Hesgeth and Vance comments

[PrincessOfPreschool]

Not seen a thread on this. There's been hints of this attitude but seeing it 'in writing' feels a bit shocking, not to mention inaccurate and unfair.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cg70xgxl3vmt

Who told you this? Where have you got this 'very end' from? Who are the 'our' armies you talk about?

The US has historically engineered exactly this scenario because defence dependence on the US secured its status as a superpower, plus gave it a lot of not only soft power, but a huge amount of infrastructure reach into European countries (airbases, military presence, intelligence sharing etc.) Why do you think Western European countries host so many US military and airbases that massively benefit the US, otherwise?

This was quite deliberate, and for a long time very openly and happily acknowledged by the US as a strategic goal.

It’s both stupid and strategically inept to be complaining about it now -- it only makes clear that (a) neither Trump nor Vance nor any of the MAGAs understand or are competent in foreign policy or strategy, or know anything about history; and (b) they have got zero strategic awareness of how to go about looking after US interests now or in the future, either.

@wirewool - the title of this thread is "Hesgeth and Vance comments", not "what are your criticisms of the current government?" - there are plenty of threads on that subject, so why have you derailed this one?

@Shanzeleezeh and @powershowerforanhour - the US entered WW1 after the German U-boat campaign started sinking US ships, and after the secret German offer to help Mexico came to light. They entered WW2 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor killed almost two and a half thousand US servicemen and civilians. In both cases the US entered the war because their own assets were threatened. In neither case did they get involved because of an altruistic love of all things European.

The Anglo-American war loan and the loan element of the post-war Marshall Plan was only paid off in 2006. As @Airwaterfire points out the US has benefitted massively from the situation it engineered in Europe post-war.

NATO's article 5 (an attack on one is an attack on all) has been evoked only once in the entire history of NATO. After 9/11, all the signatory countries honoured their commitment to join in the US's so-called war on terror in Afghanistan (including the UK, Germany, Italy, France, Netherlands, Turkey and Canada).

Having honoured their commitments, many of these countries are now rightly dismayed to see that article 5 is no longer worth the paper it is written on, and NATO offers them no protection at all.

As far as the Red Sea/Yemen/Houthis are concerned. The UK cooperates with the US on missile strikes and patrols, while many European countries also patrol the region.

@ThisRoseReader - the title of this thread is "Hesgeth and Vance comments", not "what are your criticisms of the current government?" - there are plenty of threads on that subject, so why have you derailed this one?

when the second post on this thread is about Labour being competent and subsequent posters concurring I think I’ve every right to give my opinion, it’s not a deliberate derail.

If you’re going to act as the self appointed thread police at least be consistent with pulling posters up about going off topic instead of the ones whose opinions you don’t like to hear.

The further cuts today are seriously bad news for the disabled, workers particularly those on a low income and growth is non existent. No wonder the US administration wants nothing to do with us, we’re not even on the same playing field. Happy?

I'm not particularly happy, @wirewool, no, and whatever my thoughts on today's
spring statement, I'll air them on the correct thread. What I am interested in is Vance and Hegseth's conversation, and like @PrincessOfPreschool I'd like to hear other people's opinions.

"I just hate bailing Europe out again." Where does that 'again' come from? If you repeat a lie often enough everyone believes it? 454 British soldiers died in Afghanistan (43 Danish soldiers died - as a percentage of their population, almost as high as the US casualties).

"I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It's PATHETIC."

Vance and Hegseth seem to have an almost visceral hatred of Europe.
What I find even more disturbing about this is that today I stumbled on a youtube podcast (Matt Frei on LBC talking to a former Kremlin adviser, Sergei Karaganov).

Karaganov said, “We want to crush the will of European elites who are for the third time... pushing the world towards a world war. I mean the third time in 100 years plus. We want to defeat these European elites, not the European people hopefully - if they are thrown like cannon fodder as Ukrainians have been thrown.”

When you talk about European elites, unless you're talking about King Charles or the Danish Royal Family, you are mainly talking about elected politicians, aren't you? If you defeat them, who do you replace them with? But I note that Vance also hates the so-called European elites (see the Munich Security Conference).

Karaganov went on to say, “Europeans have been the main driving force pushing for NATO expansion. Americans are to be blamed too but now they understand the price and they start to withdraw.”

I dunno - maybe it’s obvious to most people, but I was very startled to see how starkly abandoned Europe is, how totally - almost strategically - stuffed by the USA. Particularly, given that, iirc, most NATO expansion has been proposed by the US, including expansion into Ukraine (France definitely opposed it).

The second post was me and obviously a comment on how unbelievably exceptionally incompetent Hesgeth/Vance are in comparison to other incompetents. Not sure how that can be cited as derailing the thread, unless you really want it to.

This accurately reflects Trump's view that the long-time allies of America aren't worthy of respect. Trump only respects the worst of the authoritarians, starting with Putin.

ThisRoseReader, my comment was about WW2 and was in response to this comment
"They "saved the day" after our armies had done the leg work with a lot of fighting and bloodshed over YEARS and then the US come in right at the very end and claim they won it."
I know why the US entered the war - pretty much every country acts in their own interests rather than from altruism- but I just wanted to point out that they didn't just breeze to victory, they had a horrible time especially in the Pacific- as did soldiers of many nations including our own especially POWs. You and practically everyone else on this thread know this so it should ho without saying, but I didn't want to let that comment pass.
The bravery and sacrifice of US troops isn't unique to them, but it does seem to be a big part of their national psyche and it's only polite to acknowledge it because a lot of them did have an horrific time.

I agree with your and airwaterfire's comments on America's wider historical and current actions in Europe though.

I don't think that's quite accurate. Our armies hadn't done too much because we didn't open a second front - with the Americans - until D-Day. Until then, it was the Soviet Union mopping up the Germans on the Eastern Front - they lost something like 20 million men, while the Brits lost around 600,000 and the US just under 1.5 million I think, you can verify this, I'm not an authority.

The US didn't have to come into the war at all and many politicians were keen to stay out of other countries' fights - until Pearl Harbor.

But back on topic - Trump and his gang take credit for all past American successes and disown any recent failures, though he has nothing to do with either - it does make him feel free to renege on America's contracts or implied contracts of late, just cutting and running.

Yes. But their conversation wasn’t about that. It was about Trump wanting to bomb Yemen due to the attacks on shipping (inc USA ships). Vance and Hegseth seem to have got their knickers in a twist due to the fact that non USA ships will also benefit from the attacks on shipping being stopped. They seem to think this isn’t fair and at one point we’re talking about sending other countries a bill for the bombing! I don’t believe any other country has asked the USA to bomb Yemen?

On the basis we are discussing Vance (among others) I'm not sure he would acknowledge anyone else had a "horrific time". Remember..he thinks we are some random country that hasn't fought a war in 30 or 40 years.

Anyone else picked this up yet? America’s new administration is making it very clear.

Working people in the U.K. always disliked the reliance on America and the creeping takeover of our entire economy. But we were treated much like this by our own politicians.

https://news.sky.com/video/marjorie-taylor-greene-snaps-at-sky-correspondent-when-questioned-on-leaked-signal-chat-13336422

No surprises from MTG—she told Emily Maitliss to fuck off about a year ago.

Not just them. A Whitehouse spokesperson was being interviewed by a Sky reporter yesterday. She interrupted and asked the reporter where she was from? “The UK. Well, we don’t give a crap about what you think”

And they really, really don’t. Decades of our politicians sucking up to big America - I always hear Peter Gabriel’s song ‘big time’ or the stranglers ‘big in America’ among others - and this is what it has brought.
i wouldn’t care about politicians whoring themselves if they hadn’t destroyed our entire country and economy doing it.

That’s the trouble right there, “Anybody but Corbyn” is the type of tribal mentality that gave us a sanctimonious, hypocritical, lying Boris, Truss & Rishi who were not fit to be in government.

Well that goes to show that the Labour party needs to sort itself out. They didn’t provide effective opposition to the likes of Boris and now they’re in government they’re not sorting out problems at home.

What goes up must always come down. I'd be worrying if I was the US about burning all my bridges with my most stalwart (ex) allies.

It's certainly true that the U.S. has an unpleasant isolationist tradition, but it's worth mentioning that it took President Roosevelt a long time to convince the country to join in, because back in those days, the U.S. had the quaint idea that they needed the approval of Congress.

Incredibly despicable, unserious, incompetent people. It’s truly difficult to believe.

I've been puzzling over whether the worst aspect to Marjorie Taylor Greene is that she's a moron or that she's so vicious or that she's crazy.

All of the above

They are destroying America.

There seems to be a visceral hatred and venom directed by many republicans/supporters at anyone with an opposing view that is so startling given their tradition is rooted in Christian values.

It’s frightening!

Trump (and his proxies) are yeeating international diplomacy like he runs a business- lie, overprotective, distort, deny, grab what you can and bankrupt anyone who dares to believe you.

In the short term, the Republican party will get their way (burn it all down). In the long term, upsetting every ally and neighbour is going to bite them in the arse.

If they go through with their expansionist plans and invade Canada, I hope their arse gets handed to them.