Tag: NATO

Categories
Foreign Policy GOP U.S. Senate

WATCH Tom Cotton Throw Major Shade At Josh Hawley During A Debate On NATO Expansion

It’s beginning to look like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) is becoming persona non grata with some of his Senate colleagues, even those on his side of the aisle who used to agree with him.

Was it Hawley’s willingness to overturn the 2020 election or the fact that he got caught running like a scared little boy when rioters attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021? Whatever the reason, there seems to be a minor tectonic shift taking place among Senate Republicans.

For example, during floor debate Wednesday on Finland and Sweden being admitted into the NATO alliance, Hawley stood up and urged his colleagues to vote against NATO expansion.

That didn’t sit well with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), who did everything but call Hawley out by name, commenting:

“How could one disagree? After all, the last countries to join NATO — Montenegro and North Macedonia — were each approved by the Senate with only two ‘no’ votes.”

Cotton argued that Finland and Sweden are just as deserving as previous NATO members, noting:

“Let’s be honest. Who can oppose the much stronger cases for Finland and Sweden, countries that are far larger, far more capable and far more strategically situated?”

And then Cotton directed his comments at Hawley without even saying his name:

“It would be strange indeed for any senator who voted to allow Montenegro or North Macedonia into NATO to turn around and deny membership to Finland and Sweden.

“I would love to hear the defense of such a curious vote.”

It may surprise you to learn that this isn’t the first time Cotton has been critical of Hawley, as KATV reported two days after the Capitol riots:

“You had some senators who, for political advantage, were giving false hope to their supporters, misleading them into thinking that somehow yesterday’s actions in Congress could reverse the results of the election or even get some kind of emergency audit of the election results,” Cotton said. “That was never going to happen.”

Could there be a rift developing in the GOP, or is Cotton merely trying to damage Hawley as soon as possible since both are considered possible presidential contenders in 2024? Whatever the reason, let’s hope it continues and weakens the Republican Party.

Categories
Congress Foreign Policy GOP Russia Vladimir Putin

Marjorie Taylor Greene Demands The US Pull Out Of NATO And Let Putin Destroy Ukraine

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden announced a significant increase of the U.S. military presence in Europe, including additional naval destroyers stationed in Spain, two F-35 fighter jet squadrons in the United Kingdom, and a headquarters in Poland for the U.S. 5th Army Corps.

Making the announcement, Biden noted:

“The United States and our allies, we’re going to step up. We’re proving that NATO is more needed now than it ever has been and it’s as important as it ever has been.”

Shortly after Biden made his remarks, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) went on Twitter and proved her complete ignorance of foreign and military policy while also making it crystal clear where her true loyalty lies.

Of course, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Congresswoman Greene (along with the vast majority of the Republican Party) is once again siding with Russian President and mass murderer Vladimir Putin and against our NATO allies.

Greene got pelted with derision for her ignorant tweet.

https://twitter.com/TheToddofTodd/status/1542342776586530818?s=20&t=E-n4niWXGBLziOjLNqWT8A
https://twitter.com/aka_pierrecouvy/status/1542351065407954944?s=20&t=E-n4niWXGBLziOjLNqWT8A

Categories
Donald Trump Foreign Policy WTF?!

Minutes After Zelensky’s Address To Congress, Trump Brags That He Nearly Destroyed NATO

Shortly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed a joint session of Congress via satellite link on Wednesday morning, failed, one-term former President Donald Trump issued a statement in which he proudly bragged that he had threatened NATO with “no protection” while he was still in office.

The statement, which was posted to Twitter by the ex-president’s spokesperson, Liz Harrington (because he remains banned from the social media platform), reads:

“People forget so quickly with the help of Fake News that it was me that got the 20 out of 28 delinquent NATO countries to start paying the money that they owed in order to rebuild a floundering NATO. Nobody knew things would happen so rapidly but NATO was poor and now it is rich and all of the Fake News commentators that said Trump was tearing down NATO should be ashamed of themselves for telling lies.

“Bush and Obama did nothing but make speeches and talk. I acted, and acted strongly. I said to them, ‘if you don’t pay up, no protection.’ They all paid up, and quickly. It’s a story that’s never reported but only because we have a corrupt press in our Country!”

In other words, Trump is admitting that he extorted NATO the same way he did Ukraine when he said he would release military aid to the Ukrainians if they would agree to look for dirt on his 2020 opponent, Joe Biden.

Zelensky, it should be noted, was incredibly powerful and poignant in his speech to Congress, evoking the memory of Pearl Harbor and 9/11 as he pleaded for a no-fly zone over Ukraine:

“Remember Pearl Harbor, terrible morning of December 7, 1941, when your sky was black from the planes attacking you. Just remember it, remember, September the 11th, a terrible day in 2001 when evil tried to turn US cities into battlefields, when innocent people were attacked from air, just like nobody else expected it and you could not stop it. Our country experiences the same, every day, right now at this moment.”

 

Categories
Donald Trump Foreign Policy Russia Vladimir Putin

Historian Says Putin Misjudged The Resolve Of NATO On Ukraine Because ‘He Was Listening To Trump’

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine isn’t going well, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian says that’s because he listened to Trump and thought NATO didn’t have the resolve to stand up to him.

Historian Anne Applebaum said Wednesday on CNN that Putin has long wanted to weaken the NATO alliance, and Trump’s feckless actions and policies led him to believe the Western powers wouldn’t be willing to defend Ukraine:

“Yes, I think Putin was listening to Trump’s denunciations of NATO and he imagined NATO was permanently divided and wouldn’t be able to unite again. I think he didn’t count on what the sight of tanks rolling across a European country would do to people in Germany, people in Italy, people in France, people in Europe, and of course people in the United States.”

However, NATO is now being tested, Applebaum noted, and the alliance is proving to be more than equal to the task:

“It reminds everybody of a part of the European past that we hoped would never come back and NATO was encouraged to prevent. You have seen a really remarkable shift all across Europe as Europeans do now what should have been done some months ago, which is to reinforce and rearm Ukraine.”

Putin has overplayed his hand. And that could well cost him the war in Ukraine, as well as his position of power and his life.

 

Categories
Donald Trump Foreign Policy The Trump Adminstration WTF?!

Delusional Trump Gets Slammed For Saying NATO Wouldn’t Exist If It Wasn’t For Him

Even though failed, twice-impeached former President Donald Trump is known for being a habitual liar and malignant narcissist, something he claimed today has set off a wave of angry responses.

In a statement he had his spokesperson, Liz Harrington, post on Twitter (since the one-term ex-president remains banned from the platform), Trump boldly claimed that were it not for him, the NATO alliance wouldn’t exist:

“I hope everyone is able to remember that it was me, as President of the United States, that got delinquent NATO members to start paying their dues, which amounted to hundreds of billions of dollars. There would be no NATO if I didn’t act strongly and swiftly. Also, it was me that got Ukraine the very effective anti-tank busters (Javelins) when the previous Administration was sending blankets. Let History so note!”

Talk about revisionist history. The Donald is now claiming that NATO would have crumbled if he hadn’t been president, despite the fact that he signaled on several occasions it might be time to disband the alliance, which was formed in 1949.

In 2019, NBC News reported:

The Russian Orthodox church celebrated Christmas on Jan. 7, but President Vladimir Putin received his present from America a few days late. The destruction or weakening of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been the goal of Soviet and Russian leaders since the organization’s creation following World War II. New reports that President Donald Trump repeatedly discussed with advisors his conviction that the United States should leave NATO represent nothing short of a triumph for Russian national security policy — even if nothing definitive has happened (yet).

Who would have benefitted from the U.S. leaving NATO? Putin and Russia. And had Trump done so, the Russian army would likely have already gobbled up every member of the alliance within a 1,000-mile radius of Moscow.

It didn’t take long before pushback to Trump’s bullshit began to appear on social media:

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1498317154361487360?s=20&t=QNnUED29AS87_aU6HmU2ZQ

When July 4 rolls around, will Trump claim the Declaration of Independence was his idea, too?