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I read two very striking articles about Donald Trump today that you should read too.
I agree completely with this article, by Jon Basil Utley, the publisher of The American Conservative, who asks what the reason is for either Europe or America to spend huge sums on Nato. There is none. Russia is not going to invade any Nato country.
He correctly says, as I have known since 1989, that the the big threat to the world comes from nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists. In 1989 I imagined the terrorists using them to blackmail governments. Now I know that if the Islamists get them they will use them. The Pakistani bomb particularly worries me. More than an Iranian bomb.
He makes another good point:
I agree completely with this article, by Jon Basil Utley, the publisher of The American Conservative, who asks what the reason is for either Europe or America to spend huge sums on Nato. There is none. Russia is not going to invade any Nato country.
He correctly says, as I have known since 1989, that the the big threat to the world comes from nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists. In 1989 I imagined the terrorists using them to blackmail governments. Now I know that if the Islamists get them they will use them. The Pakistani bomb particularly worries me. More than an Iranian bomb.
He makes another good point:
For all the Democratic and Big Media attacks on Trump for supposedly caving in to Putin, he gave Putin nothing.And says:
The release of intelligence agency findings about Russians’ intervention in the last election just a day before the conference precisely shows the strength of the “Deep State” in dominating American foreign policy. An article by Bruce Fein in TAC argues we should “Forget Trump: The Military-Industrial Complex is Still Running the Show With Russia,” showing how Washington wants to keep Russia as an enemy because it’s good for business.
It is clear that the deep state in the USA is fighting a war to the death with Trump and the media is mostly on the side of the deep state.
The second article, in the Financial Times was based on the author talking to Chinese officials and intellectuals, who are awed by Trump's skill as a strategist and tactician.
My interlocutors say that Mr Trump is the US first president for more than 40 years to bash China on three fronts simultaneously: trade, military and ideology. They describe him as a master tactician, focusing on one issue at a time, and extracting as many concessions as he can. They speak of the skilful way Mr Trump has treated President Xi Jinping. “Look at how he handled North Korea,” one says. “He got Xi Jinping to agree to UN sanctions [half a dozen] times, creating an economic stranglehold on the country. China almost turned North Korea into a sworn enemy of the country.” But they also see him as a strategist, willing to declare a truce in each area when there are no more concessions to be had, and then start again with a new front.
For the Chinese, even Mr Trump’s sycophantic press conference with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, in Helsinki had a strategic purpose. They see it as Henry Kissinger in reverse. In 1972, the US nudged China off the Soviet axis in order to put pressure on its real rival, the Soviet Union. Today Mr Trump is reaching out to Russia in order to isolate China.
"Mr Trump is reaching out to Russia in order to isolate China."
ReplyDeleteGood luck with that...
Today Mr Trump is reaching out to Russia in order to isolate China.
ReplyDeleteI pray to God that he fails. Surely the Russians could never be stupid enough to trust the United States?
It's the U.S. that is the rogue state. It needs to be isolated and destroyed. Before it destroys every civilisation on the planet.
Destroyed?
DeleteYou prefer a world dominated by China?
DeleteYou prefer a world dominated by China?
DeleteYes. I'm not suggesting that a world dominated by China would be wonderful, but I think it would be slightly less disastrous than a world dominated by the U.S.
The social and cultural evils spread by the U.S. are the greatest threat humanity has ever faced.
Please say more. The USA has many defects from a conservative point of view but they are highly religious Anglo Saxon culture, believe in freedom, have many eighteenth century British values (albeit Whig not Tory) and are the cousins of the English, culturally if not so much in terms of blood lines. I agree they do much harm but much more good.
DeleteThe USA has many defects from a conservative point of view but they are highly religious Anglo Saxon culture
DeleteThose days are gone, sadly. Mainstream U.S. culture is aggressively secular and liberal. Christianity is marginalised and in full retreat, it is increasingly irrelevant and it is facing the near certainly of being openly suppressed in the near future.
And the U.S. is determined to force its hedonistic, nihilistic, degenerate secular liberalism on the whole planet. This is a much greater threat than Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union ever posed.
believe in freedom
American belief in freedom is woolly-minded sentimental claptrap. Freedom of speech became freedom to spread pornography. Freedom of the press became freedom to impose propaganda. Freedom of religion became freedom from religion.
have many eighteenth century British values (albeit Whig not Tory)
I'm afraid I find it difficult to see Whig values as a positive thing!
and are the cousins of the English, culturally
That's a sentimental English illusion. It's a belief the English cling to to soften the blow of their vassal status.
I agree they do much harm but much more good.
I can't think of any good that the U.S. has done in the last half century or so.
They are the one developed country where half the population attend church or other place of worship at least once a month. America, the last country with free speech, by preserving freedom of speech has preserved it for everyone who has access to American sites on the net. I do understand where you are coming from with your criticisms but you are ridiculously overstating your case. America has great virtues, including altruism, inventiveness, contrariness, respect for the masculine virtues, innocence, provincialism, limited interest in foreign countries, unabashed patriotism, unabashed religiosity, distrust of the state and a complete inability to be embarrassed.
DeleteThere is a difference between the American Creed and the American people. The ideological foundations of the U.S. have been rotten from the beginning and have been at war with the actual American nation. The real turning point for the U.S. began in the 1880s with the immigration of millions of Eastern European Jews. The U.S. was simply not culturally or politically equipped to understand or contain the damage they would cause in the long run.
DeleteAmerica, the last country with free speech
DeleteAmerica does not have freedom of speech, except in a theoretical sense. America is a land where any billionaire can establish his own TV network/newspaper/social media network and say what he thinks.
For non-billionaires things are a bit different. If you actually want to express your opinion publicly (and being able to do so publicly is surely the essence of freedom of speech) you are limited to what the proprietors of Facebook, twitter, Fox News, CNN, etc, deem to be acceptable, In other words you have freedom of speech as a right, but there's no way you'll be allowed to exercise it except under strict supervision.
There is a difference between the American Creed and the American people.
DeleteAmericans as individuals tend to be pretty nice people. It's the United States as a political actor on the global stage that is evil.
The ideological foundations of the U.S. have been rotten from the beginning and have been at war with the actual American nation.
Yes, I think there was always something unhealthy about the U.S. as a political entity. Too much Enlightenment silliness combined with messianic ideological fervour. Too much arrogance combined with too little understanding when it came to dealing with other nations.
Unless you live in a utopia not every person is going to have equal means to get his message. This doesn’t mean there isn’t still freedom of speech. America still can be said to have freedom of speech. Nobody can say the same for Britain, Western Europe or Canada.
DeleteExactly, Geoff. And with the internet it is open to anyone with access to a computer to get his view across, as we are doing here. I fear that the internet is about to be severely censored though throughout the world.
DeleteI guess the deep state was after the Clintons too. You know, with all those multiple investigations that came to absolutely nothing except the discovery of an affair that was embarrassing but certainly not illegal. Conducted by Republican men who were also having affairs, of course.
ReplyDeleteThe "deep state" ... sigh, a product of lazy (and magical) minds.
ReplyDeleteThat was a patronising and unperceptive sigh.
DeleteSir, I withdraw the sigh!
DeleteThe ‘Time of Troubles’ Is Back for America’s Intelligence Community
DeleteIf you want to understand the tensions between policymakers and spooks under Donald Trump, look to the 1970s.
BY DAVID PRIESS
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/26/the-time-of-troubles-is-back-for-americas-intelligence-community/
Thank you for unsighing.
DeleteTrump: The FBI is investigating Hillary, so she must be corrupt.
ReplyDeleteTrump: The FBI is investigating me, so it must be corrupt.
It amused me to hear you call Hillary Clinton "that old woman" when we are faced every day with fat, meat-faced, aging and ridiculously tanned and coiffed Trump. There's no fool like a vain old fool!
ReplyDeleteI am in total agreement with second article, regarding the Chinese assessment of Trump. This is the crux of the Russia-gate. It all plays around China, and the globalists' immediate interests. They illogically ignore China's long term strategy, and hope that once China will be the hegemon, they will be part of the elite. I will probably not live to see it, and it makes no difference to me, but I doubt it. I bet on the fact that the hegemon will be racially assertive. Ana
ReplyDeleteSpot on!
ReplyDelete