Friday 27 January 2017

Is 'Stop War' misunderstanding Trump?


by Brian Bamford
'STOP the War' in a newsletter below issued yesterday* calling on Theresa May to end the 'Special Relationship' between the USA and the UK, declared:
'As Trump's aggressive foreign policy - which has led to further bombing in Syria and Iraq- becomes ever clearer it is urgent that we end the special relationship now.'
Most media pundits, other that 'Stop War', find Donald Trump's foreign policy anything but 'clear'
But last November, Thomas Wright, an expert on U.S. foreign policy at the Brooklings Institute said:  'No other election has had the capacity to completely overturn the international order - the global economy, geopolitics , etc.'
The conventional view is that President Trump is going to be an isolationist in so far as he is, according to Thomas Wright, 'opposed to America's alliance arrangements with other countries.'
What is fairly clear is that Trump is frustrated with the exiting alliance arrangements that mean that the U.S. has had to defend Japan, Saudi Arabia, and others such as the E.U. and does believe that the U.S. should keep coughing up so much. 
Referring to Hillary Clinton, Trump said:
'I would be slower to go to war than Hillary I would be very, very cautious. I think I'd be a lot slower.  She has a happy trigger.  You look, she votes for the wars, she goes in Libya.  I think it's a tremendous burden.  I think there is no greater burden that anybody could have.'
For pundits like Thomas Wright, what's not clear is if he means he just wants the others to pay a bit more, or whether he opposes the alliances overall,
If the latter is the case one would have thought that the Stop the War crowd  would be over the moon.
One would have thought that they would be even more over the moon, when he says NATO's original mission is 'obsolete', and that he doesn't believe that the U.S. (military) to be forwardly present.
* Help us to break the special relationship 'Today Theresa May goes to Washington. Any civilised or sensible government would be breaking links with President Trump but our PM is rushing to be the first foreign leader to meet him. As Trump's aggressive foreign policy - which has already led to further bombing in Syria and Iraq - becomes ever clearer it is urgent that we end the special relationship now. Stop the War Convenor Lindsey German said: 'Trump wants to increase military spending and the level of nuclear weapons. He also support torture. The special relationship has never benefited the people of Britain. With this president it will be positively harmful and should be ended.'

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