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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (949197)	7/23/2016 4:34:45 PM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 1575427

What Trump doesn’t get about NATO [ Or about Putin or Erdogan, his newest foreign hero. ] By: Kristofer L. Harrison \| July 22, 2016 Donald Trump rarely puts meat on the bones of his smorgasbord of bumper sticker policies (“build a Wall”, “bomb the hell out of ISIS”, etc.), but he did twice this week…with rancid, rotten meat. The evil genius of Trump’s disorganized convention is that it disguised Trump’s appalling foreign policy judgment. What your noses did not detect is a worrisome picture of ignorance meshed with President Obama’s penchant for selling America down the river. If you want a strong American foreign policy, be worried. Trump opened his foreign policy kimono twice recently. First, he attempted to wax eloquently in an astonishing interview with the New York Times. Instead of sounding smart he threatened NATO, undoubtedly pleasing Vladimir Putin; he praised Turkey’s Islamist (!) authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who purged tens of thousands of Turkish government officials on the trumped up (pun very much attended) charges of being coup plotters but really for being secular; and donned his best progressive, apologist veneer to assert, “When the world looks at how bad the United States is, and then we go and talk about civil liberties, I don’t think we’re a very good messenger.” Really. Read the whole thing. Jaw droppers abound. [ Good Lord, that could have been said by Barack Obama. In fact, he has said it, just not as crudely ... ie "how bad the United States is". ] Given reflection and a lot of tutoring, Trump may have realized that his initial answers did not sit well. Maybe he would have even recognized that his answers espoused values antithetical to our basic Constitutional freedoms. At the very least he should have realized that supporting the Islamist Erdogan contradicted his own campaign messaging. Alas, Trump had no time for reflection. He displayed a shocking, basic ignorance of world affairs and of our country—and when Trump does not know what he’s talking about he runs home to mama. [ Trump talks about bombing the hell out of ISIS AND praises Erdogan. But we can't bomb ISIS at all going forward now because Trump's new dictator friend and defacto ally of ISIS won't let us. Trump is too STUPID to know that. ] He treats everything like a business negotiation. For Trump, the NATO security alliance is a transactional relationship that can be improved with an accountant’s eye to the balance sheet. He gravitates to authoritarian solutions, and, of course, Trump repeats talking points from the Park Avenue swamp that shaped his worldview, such that it is. It is not a recipe for strength. His second foreign policy disrobing was one of those rare instances when the Trump campaign actually engaged in policy-making. Trump watered down the GOP’s Russia platform so that it roughly mirrors Obama’s obsequious Russia policy. Delegate Diana Denman tabled *a clause supporting the provision of arms to Ukraine—something we should* do. Donald Trump’s staffers blocked it*, pushing instead anodyne language that does not specify action. Thankfully, party platforms do not really directly lead to policy, but they are an important indicator of a candidate’s policy inclinations…and Trump’s inclination is to fold like a lawn chair. I doubt Putin worries about any Trumpian negotiating jujitsu. At the very least he should have realized that supporting the Islamist Erdogan contradicted his own campaign messaging. Alas, Trump had no time for reflection. Just so you understand how easily Trump folded, supporting Ukraine is a cut and dry issue. Russia invaded Ukraine because Ukraine would like to join the West. Supplying weapons does not commit U.S. soldiers to a fight and stands up to Russian adventurism. Ukrainians are willing to risk their lives to defend their country. It just happens to mirror our values—and therein lies the rub. Both the NYT* interview and the policy platform episode demonstrate that Trump does not understand how our core principles relate to foreign policy. Our Constitution is based solely on principles and ideas, chief among them a struggle for independence, i.e. civil liberties, those things Trump says we have no business defending. Ukraine’s struggle for independence should have a familiar rhyme to Trump. Saying that the United States cannot speak for civil liberties comes from the exact same disease preventing Obama from praising American exceptionalism. Our core principles, like the First Amendment, define and guide us and Trump seems not to understand that the whole point of our foreign policy is to defend those principles. They make us strong and make America great. Betraying them betrays who we are. If there is one country on earth that should stand behind Ukraine’s desire for freedom it is the United States. If there is one country on earth that should oppose Erdogan’s secularist purge it is the United States. Trump does not understand that the reason why the U.S. “pays the most” for NATO is that our principles are the glue. Our core interests—freedom of expression and will, freedom of religion…in general, opposition to tyranny—are what held the NATO alliance together in the dark days of the Cold War and what held off the Soviet menace. NATO is not a balance sheet. It is an embodiment of aspirations. But principles do not govern Trump’s United States. Apparently, making America great again involves imitating Obama and prostrating the country before tin pot dictators. Putin is surely pleased by Trump’s magnanimity. If there is one thing Trump gets right it is that Obama is weak. But Trump does not understand that one of the main contributors to Obama’s weakness is his unwillingness to lead with our core principles out front. That puts Trump on a path to repeating Obama’s isolationist, debilitating foreign policy. Another thing Trump gets right is that we cannot afford another four years of that. - See more at: https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/07/the-interview-heard-round-the-world-what-trumps-doesnt-get-about-nato#sthash.s84w3cSq.dpuf