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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2017 22:32:49 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2017 12:01:13 GMT -5
maxinquaye, you're all European and stuff. Is it your impression this is the prevailing view of Trump over there? Are there (legitimate) publications/factions defending him or putting out a more optimistic view, from what you've seen? poetinahat, I'm also curious about Down Under.
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Post by maxinquaye on May 27, 2017 12:16:10 GMT -5
I’m kind of glad we got the warring out of our system, to be honest. We were quite good at it, and we entered into the fray with eagerness and gusto. It also led to us blowing up our own continent, with us still on it, twice. So, yeah, I’m glad we got the warring thing out of our system.
Germany has the least will to war these days. It is quite understandable why. When the whole world converges on your borders to beat you down, you’re doing something wrong. I’m glad the Germans realized this, and stopped it. Now, they don’t even want to think about war, and prevaricate endlessly. If there only was a way to remove the pressure for Germany to “step up”…. This is the bit that worries me.
If Germany is EXTREMELY reluctant to commit troops to anything, France still likes a good old war now and then. They’ve been fighting one since the noughties in their former colonies in Africa. From Mauritania in the West to the Sudan in the East, there’s a belt that cuts right across Northern Africa called the Sahel.
If there is an Anglosphere, which I doubt because I can't see a scenario where Kenya or Zimbabwe would ever invite British troops to fight for it, there is most definitely a Francosphere that regularly invite French troops to defend it
Reading the English speaking press, you'd be surprised to learn that the French aren't standing in queue to surrender to everyone, though. One of the first things Emmanuel Macron did after he was inaugurated as President of the Republic was to visit Mali.
France has at least five thousand troops In the Sahel. It most likely has double that with French Foreign Legion troops, and allied troops under its command. Add to this the regular troops of the nations who invite the French to fight. It’s a big fight. A medium sized war, suitably far away from the French so that they can feel a bit of jingoistic pride about “the boys doing good work”.
The latest big French adventure was rescuing the government of Mali from a combination of Tuareg and Jihadist rebels that swept down from the north in 2013. They’ve now been pushed back, and the Tuaregs have grown weary of their own allies, so they’re holding back for now.
One does well to remind oneself, occasionally, that the reason France has been so badly hit by terrorism has nothing to do with being "against French values of secularism". It's more down-to-Earth than that - the Jihadists want France to pull its troops back from Africa. By hitting France, they hope to achieve what they achieved in Spain, to break France away, and force it to take its troops home.
Anyway, France likes a good war, even though they’re rarely credited for fighting any. And now, here’s Germany with a problem. They must be seen to “step up”, but they don’t want to get involved in any fighting. Because history. But their neighbor and pal to the west does like war. So, why not pay the French to fight wars? Why not just make France the back-bone of the European fighting force?
And that’s what worries me. France is SO interventionist. And France is SO focused on its own Francosphere, that it could neglect more important zones, like the Baltics or Eastern Europe. It might want to go play in Africa while Putin masses on Europe’s eastern border. And all this on the German dime.
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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2017 12:24:54 GMT -5
I can imagine how Europe's repeated first-hand experience with the devastation of war would dramatically affect their take on military intervention.
Really, we've never experienced that in the U.S., unless you count what we did ourselves in the 1860s.
But in Europe, hell, whole cities were reduced to rubble. The Nazis and Russians have both overrun the continent. (Poor little Baltic states -- I especially worry about them -- I see them nervously looking over their shoulder.)
It's way easier for Americans to pound our chests and bellow for more weaponry and military action.
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Post by maxinquaye on May 27, 2017 12:27:53 GMT -5
maxinquaye, you're all European and stuff. Is it your impression this is the prevailing view of Trump over there? Are there (legitimate) publications/factions defending him or putting out a more optimistic view, from what you've seen? poetinahat, I'm also curious about Down Under. Trump is widely detested, but I think this article goes too far. It's not for us to choose your leaders, and we should certainly not advocate regime change with yous. We will reserve the right to deal with your choice though.
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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2017 12:39:10 GMT -5
maxinquaye , you're all European and stuff. Is it your impression this is the prevailing view of Trump over there? Are there (legitimate) publications/factions defending him or putting out a more optimistic view, from what you've seen? poetinahat , I'm also curious about Down Under. Trump is widely detested, but I think this article goes too far. It's not for us to choose your leaders, and we should certainly not advocate regime change with yous. We will reserve the right to deal with your choice though. Your take seems about right to me. As much as I dislike Trump, I was astounded at how far the magazine took its tone. I agree with you -- Europe can't pick our leaders and shouldn't advocate their overthrow. That said, it worries me greatly that our allies have this view of our leader.
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Post by maxinquaye on May 27, 2017 13:47:01 GMT -5
Haha, yeah. Let's not go there. Things are complicated enough as they are. Though I took a guilty of teasing an obnoxious Trump supporter into expressing admiration for Angela Merkel before he knew I meant her. Most people don't know it, her having been crowned the liberal Saviour of the West, but Merkel is a conservative leading a conservative party. It's just that Christian Democracy is a more collectivist conservatism.
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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2017 13:59:29 GMT -5
I admit to occasionally being guilty of this particular form of trolling at social events, especially when I'm in a bad mood and people are being both ignorant and self-righteous.
E.g., I'll truthfully describe a policy, person, or action without flagging it/them as coming from the liberal or conservative side.
It's really fun to tease them into expressing enthusiastic approval or condemnation -- and then watch them backtrack when they realize they've accidentally backed the "wrong side."
Really, I only do it when I am pretty sure I have a world-class hypocrite on my hands who needs something to think about.
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Post by robeiae on May 27, 2017 15:46:53 GMT -5
maxinquaye , you're all European and stuff. Is it your impression this is the prevailing view of Trump over there? Are there (legitimate) publications/factions defending him or putting out a more optimistic view, from what you've seen? poetinahat , I'm also curious about Down Under. Well, my college-age daughter just returned from her first year in Scotland and I can tell you that there's no one there really defending him at all. Her classmates are from all over Europe, as well, and they all tend to see Trump as both joke and a potential danger. Of course, none of them even own Lynyrd Skynyrd's Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd...
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Post by maxinquaye on May 28, 2017 8:25:04 GMT -5
Scotland is a special place in the Trumposphere. They had to deal with the Trump undiluted by PR and political considerations. It was a bad experience all around, and it awoke in many Scots their particular brand of voluble piss-taking.
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Post by Deleted on May 28, 2017 9:58:26 GMT -5
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Post by maxinquaye on May 28, 2017 11:03:47 GMT -5
The bluntness of her statement surprised me. Merkel is popular in Germany because she represents boring, dependable, no-knee-jerk stability. She observes, calculates, and then makes some minimal intervention to correct some detail in the margins of a process. She’s not one for big moves.
This infuriates a lot of people in the political cliques, but Germans seem to like it. No change, no upsets, no disruption. She gets away with it. Even her one big move, taking in all those refugees, have been explained in this fashion of stability, except in a European sense rather than a strictly German one.
So, for her to say this in front of 2000 beer drinkers in Bavaria is pretty big. Donnie must have REALLY pissed her off during their meetings in Italy and at NATO.
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Post by Deleted on May 28, 2017 11:19:15 GMT -5
The bluntness of her statement surprised me. Merkel is popular in Germany because she represents boring, dependable, no-knee-jerk stability. She observes, calculates, and then makes some minimal intervention to correct some detail in the margins of a process. She’s not one for big moves. This infuriates a lot of people in the political cliques, but Germans seem to like it. No change, no upsets, no disruption. She gets away with it. Even her one big move, taking in all those refugees, have been explained in this fashion of stability, except in a European sense rather than a strictly German one. So, for her to say this in front of 2000 beer drinkers in Bavaria is pretty big. Donnie must have REALLY pissed her off during their meetings in Italy and at NATO. That was also how it struck me. It would be a strong statement coming out of anyone, but out of Merkel... I am deeply dismayed. But not at Merkel. She needs to consider her country's interest. And while I wish I could disagree with her, I don't.
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Post by robeiae on May 28, 2017 15:27:36 GMT -5
Meh. I'm not sure why it's a big deal to disagree with her. Trump has been President for less than a year. He may be President for another 3+ years (he also may not). Merkel's "Europeans" (not Germans) have been free to take their destiny into their own hands for over 50+ years, to say "to hell with you America."
I'm not impressed at all by her or by what she said. Why should I be? European exceptionalism is just as flawed a point of view as American exceptionalism.
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Post by Deleted on May 28, 2017 17:51:43 GMT -5
You are not at all troubled that one of our staunchest allies is pretty much writing us off? That our long-time allies are eyeing us with suspicion while our president chums it up with Putin and Duterte?
Yes. Well. I am. Especially because it is someone like the extremely cautious Merkel saying this.
Let's put it this way -- I just got an IRS audit notice, and I am still more worried about Trump than the notice.
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