes it clear that prejudices dating back to before the colonization of the continent and class prejudice have much more to do with stated beliefs than actual facts. At one point it was available in a Kindle version, but now only on paper and audio, for some reason.

Posted by trailing wife 2017-01-17 09:53|| 2017-01-17 09:53|| Front Page Top

#6 The reason for NATO was succinctly stated as:

Keep the Soviets out;
Keep the Germans down;
Keep the Americans in.

How much of that still holds? And what should replace it?

Posted by AlanC 2017-01-17 11:17|| 2017-01-17 11:17|| Front Page Top

#7 It's astounding to me the comments I'm getting from my Very Liberal Friends over this. Not too long ago they were complaining about how much money we were wasting by keeping a military presence in Europe. Now that Trump is saying the Europeans need to do more the narrative is, "Trump wants to abandon Europe to his Pal Putin".

Posted by Deacon Blues 2017-01-17 12:07|| 2017-01-17 12:07|| Front Page Top

#8 Read somewhere this morning that when the Germans cut their nuke program and began sucking on the Russian natural gas pipeline war between the two became nearly impossible. So if Germany is going to go along with Russia on everything for fear of the lights going out what is the point of of NATO?

Posted by rjschwarz 2017-01-17 13:48|| 2017-01-17 13:48|| Front Page Top

#9 Some background from Marginal Revolution on rj's #8 : A bit of context on Trump, NATO, and Germany

tl;dr version:
1. Not too long ago, Germany did have a national leader, Gerhard Schröder, who in essence ended up as a paid agent of Vladimir Putin. After leaving office, he has spent much of the rest of his career working for Gazprom
2. It was Schröder who made the decision to take Germany off nuclear power and also to make the country energy-dependent on Russia
3. Germans today are some of the most anti-American people in Europe, and that doesn’t help the Atlantic alliance either.

Posted by SteveS 2017-01-17 14:37|| 2017-01-17 14:37|| Front Page Top

#10 While we are at it move the UN to Rome. Within range of Israels fighter jets.

Posted by Nero White 3083 2017-01-17 17:07|| 2017-01-17 17:07|| Front Page Top

#11 It will be easier to stamp out socialism with a large amount of firpower on location !

Posted by Crinegum Ulaigum2776 2017-01-17 18:53|| 2017-01-17 18:53|| Front Page Top

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