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Praise for Trump!
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Nope, I'm not being sarcastic.

Trump receives plenty of uncritical boosterism from the far right, but this comes from a far less likely source.

Yanks may not have heard of Paul Keating, but he is a former Oz Treasurer and Prime Minister, and was pretty much the driving intellectual force of the left in Australia for nearly two decades. He can be utterly excoriating in his critiques of the right, so to hear him offer (slight, perhaps) praise for Trump raises a few eyebrows.

Here: https://www.theguardian.com/...od-at-foreign-policy
and elsewhere.
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Re: Praise for Trump! [Bone Idol] [ In reply to ]
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Maybe he's right?
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Re: Praise for Trump! [Bone Idol] [ In reply to ]
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What has Trump actually done regarding foreign policy other than the meeting with N.K. which hasn't happened yet. He seems to have alienated US allies the rest of the time.
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Re: Praise for Trump! [cerveloguy] [ In reply to ]
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cerveloguy wrote:
What has Trump actually done regarding foreign policy other than the meeting with N.K. which hasn't happened yet. He seems to have alienated US allies the rest of the time.
Did you read the article?

His dealings with Russia (whom Keating sees as a serious threat to the US, and a country that - it sounds like - he thinks should be dealt with carefully, i.e. don't start throwing sanctions at them). His dealings in the Middle East where he's take a strong hand toward ISIS (not mentioned in the article but Trump should get some credit for ramping up efforts to wipe out the ISIS strongholds) and taken a real side on Jerusulem, which is maybe needed given how things have gone there the past fwe decades.

And of course NK is a biggie, how we deal with Asian nations in general is a biggie. Negotiations with China, the TPP, Trump has made some real decisions there for better or worse, and it seems Keating believes it's for the better.

I'll also just say that his comments about Obama ring true, and I'd imagine a lot of foreign policy experts would agree and most world leaders were frustrated over the direction - or lack thereof - the US went in during those eight years. He had no real strategy in the Middle East, he gave lip service to negotiating in Asia but nothing of substance was ever accomplished and the TPP looked like dog shit, and he didn't even touch NK while they continued to advance their nuclear program. He got taken to the woodshed by Russia on numerous occasions so his 'threats' were obviously hollow, and I don't think Putin and Co. took him seriously. Obama is praised here as this great unifier but his foreign policy was a total zero imo.
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Re: Praise for Trump! [Brownie28] [ In reply to ]
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His dealings with Russia (whom Keating sees as a serious threat to the US, and a country that - it sounds like - he thinks should be dealt with carefully, i.e. don't start throwing sanctions at them).

It's probably best to wait for the Mueller investigation to see if his dealings with Russia are as good as some people are claiming.

His dealings in the Middle East where he's take a strong hand toward ISIS (not mentioned in the article but Trump should get some credit for ramping up efforts to wipe out the ISIS strongholds) and taken a real side on Jerusulem, which is maybe needed given how things have gone there the past fwe decades.

Trump has done nothing different when it comes to ISIS. Credit for the defeat of ISIS is largely due to Iraq's Counter Terrorism Service which was created by the U.S years before Trump came to office. Trump of course has taken credit but as usual, he is taking credit for something that has nothing to do with his policies.

And of course NK is a biggie, how we deal with Asian nations in general is a biggie. Negotiations with China, the TPP, Trump has made some real decisions there for better or worse, and it seems Keating believes it's for the better.

Time will tell on those.

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Re: Praise for Trump! [Sanuk] [ In reply to ]
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Sanuk wrote:
His dealings with Russia (whom Keating sees as a serious threat to the US, and a country that - it sounds like - he thinks should be dealt with carefully, i.e. don't start throwing sanctions at them).

It's probably best to wait for the Mueller investigation to see if his dealings with Russia are as good as some people are claiming.

His dealings in the Middle East where he's take a strong hand toward ISIS (not mentioned in the article but Trump should get some credit for ramping up efforts to wipe out the ISIS strongholds) and taken a real side on Jerusulem, which is maybe needed given how things have gone there the past fwe decades.

Trump has done nothing different when it comes to ISIS. Credit for the defeat of ISIS is largely due to Iraq's Counter Terrorism Service which was created by the U.S years before Trump came to office. Trump of course has taken credit but as usual, he is taking credit for something that has nothing to do with his policies.

And of course NK is a biggie, how we deal with Asian nations in general is a biggie. Negotiations with China, the TPP, Trump has made some real decisions there for better or worse, and it seems Keating believes it's for the better.

Time will tell on those.
Your basic response was 'let's wait and see' - and I agree with that. The idea, however, is that it's encouraging to see - for me, personally, and also for Keating based on his comments. If it blows up spectacularly then shit, it was a BAD approach! But I personally think Trump, despite his idiotic tweets and dumbass stump speeches has delivered the messages I think we need to be delivering to the various players - NK, China, Middle East, add the UN and EU to that list. I'm not sure on Russia, the Mueller investigation is obviously a HUGE unknown right now but putting that aside I truly think his approach is what we've needed the past two decades.
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Re: Praise for Trump! [Brownie28] [ In reply to ]
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Brownie28 wrote:
cerveloguy wrote:
What has Trump actually done regarding foreign policy other than the meeting with N.K. which hasn't happened yet. He seems to have alienated US allies the rest of the time.

Did you read the article?

His dealings with Russia (whom Keating sees as a serious threat to the US, and a country that - it sounds like - he thinks should be dealt with carefully, i.e. don't start throwing sanctions at them). His dealings in the Middle East where he's take a strong hand toward ISIS (not mentioned in the article but Trump should get some credit for ramping up efforts to wipe out the ISIS strongholds) and taken a real side on Jerusulem, which is maybe needed given how things have gone there the past fwe decades.

And of course NK is a biggie, how we deal with Asian nations in general is a biggie. Negotiations with China, the TPP, Trump has made some real decisions there for better or worse, and it seems Keating believes it's for the better.

I'll also just say that his comments about Obama ring true, and I'd imagine a lot of foreign policy experts would agree and most world leaders were frustrated over the direction - or lack thereof - the US went in during those eight years. He had no real strategy in the Middle East, he gave lip service to negotiating in Asia but nothing of substance was ever accomplished and the TPP looked like dog shit, and he didn't even touch NK while they continued to advance their nuclear program. He got taken to the woodshed by Russia on numerous occasions so his 'threats' were obviously hollow, and I don't think Putin and Co. took him seriously. Obama is praised here as this great unifier but his foreign policy was a total zero imo.

I did read the article. And I read this one.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/...c=nl_most&wpmm=1
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Re: Praise for Trump! [cerveloguy] [ In reply to ]
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And yet this thread is about what Keating has recently said about Trump.

Re: your article, I loved this line:
But what I see is a North Korea that has become a nuclear-weapons state and now, from a position of strength, wants negotiations with America.

I wonder how THAT happened??? Maybe Presidents of the past were unwilling to may draw hard lines and disrupt the status quo in order to prevent NK from developing nukes, might that be it? When you have weak, ineffective leaders you get weak foreign policy and you allow an unhinged regime to continue down a dangerous path.

I also find it interesting that interspersed throughout that article are lines like these:
--"Certainly, Thursday night’s announcement of Trump-Kim direct talks is promising, and perhaps evidence that the president’s braggadocio and belligerence have produced results."
--"We’ll probably be chasing Kim around a negotiating table for a while, which is better than “duck and cover.”"
--"A tougher agreement would be better, certainly, but to achieve it, Trump seems willing to risk having no agreement, which would be much worse."
--"Trump rightly values his close relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman."

I see a decent amount of veiled praise there, or some tacit admission that some things may work out for Trump even if the author is dubious.

He also criticizes Trump for angering EU allies...sorry but the EU needs their own wake-up call and if people think the US is beign overtaken by China, what's going on in the EU??? Failing governments, votes to split from the union, major currency concerns, social unrest...maybe, just maybe, Trump is right to be critical of the EU and how the US deals with our allies there.

I'm not seeing much in your article to disprove a notion that Trump may be getting more right than wrong on the foreign policy front.

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Re: Praise for Trump! [Brownie28] [ In reply to ]
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Brownie28 wrote:
And yet this thread is about what Keating has recently said about Trump.

Re: your article, I loved this line:
But what I see is a North Korea that has become a nuclear-weapons state and now, from a position of strength, wants negotiations with America.

I wonder how THAT happened??? Maybe Presidents of the past were unwilling to may draw hard lines and disrupt the status quo in order to prevent NK from developing nukes, might that be it? When you have weak, ineffective leaders you get weak foreign policy and you allow an unhinged regime to continue down a dangerous path.

I also find it interesting that interspersed throughout that article are lines like these:
--"Certainly, Thursday night’s announcement of Trump-Kim direct talks is promising, and perhaps evidence that the president’s braggadocio and belligerence have produced results."
--"We’ll probably be chasing Kim around a negotiating table for a while, which is better than “duck and cover.”"
--"A tougher agreement would be better, certainly, but to achieve it, Trump seems willing to risk having no agreement, which would be much worse."
--"Trump rightly values his close relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman."

I see a decent amount of veiled praise there, or some tacit admission that some things may work out for Trump even if the author is dubious.

He also criticizes Trump for angering EU allies...sorry but the EU needs their own wake-up call and if people think the US is beign overtaken by China, what's going on in the EU??? Failing governments, votes to split from the union, major currency concerns, social unrest...maybe, just maybe, Trump is right to be critical of the EU and how the US deals with our allies there.

I'm not seeing much in your article to disprove a notion that Trump may be getting more right than wrong on the foreign policy front.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/...ea01e4b045cf4372ef7f
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Re: Praise for Trump! [Sanuk] [ In reply to ]
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Sanuk wrote:
Trump has done nothing different when it comes to ISIS. Credit for the defeat of ISIS is largely due to Iraq's Counter Terrorism Service which was created by the U.S years before Trump came to office. Trump of course has taken credit but as usual, he is taking credit for something that has nothing to do with his policies.]
[/b]

This is false.
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Re: Praise for Trump! [cerveloguy] [ In reply to ]
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Dude, what are you doing? This thread is about comments Keating made, you posted your typical 'Trump's an idiot' drive-by, then you posted a WP article that actually has some veiled support for what Trump has done and leaves open the very real possibility that some of his strategies could work, and when I called you on it you post ANOTHER article?

BTW I stopped on this one at the '99.7% migration is legal' comment. In reading the source they're including any foreign travel into this country. Yeah, a family driving down from Montreal for a weekend really belongs in a study about illegal immigration. What an absolute crock of shit, talk about fake news.
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Re: Praise for Trump! [cerveloguy] [ In reply to ]
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https://www.yahoo.com/...ussia-140034672.html
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Looks like even the farthest lefties are deriding Obama for his lack of action on Russia.
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Re: Praise for Trump! [Brownie28] [ In reply to ]
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What NK-US meeting?

https://www.msn.com/...3Xpi?ocid=spartandhp

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Re: Praise for Trump! [JasoninHalifax] [ In reply to ]
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More fake news from Trump.

How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?
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Re: Praise for Trump! [dave_w] [ In reply to ]
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dave_w wrote:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/cyberwar-never-happened-obama-backed-counterstrike-russia-140034672.html
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Looks like even the farthest lefties are deriding Obama for his lack of action on Russia.
Did you read the article? It says the O' administration knew of Russia's cyber-shenanigans in general, but did not comprehend the scope of "the inflammatory Facebook ads and Twitterbots created by an army of Russian trolls."

Hindsight is 20/20.. Did anybody know about the FBook/Twitter stuff til after the election? If no, why would you expect Obama knew about it?
His team had a plan and he weighed the response options, but stopped short of full-on cyberwar that some in the NSA wanted. Article states one of O's reasons was bc he did not want to do anything that could be seen as influencing the election or playing into Trump's whine of a "rigged system".

Water under the bridge... Trump is POTUS now. Has he even met or been briefed by the same NSA staffers described in the article? Doubtful -- since reportedly he does not even read his daily intelligence briefing and staffers say you need to incorporate pictures to hold his attention beyond 2 minutes.. Add to that, top intelligence officials are saying Trump has not asked or ordered them to take any action regarding Russia and it's cyber activities.

Nuance is everything. Read the article.
Obama may have missed a turn;
Trump is willfully asleep at the wheel.
Not the same thing.
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Re: Praise for Trump! [spookini] [ In reply to ]
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the O' administration knew of Russia's cyber-shenanigans in general,

But with Obama, were top intelligence officials
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asked or ordered them to take any action regarding Russia and it's cyber activities.
?
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Re: Praise for Trump! [efernand] [ In reply to ]
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efernand wrote:
But with Obama, were top intelligence officials
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asked or ordered them to take any action regarding Russia and it's cyber activities.
?
Read the article.
I can't read it for you.
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