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Wednesday, March 23. 2022Yet Another time Trump was rightAt the 2018 NATO summit, re Russian fuel:
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Screwed the pooch on that one.
https://tinyurl.com/mu7p7zns The US has proven to every country in the world that they must get off the dollar system and SWIFT. They must dump T-bills. These are an existential threat not only to Russia and Iran but to China, India, Brazil, ad everyone else. The Biden administration has set in motion the demise of the US dollar and the US foreign-debt dependent economy. Hard times are coming.
"Hard times are coming" Yes they are. It is a good time to think about a garden, kind of like the victory gardens of WW II. I'm not kidding. There are things in process right now that will make it all even worse. Food will soon become a high priority. Don't wait. The timing is perfect. Time to plan your garden, prepare it and buy seed because in a month or two (depending on where you live) you should be planting certain plants.
OneGuy
I appreciate your advice there. I tend to get lazy but we have a great garden spot here and I need to get it going. The way the video was presented by WaPo as an "attack" on NATO is revealing, as are a lot of the more recent comments.
Lots of newer comments consist of something like, "I hate Trump and would never vote for him, but gosh golly gee whiz, he was right about this!" It shows the tremendous power of corporate media in shaping narrative and the way the real cheat happened. Corp. media and the pundit class as are STILL framing Trump's insistence on holding European countries to their contractural obligations as undermining NATO. You see it reflected and parroted in comment sections everywhere. QUOTE: Yet Another time Trump was right Let's start with the simplest problem with Trump's position, that Germany is controlled by Russia, an assertion which is clearly contradicted by recent events. Germany has imposed severe economic sanctions in conjunction with NATO allies against Russia. As for enriching Russia, the West pays in dollars or euros, and much of that money has been made inaccessible to Russia. In 2014, NATO did agree to increase defense spending to 2% of GDP by 2024, but threatening and insulting free NATO countries, ignoring the role of democratic opinion in those countries, and refusing for a long time to endorse mutual defense under Article 5 of the NATO charter, weakened the alliance far more than any deficit in spending. bob sykes: The US has proven to every country in the world that they must get off the dollar system and SWIFT. They must dump T-bills. And buy what? Other nations want Western technology. There is a very limited appetite in the West for renminbi, and none for rubles. SK: Corp. media and the pundit class as are STILL framing Trump's insistence on holding European countries to their contractural obligations as undermining NATO. Trump undermined Article 5 and bullied leaders of democratic countries that have to answer to their people. More particularly, the 2% of GDP spending plan for NATO was not a "contractual obligation", but a goal. Turns out that NATO countries will more than exceed that goal. Biden has been a strong leader in the response to Russian aggression, and has, thus far, avoided a dangerous escalation beyond Ukraine's borders. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_112964.htm As part of agreeing to participate in the NATO defensive structure, NATO countries agreed in writing to goal of 2%. Clearly they weren't attempting to meet that commitment.
"Turns out that NATO countries..." Yeah. Over the last five years or so Canada and countries in Europe increased spending by around 5.6 percent--5.7 percent in 2017, and about 4.5 percent each in 2018 and 2019. When Trump was president, by the way. Article 5 is useless if the countries most affected by terrorism and aggression won't won't help effectively to fund their own defense as they've agreed to do. Trump threatened to make them live with the consequences of their actions and they have increased spending. Clearly they were able to come up with the money when pressed to do so by a strong leader. Biden a strong leader? Again, you have no credibility here because of distinctly weird statements like this. SK: As part of agreeing to participate in the NATO defensive structure, NATO countries agreed in writing to goal of 2%.
We provided you the link to the Wales Summit Declaration, which says, allies will “ aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade”. We can’t make you read it. It’s not a contractual obligation, and even then, they had until 2024 to meet the goal. Most countries will more than meet the goal. SK: Trump threatened to make them live with the consequences of their actions And, thereby undermining the U.S. commitment to mutual defense and publicly bullying free and democratic countries. When was the last time Article 5 was invoked? Biden has been a strong leader in the response to Russian aggression,
And we found the Democrat plant. Biden has dementia, he can barely stumble through a speech. The Biden administration is not the cause of the Russian Aggression, but their policies, both domestically (slashing energy production, cancelling the XL pipeline) and foreign (Iran, Saudi, etc.) lead Putin to think we wouldn't intervene. Which, thankfully, we haven't yet. The notion the Biden is a strong leader is pure propaganda. He's always been an intellectual lightweight, a liar and a plagiarist. He's never shown any actual leadership capabilities. In 2020 we saw the Left in this country argue for lockdown rules that let their donors (the "Laptop Class") continue to work, while destroying the jobs of the working class. We saw them do absolutely idiotic things (force nursing homes to take patients with communicable diseases, close BEACHES and PARKS) to separate people--leaving them reliant on Democrat/Left controlled communications resources (Facebook, Twitter, Television). In 2020 we saw the Left's legal machine change the voting rules in unconstitutional and illegal ways--there are several court cases that lined that up. In 2020 we saw the Left's propaganda machine--NY Times, Wapo, Twitter, Facebook et. al. suppress actual news about Biden, and at the same time propagate *straight up lies*--e.g. that the Hunter Laptop story was a Russian Plot. And in 2020 we saw (as is coming out now) lots of illegal vote collection, and other forms of fraud. So in the face of a President (Trump) that was allegedly so unpopular, the left HAD TO CHEAT AND LIE to drag their idiot candidate across the line. And then people like you claim he's been a "strong leader" What a farce. You should be ashamed of yourself. William O. B'Livion: Biden has dementia, he can barely stumble through a speech.
Biden has recently conducted extensive press conferences. He has also been in other open forums. More importantly, he has shown effective leadership in the Ukraine crisis. There is no evidence of dementia. You are believing your own propaganda. William O. B'Livion: The Biden administration is not the cause of the Russian Aggression, but their policies, both domestically (slashing energy production, cancelling the XL pipeline) and foreign (Iran, Saudi, etc.) lead Putin to think we wouldn't intervene. Obviously, they were wrong. The U.S. has intervened, rallied support of NATO, and inflicted severe damage to the Russian economy, and to its military forces in Ukraine. He has also, thus far, resisted efforts to expand the war and calls to confront Russia troops directly. The Ukrainians have fought effectively with NATO weapons, inflicting severe damage to Russian military ambitions. William O. B'Livion: He's never shown any actual leadership capabilities. Well, except the recent events contradict your position. Biden has shown remarkable leadership. He has rallied support from allies, armed the Ukrainians, inflicted massive damage to Russia's economy, resisted expansion of the war (unlike, say, George W. Bush), and shown that the U.S. remains the indispensable leader of the free world. |