abelard
Player Valuation: £35m
It's amusing to read this, and then reflect that many voted for Trump because they thought that, contra Obama's relative restraint, the US should instead champion a clear, assertive, moralistic vision on the world stage, spanking the evildoers and rewarding freedom lovers like al-Sisi, Erdogan, Putin, Netanyahu, the Saudis, Duterte, and friends. Let us for once champion the virtues of "the West" with pride (from Poland, where wannabe theocrats are asserting the Western duty to fire the independent judiciary the Deep State), and let us take extreme umbrage at the enemies within who dare suggest we stop and think critically about it.
Of course, what was clear long before vote, to anyone who was even trying to use their brains, was that the result would be less 'Gunsmoke' (long a neo-con favourite!), and more the Keystone (World) Cops.
Sure, you wanted to troll us libs, but is it actually all that satisfying when the only really subversive thing about this whole mess is Trump's comic incompetence?
And the bar is so low too. Reagan's brain was also mostly broken, certainly by the second term, but at least with him, the clock stopped on coherent catchphrases, no matter how crude, and he also had people you could talk too. Thankfully, unlike Trump, Reagan's sentimentality erred on the side of peace, and not macho Armageddon, and it's forever to his credit that he ignored the coterie of Team B conspiracy nutters he'd surrounded himself with, and talked to Gorbachev instead.
Anyhow...
https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertonar...ald-trump-is?utm_term=.tyDxbnX19j#.dpvKepAL2o
This Is What European Diplomats Really Think About Donald Trump
"On one level, the officials said, he is something of a laughing stock among Europeans at international gatherings. One revealed that a small group of diplomats play a version of word bingo whenever the president speaks because they consider his vocabulary to be so limited. “Everything is ‘great’, ‘very, very great’, ‘amazing’,” the diplomat said
But behind the mocking, there is growing fear among international governments that Trump is a serious threat to international peace and stability.
“He has no historical view. He is only dealing with these issues now, and seems to think the world started when he took office,” a diplomat told BuzzFeed News, pointing to Trump’s remarks and tweets about defence spending. “He thinks that NATO existed only to keep the communists out of Europe. He has a similar attitude in Asia-Pacific with Japan, ignoring that the US basically wrote their constitution.” During his presidential campaign, Trump called out Japan to pay more for the security US provides, including for hosting the US troops in the country. Japan’s constitution restricts its military options.
They also believe Trump’s foreign policy is chiefly driven by an obsession with unravelling Barack Obama’s policies. “It’s his only real position,” one European diplomat said. “He will ask: ‘Did Obama approve this?’ And if the answer is affirmative, he will say: ‘We don’t.’ He won’t even want to listen to the arguments or have a debate. He is obsessed with Obama.”
...
"Another diplomat said it had proved impossible to discuss serious international issues, such as Libya, with Trump. And seven months into his presidency, the European officials say they are still struggling to figure out who else they can engage with in the US administration.
Describing a meeting between their boss and the president as “basically useless,” they said: “He [Trump] just bombed us with questions: ‘How many people do you have? What’s your GDP? How much oil does [that country] produce? How many barrels a day? How much of it is yours?’”
“He’s not the kind of person you can have a discussion about how to deal with [Fayez] al-Sarraj [the prime minister of Libya]," the official added. "So you look for people around him, and that is where it’s a problem: The constant upheaval, it’s unclear who has influence, who is close to the president."
...
The officials revealed that at international meetings, Trump has openly mocked his own aides, contradicting and arguing with them in front of other leaders. That has compounded the impression of an administration in chaos. “We can hear everything, it’s weird,” one diplomat said.
Officials also expressed concerns over the status of the State Department, and the lack of seasoned diplomats and experts within the White House. One diplomat suggested that US counterparts have privately lamented to Europeans about the number of roles in the administration that have yet to be filled resulting in a lack of clear positions on many policy areas.
“The White House lacks crucial expertise,” one said. “The State Department and others are isolated. You have the generals, the National Security Council, and then a void. There aren’t enough diplomats, experts etc. in the White House. [Secretary of state Rex] Tillerson has a small team. Does Trump listen to [James] Mattis [secretary of defence], [H.R.] McMaster [national security adviser], to the experts?”
The officials think only Trump's family members, in particular his daughter Ivanka, really have the president's trust. They described the body language between Trump and Tillerson as “terrible”.
Of course, what was clear long before vote, to anyone who was even trying to use their brains, was that the result would be less 'Gunsmoke' (long a neo-con favourite!), and more the Keystone (World) Cops.
Sure, you wanted to troll us libs, but is it actually all that satisfying when the only really subversive thing about this whole mess is Trump's comic incompetence?
And the bar is so low too. Reagan's brain was also mostly broken, certainly by the second term, but at least with him, the clock stopped on coherent catchphrases, no matter how crude, and he also had people you could talk too. Thankfully, unlike Trump, Reagan's sentimentality erred on the side of peace, and not macho Armageddon, and it's forever to his credit that he ignored the coterie of Team B conspiracy nutters he'd surrounded himself with, and talked to Gorbachev instead.
Anyhow...
https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertonar...ald-trump-is?utm_term=.tyDxbnX19j#.dpvKepAL2o
This Is What European Diplomats Really Think About Donald Trump
"On one level, the officials said, he is something of a laughing stock among Europeans at international gatherings. One revealed that a small group of diplomats play a version of word bingo whenever the president speaks because they consider his vocabulary to be so limited. “Everything is ‘great’, ‘very, very great’, ‘amazing’,” the diplomat said
But behind the mocking, there is growing fear among international governments that Trump is a serious threat to international peace and stability.
“He has no historical view. He is only dealing with these issues now, and seems to think the world started when he took office,” a diplomat told BuzzFeed News, pointing to Trump’s remarks and tweets about defence spending. “He thinks that NATO existed only to keep the communists out of Europe. He has a similar attitude in Asia-Pacific with Japan, ignoring that the US basically wrote their constitution.” During his presidential campaign, Trump called out Japan to pay more for the security US provides, including for hosting the US troops in the country. Japan’s constitution restricts its military options.
They also believe Trump’s foreign policy is chiefly driven by an obsession with unravelling Barack Obama’s policies. “It’s his only real position,” one European diplomat said. “He will ask: ‘Did Obama approve this?’ And if the answer is affirmative, he will say: ‘We don’t.’ He won’t even want to listen to the arguments or have a debate. He is obsessed with Obama.”
...
"Another diplomat said it had proved impossible to discuss serious international issues, such as Libya, with Trump. And seven months into his presidency, the European officials say they are still struggling to figure out who else they can engage with in the US administration.
Describing a meeting between their boss and the president as “basically useless,” they said: “He [Trump] just bombed us with questions: ‘How many people do you have? What’s your GDP? How much oil does [that country] produce? How many barrels a day? How much of it is yours?’”
“He’s not the kind of person you can have a discussion about how to deal with [Fayez] al-Sarraj [the prime minister of Libya]," the official added. "So you look for people around him, and that is where it’s a problem: The constant upheaval, it’s unclear who has influence, who is close to the president."
...
The officials revealed that at international meetings, Trump has openly mocked his own aides, contradicting and arguing with them in front of other leaders. That has compounded the impression of an administration in chaos. “We can hear everything, it’s weird,” one diplomat said.
Officials also expressed concerns over the status of the State Department, and the lack of seasoned diplomats and experts within the White House. One diplomat suggested that US counterparts have privately lamented to Europeans about the number of roles in the administration that have yet to be filled resulting in a lack of clear positions on many policy areas.
“The White House lacks crucial expertise,” one said. “The State Department and others are isolated. You have the generals, the National Security Council, and then a void. There aren’t enough diplomats, experts etc. in the White House. [Secretary of state Rex] Tillerson has a small team. Does Trump listen to [James] Mattis [secretary of defence], [H.R.] McMaster [national security adviser], to the experts?”
The officials think only Trump's family members, in particular his daughter Ivanka, really have the president's trust. They described the body language between Trump and Tillerson as “terrible”.
