Re: OT: Cracking Speech by JDV!

On 22/02/2025 11:55 pm, Bill Sloman wrote:

On 15/02/2025 5:03 am, Cursitor Doom wrote:

As the Munich conference today wound up, JDV gave a *cracking* speech,
telling Europe they'd have to fund their own defense for a change.

 By which he means that they should buy more US military equipment, rather than building more of their own
 

Plus he also warned them not to cancel elections that don't go their
way (as happened recently in Romania). I read this as also as a hint
not to undermine the integrity of the German elections coming up
shortly where the 'far right' AFD party are expected to do very well.
For once - once! - a politician makes a speech I actually enjoyed!
Trump and JDV have really hit the ground running and are making good
on all their pre-election commitments. Fantastic!

 The international reaction, to some extent also driven by Trump's attempt to couple securing peace in Ukraine with him extorting loads of rare earth mineral from the Ukraine to cover the money that the US has so far spent on supporting the the Ukraine against Russia, does seem to be that the US under Trump has backed off from supporting it's allies and is going over to trying to extort all they can from them.
 It's international relations as a protection racket, with Putin as Trump's enforcer.
 The speech is starting to look more like a calculated exercise exercise in intimidation, and the appropriate response would probably have been defenestration.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestration

Zelensky doesn't seem to have been sufficiently intimidated. He didn't kow-tow enthusiastically enough during the "negotiations" in the White House and Trump had him thrown out. Trump and Vance seem to have mastered obnoxiousness, but actual intimidation seems to be more than they can manage.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney