US Erection 12 *AND* 16 *AND* 20 *AND* 22 *AND* 24 *AND* Beyond

[Strangelove]

^ If you look closely, you can see the obliteration of Taormina.

More likely Nevada and Bikini.

Not if you use your imagination.

[Per]

Conservative hawk John Bolton, who has served in senior positions in the administrations of Ronald Reagan, George Bush, George W Bush and Donald Trump, speaks out:

[Megaterio Llamas]

Bolton had an ambitious plan to wage aggressive war against Iran, Russia, North Korea, China, Syria and Venezuela but was rebuffed by Trump at every turn. Just why Trump brought that snake aboard is the question that no one can really answer. Of course now neocons and neolibs alike are eating up his book because they feel his frustration about Trump's reluctance to go to war. It's got to be incredibly frustrating for them, they assumed Hilary's election would be a slam dunk and the ME would be ablaze right now.

[Megaterio Llamas]

Jump to 00:40 for a great description of John Bolton

[Per]

Jump to 00:40 for a great description of John Bolton

<youtube]StyxHexenhammer666 clip[/youtube>

Well, of course Bolton is evil. That's why Trump hired him in the first place!

... but since Trump supporters don't trust anyone even slightly left of Djengis Khan, I figured having an extreme rightie tell how dumb Trump is might be informative. Even his political allies think he is stupid and unfit for office. So there's that.

And even a true conservative gets kind of queasy to watch Trump suck up to dictators left and right. It's embarassing. So there's that as well.

And basically, none of his claims come as a surprise. This is just confirming that things are just as bad as they seem.




It'll be interesting to see what his niece tells in her book.

But I already got a great laught at Trump protesting that she had signed a NDA!

Seriously, who the **** makes their niece sign an NDA? Unless of course.... but nah. Probably not.

[Megaterio Llamas]

Jump to 00:40 for a great description of John Bolton

<youtube]StyxHexenhammer666 clip[/youtube>

Well, of course Bolton is evil. That's why Trump hired him in the first place!

... but since Trump supporters don't trust anyone even slightly left of Djengis Khan, I figured having an extreme rightie tell how dumb Trump is might be informative. Even his political allies think he is stupid and unfit for office. So there's that.

And even a true conservative gets kind of queasy to watch Trump suck up to dictators left and right. It's embarassing. So there's that as well.

And basically, none of his claims come as a surprise. This is just confirming that things are just as bad as they seem.




It'll be interesting to see what his niece tells in her book.

But I already got a great laught at Trump protesting that she had signed a NDA!

Seriously, who the **** makes their niece sign an NDA? Unless of course.... but nah. Probably not.

Why does everyone in Europe hate Trump so much do you think Per. I know they hate him in Canada too, but here they're overwhelmed with US propaganda. Is it mostly policy, or mostly personality. Or both?

FWIW I prefer him to Obama. I liked Obama early on but after Libya and Syria, he lost me for good. I would have thought Europeans would have had a bigger problem with the flood of refugees from Obama's wars than anything Trump has done so far, but then, I have a strong anti war impulse, so...

[Per]

Why does everyone in Europe hate Trump so much do you think Per. I know they hate him in Canada too, but here they're overwhelmed with US propaganda. Is it mostly policy, or mostly personality. Or both?

It is mostly policy, imho, but he does have a very offputting and arrogant personality, so I guess it is both.

So what policy questions then?

Well, for starters he has started a trade war with Europe for no particular reason. This pisses everyone off.

Secondly, he has not been firm on America's commitment to NATO, but actually suggested that he is not sure whether the US should get involved if Russia attacked one of the Baltic states. That's a terrible thing to say, because the sole purpose of NATO to begin with was to keep Russia (or originally the Soviet Union) in check by telling them that an attack on one of the European members would be considered an attack on the USA. By questioning this very principle, not only did he immediately make eastern Europe less safe, but he caused great harm to the whole concept of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

Thirdly, he has insulted and infuriated many traditional allies (including Canada) while cozying up to dictators around the world. This causes a lot of frustration and also makes America's goals and policies very unclear. Is the USA in favour of democracy? Does it support a world order with clear rules and guidelines for what you can do and not do?

Fourth, he has a habit of making 180 degree turns on international matters without consulting with allies. Take Syria for example. The Kurdish rebels in Syria did most of the hard work in defeating Isis on the ground, at a great cost in lives. Then as the task is almost completed, their main ally, the USA, stabs them in the back and walks away while giving a green light to Turkey to attack the Kurdish area. Not only is that despicable in itself, but most West European nations were also backing the Kurds, but without troops on the ground in Syria, and could only watch in horror as the Kurds were hung out to dry after having done a great job for western democracy. Allies like to be informed and preferrably even have a say. Apparently what happened was that after a phone call Trump had with Erdogan, he decided to let the Turks have their way. Bolton suggests it could be compensation for not having been able to kill the court proceedings against a major Turkish bank, which he had promised to do if the Turks released an American priest/minister/whatever they had arrested. Now, this kind of quid pro qup deals may well be how you settle things in the real estate business in New York, but it is not how you are supposed to do international politics. You have to think long term. This type of shady dealings undermine the confidence in the USA. Who will risk becoming an US ally in the next war, having seen how quickly your services get forgotten and betrayed? Now, the Kurds found a way out of getting completely crushed by allowing the Syrian government troops into the areas they held, thus preventing the Turks from going all in. But this in turn means that Assad has now won. With the main democratic opposition force giving up and acknoleding the Syrian government, the remaining opposition will not be able to topple him. This is a great victory for Russia, Iran and Hizbollah, who are the ones that have been backing him. And a huge embarassing loss not just for the USA but all western democracies. All caused by Trump.
This is also what made General Mattis resign, and is probably why so many military leaders in the USA are vary of Trump. You don't cut and run mid battle. You do not abandon your comrades in arms. War is hell, but there are still rules. There is a code. And he broke it.

Charlottesville was another thing. I mean seriously. I think everyone in Europe just dropped their jaws at him not being able to condemn the nazis. There were people marching with nazi symbols and confederate flags, chanting "Jews will not replace us". And the best he could do was say "there were good people on both sides." FFS! How hard can it be to condemn nazis? Sheesh!

Well, these are just a few of the reasons.

Another major drawback is his mind blowing ignorance. He has shown on several occassions that he knows nothing of Europe, its history, its culture, its politics. And as Trevor Noah says "This is worrying. If he doesn't even know about the white countries, what chances does Papua new Guinea have?" And from what I hear, it seems he is almost as ignorant about the history and politics of the USA. It's just inconcievable that he got elected.
But I guess it makes Putin sleep well at night.

[Per]

Actually, I should probably just yield the floor to Nate White, who wrote this reponse to the question
Why don't British people like Donald Trump?:

A few things spring to mind.

Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.

For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.

So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever.

I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.

But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.

And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.

Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.

Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.

And in Britain, we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.

Trump is neither plucky nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.

He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy or a greedy fat-cat.

He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.

That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a sniveling sidekick instead.

There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

* Americans are supposed to be nicer than us and most are.

* You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.

After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.

God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.

He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.

In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.

And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:

‘My God… what… have… I… created?

If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.”

[Per]

This article backs up some of my points in that earlier post:

Trump Violates Diplomacy’s Golden Rule
At the NATO summit, the president publicly heaped abuse on America’s closest friends.

DECEMBER 4, 2019
Nicholas Burns
Former U.S. ambassador to NATO

During a testy joint press conference at the NATO summit in London yesterday, President Donald Trump and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, argued openly over how the 70-year-old alliance should handle Russia, the Islamic State, and Turkey. When interacting with allied leaders, Trump’s predecessors have generally followed a golden rule: Disagreements with friends are okay—but only behind the scenes, not in public.

Trump, in contrast, seems to relish going after the Europeans in full view of the rest of the world. The on-camera spat with Macron was the latest sign that Trump has brought America’s most important security alliance to the point of crisis. And the president either doesn’t know or doesn’t care what he’s done.

If the North Atlantic Treaty Organization had reached its 70th birthday under any of the previous 12 presidents, the celebration would have occurred in Washington rather than London. The “Washington treaty” was signed in April 1949, at a dark moment in the early Cold War when a Soviet invasion of Western Europe was not a far-fetched possibility. The United States has always been the most powerful NATO member, and every American president until Trump has been the alliance’s natural leader.

Instead, Trump has been NATO’s loudest critic. He has cast America’s military allies primarily as a drain on the U.S. Treasury, and he has aggressively criticized America’s true friends in Europe—democratic leaders such as Macron and Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel—even as he treats Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, and other authoritarians around the world with unusual tact. He describes the European Union, whose membership overlaps significantly with NATO’s, as a competitor rather than the close global partner it has been to every recent American president.

The not-so-closely guarded secret at NATO headquarters is allied officials are privately relieved that, rather than holding a full-fledged summit over two days, the leaders are holding just three and a half hours of formal discussions. That limited Trump’s opportunities to blow up the proceedings, as he has done in other major meetings with European and Canadian leaders.

I previously served as U.S. ambassador to NATO under George W. Bush. I also served as a National Security Council staffer under George H. W. Bush, and was lucky enough to observe how a master diplomat like him could further American goals precisely by working skillfully with our allies. Holding a big alliance like NATO together takes patience, tact, a willingness to listen, deep knowledge of the issues, and the self-discipline to refrain from fiery public debate. In London, Trump proved once again that he is incapable of this type of presidential leadership. Senior European officials fear that, in a second term, Trump might seek to end U.S. participation in the alliance altogether. (For the record, I am an unpaid adviser to Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign.)

Stung by Trump’s overt criticism, U.S. allies have begun to reciprocate. Macron caused a real stir in NATO when he told The Economist last month the alliance was effectively “brain dead,” given Trump’s sole emphasis on how much NATO costs the United States and his lack of consultation with France on the withdrawal of U.S. Special Forces from Syria, where France also has soldiers.

Rather than try to mend fences, Trump announced new trade sanctions against France on the eve of the summit. Then, yesterday morning, he told the press that Macron’s comments to The Economist were “insulting” to NATO. Trump’s pious defense of the treaty organization sounded less than sincere, in light of his previous statements.

Trump’s most egregious mistake, though, was his failure to support clearly and unequivocally the key provision of the NATO treaty, Article V, which calls on member states to come to one another’s defense when attacked. He has had several opportunities to do so but has hedged each time. This is of major concern to allied leaders, who want NATO adversaries such as Vladimir Putin to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the U.S. and its allies will defend Estonia or Latvia should Russian forces cross their borders.

Article V has been invoked just once in NATO history, when the European allies and Canada vowed to come to our defense after the 9/11 attacks. On that tragic day—when I was a very new U.S. ambassador to the organization—my NATO colleagues from Canada and Europe called and pledged that they would fight with us to avenge our nearly 3,000 dead. They kept their promises. Each ally went into Afghanistan with us. They and other partner nations have suffered more than 1,000 combat deaths there, with many more thousands wounded. Our NATO allies are still there with us today.

The London summit heralded one welcome change. Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced that NATO allies have all raised their defense budgets for a collective increase of more than $130 billion. That is an impressive sum—and one for which Trump can rightly take some credit.

Yet the fact is that every NATO ally started to spend more on defense following Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. The allies, including Germany, Trump’s favorite scapegoat, deserve the lion’s share of the accolades. Trump must also share credit with Barack Obama, under whose watch this great spending increase began.

In any case, Trump appears entirely indifferent to the clear, decisive advantage over Russia and China that the United States enjoys because of our European ties. We have 28 allies in NATO, as well as treaty allies in Japan, South Korea, and Australia in the western Pacific, who will defend us when our backs are against the wall. This is the great power differential we enjoy with Moscow and Beijing.

The public, fortunately, understands just how important Europe remains to us. In a 2019 Chicago Council on Global Affairs poll, 73 percent of Americans said they support NATO. The great majority of Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress see the alliance as crucial for our future, as well.

Over the next decade, the U.S. will need to continue to contain Russia’s power in Eastern Europe, cope with the terrorist threat in the Middle East and Europe itself, limit China’s increasing presence in Europe, deal with a panoply of cyberthreats, and provide for the defense of our own country from conventional, nuclear, and asymmetric threats. We will be in an infinitely stronger position to manage all this with our allies beside us rather than alone. The president of the United States must lead accordingly.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ds/602959/

[Mickey107]

Why does everyone in Europe hate Trump so much do you think Per.

Well, you did ask him.

[Megaterio Llamas]

Why does everyone in Europe hate Trump so much do you think Per.

Well, you did ask him.

Yes, I was genuinely curious Mick. Just smoked a fatty so I'll enjoy the reply I'm sure

[Per]

Some graphs from Pew research:






https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2 ... 10-charts/

[Megaterio Llamas]

Actually, I should probably just yield the floor to Nate White, who wrote this reponse to the question
Why don't British people like Donald Trump?:

A few things spring to mind.

Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.

For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.

So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever.

I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.

But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.

And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.

Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.

Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.

And in Britain, we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.

Trump is neither plucky nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.

He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy or a greedy fat-cat.

He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.

That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a sniveling sidekick instead.

There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

* Americans are supposed to be nicer than us and most are.

* You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.

After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.

God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.

He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.

In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.

And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:

‘My God… what… have… I… created?

If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.”

Yeah, this is exactly what I suspected, that's mostly a culture gap thing. He comes across as uncouth. A lot of Americans detest this about him as well, but I do believe the constant droning on and on of the media drives it's momentum. And he is ruthlessly America first in his trade dealings, he has set out to right what he believes are 'bad deals' with the majority of his trade partners. No surprise you wouldn't like that. I'm not sure about internal NATO politics but I would think the Germans would be dancing on their roofs at the idea of pulling thousands of American troops out of there as Trump recently 'threatened' to do. They've been there a lifetime now ffs. The only thing I know about NATO is that it keeps expanding and getting itself involved in matters far flung from the North Atlantic. Wasn't a huge fan of it's most recent work in Libya to be completely honest.

As far as the Kurds, they were always going to be abandoned, no matter the US administration. The Kurds have served as the handy henchmen for competing powers in the region for the past 500 years from the Battle of Chaldiran to the Ottoman Christian Genocide and they are always abandoned, albeit with an expended land base and anything they could plunder from their neighbors. That is simply the history of the Kurds. And as far as their claims in Syria, they are completely without merit. The Kurds came to Syria as refugees less than 100 years ago and now they are claiming lands that do not historically belong to them. They have treacherously turned on the country that gave them shelter as refugees and have thrown in with their enemies in their time of greatest vulnerability. It is despicable, and surely will never be forgotten by Syrians.

The Kurds have had some help from out antifa friends as well recently it seems:

\

[Megaterio Llamas]

This is kind of topical these days:

[Megaterio Llamas]