Anonymous wrote:NATO countries should pay their agreed upon share. Only 10 do out of 30. Trump is not a “warmonger” because these 20 countries are not paying their fair share and depend on us to defend them while they play socialist utopia.

Encouraging Putin to roll over them is warmongering.

Anonymous wrote:According to Nato figures, the rate of increase in member countries' payments increased through Obama's second term, dropped during Trump, then increased again under Biden.

President Barack Obama echoed President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday, signaling to America’s NATO allies that if Greece can pay its fair share even during an economic crisis, so can the other members of the alliance.

In his opening remarks during a bilateral news conference with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Athens, the president said he and the prime minster discussed “the pressing security challenges that we face as NATO allies,” among other topics.

“I want to take this opportunity to commend Greece for being one of the five NATO allies that spends 2 percent of GDP on defense, a goal that we have consistently set but not everybody has met,” Obama said. “Greece has done this even during difficult economic times. If Greece can meet this NATO commitment, all our NATO allies should be able to do so.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/obama-nato-pay-fair-share-231405

Really? 5 countries out of 30?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Democrat here. I hate the orange baboon as much as the next sane person, but I don’t see the big deal in what Trump said here. He said
that the member countries who aren’t paying their fair share, aren’t meeting NATO defense spending requirements, and haven’t been for a long time shouldn’t expect America to come running to their defense.

Why is this wrong? How long are we going to expect America to subsidize European countries’ refusal to spend on their own defense? These countries have a safety net, socialized medicine, free college education, and other nice perks for their people. Over here in America, we get a kick in the teeth when we’re sick and the ponzi scheme that is social security, but we’re supposed to continue propping up Europeans’ lifestyles and protecting them when they don’t care to protect themselves?

Are people really thinking or just knee-jerk attacking Trump?

+1 Europe provides educational assistance, free healthcare, etc, yo their citizens because they don’t have to recruit, arm, and maintain a military to defend themselves. They know we provide expensive and state of the art/advanced military technology and massive military manpower to defend them. And they don’t provide the funds needed to NATO, Trump points it out, and he’s a warmonger. It’s beyond ludicrous.

Exactly. Partisanship is a helluva drug. The case that European members of NATO are free riding is incontrovertible and we’re apparently supposed to just keep paying their way or else we’re Neo-Nazis who want Hitler to return.

Democrats purposely ignore reality and push insane ideas that usually involve everyone but them being Hitler.

Push “insane ideas” like loyalty to our country and our allies? That’s “insane” to you now?

NATO members agreed to pay 2% of their GDP, only 10 of the 30 NATO countries actually do.

Why don’t the countries who refuse to pay as agreed be loyal to THEIR ALLIES? Why does loyalty only matter when it’s the 10 countries who pay their agreed upon share funding the countries who won’t meet their NATO commitment?

Loyalty is a two way street. We and the other countries who meet financial contribution percentages to NATO are the loyal ones. The countries who still expect us to be loyal but can’t be bothered to meet their obligations are not loyal to their Allies. They are neglecting to treat their NATO Allies fairly.

Why do you and others here defend them while they certainly aren’t doing the very thing they agreed to do? Why are they given a free ride?

^^ Specifically Europe and Canada.

According to Nato figures, the rate of increase in member countries' payments increased through Obama's second term, dropped during Trump, then increased again under Biden.

NATO countries should pay their agreed upon share. Only 10 do out of 30. Trump is not a “warmonger” because these 20 countries are not paying their fair share and depend on us to defend them while they play socialist utopia.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Democrat here. I hate the orange baboon as much as the next sane person, but I don’t see the big deal in what Trump said here. He said
that the member countries who aren’t paying their fair share, aren’t meeting NATO defense spending requirements, and haven’t been for a long time shouldn’t expect America to come running to their defense.

Why is this wrong? How long are we going to expect America to subsidize European countries’ refusal to spend on their own defense? These countries have a safety net, socialized medicine, free college education, and other nice perks for their people. Over here in America, we get a kick in the teeth when we’re sick and the ponzi scheme that is social security, but we’re supposed to continue propping up Europeans’ lifestyles and protecting them when they don’t care to protect themselves?

Are people really thinking or just knee-jerk attacking Trump?

+1 Europe provides educational assistance, free healthcare, etc, yo their citizens because they don’t have to recruit, arm, and maintain a military to defend themselves. They know we provide expensive and state of the art/advanced military technology and massive military manpower to defend them. And they don’t provide the funds needed to NATO, Trump points it out, and he’s a warmonger. It’s beyond ludicrous.

Exactly. Partisanship is a helluva drug. The case that European members of NATO are free riding is incontrovertible and we’re apparently supposed to just keep paying their way or else we’re Neo-Nazis who want Hitler to return.

Nobody is "free riding" and contrary to the BS that Trump has been peddling and what some of the partisan MAGA jokers here on DCUM want to claim, the NATO members defense expenditures have gone up significantly since Biden took office. Yet Trump would still go ahead and disband NATO and let Putin steamroll them if he had his way. It's disgusting.

The number of NATO nations meeting or exceeding the alliance's spending target has continued to fall, according to the latest official estimates.

The UK is one of only eight nations out of 30 believed to be hitting the target and remains fourth in the list of proportional spending.

NATO sets alliance members the aim of spending 2% of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defence.

Up to June 2021, the alliance estimated that 10 nations were spending 2% or more of their GDP on defence.

But latest estimates show now only eight countries are achieving the target with Romania and France falling below the 2% threshold.

NATO data suggests the UK defence spending as a percentage of GDP dropped by 0.05 percentage points in 2021 to 2.25% from 2.30% from 2020.

Greece remains the alliance's biggest spender as a share of GDP, contributing 3.59%.

The US (3.57%) stays second with Poland (2.34%) third and Croatia, Estonia and Latvia (2.16%) joint-fifth.

Lithuania rounds off the nations hitting the GDP target, with a spend of 2.03%.

After dropping below the 2% guideline, France (1.93%) is ninth and Romania (1.88%) is 10th.

Luxembourg (0.54%) props up the proportional spending table with Spain (1.03%) and Belgium (1.07) making up the bottom three.

Two places above Belgium is Canada (1.36%), while Italy (1.54%), Germany (1.49%), the Netherlands (1.45%) and Denmark (1.40%) are all among the nations below the guideline.

Iceland, which does not have any armed forces, was not featured on the list.

Formed in the aftermath of the Second World War, NATO's original goals were to secure peace in Europe, promote co-operation among its members and counter the threat posed by the USSR, also known as the Soviet Union.

https://www.forces.net/news/world/nato-which-countries-pay-their-share-defence

During the 2014 summit, all NATO members agreed to spend at least 2% of their GDPs on defense by 2025. In 2017, only four nations met the threshold: The United States (3.6%), Greece (2.4%), the United Kingdom (2.1%), and Poland (2.0%). However, by 2021, ten countries were meeting the percentage target.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/nato-spending-by-country

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Democrat here. I hate the orange baboon as much as the next sane person, but I don’t see the big deal in what Trump said here. He said
that the member countries who aren’t paying their fair share, aren’t meeting NATO defense spending requirements, and haven’t been for a long time shouldn’t expect America to come running to their defense.

Why is this wrong? How long are we going to expect America to subsidize European countries’ refusal to spend on their own defense? These countries have a safety net, socialized medicine, free college education, and other nice perks for their people. Over here in America, we get a kick in the teeth when we’re sick and the ponzi scheme that is social security, but we’re supposed to continue propping up Europeans’ lifestyles and protecting them when they don’t care to protect themselves?

Are people really thinking or just knee-jerk attacking Trump?

+1 Europe provides educational assistance, free healthcare, etc, yo their citizens because they don’t have to recruit, arm, and maintain a military to defend themselves. They know we provide expensive and state of the art/advanced military technology and massive military manpower to defend them. And they don’t provide the funds needed to NATO, Trump points it out, and he’s a warmonger. It’s beyond ludicrous.

Exactly. Partisanship is a helluva drug. The case that European members of NATO are free riding is incontrovertible and we’re apparently supposed to just keep paying their way or else we’re Neo-Nazis who want Hitler to return.

Democrats purposely ignore reality and push insane ideas that usually involve everyone but them being Hitler.

Push “insane ideas” like loyalty to our country and our allies? That’s “insane” to you now?

You mean like loyalty to Israel?

LOL, the reason NeverTrump and Nikki is a thing is because he is not a warmonger.

If another Republican gets in, the Left will go back to being against war. Right now the only Democrat who is against war appears to be Joe Biden who had this disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal because everyone else was ignoring his calls for getting out, and he in a lucid moment got mad and said NOW.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Democrat here. I hate the orange baboon as much as the next sane person, but I don’t see the big deal in what Trump said here. He said
that the member countries who aren’t paying their fair share, aren’t meeting NATO defense spending requirements, and haven’t been for a long time shouldn’t expect America to come running to their defense.

Why is this wrong? How long are we going to expect America to subsidize European countries’ refusal to spend on their own defense? These countries have a safety net, socialized medicine, free college education, and other nice perks for their people. Over here in America, we get a kick in the teeth when we’re sick and the ponzi scheme that is social security, but we’re supposed to continue propping up Europeans’ lifestyles and protecting them when they don’t care to protect themselves?

Are people really thinking or just knee-jerk attacking Trump?

+1 Europe provides educational assistance, free healthcare, etc, yo their citizens because they don’t have to recruit, arm, and maintain a military to defend themselves. They know we provide expensive and state of the art/advanced military technology and massive military manpower to defend them. And they don’t provide the funds needed to NATO, Trump points it out, and he’s a warmonger. It’s beyond ludicrous.

Exactly. Partisanship is a helluva drug. The case that European members of NATO are free riding is incontrovertible and we’re apparently supposed to just keep paying their way or else we’re Neo-Nazis who want Hitler to return.

Nobody is "free riding" and contrary to the BS that Trump has been peddling and what some of the partisan MAGA jokers here on DCUM want to claim, the NATO members defense expenditures have gone up significantly since Biden took office. Yet Trump would still go ahead and disband NATO and let Putin steamroll them if he had his way. It's disgusting.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From CNN article: https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/13/politics/donald-trump-israel-netanyahu-diplomacy/index.html

"The former president is advocating a return to his “America First” nationalist foreign policy, prizes tough talk and ruthlessness on the global stage, and remains disdainful of allies and the international security architecture that has been the foundation of American power since the end of World War II. While these are positions that would represent a sharp transformation of US foreign policy, it is quite legitimate for him to present them to voters and try to win support for his vision."

Yep, love it or hate it, it's a major shift away from funding and being involved in regional conflicts all over the globe. Possibly unique in our political system where both old school Republicans and moderate Democrats are pro-war.

The opposite of this is not peace, it is letting authoritarians take control of the world assets. That is not a win for the US, or the companies that drive out capitalist society. It isn't a matter of being "pro-war" it is matter of preventing catastrophic war in light of nuclear solutions to angered nations. No one in the US WANTS war. It would be a lot better if bad actors like Putin were put out of power. Short of that, we can either let one country invade another, or we can do what we can to maintain some sort of order. Why is Russia at war in Ukraine? Who knows, but Ukraine is a soverign country that has been invaded. We either let Russia invade and take them over, or we support Ukraine. Why should Russia be allowed to just take another country?

Europe should take care of its own backyard. Why in the world is that America’s job?

Just type “ I want more Pearl Harbor!”
It’s faster

So, the options are that we either pay for countries mooching off us or we end up with Pearl Harbor? Europe paying its fair share isn’t an option, huh?

That’s not happening, you lying sack of crap.

It might be more persuasive if he paid his own bills.

LOL. I watched the clip and wondered that he said what he said with a straight face.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From CNN article: https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/13/politics/donald-trump-israel-netanyahu-diplomacy/index.html

"The former president is advocating a return to his “America First” nationalist foreign policy, prizes tough talk and ruthlessness on the global stage, and remains disdainful of allies and the international security architecture that has been the foundation of American power since the end of World War II. While these are positions that would represent a sharp transformation of US foreign policy, it is quite legitimate for him to present them to voters and try to win support for his vision."

Yep, love it or hate it, it's a major shift away from funding and being involved in regional conflicts all over the globe. Possibly unique in our political system where both old school Republicans and moderate Democrats are pro-war.

The opposite of this is not peace, it is letting authoritarians take control of the world assets. That is not a win for the US, or the companies that drive out capitalist society. It isn't a matter of being "pro-war" it is matter of preventing catastrophic war in light of nuclear solutions to angered nations. No one in the US WANTS war. It would be a lot better if bad actors like Putin were put out of power. Short of that, we can either let one country invade another, or we can do what we can to maintain some sort of order. Why is Russia at war in Ukraine? Who knows, but Ukraine is a soverign country that has been invaded. We either let Russia invade and take them over, or we support Ukraine. Why should Russia be allowed to just take another country?

Europe should take care of its own backyard. Why in the world is that America’s job?

Just type “ I want more Pearl Harbor!”
It’s faster

So, the options are that we either pay for countries mooching off us or we end up with Pearl Harbor? Europe paying its fair share isn’t an option, huh?

That’s not happening, you lying sack of crap.

It might be more persuasive if he paid his own bills.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Democrat here. I hate the orange baboon as much as the next sane person, but I don’t see the big deal in what Trump said here. He said
that the member countries who aren’t paying their fair share, aren’t meeting NATO defense spending requirements, and haven’t been for a long time shouldn’t expect America to come running to their defense.

Why is this wrong? How long are we going to expect America to subsidize European countries’ refusal to spend on their own defense? These countries have a safety net, socialized medicine, free college education, and other nice perks for their people. Over here in America, we get a kick in the teeth when we’re sick and the ponzi scheme that is social security, but we’re supposed to continue propping up Europeans’ lifestyles and protecting them when they don’t care to protect themselves?

Are people really thinking or just knee-jerk attacking Trump?

+1 Europe provides educational assistance, free healthcare, etc, yo their citizens because they don’t have to recruit, arm, and maintain a military to defend themselves. They know we provide expensive and state of the art/advanced military technology and massive military manpower to defend them. And they don’t provide the funds needed to NATO, Trump points it out, and he’s a warmonger. It’s beyond ludicrous.

Exactly. Partisanship is a helluva drug. The case that European members of NATO are free riding is incontrovertible and we’re apparently supposed to just keep paying their way or else we’re Neo-Nazis who want Hitler to return.

Democrats purposely ignore reality and push insane ideas that usually involve everyone but them being Hitler.

Push “insane ideas” like loyalty to our country and our allies? That’s “insane” to you now?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From CNN article: https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/13/politics/donald-trump-israel-netanyahu-diplomacy/index.html

"The former president is advocating a return to his “America First” nationalist foreign policy, prizes tough talk and ruthlessness on the global stage, and remains disdainful of allies and the international security architecture that has been the foundation of American power since the end of World War II. While these are positions that would represent a sharp transformation of US foreign policy, it is quite legitimate for him to present them to voters and try to win support for his vision."

Yep, love it or hate it, it's a major shift away from funding and being involved in regional conflicts all over the globe. Possibly unique in our political system where both old school Republicans and moderate Democrats are pro-war.

The opposite of this is not peace, it is letting authoritarians take control of the world assets. That is not a win for the US, or the companies that drive out capitalist society. It isn't a matter of being "pro-war" it is matter of preventing catastrophic war in light of nuclear solutions to angered nations. No one in the US WANTS war. It would be a lot better if bad actors like Putin were put out of power. Short of that, we can either let one country invade another, or we can do what we can to maintain some sort of order. Why is Russia at war in Ukraine? Who knows, but Ukraine is a soverign country that has been invaded. We either let Russia invade and take them over, or we support Ukraine. Why should Russia be allowed to just take another country?

Europe should take care of its own backyard. Why in the world is that America’s job?

Just type “ I want more Pearl Harbor!”
It’s faster

So, the options are that we either pay for countries mooching off us or we end up with Pearl Harbor? Europe paying its fair share isn’t an option, huh?

That’s not happening, you lying sack of crap.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Democrat here. I hate the orange baboon as much as the next sane person, but I don’t see the big deal in what Trump said here. He said
that the member countries who aren’t paying their fair share, aren’t meeting NATO defense spending requirements, and haven’t been for a long time shouldn’t expect America to come running to their defense.

Why is this wrong? How long are we going to expect America to subsidize European countries’ refusal to spend on their own defense? These countries have a safety net, socialized medicine, free college education, and other nice perks for their people. Over here in America, we get a kick in the teeth when we’re sick and the ponzi scheme that is social security, but we’re supposed to continue propping up Europeans’ lifestyles and protecting them when they don’t care to protect themselves?

Are people really thinking or just knee-jerk attacking Trump?

+1 Europe provides educational assistance, free healthcare, etc, yo their citizens because they don’t have to recruit, arm, and maintain a military to defend themselves. They know we provide expensive and state of the art/advanced military technology and massive military manpower to defend them. And they don’t provide the funds needed to NATO, Trump points it out, and he’s a warmonger. It’s beyond ludicrous.

Exactly. Partisanship is a helluva drug. The case that European members of NATO are free riding is incontrovertible and we’re apparently supposed to just keep paying their way or else we’re Neo-Nazis who want Hitler to return.

Democrats purposely ignore reality and push insane ideas that usually involve everyone but them being Hitler.