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Withdrawal from Syria. The G7 invite. Pulling out of Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty. Attempting to blackmail Ukraine for his own political gains. Ima

by epakai 4y ago

Withdrawal from Syria. The G7 invite. Pulling out of Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty. Attempting to blackmail Ukraine for his own political gains. Imagine they actually complied and were later found out. Even now Ukraine has to fight back against a reputation of corruption, and he was adding fuel to the fire. For your example, the approach of denigrating European allies to get them to pay more fomented division. You might also recall he called for the US to withdraw from NATO. When he still denied Russian activities relating to the election, despite the Mueller report and Senate investigation confirming it, all based on a chat with Putin. When he held water for Putin's claim of Russia not shooting down MH-17 and instead muddied the waters with his doublespeak.

thepasswordis 4y ago
These are extremely thin. I'm not trying to get into a political debate since we could go on forever, but here goes: >Withdrawal from Syria. He withdrew from Syria, and also started the withdrawal process from Afghanistan because he was vocally against engaging the US in forever wars. GOOD. That's hardly a position that supports Russia. >The G7 invite. Again trying to prevent global conflicts. He talked extensively about Russia as a threat to Europe. This is in alignment with his work on things like the Abraham accords (middle east peace) and the work he did on Korean peace deals (which he made massive progress on). >Pulling out of Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty. I don't know anything about this, but pulling the US out of a treaty hardly seems like a legitimate concern unless you want to say the same thing about Obama literally just ignoring the agreement we had with Ukraine that would have obligated us to support them when Russia invaded in 2014. Obama definitely wasn't a "Russian asset" for not starting a war over Ukraine. >Attempting to blackmail Ukraine for his own political gains. This is an absurd overstatement of what happened. Aid was never withheld from Ukraine (unlike the previous administration, which was also not run by Russian assets). Also: anti corruption efforts are hardly "his own political gains" unless you want to frame "anti corruption" as a strictly Trump-aligned idea. >You might also recall he called for the US to withdraw from NATO. Hardly. He said that if European countries weren't going to pay their legally obligated contributions to NATO, then the US wouldn't either. Obviously this is a bargaining technique to get them to uphold their obligations. I fail to see how negotiating to get European countries to increase their defense budgets explicitly to defend against Russia is aligned with Russian interests. >When he still denied Russian activities relating to the election, despite the Mueller report and Senate investigation confirming it Again I think you've been bitten by fake news here, and this highlights, again, the problem: what do you think "Russian activities relating to the election" were? Some memes on 4chan? A few thousand dollars worth of facebook ads? >MH17 MH17 was shot down by Russia during Obama's term, and Obama did nothing. He also continued doing nothing while Russia invaded Ukraine, refusing to even send them weapons. Obama wasn't a Russian asset either. Again: the entire idea of Trump as having anything to do with Russia came from a hoax. That was fake news, and it is still interfering with people's ability to make informed decisions about the US government. It's extremely frustrating.
- epakai 4y ago
  Your stated position of it being a 'hoax' is not a conclusion I could ever reach. Trump's ties to Russia despite being inflated by the news aren't a 'hoax'. His campaign members entanglement in foreign affairs wasn't a 'hoax'. I can agree some of those actions have possible alternative motives, but they are listed because the outcomes Trump encouraged were also favorable outcomes for Russia. You can weight their severity however I guess. I don't know what to say about your denial of the Ukraine blackmail. First you change my answer to being about whether the aid was held instead of the fact that he tried to pressure Ukraine into releasing information about his political opponent. Aside from that it was clear funding was held after the White House initially determined conditions were met. Mick Mulvaney even excused it as Trump being "not a big fan of foreign aid", and claimed Trump said Ukraine was a corrupt place (Oct. 17 2019 press briefing). It doesn't make sense to try and excuse it like this if no aid was withheld. I don't know why bring up Obama as relating the MH-17. Trump's comments were after the investigation that concluded from Dutch authorities, and the conclusion of his own intelligence apparatus. We can write it off as just Trump's style to say words that only benefit a rival, but that just makes him to be rather incompetent as I said before. Still damning. edit: I wrote incorrectly about the Dutch investigation time. That was concluded before the election, not during Trump's term.

by epakai 4y ago

thepasswordis 4y ago

These are extremely thin. I'm not trying to get into a political debate since we could go on forever, but here goes: >Withdrawal from Syria. He withdrew from Syria, and also started the withdrawal process from Afghanistan because he was vocally against engaging the US in forever wars. GOOD. That's hardly a position that supports Russia. >The G7 invite. Again trying to prevent global conflicts. He talked extensively about Russia as a threat to Europe. This is in alignment with his work on things like the Abraham accords (middle east peace) and the work he did on Korean peace deals (which he made massive progress on). >Pulling out of Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty. I don't know anything about this, but pulling the US out of a treaty hardly seems like a legitimate concern unless you want to say the same thing about Obama literally just ignoring the agreement we had with Ukraine that would have obligated us to support them when Russia invaded in 2014. Obama definitely wasn't a "Russian asset" for not starting a war over Ukraine. >Attempting to blackmail Ukraine for his own political gains. This is an absurd overstatement of what happened. Aid was never withheld from Ukraine (unlike the previous administration, which was also not run by Russian assets). Also: anti corruption efforts are hardly "his own political gains" unless you want to frame "anti corruption" as a strictly Trump-aligned idea. >You might also recall he called for the US to withdraw from NATO. Hardly. He said that if European countries weren't going to pay their legally obligated contributions to NATO, then the US wouldn't either. Obviously this is a bargaining technique to get them to uphold their obligations. I fail to see how negotiating to get European countries to increase their defense budgets explicitly to defend against Russia is aligned with Russian interests. >When he still denied Russian activities relating to the election, despite the Mueller report and Senate investigation confirming it Again I think you've been bitten by fake news here, and this highlights, again, the problem: what do you think "Russian activities relating to the election" were? Some memes on 4chan? A few thousand dollars worth of facebook ads? >MH17 MH17 was shot down by Russia during Obama's term, and Obama did nothing. He also continued doing nothing while Russia invaded Ukraine, refusing to even send them weapons. Obama wasn't a Russian asset either. Again: the entire idea of Trump as having anything to do with Russia came from a hoax. That was fake news, and it is still interfering with people's ability to make informed decisions about the US government. It's extremely frustrating.

epakai 4y ago
Your stated position of it being a 'hoax' is not a conclusion I could ever reach. Trump's ties to Russia despite being inflated by the news aren't a 'hoax'. His campaign members entanglement in foreign affairs wasn't a 'hoax'. I can agree some of those actions have possible alternative motives, but they are listed because the outcomes Trump encouraged were also favorable outcomes for Russia. You can weight their severity however I guess. I don't know what to say about your denial of the Ukraine blackmail. First you change my answer to being about whether the aid was held instead of the fact that he tried to pressure Ukraine into releasing information about his political opponent. Aside from that it was clear funding was held after the White House initially determined conditions were met. Mick Mulvaney even excused it as Trump being "not a big fan of foreign aid", and claimed Trump said Ukraine was a corrupt place (Oct. 17 2019 press briefing). It doesn't make sense to try and excuse it like this if no aid was withheld. I don't know why bring up Obama as relating the MH-17. Trump's comments were after the investigation that concluded from Dutch authorities, and the conclusion of his own intelligence apparatus. We can write it off as just Trump's style to say words that only benefit a rival, but that just makes him to be rather incompetent as I said before. Still damning. edit: I wrote incorrectly about the Dutch investigation time. That was concluded before the election, not during Trump's term.