Quote from: Tamas on January 23, 2026, 08:40:59 AMEveryone is on and on about how the whole failing of NATO is some broader geostrategic thing, but I suspect there are only two aspects to it:I don't agree.
Quote from: viper37 on Today at 06:29:31 PMYi will have to explain to me why foreign countries let US have base on their territory any longer.
Quote from: garbon on Today at 06:16:10 PMWell he has now said that UK soldiers in Afghanistan were 'among greatest of all' so well done team?
Quote from: garbon on Today at 12:24:43 AMI get that we are at the end of a very contentious week and hackles are raised but I also think a lot of the reaction overstates the significance of his Afghanistan comment. Let's remind ourselves what he said:So I get what you're saying and I kind of agree.
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Is it ugly, is it disrespectful? Certainly. Was he making a considered critique of NATO troops and their sacrifices? I don't think so. I think he was rather continuing with his already established argument that America's allies are dispensible/worthless. Maybe a little bit of an additional stinger thrown in given how he had to climb down from his sabre rattling.
Responding to that by cataloguing casualties and the operations allies participated in strikes me as assuming a level of historical engagement and moral seriousness that simply isn't there with Trump. It is taking his provocative rhetoric and making it more elevated than it actually is. This isn't Trump disrespecting veterans because he's weighed their service and found it wanting, its Trump not really thinking about them at all.
That's not to downplay how people, especially veterans, might feel or suggest they should toughen up. Far from that as I hate the idea of society becoming enured to Trumpian behaviour and accepting it as normal. But after having spent the last couple weeks rightfully indignant about Trump on Greenland it all feels a little 'surprised pikachu' to get all lathered up again about rhetoric in a Fox News interview. Are we just going to be angry forever?
I don't know if this will stick those individuals who have still been Trump-inclined in Europe. He has said many morally repugnant things which have been accepted. I'm not sure this 'incident' will have the heft to enter into people's long term memory. And these are people that were already 'okay' with Trump doing down their militaries.

QuoteI really don't get this bit. Am I missing something about the significance of Davos that puts it symbolically on par with Arlington Cemetery or the Arc de Triomphe?Fair - and I possibly over-egged that. But a British PM does not matter in the way a US President does. So an off-hand remark by the President has a higher salience to the rest of the world.
QuoteWell I think it did move the needle within Europe or at least the UK. Obviously not in America.Yes. It is difficult to overstate how unpopular Trump is in the UK. I think even a majority of Reform voters disapprove of him. But there was a significant shift in opinion after the Zelensky meeting - because the overwhelming majority of British people are very pro-Ukraine.
But America is not the Brits' fight to save. Trump shitting all over the Union Jack is worth driving home.
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