By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--July 7, 2017
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President Donald Trump affirmed U.S. commitment to the defense of NATO allies on Thursday in a Warsaw speech that gently criticized Russia, and said Western civilization must stand up to "those who would subvert and destroy it".
In his second trip to Europe as president and shortly before leaving for a potentially fractious G20 meeting in Germany, Trump appeared at pains to soothe U.S. allies after unnerving them in May by failing to endorse the principle of collective defense enshrined in Article Five of the NATO treaty. As a presidential candidate, Trump called NATO obsolete, but he has since changed his position on the alliance's relevance. The president also had tough words for Russia on Thursday, though he did not fully endorse allegations, backed by U.S. intelligence agencies, that Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential election that he won. Trump meets President Vladimir Putin for the first time face-to-face on Friday in Hamburg, the site of the G20 summit.
"We urge Russia to cease its destabilizing activities in Ukraine and elsewhere and its support for hostile regimes including Syria and Iran, and to instead join the community of responsible nations in our fight against common enemies and the defense of civilization itself," he said. The Kremlin said Russia was not guilty of any destabilizing activity.I find it hilarious that the media are so obsessed with the whole Russia-meddled-in-the-election business, to the point where this seems more important to them than Russia's much more overt troublemaking across the globe. They can't bring themselves to simply report what Trump said in the speech without mentioning that he "did not fully endorse allegations" about the election meddling, whatever that means. Anyway, here's the video of the full speech:
The irony is that on policy Mr. Trump has been tougher on Mr. Putin than either of his two predecessors. Over Kremlin objections, the U.S. President has endorsed Montenegro’s entry into NATO and new NATO combat deployments in Eastern Europe. He has approved military action against Russian ally Bashar Assad in Syria even after Russian threats of retaliation. The White House was also wise to visit Poland a day before he meets Mr. Putin. In Warsaw on Thursday he can reinforce traditional American support for Polish freedom and assert his personal and public support for NATO’s Article 5 that an attack on one alliance member is an attack on all. Perhaps most important, Mr. Trump has unleashed U.S. oil and gas production that has the potential to weaken Mr. Putin at home and in Europe. The Russian strongman needs high oil prices and wields the leverage of natural-gas supplies over Europe, and U.S. production undermines both.
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