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Beautiful Stockholm at night, looking west towards Gamla Stan
Showing posts with label NATO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NATO. Show all posts

Monday, March 20, 2017

A Promise Kept, A Message Delivered: President Trump delivers a much-needed reality check on Germany and Chancellor Angela Merkel re their longstanding failure to honor their NATO pledge. Trump bluntly says what Americans have wanted to hear: It's time for Germany to pay what they owe and live up to their promise. No more excuses!; Anne Applebaum continues to disappoint me

Screenshot of The Drudge Report of March 18, 2017: U Owe Us





Last Friday during her visit to the White House, German Chancellor Angela Merkel received a strong dose of unfiltered President Donald J. Trump, who delivered the reality check he promised to deliver to NATO allies during the 2016 election campaign regarding their longstanding failure to live up to their own past pledges to spend at least 2% of their GDP on their own defense spending. 

 Instead of doing what the U.S. foreign policy elites in Washington wanted him to do, which was to allow this unproductive behavior of Germany -and so many other NATO members- to continue, or, if brought up at all, to talk about it away from the prying eyes of cameras of the U.S. news media and the American people, President Trump delivered on yet another important campaign promise, and did so in an honest away that neither Presidents Obama, Bush or Clinton ever did, that left no room for any misunderstanding.
We are talking about you, Germany.











Spiegel
FEBRUARY 21, 2017
Germany’s Self-Imposed Obstacles to Increasing Defense Spending
Washington is threatening consequences if NATO member states don't increase their defense spending. Germany is the primary focus of the demand. But the Defense Ministry in Berlin is already having trouble spending the money it currently has at its disposal.


By Konstantin von Hammerstein and Peter Müller
http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/germany-s-self-imposed-obstacles-to-increasing-defense-spending
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/pressure-on-germany-to-increase-defense-spending-for-nato-a-1135192.html























Message to Brussels: People on the Left in the U.S. and Europe who think that Germany is right on this issue, and that a government foolishly spending money on #ClimateChange but NOT honoring its pledge to its own allies regarding the amount of money it will spend on its own self-defense, are dreaming if they think Americans will support defending any nation that consciously chooses NOT to defend itself.
They won't. Period!




Both before and after I lived and worked in the Washington, D.C. area and was very much involved with then-current passing developments and perspectives from people involved with foreign policy and defense policy in DC, whether at the myriad Think Tanks and non-profits, Left and Right, or at the House Foreign Affairs Committee or the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I was an admirer of Anne Applebaum, @anneapplebaum, and a longtime reader of her outstanding foreign policy/defense columns in the Washington Post.

 More times than I can count, Applebaum's column was the best thing in the entire newspaper that day, combining genuine insight, forthright candor and an original POV, relative to the stuffy/fussy and self-reverential nature of much of what passes for insight in 99% of the American Foreign Policy establishment, whose journals I subscribed to for years, with walls of past issues that lined my Arlington County garage in banker boxes.

For many years I was, in the abstract, Anne Applebaum's ideal reader: someone who not only devoured her Washington Post columns and shared them with friends around who were very involved in a direct way with foreign policy, but also someone who actually purchased multiple copies of her books with my own money as gifts for friends and colleagues, as opposed to people who bought them on a corporate account.
I even bought copies of the decidedly non-holiday-friendly books, Between East and West: Across the Borderlands of Europe and Gulag: a History.

 (As many of you longtime readers of this blog know, I have a longtime interest in Eastern European history and politics, especially Poland. My maternal ancestors fled Prussian-controlled Silesia and arrived in Texas right before Christmas of 1854, after a three-month boat trip from Bremen, eventually setting in the beautiful Hill Country of Texas and becoming Bandera County Pioneers.)

So, it's with all of that history in mind that I tell you now that it's been VERY disappointing to me the past few years that despite lots of opportunities for her to use her very important and very visible perch at the Washington Post to push for more honest and resolute critical thinking and reporting about the issue of NATO members finally delivering on their promises to pay 2% of their respective GDP for their own defense, she's punted.
Specifically, she's been far too quiet and NOT been publicly critical about Germany's failure.
Not that Gemany is alone, because only 5 of the 18 NATO members hit their marks.



Even worse in my mind, if possible, Applebaum has held her tongue about Germany's incredibly feeble response to the rise of ISIS (ISIL, IS) which I have talked to many of the people reading this blog post about over the years, as well as tweeted about when German-friendly individuals and groups seemed to be trying to give them a pass nd make excuses for them.

Instead of Applebaum being a leader for actively confronting manageable issues that a clear majority of Americans are quite justified in wanting to see FINALLY resolved, she has continued to champion the POV of the Foreign Policy elites in the U.S. and Europe, who are owners of so many broken Conventional Wisdom crystal balls that have not worked properly in many years. 
As Brexit proved to a fare thee well, as I predicted months before last year's June vote in the UK.

 She's exactly the sort of person who ought to be championing Trump on this issue because he happens to be right on the facts and right on the public's perceptions of it being an issue where supposed allies have failed to deliver.

 Plus, Applebaum's too smart to think that Trump and his supporters will simply allow the issue to evaporate. Trust me, Trump supporters like me will tell him that if Germany does not change course in tangible ways in the near-future that Americans can see with their own eyes, he will need to do something publicly to show his displeasure in a way that will leave no room for misunderstanding.

 Is that really what the folks at the German Embassy up on Reservoir Road NW, a place where I spent so much time in the late 1980's and the '90's, and the place that now continues to do such a consistently piss-poor job of public outreach to the U.S. public at large and Congress in particular, wants?
Because the truth is, that day where Trump is pushed into doing something is much closer than they think.
Every day Germany continues status quo brings it closer...

 I continue to be surprised at the large number of usually well-informed people who do NOT know that Germany's response to ISIS has been to dispatch, after more than a year's worth of debate in the Bundestag, 100 UNARMED men in non-combat positions located far from the fighting. 
That's the response of Europe's largest and most economically powerful country?
To place one-hundred unarmed men far from where the fighting against ISIS is? 
Really?

For many well-informed Americans who care about U.S. foreign policy and defense issues, regardless of their party preference, Germany's efforts of late, esp. vs. ISIS, seem incredibly underwhelming and not cause for thinking that cooler heads in Berlin are prevailing.
Just the opposite. :-(

In its own way, this Le Nouvel Observateur article makes the point.





 To which I replied with cool hard facts:

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Monday, September 1, 2014

As usual, Anne Applebaum is 100% correct: If war is coming to Europe, shouldn't we prepare? Meanwhile, Strobe Talbott & Kateryna Kruk notice the very same ominous signs that I do; You ought to start following them today: @anneapplebaum, @strobetalbott, @Kateryna_Kruk














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Friday, April 27, 2012

Sen. Marco Rubio's thoughtful speech on the future of U.S. foreign policy before The Brookings Institution -more muscle, less 'realism' dithering! #rubio


Sen. Marco Rubio video: Sen. Marco Rubio's speech on the future of U.S. foreign policy before The Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. April 25, 2012.
http://youtu.be/9Hb31bEa0mg


Sen. Marco Rubio's thoughtful speech on the future of U.S. foreign policy before The Brookings Institution -more muscle, less 'realism' dithering!


See summary of remarks at http://www.brookings.edu/events/2012/0425_rubio.aspx 
or the full transcript at http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/events/2012/0425_rubio/20120425_rubio.pdf



The Washington Post
Marco Rubio’s foreign policy speech stakes out a middle ground in GOP
By Karen DeYoung
Published: April 25, 2012
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) took another step onto the national stage Wednesday with a foreign policy speech that positioned him squarely in the middle between a dying breed of GOP moderates and his partisan brethren who have condemned President Obama as an international weakling.
“The easiest thing for me to do here today is to give a speech on my disagreement with this administration on foreign policy,” Rubio told a packed auditorium at the Brookings Institution. “I have many.”


The Washington Post

PostPartisan blog
Marco Rubio’s foreign policy message for the GOP
By Michael Gerson
Posted at 03:32 PM ET, 04/26/2012
Sen. Marco Rubio’s speech on foreign policy at the Brookings Institution was not oversold. It deserved the designation “major” for its courage, skill and moral seriousness. 
The courage came in criticizing a drift toward isolationism within the Republican Party.
Read the rest of the post at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/marco-rubios-foreign-policy-message-for-the-gop/2012/04/26/gIQANTAcjT_blog.html


----
http://www.brookings.edu/


http://www.foreignpolicy.com/


http://www.foreignaffairs.com/


http://www.youtube.com/user/SenatorMarcoRubio


http://www.heritage.org/

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Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Channel 4 News (UK): Gaddafi could've used an underground escape route from his compound to airport says engineer who worked on its renovation


Channel 4 News video: Gaddafi could have underground escape route -engineer.
The battle for Gaddafi's compound, August 23, 2011. Foreign Affairs correspondent Jonathan Rugman reports.

Muammar Gaddafi could have an underground escape route from his military compound to Tripoli International Airport, an engineer who worked on plans to renovate its infrastructure told Channel 4 News.
Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.channel4.com/news/gaddafi-could-have-underground-escape-road-engineer

You're entitled to wonder why you aren't seeing these sorts of enterprising stories about the fighting in Libya in the U.S. news media.
Where are they?
Why do so few American-born network TV reporters actually speak passable Arabic?

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Catch-up -Watch Channel 4 News whenever you want and catch-up to past newscasts and segments:

LIVE BLOG: Rebels breach Colonel Gaddafi's Libya compound

World News Blog:
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Friday, April 8, 2011

Sweden's JAS Gripen fighter planes finally get into action in Libya in support of NATO's No-Fly Zone, flying out of Sicily; Edward R. Murrow in London



Expressen TV video: Nu har svenska operationen i Libyen startat.
Thursday Sweden's JAS Gripen fighter planes finally got into the covert action in Libya to support NATO's No-Fly Zone, flying out of NATO Base Sigonella in Sicily. http://youtu.be/Qa_h1VKL504

Related story at:
http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/1.2394508/nu-har-svenska-operationen-i-libyen-startat


http://svt.se/2.22620/1.2387289/gripenplanen_lyfte_pa_sitt_forsta_natouppdrag

Svenska piloter laddar för första flyguppdraget
http://www.expressen.se/1.2394263

Seriously, could reporter Tomas Kvarnkullen be more low-key? He's no Edward R. Murrow, that's for sure! But then who is?



This is London: Edward R. Murrow of CBS News in London during WWII, painting a picture of the city's residents walking about at night in the dark.
http://youtu.be/2OqRTo3d-FU

http://www.expressen.se/
http://www.youtube.com/user/ExpressenTV

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Sophie, hate to say I told you so but I told you the other day that the weather was going to get crummy! And now a storm is coming and it looks like they're going to have gale force winds in Skåne. Looks like a good time to see a new film.
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Sunday, May 23, 2010

Charles Krauthammer's analysis of Obama's ineffective & wrong-headed foreign policy; Blue Valentine's Michelle Williams as Jean Seberg? A big YES!

My comments follow the excellent column by Charles Krauthammer.

----------
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/20/AR2010052003885.html

The fruits of weakness

By Charles Krauthammer
May 21, 2010

It is perfectly obvious that Iran's latest uranium maneuver, brokered by Brazil and Turkey, is a ruse. Iran retains more than enough enriched uranium to make a bomb. And it continues enriching at an accelerated pace and to a greater purity (20 percent). Which is why the French foreign ministry immediately declared that the trumpeted temporary shipping of some Iranian uranium to Turkey will do nothing to halt Iran's nuclear program.

It will, however, make meaningful sanctions more difficult. America's proposed Security Council resolution is already laughably weak -- no blacklisting of Iran's central bank, no sanctions against Iran's oil and gas industry, no nonconsensual inspections on the high seas. Yet Turkey and Brazil -- both current members of the Security Council -- are so opposed to sanctions that they will not even discuss the resolution. And China will now have a new excuse to weaken it further.

But the deeper meaning of the uranium-export stunt is the brazenness with which Brazil and Turkey gave cover to the mullahs' nuclear ambitions and deliberately undermined U.S. efforts to curb Iran's program.

The real news is that already notorious photo: the president of Brazil, our largest ally in Latin America, and the prime minister of Turkey, for more than half a century the Muslim anchor of NATO, raising hands together with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the most virulently anti-American leader in the world.

That picture -- a defiant, triumphant take-that-Uncle-Sam -- is a crushing verdict on the Obama foreign policy. It demonstrates how rising powers, traditional American allies, having watched this administration in action, have decided that there's no cost in lining up with America's enemies and no profit in lining up with a U.S. president given to apologies and appeasement.

They've watched President Obama's humiliating attempts to appease Iran, as every rejected overture is met with abjectly renewed U.S. negotiating offers. American acquiescence reached such a point that the president was late, hesitant and flaccid in expressing even rhetorical support for democracy demonstrators who were being brutally suppressed and whose call for regime change offered the potential for the most significant U.S. strategic advance in the region in 30 years.

They've watched America acquiesce to Russia's re-exerting sway over Eastern Europe, over Ukraine (pressured by Russia last month into extending for 25 years its lease of the Black Sea naval base at Sevastopol) and over Georgia (Russia's de facto annexation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is no longer an issue under the Obama "reset" policy).

They've watched our appeasement of Syria, Iran's agent in the Arab Levant -- sending our ambassador back to Syria even as it tightens its grip on Lebanon, supplies Hezbollah with Scuds and intensifies its role as the pivot of the Iran-Hezbollah-Hamas alliance. The price for this ostentatious flouting of the United States and its interests? Ever more eager U.S. "engagement."

They've observed the administration's gratuitous slap at Britain over the Falklands, its contemptuous treatment of Israel, its undercutting of the Czech Republic and Poland, and its indifference to Lebanon and Georgia. And in Latin America, they see not just U.S. passivity as Venezuela's Hugo Chávez organizes his anti-American "Bolivarian" coalition while deepening military and commercial ties with Iran and Russia. They saw active U.S. support in Honduras for a pro-Chávez would-be dictator seeking unconstitutional powers in defiance of the democratic institutions of that country.

This is not just an America in decline. This is an America in retreat -- accepting, ratifying and declaring its decline, and inviting rising powers to fill the vacuum.

Nor is this retreat by inadvertence. This is retreat by design and, indeed, on principle. It's the perfect fulfillment of Obama's adopted Third World narrative of American misdeeds, disrespect and domination from which he has come to redeem us and the world. Hence his foundational declaration at the U.N. General Assembly last September that "No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation" (guess who's been the dominant nation for the last two decades?) and his dismissal of any "world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another." (NATO? The West?)

Given Obama's policies and principles, Turkey and Brazil are acting rationally. Why not give cover to Ahmadinejad and his nuclear ambitions? As the United States retreats in the face of Iran, China, Russia and Venezuela, why not hedge your bets? There's nothing to fear from Obama, and everything to gain by ingratiating yourself with America's rising adversaries. After all, they actually believe in helping one's friends and punishing one's enemies.

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So, did you happen to notice as I did whose name is NOT mentioned at all above: Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, who has helped make this foreign policy embarrassment possible.
Sh-h-h!!!
Keep it to yourself, so the MSM can maintain their prohibition on public criticism of her a little longer.

Here's an actual Saturday headline from Reuters:

Clinton avoids China disputes, hands out teddy bears

And if you think that headline is bad, wait 'til you read the first paragraph: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64L0X020100522

(Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton passed out teddy bears to Chinese children as she toured the Shanghai World Expo on Saturday and carefully skirted the United States' many policy disputes with China...

Reading some truly bracing criticism like Charles Krauthammer's reminds me of two things: why I voted against Obama in the first place, as well as that I'm not the only American who's been noticing all these negative things happening with American foreign policy under Obama.

As Krauthammer correctly notes, seeing Obama perform this way -intentionally- only increases pressure on other countries we consider allies to make their own side deals.

For years under Bush 43, the MSM constantly spoke about how unpopular the image of the U.S. was becoming overseas, as if that was really something we needed to either lose sleep about or could change.

Living in the Washington area at the time, one could hardly ever get on the Metro train in the morning without at some point hearing some rider who was no fan of Bush complaining out loud to someone that Bush was personally responsible for how unpopular the U.S. was over in, well, for example, the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.

The Mouse that Roared


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7L7WLFBYR4

In this one-sided PR game where the point was never to ask any hard questions about the methodology of such polls, you never heard of corresponding polls of Americans on what they thought about the various government policies of France or Germany or whomever, but every other month brought forth some anecdotal news about what Greece thought about the U.S.

Question: Sixteen months later, can you name a single country where the U.S. is now MORE respected than it was before his inauguration?
Yeah, that's what I thought, too.

Funny that the same folks who said that Obama could be the foreign policy cure for Bush 43 haven't publicly acknowledged that the reality is that that he has only made our allies MORE nervous, NOT our legitimate adversaries.

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By the way, you'll notice in that trailer I included above of the The Mouse that Roared, a few shots of the beautiful Jean Seberg, whom I had, of course, read much about, but first became genuinely aware of thru showings of Bonjour Tristesse and Breathless at the National Gallery of Art's film series on French New Wave directors, one of the most interesting summers of my film-going life, with weekends spent alternating between Camden Yards and
the NGA, depending on whether or not I had Oriole tickets for a game.
http://www.nga.gov/programs/film/


From the first time I ever saw actress Michelle Williams, in Dawson's Creek and then Dick with Kirstin Dunst, I was absolutely convinced that if I could ever have anything to do with it, I'd do everything in my power to convince her to be in a well-written bio-pic on Seberg's interesting yet very tragic life.

Williams, currently starring in Blue Valentine, could do wonders with that role and win an Oscar.
Michelle Williams is scary talented, it's just that her attractiveness often disarms you into
forgetting how terrific an actress she truly is -one of the best around.

Jean Seberg http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0781029/
Michelle Williams http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0931329/

From last week in Cannes, with Ryan Gosling promoting Blue Valentine: http://www.popsugar.com/Photos-Michelle-Williams-Ryan-Gosling-Promoting-Blue-Valentine-Cannes-8496257

Sundance: Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams show you what acting is all about in the wrenching 'Blue Valentine'
by Owen Gleiberman
http://movie-critics.ew.com/2010/01/26/the-wrenching-blue-valentine/

Cannes 2010: The Euros love 'Blue Valentine' like Nutella; Sony Classics makes this not just another year
May 18, 2010
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2010/05/cannes-blue-valentine-another-year-mike-leigh.html

See also: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7FD6EARmLg



http://media.michelle-williams.net/videos/load/recent
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