Tag: NATO

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Accountability general freedom national politics & policies responsibility

A Threat We Can’t Refuse

NATO, Angela Merkel, Germany, Europe, Trump, Donald Trump, Russia, defense, war

“Recent days have shown me that the times when we could rely completely on others are over to a certain extent,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told folks in a Munich beer hall last Sunday. “We also know that we Europeans must really take our destiny,” she said, on the heels of the NATO and G7 meetings, “into our own hands.”

Merkel may have designed her comments to elicit shock and dismay among the inhabitants of America. But my shock is that anyone would find anything shocking, at all.*

Merkel’s responding, of course, to President Donald Trump’s censure of European NATO members for not ponying up to their treaty obligations.** This is widely whispered as … rude. Mustn’t upset Germany and other allies, even if only five of NATO’s 28 nations have reached the agreed-​upon two-​percent of GDP goal.

The received wisdom seems to be: don’t embarrass the freeloaders.

I’m often not copacetic with Mr. Trump’s demeanor. But the “threat” that U.S. soldiers might somehow not be permitted to shed their blood to defend deadbeat countries against a feared Russian attack is … just not all that threatening. 

What’s so scary about self-reliance?

It was also announced that German security agencies won’t share intelligence with the U.S. regarding alleged Russian interference in their upcoming election. 

This, too, we can survive.

But, gee whiz, I hope we aren’t banned from the cool countries’ lunch table at the cafeteria in the brand new $1.23 billion NATO headquarters — for which the U.S. pays a disproportionately high 22 percent.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

 

* In my judgment, Merkel should have jettisoned “to a certain extent” and put a period after “over.”
** It’s worth noting that Trump is not the first president to marshal this complaint.

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meme national politics & policies responsibility

Trump’s Empire?

Donald Trump, Thomas Jefferson, empire, entangling alliances, meme

The next president will take office as this year’s $544 billion deficit pushes up the U. S. national debt to nearly $20 trillion … which is chicken feed compared to nearly $127 trillion in unfunded liabilities racked up by our entitlement state.

And, on top of that, add our outrageous world policeman fees.

The Washington Post reports that, “thanks to various treaties and deals set up since 1945, the U.S. government might be legally obligated to defend countries containing 25 percent of the world’s population.”

And boy, has America, World Policeman, been active!  The U. S. military is well into a second decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, engaged in ongoing armed conflict in Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, and with ISIS and its terror, not seemingly degraded at all but growing.

No wonder, then, that the iconoclastic Donald J. Trump questioned — at a Washington Post editorial board meeting, just before the Brussels terrorist attacks — the wisdom of U.S. commitments to NATO, South Korea and Japan.

“NATO was set up when we were a richer country,” Trump explained. “We’re not a rich country. We’re borrowing, we’re borrowing all of this money. We’re borrowing money from China.…”

So why subsidize wealthy countries? “Well, if you look at Germany … Saudi Arabia … Japan … South Korea — I mean we spend billions of dollars on Saudi Arabia, and they have nothing but money.”

Lest I get my hopes up too high, it seems unlikely that Trump would change actual policy, but simply make “a much different deal with them, and it would be a much better deal.”

Here’s an even better deal, as our third president, Thomas Jefferson, articulated: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations. Entangling alliances with none.”

It’s quite affordable.

This is Common Sense, I’m Paul Jacob.

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Donald Trump, Thomas Jefferson, empire, entangling alliances, meme

 

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national politics & policies

Foreign Policy Evacuation?

Last week, the United States closed and shuttered the embassy in Tripoli, Libya, evacuating from the country its personnel — 158 diplomats and 60 Marines. Fighting between two rival militias reportedly got so close that the embassy was actually being hit by stray small arms fire.

I certainly don’t object to the decision to pull people out. Seems prudent, especially in light of the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which left four Americans, including our ambassador, dead.

But the protective move sends an unmistakable signal about Libya and US foreign policy. Obama’s 2011 military intervention into Libya via NATO — famously promoted as “leading from behind” — has clearly and obviously failed.

Libya is in chaos, unsafe for Americans … or Libyans.

President Obama is hardly the sole leader deserving blame. Military campaigns launched by President Bush, who led from in front, haven’t worked, either.

After years of “pacifying” Iraq, at the cost of thousands of American lives, and building up Iraq’s military forces, the Iraqi army disintegrated at the first sign of conflict. The Iraqi government remains thoroughly corrupt.

Sadly, the same fate awaits the end of our nation-​building stint in Afghanistan. A recent Washington Post story quoted Sgt. Kenneth Ventrice, a veteran of three tours in Iraq and now serving his second in Afghanistan, saying, “It’s going to fall a lot faster than Iraq did.”

These foreign interventions are failures.

But the biggest failure? Not to learn from our mistakes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.