So what do you Brits make of Trump ?

[Stavros]

Well, if there is a consistency in his utterances, it is his strangulation of the English language. Show this to any American prior to the year 2000 and ask them who wrote it, then stand back when telling them it is the 'President' of the USA.

"@realdonaldtrump

To show you how dishonest the LameStream Media is, I used the word Liddle’, not Liddle, in discribing Corrupt Congressman Liddle’ Adam Schiff. Low ratings @CNN purposely took the hyphen out and said I spelled the word little wrong. A small but never ending situation with CNN!"

Russia, Ukraine -turning out to be, or to potentially be the graveyard of this administration. One wonders if the US has given a commitment to Russia not to defend Ukraine if another slice of its territory is occupied by the Russians.

[Stavros]

Here is a curious thought about the man who claims to be the 45th President of the USA. There is one politician he seems to respect above all others: Vladimir Putin, a man who joined the KGB when he was a teenager and presumaby the Communist Party too, and who seems to me to have been a Communist all his life. I understand he has a framed photograph of himself with the Communist leader of North Korea in a prominent position in the Oval Office. And if the US Government has refused to offer even verbal support to the democracy movement in Hong Kong, it is because the President does not want to offend the Communist Party of China and its leader as they celebrate 70 years in power.
All that anti Communist rhetoric and action in the Cold War, and here we are, the US is now all but allied to Communist countries and at war with Democracy. Maybe the choice at the next election should be between Americans and Communist Fellow Travellers, the slogan for the Democrats handed to them on a plate:
Vote American, Vote Democrat.
Because a vote for the Republican Party is a vote for Communist sympathisers in the Republican Party prepared and willing to sell the US to the highest bidder, with or without the Red Flag, though it be the welcome sign.

[Stavros]

I don't know if it is true but I read somewhere the Pentagon was not involved in the decision to move US troops from their current bases and that US support for the Kurdish militia was going to end. An agreement with Turkey suggests that the US is now willing to withdraw, wholly or partially from Syria (it is not that clear) on the assumption that Turkey will extend its occupation of the border area to 20 miles. It has been noted that Erdogan may want to both take on and crush or weaken the Kurdish militia groups that he claims are allied to Kurdish separatists in Turkey, and that they also have a plan to re-locate up to 3 million Syrian refugees which would also extend the Arabization of traditional Kurdish areas (which were not exclusively Kurdish anyway).

There is an obvious problem here, not just for the Kurds, but the fact that Syria is in the slow business of restoring its sovereignty with Russian and Iranian help, and that by abandoning its Kurdish allies in Syria (and presumably in Iraq too at some point soon), the US President, as I suggested in the earlier post, is delivering for Russia, yet again. Iran also benefits from this move, just as it benefited from regime change in Iraq. Putin must have danced with joy at the news.

Now, one could argue that the US military has been on the ground in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria and its achievements are pitiful, the cost staggering, in terms of lives killed and injured, and dollars. The logic is that if it is not working, then leave. On the other hand, this Republican President seems either indifferent to diplomacy, or simply incapable of doing it. There are ways of leaving, and leaving with a legacy in the form of a peace agreement ought not to be beyond the ability. But the US has been a weak partner in the peace talks that are supposed to bring the parties in Syria to some form of compromise agreement on a settlement to the war. Walking out on the Kurds does not just hand the military control to Russia, it implies that in any peace agreement, it is Russia that becomes the broker. Similarly, frustration in Afghanistan suggests the man wants out, rather than use US power and influence to bring the parties to serious negotiations, just as the government of Iraq appears to be losing control of the streets, and in both Iraq and Syria, remnants of al-Qaeda and Daesh are attempting to regroup and start their campaign for a revived Caliphate all over again.

At some point, the US must decide what its role is, and if it is going to turn its back on its allies, on its commitments, and retreat into an isolation from the world, which many of the President's supporters may want him to do. But there are consequences. The US has stationed troops in Saudi Arabia, and this was a primary cause of al-Qaeda's declaration of war in 1998 that led directly to the bombings in East Africa, the attack on the USS Cole in the Yemen and of course 9/11. The absence of diplomacy may suit a President who conceives of everything as a one-on-one deal where he calls the shots, but the world doesn't work that way. In the past, in Central America, the US paid the governments greenbacks to keep out the wet-backs. The apparent end of that system allied to abysmal corruption and violence has led thousands to vote with their feet and head north -it is this President's utter failure in diplomacy that has provoked a worse crisis on the US border than needed to happen, just as the shabby withdrawal of support for the most successful group that ended Daesh's grim command of territory speaks volumes for the man's complete lack of interest in the US's concept of alliance -even the freedom given to Turkey has a sinister add-on with any extra-ops leading to a threat to obliterate the Turkish economy as if that could be done and would benefit anyone other than crooks and terrorists.

Or maybe he is a 'wise guy', a fully paid up member of the Russian Mafia, dedicated to delivering what Putin wants (for example. the Ukraine)-one has to wonder at the ineptitude of a man who, deep in a Ukrainian hole alienates his closest US allies, I mean, even Mitch McConnell is upset. Obama's caution now stands as the rational response to uncertainty. He too did not achieve much in diplomatic terms other than the JCPOA with Iran, but he was weakened by local politicians squabbling among themselves, unable to or unwilling to compromise and committed to violence -but this President has made the situation worse, and guaranteed that the politics of the Middle East will remain volatile and very dangerous.
And who knows what he is going to do next?

[buttslinger]

As long as Trump doesn't paint his name on the White House, or declare war on somebody, the Senate Republicans will let him collude with Putin all he wants, and amuse their inbred base all he wants. They make deals with the Devil all the time if it keeps them in power and gets Judges elected, and keeps their goddam donors ecstatic, they consider it better than giving Democrats eight years. We've all seen how far they'll go.
I think today's stunt might force the question if anyone has reins on Trump.
I think the Democrats throwing IMPEACHMENT across home plate has Republican Senators nervous, if evidence keeps mounting they are fucked if they are the first ones to kick a President crying and screaming out of the White House, and they are also fucked if they cover for overwhelming evidence of criminal activity in the highest seat in the land.
Trump asked a Foreign Nation for dirt on a Democrat one day after he was "cleared" of getting help from a Foreign Nation against a Democrat. That's carved in stone no matter how many variations are thrown against it. I think the worm has turned. No way in Hell Trump being President wouldn't end in disaster for somebody(s). Only Time will tell who survives.
I now return you to your normal programming.

[Jericho]

Is he working on an insanity plea,or are you guys really fucked?

[buttslinger]

Is he working on an insanity plea,or are you guys really fucked?

Hmmm...MAYBE, and YES. Your guess is as good as mine.
The one thing I am sure of is that you know What the Guardian knows, and I know what CNN knows, and God only knows the truth, no, strike that, I don't even think God knows.
I fear there is an office high above the New York Stock Exchange that knows the West is in decline and China is THE FUTURE and the smart people are cashing in grabbing as much money is they can to buy an Estate overlooking the Mediterranean. The United States I knew as a kid is long gone, and Trump is a symptom of that. Trump keeps saying he is the only person who could have survived what we put him through these past few years, and I think he's right. If he leaves the Oval Office in cuffs or a straightjacket, that's fine with me. I only hope he takes the Republican Party and Putin with him, maybe then we've got a fighting chance to walk out of this nightmare.

[Stavros]

Nancy Pelosi summed it up perfectly yesterday-

Pelosi explained to Trump that Russia has always wanted a “foothold in the Middle East”, and now it now had one with the US withdrawal, according to a senior Democratic aide who was also granted anonymity.
“All roads with you lead to Putin,” the speaker said.
Then things escalated.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-trump-meeting

[Stavros]

More on the activities of William Barr travelling the world to find material he can use to attack and discredit the Intelligence Services of of the US, presumably on behalf of Vladimir Putin?

Trump and Barr have also been asking other foreign governments for help in investigating the FBI, CIA and Mueller investigators. The US president has called on the Australian prime minister Scott Morrison for assistance, while the attorney general has been on similar missions to the UK and Italy.
And the information being requested has left allies astonished. One British official with knowledge of Barr’s wish list presented to London commented that “it is like nothing we have come across before, they are basically asking, in quite robust terms, for help in doing a hatchet job on their own intelligence services”.

Two weeks ago Giuseppe Conte, the Italian prime minister, revealed that Barr had visited his country twice in the previous two months, alongside John Durham, the Connecticut attorney he had appointed to lead his investigation, and had pressed for information about the activities of the US intelligence services.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a9181641.html

[Stavros]

'I don't know Prince Andrew..'
Unverified quote "But I played golf with him and I beat him. I beat everyone I play golf with. If I were not so successful in business and President of the USA I would be the greatest golfer of all time. Sad."



https://edition.cnn.com/2019/12/03/p...tos/index.html

[broncofan]

Been a while since I posted on this thread and obviously things are changing. Having watched it on TV I am beginning to think Trump is the safest of the two of them, lesser of two evils
It really is an unbelievable choice for the Americans!
My opinion of Clinton is now she is power mad, a warmonger, doesn't like Russia and despises Putin!
That is one lethal, toxic cocktail if I am right?

Honest question: Have you reconsidered this view?