How vulnerable is Europe with a weakened NATO and Trump favoring Putin?

Hey ...did you see their press conference this week? Where Trump took Putin’s denial over 17 US intelligence agencies??@BlueMetalChick

@Mrsmeta Yes. He behaves like a weak little prick when talking to Putin, but his policies don't reflect it at all. If he were really under Putin's influence, then America wouldn't be bordering on an actual war with Russia.

@BlueMetalChick Trump isn't leading anything. The American government has to compensate for his weakness in the face of Russian agression.

@BlueMetalChick Zoe, I don't Belive Putin wants a war with the US, he knows he'd get his ass kicked. I think the bigger threat is China.

@WoodyAq I've heard that hypothesis before and I suppose it's possible. Like, all the hostility is actually the Trump administration and military industrial complex, not Trump himself.

@jackson55 That depends on where the war is. If America tried to invade Russia, the Ruskis would wipe the floor with them. But on that same token it would be a stupidly futile attempt for them to invade America. It would have to either be a ground war in a separate country, or just a bunch of nukes.

@BlueMetalChick I don't think either side is stupid enough to fire off any nukes. And you're probably right, it would a convential shoot em up war somewhere in the Middle East.

@BlueMetalChick After the Russian invasions of Georgia and Ukraine, the coup attempt in Montenegro, the poisonings in Britain, the atrocities in Syria and repeated cyberattacks on America, a firmer line needed to be taken with the Russians.

But it needs to be taken by democratically elected leaders, not in spite of them.

@WoodyAq A firmer line? What firmer line can we take? We're arming all their enemies in Syria, Ukraine, and Georgia. We're sanctioning the shit out of them, we're flying jets in their airspace, we've got battleships in the Black Sea, NATO is creeping up on their borders. What the hell "firmer line" are we supposed to draw? Are we supposed to start directly attacking them?

@BlueMetalChick Start opening up investigations into where Putin and his cronies keep their money, and publicize it; begin cyber-attacks of our own on a tit-for-tat basis.

Declare that we will sanction all foreign firms operating in Syria in perpetuity until war criminals are handed over.

Ratchet up sanctions, especially on the financial system ...

There is plenty of stuff we can still do short of war.

@WoodyAq Those are softer lines, not harder lines. And they're more effective.

You're encouraging financial and economic pressure on them to discourage them from conducting military operations in Syria. That's a softer line than arming radical Sunni militias, also known as fucking ISIS, to fight back against them in Syria.

And it's a smarter thing to do. We shouldn't be taking harder opposition to them, we should be taking better opposition to them. As in, finding the means to make them not want to commit atrocities and annex parts of Eastern Europe instead of letting them do it, and then giving weapons and money to terrorist groups to fight them.

@BlueMetalChick We weren't arming ISIS, we were arming moderate Sunnis enough to defend themselves against the "ethnic cleansing" and genocide of a criminal regime.

We weren't aggressive enough in our defense. And that opened the way for ISIS.

And the Russians were really aggressive in supporting the criminals.

@WoodyAq No, we're not arming "moderate Sunnis". We're arming radical Sunni militias. We're arming the Islamic State. In fact, we're indirectly arming Al Qaeda too because we give so much money and so many weapons to the Saudis, and they support just about every Sunni terrorist group in the Middle East.

@BlueMetalChick That's Assad's propaganda. According to him, anyone who objected to the Assad family torturing their children or how refused to shoot their neighbors who were protesting having their children tortured by the regime were "Islamic radicals."

It is not actually true, though.

@WoodyAq At one point in time they may not have been crazy enough to be called "radicals" but it's pretty apparent, now that we even have Pentagon-backed rebels fighting CIA-backed rebels, that we're arming the people we claim to hate.

@BlueMetalChick That's what happens when you let Russia destroy the country. Chaos ensues.

@WoodyAq The country was not destroyed by Russia, it was partially destroyed by Bashar Al Assad, and partially destroyed by the radical militias that were fighting Assad, mostly backed up Saudi Arabia.

@BlueMetalChick Those were Russian pilots who did most of the bombing in the last 3 years. And it is Russia who told Assad it was okay to shoot unarmed protesters rather than finding a negotiated solution.

@WoodyAq I had mostly read it was Syrian pilots using Russian manufactured bomber jets. Which isn't much better, I suppose.

Assad was already shooting unarmed protesters, then made the gesture of asking Russia if it was ok. Which...again, isn't much better.

Regardless, America is making it worse. We're giving weapons and money to people equally as brutal as Assad, and they're racking up even higher civilian casualties than before. Assad has essentially won, the rebels aren't gonna be doing much against him now. Yet we're continuing to bomb the shit out of Syria, which is doing nothing for anyone except the defense contractors to make them a bigger profit.

@BlueMetalChick President blowhard annoys people on Twitter. Meanwhile, the American state carries out the same foreign policy that it always has.

@BlueMetalChick The world community wanted to pass a resolution warning Assad to negotiate. The Russians blocked it. At the same time Russian military advisers in Syria were advising repression. Then the shooting started.

We armed some of the opposition to force Assad to negotiate. The Russians overrode us to further Assad's brutality.