G20 Summit

[JohnR]

Originally Posted by Got Stripers

Really Trump wants to form a joint cyber terrorist task force with Putin? Talk about inviting the fox into the hen house. All the focus on Trump and Putin takes away from the real issues. Putin of course is eating it up like candy, his nations economy isn't strong, doubt they are even in the top ten, so this type of attention and the US forced to deal with his crap plays right into his hands.

Yes - that was particularly dumb - joint cyber task force. Beyond stupid on the surface. What would happen is each would send their best people to gather info and their people least likely to share anything valuable.

In all fairness, some "joint" centers for yadayaydayada are beneficial .

Originally Posted by Got Stripers

The real issue IMHO is the US stepping back from leading and adopting a policy of isolation; the west against the east rhetoric is a dangerous path. Dig out your knight armor boys, Trump is going on a crusade. I get that we need strong borders. I get that most of these nut jobs are coming from Muslim countries, but the dangerous crap coming out of his mouth at times just blows my mind. I've said it before the radicals need only cut and past from Trumps speeches and tweets to get all the recruiting advertising they want.

The real issue is the US is stepping back? Leading from behind? Abdicating a leadership role in the world?


And I suppose this started in January 2017?

Originally Posted by Got Stripers

I'd be more concerned about North Korea than Russian any day of the week. That situation is going to get out of hand.

NORKs really suck but they do know that if they nuke us they die.

Russia is the existential threat and has been since the 1960s. Gee - looks like Romney was right and Obama wrong. Had a few more people voted for him we might not be in these problems today and we wouldn't have Trump. Wonder if any media reflect on that.

Russia might not have much to lose. They aren't a top 10 economy. They have a GDP per capita 1/7 of ours. China with a billion poor has almost as much GDP per capita. Russia has the economic might of Mexico but with 10,000 nukes.

They have a declining population, dying younger every year, rampant drugs, alcohol, and disease.

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Putin is clobbering the **** out of ISIS in Syria. It's a complicated part of the world. Putin hates jihadists...not for the right reasons, perhaps, but he hates them.

Errr, Putin is clobbering the crap out of Anti-Asad fighters and calling them "ISIS" but he is not focusing on ISIS as we are.

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

"the radicals need only cut and past from Trumps speeches and tweets to get all the recruiting advertising they want."

Jim - this only happens when Republican governments do it. After bush, for 8 years, there was no recruitment. BOOM in January it started again.

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

They recruited plenty when Obama was POTUS. You can't construct national security policy around the goal of being so nice to terrorists, that they need to create their own propaganda for recruiting. Obama killed plenty of terrorists, with plenty of collateral damage, with drone strikes. You don't think they used that for recruiting?

Just didn't get reported so it didn't happen.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by JohnR

Errr, Putin is clobbering the crap out of Anti-Asad fighters and calling them "ISIS" but he is not focusing on ISIS as we are.

Jim - this only happens when Republican governments do it. After bush, for 8 years, there was no recruitment. BOOM in January it started again.


Just didn't get reported so it didn't happen.

Correct, John, he is killing ISIS fighters to help his pal Assad, not because it's the right thing to do. You are 100% correct. But I think some of the people Putin is fighting, really are ISIS, no? Some of them are non-terrorists who want to get rid of Assad, but some are genuinely ISIS I thought?

"Jim - this only happens when Republican governments do it. After bush, for 8 years, there was no recruitment. BOOM in January it started again"

It really is amazing that anyone could say that with a straight face. The POTUS is supposed to be cordial to terrorists, so that they can't use his speeches as recruiting tools.

Here's all the recruitment that they will ever need...we let our women go to school, we don't force them to dress like ninjas, we don't mutilate their genitals. That's all they need.

Obama claimed that his softer tone would make them hate us less. Jimmy Carter though the same exact thing with his pacifism. They were both wrong.

[JohnR]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Correct, John, he is killing ISIS fighters to help his pal Assad, not because it's the right thing to do. You are 100% correct. But I think some of the people Putin is fighting, really are ISIS, no? Some of them are non-terrorists who want to get rid of Assad, but some are genuinely ISIS I thought?

Sadly the majority Putin is killing is Anti-Asad people. He calls them ISIS in order to taint world opinion against the anti-Asad folks. Syria is Game of Thrones in real life. ISIS was not in Allepo

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/29/w...e-working.html

ISW has perhaps the best and most unvarnished reporting of what is happening in Syria

http://iswresearch.blogspot.com/search/label/Syria

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

"Jim - this only happens when Republican governments do it. After bush, for 8 years, there was no recruitment. BOOM in January it started again"

It really is amazing that anyone could say that with a straight face. The POTUS is supposed to be cordial to terrorists, so that they can't use his speeches as recruiting tools.

The /sarc was silent, understood

[Got Stripers]

Does anyone really think Trumps West vs East rhetoric is directed solely at terrorists? It's us against them and by them I suspect any country, religion or ideology that doesn't match trumps is probably what he truly believes. Some of his speeches, like his opening one, clearly are written for him and don't really reflect how that man really thinks. How he really thinks is what is scary and you can see it in the question answer sessions or God help us, the endless can't sleep so I'll tweet sessions.

Do these radical nut jobs need recruiting videos supplied by Trump, certainly not, but when he shrinks his "circle of trust" to use a line from a Fockers movie and alienates half the globe that doesn't meet his criteria, I think we are going in the wrong direction. We need allies in these countries to assist us in the war on terrorism. I just think he is poorly choosing his words, the message he wants to send and doesn't see the forest through the trees lining the global stage we are supposed to be leading.

It appears that the only country really happy with Trump is Russia, doesn't that bother people? Seems like a lot of the major leaders (our allies) are not to happy with him or the back peddling he seems to be doing on climate accords, NATO, trade agreements and probably more that I'm not even aware of.

Russia isn't the issue or threat they used to be, but inviting him in to be our buddy is dangerous to say the least. We probably let more Russian spies and intelligence agents into this country than potential terrorists.

[scottw]

Originally Posted by Got Stripers

Does anyone really think Trumps West vs East rhetoric is directed solely at terrorists? It's us against them and by them I suspect any country, religion or ideology that doesn't match trumps is probably what he truly believes. Some of his speeches, like his opening one, clearly are written for him and don't really reflect how that man really thinks. How he really thinks is what is scary and you can see it in the question answer sessions or God help us, the endless can't sleep so I'll tweet sessions.

Do these radical nut jobs need recruiting videos supplied by Trump, certainly not, but when he shrinks his "circle of trust" to use a line from a Fockers movie and alienates half the globe that doesn't meet his criteria, I think we are going in the wrong direction. We need allies in these countries to assist us in the war on terrorism. I just think he is poorly choosing his words, the message he wants to send and doesn't see the forest through the trees lining the global stage we are supposed to be leading.

It appears that the only country really happy with Trump is Russia, doesn't that bother people? Seems like a lot of the major leaders (our allies) are not to happy with him or the back peddling he seems to be doing on climate accords, NATO, trade agreements and probably more that I'm not even aware of.

Russia isn't the issue or threat they used to be, but inviting him in to be our buddy is dangerous to say the least. We probably let more Russian spies and intelligence agents into this country than potential terrorists.

this made Trump sound coherent

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Got Stripers

Does anyone really think Trumps West vs East rhetoric is directed solely at terrorists? It's us against them and by them I suspect any country, religion or ideology that doesn't match trumps is probably what he truly believes. Some of his speeches, like his opening one, clearly are written for him and don't really reflect how that man really thinks. How he really thinks is what is scary and you can see it in the question answer sessions or God help us, the endless can't sleep so I'll tweet sessions.

Do these radical nut jobs need recruiting videos supplied by Trump, certainly not, but when he shrinks his "circle of trust" to use a line from a Fockers movie and alienates half the globe that doesn't meet his criteria, I think we are going in the wrong direction. We need allies in these countries to assist us in the war on terrorism. I just think he is poorly choosing his words, the message he wants to send and doesn't see the forest through the trees lining the global stage we are supposed to be leading.

It appears that the only country really happy with Trump is Russia, doesn't that bother people? Seems like a lot of the major leaders (our allies) are not to happy with him or the back peddling he seems to be doing on climate accords, NATO, trade agreements and probably more that I'm not even aware of.

Russia isn't the issue or threat they used to be, but inviting him in to be our buddy is dangerous to say the least. We probably let more Russian spies and intelligence agents into this country than potential terrorists.

I don't like Trump, I like him even less than I thought I was going to.

"Some of his speeches, like his opening one, clearly are written for him "

All of his speeches are written for him. Just like all of Obama's speeches were written for Obama.

"alienates half the globe that doesn't meet his criteria"

Yes he does. He's not a guy that makes a lot of people want to come under his tent. Neither was Obama, who mocked everything I believe, non-stop, for 8 years. But it was OK when he did it. Because he's a genius, or something.

Trump is obviously more overtly crass than anyone we have seen. Which makes him more divisive. Is he way more divisive than Obama was? I don't think so. The difference is, those two presidents offend very different groups of people. The people offended by Obama, didn't riot every time he ridiculed them, they didn't burn down buildings. They formed the Tea Party, and moved the dial the way they wanted. When liberals get offended, their first instinct (first few instincts, probably) is to destroy property and go berserk.

Obama and the media had a mutual love affair, so all the coverage was favorable. Trump and the media hate each other, so all we see is negative news. Obviously most of it is legit, as Trump deserves a lot of criticism.

If there was no Obama, there likely would have been no Trump. It's a funny little world.

[scottw]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

"Some of his speeches, like his opening one, clearly are written for him "

All of his speeches are written for him. Just like all of Obama's speeches were written for Obama.

.

ya think?....that was funny...