30, May 2017 NATO
In his latest effort to win “friends and
influence people,” President Trump admonished European leaders to contribute
their fair share to NATO. What hypocrisy, what chutzpah! This is the man who
used every possible loophole to avoid paying his fair share of taxes. If
everybody emulated Trump’s “smart” example, our infrastructure and national
defense would be in shambles.
When
Trump equivocated on America’s commitment to mutual defense and played coy to
its Article 5 commitment, Germany’s, Angela Merkel, seized the moment stating,
“we Europeans must really take our fate into our own hands.” Speaking to
journalists, she made no effort to hide her utter contempt for Trump and his
entourage. Britain’s departure from the EU is also interpreted as an
unambiguous retreat from the world stage. Germany is generally considered to be
“the new leader” of the liberal world. Perhaps, NATO members should be more
wary of the US role in world affairs. The
politics of NATO is fraught with many risks. Invocation of Article 5
resulted in needless NATO deaths resulting from US policy blunders in Iraq and
Afghanistan. It should only be used when a NATO ally is in imminent danger of
being attacked.
Trump rounded off a disastrous NATO meeting
by shoving the prime minister of Montenegro to ensure that he was front and
center of a photo op. Such bullying, boorish, behavior is a national
embarrassment and re-invokes the specter of the “ugly American”.
No comments:
Post a Comment