Yes, Trump Pulled a Bait-and-Switch, but That Doesn't Mean Kamala Would Have Been a Better Choice

[Matthew]

3 hours ago, User said:

Ukraine is not a "client state" of the US.

Of course it is. They are militarily dependent on the US. One of the main reasons for invading Ukraine was to stop it from further slipping out of their control and into US tutelage.

3 hours ago, User said:

Our nation does not have a sudden disinterest in being opposed to Russian imperialism. 

Yes it does. Your Trump diplomats and VP have signaled that this Russian conquest will be appeased (by conceding up front all of Russias demands) and have signaled to Europeans that their security vs Russia does not currently matter to the US (by attending their Munich security conference and diverting attention away from Russia and toward alleged internal enemies etc).

[CdnFox]

3 hours ago, User said:

OK, so your entire argument boils down to you don't like what Trump is currently doing with Ukraine. Nothing you said quantitatively shows how NATO is actually any weaker. 

 

I think it would depend a little bit on how you're defining weaker. They don't have any less guns planes or material than they did last month, and arguably after learning lessons from the conflict in Ukraine over the last few years they're probably at a fairly high strength level all things considered. And trump has encouraged additional spending which many have risen to even from his first administration so I would suspect as a actual force it's probably more combat ready than it's been in a little while.

But trump is a destabilizing force as far as the organization goes. Members of NATO are going to start doubting their ally. There's already talk  about reducing America's influence in NATO if necessary going it alone. I'm not sure if the united states called on NATO for something that wasn't an invasion of their territory whether or not NATO would respond as quickly as it has in the past for cases like Afghanistan or Iraq or the other Iraq, Etc

From that perspective it's a little weaker right now. Not a lot yet. But they're definitely going to be watching what trump does with Russia and it may very well start to destabilize that alliance

[User]

33 minutes ago, Matthew said:

Of course it is. They are militarily dependent on the US. One of the main reasons for invading Ukraine was to stop it from further slipping out of their control and into US tutelage.

That is not the meaning of client state, if that is the case, literally almost every country in the world is a "client state" and the term is meaningless. 

They are only dependent on us as much as we have made it that way in the last few years. 

34 minutes ago, Matthew said:

Yes it does. Your Trump diplomats and VP have signaled that this Russian conquest will be appeased (by conceding up front all of Russias demands) and have signaled to Europeans that their security vs Russia does not currently matter to the US (by attending their Munich security conference and diverting attention away from Russia and toward alleged internal enemies etc).

Again, this is an outright lie and distortion. No one has stated that "russian conquest will be appeased"

Hegseth and others have been meeting with NATO and stating our support for NATO and Hegseth even said the magical words I think you were going all nuts about Trump not saying. 

You are just making crap up. 

[User]

36 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

But trump is a destabilizing force as far as the organization goes.

How? How is he a destabilizing force?

36 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

There's already talk  about reducing America's influence in NATO if necessary going it alone.

What talk? By who?

 

[Matthew]

41 minutes ago, User said:

That is not the meaning of client state

It is. Being poltically, economically, or militarily dependent on a more powerful state. And yes the US is a global hegemon with many many client states, and yes the US has worked to "make it that way" since WWII. For someone as interested in politics as you are it's hard to believe you've never learned about the basic post war international order.

51 minutes ago, User said:

No one has stated that "russian conquest will be appeased"

Are you trying to be austistic? When we start the negotiations by saying Russia will get to keep what they conquered AND that NATO membership is off the table. That's not just absolute appeasement but also absolute victory and vindication for Putin.

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, User said:

How? How is he a destabilizing force?

It's very simple. Most of the members of NATO agreed that russian aggression in the Ukraine had to be countered and that is a policy they would not reward any efforts to take over new land By conquest and this has been the agreed upon policy with regard to Ukraine.

Trump is upsetting that apple cart and doing so in a way that specifically says I don't care about my allies and in fact I may be supporting our allies enemy in this particular regard without discussing it with them or letting them know where he's going with this. 

That is massively disabilizing. That creates doubt and uncertainty, hit erodes trust, it will have NATO members wondering if maybe they should be more focused on going it alone in the future or if trump is going to start siding with putin etc. 

You can change your position as a country of course, but not without consulting and advising your allies first.  if you don't do that it's very destabilizing. 

And if we're being serious i think you knew that without me having to tell you. Lets not do the sealioning thing. You may well agree with Trump's position that ukraine is the aggressor in this war but what i said is still absolutely correct and that should be pretty obvious. 

[User]

Just now, CdnFox said:

It's very simple. Most of the members of NATO agreed that russian aggression in the Ukraine had to be countered and that is a policy they would not reward any efforts to take over new land By conquest and this has been the agreed upon policy with regard to Ukraine.

I have seen no such agreement. 

2 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Trump is upsetting that apple cart and doing so in a way that specifically says I don't care about my allies and in fact I may be supporting our allies enemy in this particular regard without discussing it with them or letting them know where he's going with this. 

Trump has been very vocal about this and with NATO allies about his actions and why. There is no secret here. He has also made his expectations of NATO clear and what he wants them to do. Where do you get there is no discussion with them?

3 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

And if we're being serious i think you knew that without me having to tell you. Lets not do the sealioning thing. You may well agree with Trump's position that ukraine is the aggressor in this war but what i said is still absolutely correct and that should be pretty obvious. 

No sea lioning here, I simply don't believe anything you are saying. You have a track record for just asserting things and not defending them with facts, evidence, or reason. 

 

[CdnFox]

4 minutes ago, User said:

I have seen no such agreement. 

 

Then you are willfully blind and I have no interest in educating someone that is decided to be stupid. Go read virtually any of the previous press releases from any of the leaders of the NATO countries with regards to Putin.  Including america's for that matter. 

 

Quote

Trump has been very vocal about this and with NATO allies about his actions and why. There is no secret here. He has also made his expectations of NATO clear and what he wants them to do. Where do you get there is no discussion with them?

That is absolutely not true. And in fact there are still secrets here. Is allies have not been told what he's discussing in detail with putin or what his targets are objectives are. All they know is that suddenly out of the blue without warning trump who has never referred to ukraine is the aggressor before or zelensky as a dictator suddenly and without discussion or warning has come out strongly on Putin's side and has declared that he's going to try and put an end to the war on his own.

Show me one trump interview or quote prior to his election where he said ukraine was the aggressor or that putin was right to invade becasue they started the war, or that zelenzki is a dictator. 

He came out of the blue and just said that without warning. That is in fact not communicating with your allies

Hell he still hasn't even discussed the process with them or what will be involved. 

Ukraine and Europe worry about being sidelined as Trump pushes direct talks with Russia on war's end | AP News

 

Quote

No sea lioning here, I simply don't believe anything you are saying. You have a track record for just asserting things and not defending them with facts, evidence, or reason. 

You have a track record for blatantly lying when you don't like the truth. And I have defended this with facts reason and there is plenty of evidence. Even now the allies are speaking out against what trump is doing

You are so weak-minded it is pathetic. I watch others beat you up on a regular basis and you always fall back on the same nonsense as you have done with me in the past. You don't like someone talking negatively about trump even when it's true so you have a hissy fit and start losing all your reason the moment someone Casts doubt on what he's doing even a bit.

I have said numerous times that trump was the best choice in the election but that he is still significantly flawed. You can't even cope with that simple fact

Deny the truth all you want but it doesn't stop it from being true and it doesn't stop you for being a m)ron for doing it. In the meantime trump is destabilizing the NATO relationship. His actions are not cohesive and it may very well be that the solution he comes up with is not agreed on by NATO and we may see a schism. That is not a good thing

[WestCanMan]

48 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Ukraine and Europe worry about being sidelined as Trump pushes direct talks with Russia on war's end | AP News

This part made me laugh.

It's hilarious that Ukraine and the other European countries (the major NATO players at least) wanted nothing to do with peace talks, and suddenly when Trump starts having peace talks they all want to be a part of it.

What a bunch of two-faced a-holes.

It's all just politicians who wanted to puff up their chests and boast about their war efforts, but then also want to be part of the glad-handing and the photo ops at the peace talks. 

They can all go to hell. 

Here's another good one:

Not only is France synonymous with surrendering, Macron is famous for selling out his own country. 

[CdnFox]

14 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

This part made me laugh.

It's hilarious that Ukraine and the other European countries (the major NATO players at least) wanted nothing to do with peace talks, and suddenly when Trump starts having peace talks they all want to be a part of it.

What a bunch of two-faced a-holes.

It's all just politicians who wanted to puff up their chests and boast about their war efforts, but then also want to be part of the glad-handing and the photo ops at the peace talks. 

They can all go to hell. 

Here's another good one:

Not only is France synonymous with surrendering, Macron is famous for selling out his own country. 

There's no doubt that there was no peace initiative in the last 3 years, but it's a safe bet that the allies talked about that a little bit. There were rumblings about it, there were suggestions that ones would be starting soon and then they seem to fall apart etc so they were discussing it.

Now don't get me wrong, if trump feels he can negotiate a piece that's successful and works for everybody then more power to him but it is wrong to cut out those allies entirely and sideline them. Like it or not they've actually collectively spent more money than the united states on the war And it is beyond unreasonable for trump to say to them that they should be bearing more of the burden and that they're the ones at risk so it should be them leading the charge and then turn around and cut them out of any negotiations.

That creates instability and instability is not good especially when it's not necessary.

Now as you know I am perfectly well aware of and appointed out trump's favorite negotiating technique is to create massive amounts of confusion and instability before beginning negotiations and maybe this is all part and parcel of some grand scheme to that effect. But my comment was that it is destabilizing for NATO and that statement is still absolutely true.

[WestCanMan]

43 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

There's no doubt that there was no peace initiative in the last 3 years, but it's a safe bet that the allies talked about that a little bit. There were rumblings about it, there were suggestions that ones would be starting soon and then they seem to fall apart etc so they were discussing it.

Now don't get me wrong, if trump feels he can negotiate a piece that's successful and works for everybody then more power to him but it is wrong to cut out those allies entirely and sideline them. Like it or not they've actually collectively spent more money than the united states on the war And it is beyond unreasonable for trump to say to them that they should be bearing more of the burden and that they're the ones at risk so it should be them leading the charge and then turn around and cut them out of any negotiations.

That creates instability and instability is not good especially when it's not necessary.

Now as you know I am perfectly well aware of and appointed out trump's favorite negotiating technique is to create massive amounts of confusion and instability before beginning negotiations and maybe this is all part and parcel of some grand scheme to that effect. But my comment was that it is destabilizing for NATO and that statement is still absolutely true.

I heard about peace talks, but never anything from European gov'ts or the Biden administration, and the most significant gesture I saw from Zelensky regarding peace talks was him signing a formal request to join NATO. 

For people who were RAH! RAH! RAH! about war, the flip-flop from all these warmongers might be ok, but I really don't give a sh1t how Microbe, Scholtz and Keir Starmer???

<- He looks just as surprised as me to find out who the British PM is...

but I really don't give a sh1t how Microbe, Scholz and Keir Starmer feel about the whole peace process. They were never about peace, so I really don't think their participation will be advantageous.

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, WestCanMan said:

I heard about peace talks, but never anything from European gov'ts or the Biden administration, and the most significant gesture I saw from Zelensky regarding peace talks was him signing a formal request to join NATO. 

For people who were RAH! RAH! RAH! about war, the flip-flop from all these warmongers might be ok, but I really don't give a sh1t how Microbe, Scholtz and Keir Starmer???

<- He looks just as surprised as me to find out who the British PM is...

but I really don't give a sh1t how Microbe, Scholz and Keir Starmer feel about the whole peace process. They were never about peace, so I really don't think their participation will be advantageous.

I don't know that you can make that statement. First off he talks would normally be between the two combatants. You would expect russia and ukraine to be the ones initiating and making those discussions. It would normally be pretty inappropriate for others to do so. Which doesn't mean there's not a ton of things going on behind the scenes.

I think Russia has big clear on numerous occasions that they are not interested in sitting down and talking about peace, or certainly weren't during the first two years so I'm not sure anyone felt there was a lot of room to do anything. Especially in light of the fact that he ruled out returning any land and made a number of conditional statements that simply wouldn't have been accepted at the time. But just like we saw in the middle east I suspect that there's a lot of envoys talking to their counterparts behind the scenes looking to see if there's an opportunity

You can say you don't care but the reality is is they could very well cause this war to drag out every bit as much without the US. Europe has already put more money in than the US and they might very well be willing to up their game and allow the conflict to continue regardless of what the US negotiates. So may be the ukrainians for that matter

You don't get solutions by excluding people who have an interest at the table. 

But the point really wasn't about negotiations, it was that the way he's going about it to stabilizes Nato. Now it's perfectly fair to say you don't care about NATO, it's even fair to say that in your opinion stability will return once the conflict is over if you feel you can make that case. But it is to stabilize it, it's got nATO allies questioning the motives and resolve of one of their partners and it casts into doubt the value of that relationship. A relationship that America has benefited from many times in the last 30 years.

Instability in a military alliance is not a great thing. If he doesn't have a plan to manage that he will have done harm to that alliance

[WestCanMan]

2 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

I don't know that you can make that statement. First off he talks would normally be between the two combatants. You would expect russia and ukraine to be the ones initiating and making those discussions. It would normally be pretty inappropriate for others to do so. Which doesn't mean there's not a ton of things going on behind the scenes.

I think Russia has big clear on numerous occasions that they are not interested in sitting down and talking about peace, or certainly weren't during the first two years so I'm not sure anyone felt there was a lot of room to do anything. Especially in light of the fact that he ruled out returning any land and made a number of conditional statements that simply wouldn't have been accepted at the time. But just like we saw in the middle east I suspect that there's a lot of envoys talking to their counterparts behind the scenes looking to see if there's an opportunity

You can say you don't care but the reality is is they could very well cause this war to drag out every bit as much without the US. Europe has already put more money in than the US and they might very well be willing to up their game and allow the conflict to continue regardless of what the US negotiates. So may be the ukrainians for that matter

You don't get solutions by excluding people who have an interest at the table. 

But the point really wasn't about negotiations, it was that the way he's going about it to stabilizes Nato. Now it's perfectly fair to say you don't care about NATO, it's even fair to say that in your opinion stability will return once the conflict is over if you feel you can make that case. But it is to stabilize it, it's got nATO allies questioning the motives and resolve of one of their partners and it casts into doubt the value of that relationship. A relationship that America has benefited from many times in the last 30 years.

Instability in a military alliance is not a great thing. If he doesn't have a plan to manage that he will have done harm to that alliance

This whole thousand days plus has been entirely about waving the Ukrainian flag and denigrating Russians 24/7. 

The entire world has been piling on Russia this whole time and treating Ukraine like a prodigal son returned. 

There was NO talk of peace. None. Everything was about bad Russia, good Ukraine, blah, blah, blah. There are even posters here who were saying that there were never any peace talks just a couple weeks ago. They talked like Russia had no interest in it.

The need for peace simply WAS NOT a part of the public discourse, and western leaders were simply NEVER talking about it. They just pimped the need for weapons and funding all. the. time. 

Dude, I lived here through the war. All anyone in the MSM ever talked about was more weapons, bad Russia, and Zelensky the Brave.

 

IMO, the people who had no interest in peace, don't get a seat at the big boy table. At this point I really couldn't give a f what Macron, Scholtz and Spuzzum think. 

[CdnFox]

14 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

This whole thousand days plus has been entirely about waving the Ukrainian flag and denigrating Russians 24/7. 

The entire world has been piling on Russia this whole time and treating Ukraine like a prodigal son returned. 

The perception the vast majority people have is that Russia invaded their neighbor for the purposes of conquest. I know you feel differently but I think you have to admit that a reasonable man could possibly come to a different conclusion than you have. No matter how you slice it Russia did send the tanks across the border. I mean we've been piling on Gaza too because of what happened on October 7th. And they poured a ton of money into resisting the advances of the "Bad guy". Nobody's going to say sure we put in 230 billion dollars to fight him but you know, that Putin isn't such a bad guy  

14 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

The need for peace simply WAS NOT a part of the public discourse, and western leaders were simply NEVER talking about it.

That's actually not true. There were a number of times when efforts were made to get the two sides talking. This was reported in the papers. There were a number of rounds of peace talks. 

Peace negotiations in the Russian invasion of Ukraine - Wikipedia

There have been several rounds of peace talks to halt the Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022–present) and end the Russo-Ukrainian War (2014–present). The first meeting was held four days after the start of the invasion, on 28 February 2022, in Belarus. It concluded without result.^[1] A second and third round of talks took place on 3 and 7 March 2022^[2][3] on the Belarus–Ukraine border.^[4] A fourth and fifth round of talks were held on 10 and 14 March in Antalya, Turkey.^[5][6]

The negotiations in Turkey produced the Istanbul Communiqué. It proposed that Ukraine end its plans to eventually join NATO, have limits placed on its military, and would have obliged Western countries to help Ukraine in case of aggression against it. The talks almost reached agreement, with both sides considering "far-reaching concessions", but stopped in May 2022, due to several factors, including the Bucha massacre.^[7] Following the 2022 Ukrainian eastern counteroffensive, Russia renewed calls for peace talks, but Russian government sources suggested that Putin was not truly committed to peace and was simply stalling for time while its forces trained and replenished for a future advance.^[8]

As of 2024, Ukraine's peace terms are that Russia withdraw its troops, that its leaders be prosecuted for war crimes, and that Ukraine have security guarantees. Russia's terms are that Russia must be allowed to keep all the land it occupies, that it also be given all of the provinces that it claims but does not fully control, and that Ukraine end plans to join NATO.

Now I have been criticalIn the past and still am of the fact that biden chose to support this war with absolutely no stated resolution or off-ramp or goal. It was just we will keep fighting till we don't have to fight anymore or whatever that is whatever that looks like. And I think that's very wrong and led to the dribble of supplies which steadily increased over time rather than providing enough supplies right from day one to achieve whatever the heck their objective was. He should have had a state of goal or a stated path everything he did should have been to move towards those ends and that's not what happened

Trump at least is very clear that his stated goal is to put it into the war as a primary consideration.

But you can't say there weren't efforts at peace prior to this

Edited February 22 by CdnFox

[Hodad]

20 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

This whole thousand days plus has been entirely about waving the Ukrainian flag and denigrating Russians 24/7. 

The entire world has been piling on Russia this whole time and treating Ukraine like a prodigal son returned. 

There was NO talk of peace. None. Everything was about bad Russia, good Ukraine, blah, blah, blah. There are even posters here who were saying that there were never any peace talks just a couple weeks ago. They talked like Russia had no interest in it.

The need for peace simply WAS NOT a part of the public discourse, and western leaders were simply NEVER talking about it. They just pimped the need for weapons and funding all. the. time. 

Dude, I lived here through the war. All anyone in the MSM ever talked about was more weapons, bad Russia, and Zelensky the Brave.

 

IMO, the people who had no interest in peace, don't get a seat at the big boy table. At this point I really couldn't give a f what Macron, Scholtz and Spuzzum think. 

That's not a big boy table. It's a milking table, and Trump is thirsty.

[WestCanMan]

15 hours ago, CdnFox said:

But you can't say there weren't efforts at peace prior to this

I didn't say that there weren't peace efforts before this. I absolutely understand that there were peace talks. 

I was the one telling all the leftards here that peace talks even happened.

They didn't believe me: they thought Russia had only been interested in taking over Ukraine that whole time. That's because that's what CNN was telling them. 

But as far as "other countries talking about peace" is concerned, there weren't efforts at peace prior to this from the US, France, Britain or Germany. it was China talking about being the peace-broker, and then Turkey, etc. 

Biden wasn't talking about peace or the need for peace at all. Joe Biden was all about more and more war. Biden was busy blowing up pipelines and blaming it on Russia. What kind of peace-effort is that?

CNN, CBC, CTV et al talked about peace in Ukraine as much as they talked about peace with covid-19. 

Edited February 22 by WestCanMan

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

I didn't say that there weren't peace efforts before this. I absolutely understand that there were peace talks. 

I was the one telling all the leftards here that peace talks even happened.

They didn't believe me: they thought Russia had only been interested in taking over Ukraine that whole time. That's because that's what CNN was telling them. 

Yes, well i think we're too good of friends for you to be comparing me to the intellectual level of a leftie   But point taken, i misunderstood your meaning then. 

2 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

But as far as "other countries talking about peace" is concerned, there weren't efforts at peace prior to this from the US, France, Britain or Germany. it was China talking about being the peace-broker, and then Turkey, etc. 

I suspect they would have been involved quietly behind the scenes, as we see with the israel/gaza conflict. But, you're absolutely right that there was nothing like what trump is doing, public calls for peace talks, serious efforts to reach out to the russians, etc. 

2 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

Biden wasn't talking about peace or the need for peace at all. 

True, i'll concede that point. It does touch on or relate to the point i made that he never had a plan for the war, there was never any stated end goal, no 'offramp' model or proposition. No measure of success or failure.  Just "we'll keep writing cheques until ice cream cones! (vanilla!)" It was just "First we fund them, then something will happen and then peace!" With no idea what that something was. 

Reminds me a little of the "underpants gnomes"  from southpark.  "Our plan has three stages. Stage one, steal all underpants.  Then stage two. Stage three is we're rich!" "Ok, what's stage two?" " ummmmm.... does anyone remember what stage 2 was?"

[WestCanMan]

22 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Yes, well i think we're too good of friends for you to be comparing me to the intellectual level of a leftie   But point taken, i misunderstood your meaning then. 

I suspect they would have been involved quietly behind the scenes, as we see with the israel/gaza conflict. But, you're absolutely right that there was nothing like what trump is doing, public calls for peace talks, serious efforts to reach out to the russians, etc. 

True, i'll concede that point. It does touch on or relate to the point i made that he never had a plan for the war, there was never any stated end goal, no 'offramp' model or proposition. No measure of success or failure.  Just "we'll keep writing cheques until ice cream cones! (vanilla!)" It was just "First we fund them, then something will happen and then peace!" With no idea what that something was. 

Reminds me a little of the "underpants gnomes"  from southpark.  "Our plan has three stages. Stage one, steal all underpants.  Then stage two. Stage three is we're rich!" "Ok, what's stage two?" " ummmmm.... does anyone remember what stage 2 was?"

I'm honestly just excited to see an end to that war.

I feel like I might have to become the emperor of planet earth to put an end to all this sh1t.

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, WestCanMan said:

I'm honestly just excited to see an end to that war.

I feel like I might have to become the emperor of planet earth to put an end to all this sh1t.

There was  a famous quote that went something like "peace is a theoretical state who's existence we hypothesize because there are occasionally breaks between wars.    Sadly when it comes to humans conflict is inevitable and if this one is resolved before long a new one will pop up.  But this has gone on long enough. 

at the same time peace can't come "at any price".  Ukraine is going to have to give, there's no doubt. They were not strong enough to stop the russians and that's just the way it is. They're very lucky they didn't lose everything.  But they'll need to have real protectons in place for sure to guarantee they don't lose any more in 10 years when russia thinks they see another moment of weakness in the allied leadership.  If they won't bend on that there won't be peace. 

And russia needs peace. If if they don't lose this war they sure as hell didn't win it. Their economy is in tatters, their manpower is badly depleated, their people are suffering and their gold reserves are spent.  Even if sactions and such are lifted tomorrow they're in bad shape and will be for a while.