Profile picture
, 9 tweets, 4 min read
My Authors
Read all threads
Because so many papers (looking right at you New York Times) has become the paper of the Trump resistance rather than even pretending to care about facts, let's go over some brief historical headlines about US troops in Germany and US telling Germany this would happen 1/n
The conservative publication Rolling Stone in 1988 publishes a piece asking why NATO and Germany won't put up money to defend themselves in the face of the USSR and burden sharing with the US rollingstone.com/politics/polit…
In 2000, Bush Defense Secretary Cohen gives a speech telling Germany they needed to invest in hardened forces rather than the national conscription program as American won't be there forever 3/n
economist.com/europe/2000/05…
In 2011, Obama Defense Secretary took a similar tone complaining about NATO and German defense spending and readiness critically noting "“They won’t make the sacrifices to provide the soldiers for their own defense.” nytimes.com/2011/06/16/opi…
In 2012, President Obama ordered a reduction in US troops in Germany. dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2…
In 2017, Mattis threatened rather directly reduced US support for NATO and allies if they did not increase their defense spending theguardian.com/us-news/2017/f…
Just last year in 2019, the US threatened to reduce troop numbers absent increases in German defense spending. dw.com/en/us-threaten…
There are many many things that can be said about President Trump, it is nothing less however than ahistorical, willful ignorance, partisan hackery of the highest order for the New York Times or anyone else to claim that the reduction in US troops has not been 8/n
Long long standing issue that Germany has absolutely refused to address, that this was taken without institutional reviews over many years of planning by the military. At least make some pretense have your people understand what they are writing about. Done.
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh.

Keep Current with Cartogropher Balding 大老板

Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime, convert it as a PDF, save and print for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video

1) Follow Thread Reader App on Twitter so you can easily mention us!

2) Go to a Twitter thread (series of Tweets by the same owner) and mention us with a keyword "unroll" @threadreaderapp unroll

You can practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @BaldingsWorld see all

Profile picture
Cartogropher Balding 大老板
@BaldingsWorld
Quick thread on the launch of IPAC. First, IPAC is important because in a lot of countries groups and lawmakers are very concerned about China and the CCP even if their head of state is someone like Angela Merkel. Driving change in official foreign policy is going to come 1/n
From pressure from a variety of groups that force the government to adjust its foreign policy. In the US that shift was driven by the Trump administration but in other countries it is going to be driven by other groups pressuring the executive to change. This will happen 2/n
Second, this is great because it is across countries, parties, and general ideologies. The great thing about working to challenge China is you get such a range of people teaming up. People that may not agree on anything else but they get in a room and say what can we do. 3/n
Read 6 tweets
Profile picture
Cartogropher Balding 大老板
@BaldingsWorld
One of the numerous overlapping things that I think is happening in America is as things continue to improve slowly every year (they are don't @ me) is that people focus more on the remaining problems with greater intensity. It is entirely reasonable to say things like 1/n
"America still struggles with racism and there remain gaps in inclusion, access to opportunity, and outcomes." It is entirely absurd to say much of the heated rhetorical non-sense about the end of the American experiment (saw that one today but a big account). Part of the 2/n
problem is that people have lost all perspective, the rhetoric fighting over those narrower band of issues causes nothing but fevered screams where the analogies just become unhinged. Yes, there are problems but the fevered yells contribute probably more to the undermining.
Read 3 tweets
Profile picture
Cartogropher Balding 大老板
@BaldingsWorld
Let's go over the actual mechanics and votes with passing a Hong Kong immigration bill rather than the fatalism cliched non-sense you hear from DC tankies and journos. 1. Pompeo saying State and admin was studying the issue was a subtle green light. That wouldn't have 1/n
Happened publicly without at least some buy in. 2. Let's take as given Dems would support almost any bill here if it goes to a vote. 3. That means the real votes you need to count are GOP. 4. But wait there's more, because the GOP controls the Senate that means it needs 2/n
to survive committee and get calendared. That's a little more dicey because GOP on immigration committees typically aren't welcoming people. 5. Question then becomes can it survive committee and get calendared for a vote? I would suspect there a relatively good possibility 3/n
Read 7 tweets

Embed code for your website

×
Follow Us on Twitter!

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3.00/month or $30.00/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!