The U.S. Has Changed Its Mind About Europe
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Wednesday, April 2, 2025 21:42
VIEWED: 1127
PAGE 1 of 2
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/europe-should-take-the-trump-admi
nistration-at-its-word/ar-AA1BUffo
I doubt very much that I've changed my mind about anything, and you're talking about yourselves... or more accurately, your eternal blissful ignorance to what The People actually think.
But let's hear you out...
Quote:
Democracies in Europe and their detractors in Washington have radically different understandings of why the continent depends on American military protection. Donald Trump and his aides constantly talk as if crafty Europeans have cynically manipulated the United States for decades, making Americans pay for their defense while Germany, France, and the like enjoy their lavish welfare states, early retirements, and carefree lives. “I fully share your loathing of European freeloading,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Vice President J. D. Vance in the Trump-administration Signal chat that accidentally included The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg. “It’s PATHETIC,” Hegseth added.
This isn't NEW thinking. I was saying things along that line here as early as 2006 when I joined the site. That is exactly what has been happening all this time, and this is exactly what any American with half a brain knew was going on when they got to watch citizens of every other country in the "free" world get their Medical Care for free, while we dump nearly $1 Trillion per year into the world's largest police force by far. We spend as much as the next 7 countries combined every year on this, and none of you even come in the top 5.
Quote:
European leaders, meanwhile, believe their countries have been dutifully following America’s direction on geopolitical matters for 80 years. Hundreds of millions of Europeans have completely subordinated their fate to the desires of the United States, which looks after them, protects them, and even thinks for them. Most Europeans now alive have known no other security arrangements. Contemplating the disappearance of NATO, the U.S.-led military alliance, is so unnerving for many in Europe, including many of the continent’s political leaders, that they seem incapable of thinking for themselves.
Nobody told you to do shit except for your UNELECTED bureaucracy running your countries into the ground. Do not put any blame for your EU mistake on us.
And if you let yourself become so looked after and protected and coddled that you let others "think for you", than go fuck yourself. You get what you deserve.
I was going to keep doing this for the whole article, but it's hard to even get past paragraph 3 of the bullshit here, and I just don't have 8 hours to write tonight.
They didn't say anything worthwhile for another dozen paragraphs or so toward the bottom when they say...
Quote:
But Europe will need to go beyond rhetoric. Europe has underfunded its own defense for more than 30 years. Military budgets on the continent started collapsing when the Cold War ended. Governments on the continent need to spend more on defense—in some cases twice as much. They must also use their money far more efficiently. European states don’t all need to make their own tanks or other armored personnel carriers. Rationalizing and consolidating production of arms and supplies will be a key long-term survival skill.
I agree 100% with all of that.
If they can manage to do this AND keep their free healthcare for all AND not tax everyone so hard that they start literally killing themselves, then DOGE has a perfect model to emulate going forward.
Good luck Europe. You'll need it.
... just wait until all those Muslim Sleeper Cells your EU masters let in get their wake-up call.
I can't imagine a better time then when America isn't going to come immediately to the rescue for them to get their marching orders.
Why do you suppose GenX came out so hard against Democrats this time?
Enough is enough is enough.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Isn't that the reason they created and joined the EU?
So unelected bureaucrats could think for them?
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:6ixStringJack didn't hear this part:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
But let's hear you out...
The U.S. commitment to European defense was grounded not in the long-ago NATO treaty, but in a political consensus among Americans that a free and democratic Europe was in their interest. Presidents of both parties defended the continent in the Cold War and then oversaw NATO's subsequent expansion. This policy was a brilliant success. Freedom and democracy spread across the old Eastern bloc, leading to growing prosperity.
Today, Trump and his movement — which dominates the Republican Party — declare that they despise liberal Europe. In the now-infamous Signal chat, when Vance appeared to endorse a delay in bombing Yemen, he implied that Europe would benefit disproportionately from an American attack on the Houthis. The vice president visited Greenland yesterday as part of an American effort to wrest the island from Denmark, a faithful NATO member.
For reasons that are difficult to comprehend as a matter of geopolitical strategy, Trump is moving the United States closer and closer to Vladimir Putin's Russia, an economically weak but militarily expansionist state that is committed to ending the period of American global dominance. In part because Ukraine, an emerging democracy, sought integration into a U.S.-led security framework in democratic Europe, Russia has attacked that country's very existence and called for the Ukrainians to surrender much of their internationally recognized territory. Putin had previously invaded one other neighbor — Georgia — and has threatened many others, including the Baltic States, Poland, and Finland. Russia has also worked hard to promote extremist parties across Europe and to subvert democracy in NATO states such as Hungary and Slovakia.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/europe-should-take-the-trump-admi
nistration-at-its-word/ar-AA1BUffo
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I didn't miss it.
I was trying not to vomit in my throat while reading it is all.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:I am thinking that you don't know Stalin, who was murdering millions of people AFTER WWII was over. The Western Europeans feared Stalin would do the same to them, which is why NATO was formed to put fear into Stalin's heart.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I didn't miss it.
I was trying not to vomit in my throat while reading it is all.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+people+did+stalin+murder+afte
r+WWII
Birth of NATO
In May 1945 the war in Europe came to an end. This had been the price of Europe's unpreparedness. Our hard-won peace seemed at last secured.
A few days before, Allied forces from the West had joined hands with the Russians from the East. Their statesmen had met cordially at Yalta and at Potsdam. They had agreed that the countries they had occupied should be truly liberated. And that freely elected governments should be set up as soon as possible.
Russia had swallowed up eight European countries without firing another shot. Great Britain and the United States protested that these countries had been coerced by the threat of force, and that Russia had broken her treaty. But Russia ignored the protests.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_137851.htm
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
But Stalin has been dead for almost exactly 70 years.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_and_state_funeral_of_Joseph_Stal
in
What? Europeans are afraid of a dead man?
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Yeah. I forgot about Stalin.
The Democratic Party's role model.
Shut the fuck up, dummy.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:But Putin has murdered Ukrainians and stolen their lands just this week. Europeans living adjacent to Putin know they can be murdered and their lands stolen by Putin, too, since Stalin did it and Putin is doing it just across a national border.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
But Stalin has been dead for almost exactly 70 years.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_and_state_funeral_of_Joseph_Stal
in
What? Europeans are afraid of a dead man?
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:‘False choice’: GOP congressman breaks ranks to deliver Trump history lesson
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Yeah. I forgot about Stalin.
The Democratic Party's role model.
Shut the fuck up, dummy.
By Adam Nichols | March 31, 2025 6:47AM ET
https://www.rawstory.com/don-bacon-trump-2671641438/
A Republican congressman representing deep red Nebraska took to the New York Times Monday in an effort to convince President Donald Trump to backtrack on current Ukraine policy.
Rep. Don Bacon urged Trump to resist capitulating to Russian President Vladimir Putin — and he delivered a history lesson in an attempt to persuade him. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/opinion/ukraine-putin-trump-republi
cans.html
“The United States must firmly oppose any approach that rewards Mr. Putin for his ruthless aggression,” Bacon, a vocal Trump supporter, wrote in an opinion piece.
“In recent weeks, too many of my fellow Republicans — including Mr. Trump — have treated Russia with velvet gloves, shying away from calling out Mr. Putin’s flatly illegal war and even blaming Ukraine for starting it.
“As the White House works to end the fighting and forge a just and durable peace, my party must reaffirm our commitment to opposing Mr. Putin’s expansionism and to supporting Ukraine’s defense of its sovereignty.”
He then laid out a history of Russia’s brutal repression of Ukraine, the nation Putin invaded three years ago and in which a bloody war is still waging. Trump has signalled he’s willing to make a deal with Russia in an attempt to end it.
Bacon described the deaths of up to five million Ukrainians under Joseph Stalin’s rule in the 1930s, followed by a life “blighted by collectivization, disappearances, executions and gulags,” up to the fall of the Soviet Union.
He then detailed the 1994 pact that “extended explicit security guarantees for Ukraine — including a commitment by Russia to respect its borders — in return for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons.”
“The United States and the rest of Europe shamelessly abandoned these security commitments when Mr. Putin ordered the Russian military to annex and occupy the Crimean Peninsula,” Bacon wrote.
“ … This history makes clear that America has a moral obligation to continue providing aid to Ukraine until Russia commits to fair and just peace negotiations. That means including Ukraine in the conversation.”
“As the war enters its fourth year, Americans understandably question why the United States should continue supporting Kyiv,” Bacon wrote.
“They ask whether we can afford it, whether it’s our fight or whether Ukraine’s fate truly matters to them.
"To me, the answer is simple: Supporting Ukraine in its struggle against Russian aggression is not only morally right. It is also in our national interest, because the future cost of abandoning Ukraine would vastly outweigh the investment we have made in rejecting Russia’s aggression.”
He concluded, “Peace won’t be easy, but we must reject the trap of making a false choice. It is possible to end the war for Ukraine, preserve our moral clarity by holding Russia accountable and advance America’s long-term national interests in the process. This is a Ronald Reagan moment.”
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:But Putin has murdered Ukrainians and stolen their lands just this week. Europeans living adjacent to Putin know they can be murdered and their lands stolen by Putin, too, since Stalin did it and Putin is doing it just across a national border.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
But Stalin has been dead for almost exactly 70 years.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_and_state_funeral_of_Joseph_Stal
in
What? Europeans are afraid of a dead man?
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
You keep pushing the fiction that big bad Russia is conquering Ukraine out of sheer maliciousness. But even the NYT acknowledges, finally, that this was a coalition war planned to regime change Russia and split it from China.
Yanno, in their hubris, neocons really believed ... as you still do, SECOND, despite all evidence ... that there would be a short, pro-forma war that would rationalize freezing Russian assets, kicking the RCB off SWIFT, and collapsing the Russian government. Nobody imagined it would lead to a Vietnam-style war of attrition where Russia would win.
I feel for Ukrainians who're paying the ultimate price for our neocons' fever dreams and Zelensky's corruption.
Zelensky REALLY should have paid attention to Kissinger.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME