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Trump Went Easy on Putin? Get a Load of Churchill on Stalin
Winston Churchill to the House of Commons in 1945, shortly after returning from the Yalta Conference:
Published in GeneralThe impression I brought back from the Crimea is that Marshal Stalin and the Soviet leaders wish to live in honourable friendship and equality with the Western democracies. I feel also that their word is their bond. I know of no Government which stands to its obligations…more solidly than the Russian Soviet Government. I decline absolutely to embark here on a discussion about Russian good faith.
I believe that these sorts of meetings are tricky, scheduled to within an inch of their lives, and require a lot of diplomacy — and I think the FBI was deliberately trying to throw a wrench in the works with their announcement last week, coming too close to the Summit to allow for much alteration in the schedules.
The Nevers and the Left were warned that if they have freakouts over everything — and they do — nobody will pay attention to them when there’s really something to be concerned about.
And here we are.
Respectfully, it is not whether we so wish or what we want or desire. Evil has its expressions in other countries, more often than not those with sufficient means. Having considered its options Russia’s leadership has chosen to be again at various degrees of war with the leading light of the West since the middle of Putin’s second year in office when security services, army security, general staff had been sufficiently reorganised, albeit that funding was still lacking a tad.
Delegate matters of mil-to-mil to Mattis.
Is Russia an enemy? I’ve thought of them as a competitor or rival, but enemy?
A bit of cool, distant, lightly disparaging disagreement would have made a better impression.
Accept the football, state that you will give to Barron to play next time they meet with David, the son, of the Ukrainian prime minster he did not have the pleasure to play that ball this summer.
Mike – very often agree with you, here, I cannot not. That Deep State is a dangerous internal ulcer, but it can be removed. The other is a BORG like leadership group with nuclear arms. It has to be deterred and ultimately be outcompeted by economic annihilation.
No. It is simply not that big a deal. And to act as though it is the be all and end all is stupid.
It’s not as though countermeasures – both defensive and offensive – cannot and should not be taken. To go about it the way the establishment has gone about it shows both their stupidity and incompetence. Why should Hillary and the DNC not own up to the fact that they were both so incompetent and so stupid that they put themselves into a position of being hacked by a foreign intelligence service. That’s where the stink should surely land. It’s the job of the GRU to hack, penetrate and invade the privacy of others just as it is the job of the NSA to do to others. To then engage in this farce is bizarre. And BTW, that includes with allies – to wit, Merkel’s telephone calls.
That is kind of an unfair standard. What did Bush get from his diplomacy efforts with Russia? It seems like they invaded Georgia.
What did Obama get from his diplomacy efforts? We abandoned Missile defense and our commitment to protect the Ukraine, Russia took parts of the Ukraine.
Nobody doing things the “normal way” has gotten tangible results. The “Trump way” may work or maybe a total failure. I think it is a little too early the day after the summit without any details to declare the whole thing a failure. It may fail, but it is way too soon to expect anything. No President Republican or Democrat was going to meet with Putin and walk out with a laundry list of promises and concessions.
Yes. Putin’s goal is to subvert the western alliance and achieve Russian dominance over Europe.
Good point. also, it just means that delightful and insightful as Peter tends to be, just like any mere mortal here, he can be wrong, too.
Whilst I appreciate that power politics come with a solid sense of nihilistic tunnel vision glow sprayed across there is nothing comparable to the soon to be voted out Churchill and the current President in dealing with the ever aggressive evil Russian bear.
I don’t think any of that makes them our enemy. Doesn’t make them our friend either. I do not support any of those things. Yet relations will go on; do we have more of an interest in improving relations or in moving us closer to a shooting war? Should we do what Hillary suggested and shoot down Russian planes in a Syrian no fly zone? Or should we try to work with them where we can and oppose them where we think is beneficial to us? Of course that will depend on the actions of Russia too, but why should we treat them differently than we treat other nations who do similar things? China. Saudi Arabia. Historical examples of the sort Perter offered.
Regarding “meddling” I’m still genuinely not sure what is even meant by that or interference, influence, etc. So far there was some hacking and there was some facebook posting. The hacking – that’s just straight up spying right? Yes it’s an outrage though not surprising, and I really hope we’re doing the same thing. Facebook posting, well, I just don’t take that very seriously. At best it’s propaganda using free and public “airwaves” where this is a miniscule portion of the communication flow; I consider it more noise than influence or interference.
What would make them our enemy?
Trump: How dare Germany do business with Russia!
MAGAs: Right on! Russia is our enemy!
Later Trump: Putin is our friend. I believe him over my own cabinet officials.
MAGAs: Damn right! Deep state! Treason! Coup!
I think you agree more than disagree. Brian Wolf agrees with our alliance with the Soviet Union as you do.
As far the price paid by the West, it was a very high price, depending on how you define the West (I’ll include Eastern Europe). It just wasn’t paid by the United States.
As you imply, the United States paid more in treasure than in blood when compared to the other countries in this conflict, and paid very little in civilian casualties. And after the war, we benefited from the shambles Europe was in with the greatest period of prosperity the world has ever seen. Industrially, we had no serious competitors for 15-20 year period.
We not only owe a debt to our own fighting men, but to the Russians too. But it was others, who paid for that alliance fully. Not us.
North and South Korea are in peace talks, a fact that the south Korean leader credits to Trumps actions. North Korea has at least not continued nuclear testing.
Our timelines for diplomacy seem to have shrunk dramatically. Korea has been a problem for decades and multiple Presidents. Trump’s meeting was like a month ago. Russia was yesterday. Clinton got real, tangible results in Korea, except a couple years latter it turns out the North was lying.
I am not declaring Trump will absolutely be successful, but a month or a day is not a realistic timeline to judge results.
The important thing is that Trump is always right, even when he says completely contradictory things, they are both right.
Great straw men you two are building. Too bad it is so unhinged from reality.
Yeah, Obama sent money and aide to Palestinian groups that feel Israel should not exist and attack Israeli citizens. Obama also meddled in Israel’s election. Does that make the United States an enemy of Israel or just a really bad ally?
What does that mean? I think the US should achieve dominance over North America, and we’ve largely had that for a long time. Does that make us the enemy of Mexico or Canada? Does that make us teh enemy of Russia or Germany? I suppose it depends on what you mean when you say “dominance”.
As for the Western Alliance, there are already big problems there. For one, an alliance for or against what? I think Trump’s remarks in Germany were on target: is Russia an enemy to defend against or is it a competitor to be dealt with? Is the specific alliance still important, or is it an alliance against something which doesn’t exist anymore.
Yup. The Ardent Trump crowd is so firmely rooted in reality.
You do realize the discussion about NATO and Russia is still available on the site?
Direct and warlike conflict, hot or cold.
I think you missed the point of that, and you definitely misread the reaction.
He didn’t say Putin is our friend. What words are you criticizing – let’s have an actual quote to discuss instead of your interpretation of what was said.
No, the important thing is that Trump is always wrong, and, more importantly, that everyone else is in a cult except for you thinking all clear-headedly and logically. I think both ends of Jamie’s comment are pretty far off the mark of what was said and the reactions.
I think that Putin wants a path to break up NATO, to be able to go after the Balkan states. Just a hunch.
Amen.
We’re getting quite a few flags on this post. Let’s take the outrage down a couple of notches, please.
And invading our allies and interfering with our elections constitutes what exactly?
That could be. And I would be on board with a super hard line if that approach had anything close to majority support in the country. That’s not the kind of thing one toys with. We had resolve once, and after decades it paid off. Now, we can’t even consolidate our hard fought victories (e.g. Iraq) without major domestic strife and the risk of the next guy throwing it all away to appease the lingering Bush Derangement Syndrome folks. Russia is not the Soviet Union and the US is not the same one which prosecuted the Cold war with a steely resolve for decades.
It’s funny but I’ve posted numerous times on my praise for Trump on several issues. Publicly. I have never seen the reverse from the MAGAs even though they assure us that they do. I guess it’s one of those times where I look at actions instead of words.
I think it’s important to stand by principle regardless of how popular it is.