Kissing his ass [Trump and Putin]

In My Humble Opinion
21

Of course Trump hasn’t been a total door mat to Putin. Even some (not all but some) Trump apologists might balk if he offered to give Alaska back.

But Trump has generally deferred to Russia when there’s a significant issue on the table. The summit performance didn’t create this; it just made it visual.

And let’s not sugarcoat it. Trump went far beyond speaking fondly of Putin. He publicly denounced his own government in favor of Putin. As far as I can recall, no other American President has ever done that before.

22

I’ve said all along that Putin’s main objective was to weaken the United States by helping an incompetent President get elected. Mission accomplished. Anything Russia gets beyond that is a bonus.

23

And he’s still doing it.

At a time when he’s putting tariffs on aluminum from Canada and Mexico in the name of “national security”, he’s going out of his way to lift sanctions on a Russian aluminum producer.

24

Dial it way back Chip Dundas. Personal insults are not allowed in the forum and will earn you official warnings. Keep the conversation civil.

25

Okay, so that you’re the President of Ruritania. You hate your next door neighbor, the country of Djibabwee.

You send troops into Djibabwee, kill a bunch of people, and install your brother as the new leader.

It’s fair to call that an act of war, yes?

Is it an act of war because:

a) Ruritania killed a bunch of Djibabweeans?
b) It was a military operation against Djibabwee to change the government to one that did not conflict with the aims of Ruritania?

Does ‘a’ need to be true for it to still be an act of war? If we say that it is, then what prevents Ruritania from simply using non-lethal means to achieve the same objective? Why shouldn’t Pakighan and Bulgania get in on the action? They can all just use non-lethal means to destabilize the government of Djibabwee, promote candidates who are loyal to foreign states or incompetent, etc.

The instant that everyone realizes that they can do this, and that there are no repercussions, then game is on, my friend. Game is on. It’s Christmas every single day for everyone except the people of Djibabwee.

Second example, say that you’re a wannabe mass murderer. You’re a stupid one, though, and you’ve decided that taurine is a poison. You go on the internet, buy a whole load of taurine, and start investigating how to break into the local water treatment plant, to dump it all in and poison the whole town to death. (Muahahah!)

When you were ordering the taurine, you made a bunch of creepy and scary comments that had lead the manufacturer to report you to the FBI. When you leave your house with a gun, some wire cutters, and other paraphernalia they sit you down and ask you a bunch of questions, discovering that you intended to kill everyone in town by poisoning them with taurine.

You haven’t killed anyone, you haven’t even broken nor entered into the water treatment plant, and yet you’ll be arrested and you’ll spend time in jail for conspiracy to commit murder. Success in your aims is not necessary in order to commit a crime. You simply need to have demonstrated an intent and to have taken concrete actions to see the plan forward.

By the same token, let’s say that during the second World War the Japanese had purchased a large number of armaments from a new Ruritanian maker. Unknown to the Japanese, the maker is just a fraudster and all of the bullets have rubber heads and and all of the bombs are filled with sawdust. The Japanese show up in Pearl Harbor and 30 seconds in to trying to slaughter everyone they figure out that something is wrong, and turn around to try and fly away before the Americans can get their guns working.

Would you say that we should ignore this attempt to ambush and mass murder thousands of Americans in Pearl Harbor just because their weapons were all duds? Surely, they won’t try again?

As said, succeeding is not a component of the matter. If you make a real attempt to do grave harm, whether your plan was any good or whether your execution was successful is irrelevant. You’re still a bad actor who could come back the next day, and you now know more about what does and doesn’t work.

I assume that you don’t care if the Russians made a concerted, military attack to change the political regime in America, either because you like that regime or because you think they failed to have any effect. But neither of those is an argument that the Russians didn’t attack us, they’re just arguments that you don’t care about others or the country, so long as it all works to your benefit. “Because I’m an asshole, it’s alright.” Is not a reasonable argument.

And like I said, the instant that it’s out there that everyone’s free to muck around in American politics with impunity, your ability to continue to expect things to turn out your way are going to be severely reduced. You may like Russia’s view of the world. But are you also going to like China’s and Iran’s, and everyone else who has a benefit to seeing America fall and burn?

26

I think the thread title makes an incorrect assumption about the direction Putin is facing when Donald is on his knees.

But let’s see, why would a man in this position
[ul]
[li]Refuse to ever criticise Putin for anything[/li][li]Refuse to enforce sanctions placed overwhelmingly by Congress[/li][li]Refuse to take any action to ensure that Russia does not interfere in 2018 of 2020.[/li][li]Have his son in law seek to have a direct connection to the Kremlin[/li][li]Cover up the reason for the famous Tower meeting in June 2016[/li][li]Actively seek to undermine NATO[/li][li]Start trade wars with countries hostile to Russia[/li][li]Have Russians enter the Oval Office with no American journalist present but invite Russian journalists[/li][li]Reveal secret intelligence to Russians during said Oval Office meeting[/li][/ul]

With Donald, whenever it isn’t racism or misogyny, it boils down to money. He’s in debt up to his asshole to Russian strongmen and Putin has promised forgiveness in exchange for controlling the White House.

27

I stopped reading at here is how you compare in the first sentence of your post. So nice job wasting your time writing the rest of this which I will never read.

You are unhinged. Oh, and btw, after last week, Trumps approval rating actually went up according to the latest wsj/NBC news poll. People like you are why.

28

This is a formal warning for personal insults in IMHO. If you haven’t read the board rules, you need to do so soon, and remember them, or your time here will be short.

RickJay
Moderator

29

He was required to do so by law, and the sales have consisted of some anti-tank weapons and a bunch of ash and trash. Call me when we see an array of weaponry provided.

Trump had two brief moment of — and opinions on this vary – either wanting to swing his dick around the Middle East for a second or two, or actually having some empathy for children who were gassed by the client state of Russia. Tens of thousands of innocent people have been killed, and many more run from their houses, and Trump’s policy is to guarantee that Syria remain under a strongman murderer and in the orbit of Russia. That is weakness in the face of Russia, my friend, not strength.

The U.S. buildup of military forces in Eastern Europe was totally an Obama initiative to shore up NATO. Trump has undermined this effort to shore up NATO – not by withdrawing the troops, but by casually saying that it doesn’t make any sense for these Americans to fight for the alliance depending on which country Russia invades first. Again, this is weakness, not strength.

30

You are wise, sir. Truly, you have convinced me that a military operation seeking regime change was not an attack on our country. :dubious:

31

I don’t think you’re grasping what I’m saying which is probably my fault and my attempts at insulting you don’t help either. Sorry, Sage.

32

As far as I understand your view, it’s that one cannot compare nor consider the difference between military missions against the homeland by enemy states and groups, because to do so is “crazy”.

Is that not what you are saying?

I’ll accept that there’s no value in reading such comparisons if they are, de facto, crazy.

Make your argument for why comparing military missions to dissuade the United States from its legal right to sovereign self-determination is an unreasonable and impossible feat.

33

Still amazing that the Clinton’s paid a law firm, who hired a political pr company, which consulted with a British foreign national, who obtained info about Trump from Russian Intelligence officials and passed this garbage to the top levels of the US Gov sparkin a now 2 year investigation.

Is this Russian interference?

34

Hmm, an interesting question. Before we delve into it too deeply, I think we might spend a little time on the equally important question of whether what you describe actually happened.

For example, was the information “garbage”, was it passed to the “top levels” of the U.S. government, was it passed at the direction of Trump’s opponent (or members of her campaign), and did that information prompt the investigation into Trump? I’m not satisfied that you’re correct about any of those things.

Additionally, I don’t see any suggestion that the info was planted at the direction of the Russian government, which would seem to be a necessary element of Russian interference.

Was this Russian interference? I’m gonna have to say ‘no’.

35

Paying a person per hour, who happens to be a foreigner, to go ask people questions in a foreign land can, obviously, be compared to accepting stolen property from an enemy government on a quid-pro-quo basis. Just as you can compare and contrast almost anything. But having done that comparison, I have no particular worry that Hillary Clinton would have been in debt to Christopher Steele nor felt need to cover up that she’d paid a third party to do investigative work against her opponent. A person who made a deal with agents of the Russian government, covered it up, and still won’t tell us what specific deal was made - that does worry me. The power of a foreign nation state to interfere with an election is massive, and what they might ask a greedy person to do is potentially vast - like giving them the Ukraine - which is effectively selling several million people into tyranny for personal gain. I feel reasonable certain that the moral questions around that do not compare favorably to a contracted payment to a professional, third party detective.

I’ve now analyzed your comparison.

Did you want to go back and read mine?

36

The investigation was also sparked by a drunk Trump aide telling the ambassador of a close ally that Russians were giving dirt on Clinton to his campaign. Did you forget about that?

37

Exactly the point. Trump has a clear optics problem regarding his relationship with Russia. Any normal politician would do everything that he can to distance himself from Russia, and avoid giving any impression of favoritism or collusion. But Trump only acts against Russia when pushed kicking a screaming, and continues to make comments and take actions that make him look guilty. As a clear example consider the meeting with Putin. Everyone of his advisers told him it was a bad idea to meet alone. But he did it anyway, the only conclusion is that the need for him to speak confidentially with Putin away from any witnesses was worth the obvious political fallout of such a move. As an analogy, there is nothing inherently wrong with a priest meeting with a chiorboy alone in his office but if said priest is fighting allegations of pedophilia and despite being advised otherwise still insists on conducting such interviews alone with the door closed. There is something fishy going on.

38

Yup, still doing it.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Ed Royce (R-CA) penned a letter to Trump on Thursday stressing the urgency of the sanctions deadline — which Trump has missed by more than a month.