President Trump

[flook]

Belgians might realize that if they had ever done it, but their foreign wars haven largely been about brutalizing people in Africa for financial gain.

And supporting the USA's "war on terror" in Afghanistan, or have you, like your president shitgibbon, conveniently forgotten that?

 

[west didsblue]

absolutely this, it's abhorrent for Shitgibbon to treat the war in Ukraine as a business opportunity

Abhorrent but totally in character and exactly how he’s always treated everything whether it’s screwing contractors, ripping off customers or now that he’s President, bullying less powerful countries to extract cash or favours.

 

[Blue Mist]

I am not religous so I'm not arsed that he's dressed as a kiddie fiddler but are catholics not offended by this lunacy?

 

[bluethrunthru]

I am not religous so I'm not arsed that he's dressed as a kiddie fiddler but are catholics not offended by this lunacy?

one third of them declare themselves as Catholic yet say nothing - thats how cowardly they are

Trump's Catholic Cabinet: How will their faith shape their work?

More than a third of Trump's Cabinet nominees are Catholic. Three — Sean Duffy, Marco Rubio and John Ratcliffe — have already been confirmed by the Senate. Here are brief profiles of all nine of Trump's Catholic picks.

www.ncronline.org

 

[KS55]

At 2% interest, and the loan was a fraction of what the US gave to the UK outright.

Not true at all. US kept a tally of lend lease which later became debt. Secondly, UK gave US technology during WW2 for which US made no allowance. See, for example the fast acting magnetron, the basis of radar and all modern communication devices.
Truman later admitted he didn’t realise what he was signing when lend lease was converted to debt by decree the day after VJ Day. It was essentially a repeat of 1920 when the US was ‘awarded’ UK owned assets and capital in the US such as Marconi.
I think you are just wumming and making it up as you go along.

 

[WT86]

It’s a weird way of looking at it. We were allies in a war that could have ended with much of the world living under a totalitarian dictatorship. It was in US interest as much as ours to provide armaments to the countries actually fighting the war in exactly the same way it’s in all our interests for Ukraine to be given all the support it needs without trying to extract that country’s natural resources in return.

Is it weird? Obviously making everything free is preferable morally but you have to get congressional authorization and it wasn't possible. The UK is a rich country and the loan that was a fraction of what was given for free, at 2% interest on a 50-year term with several pauses in repayment as necessary. Hardly a great crime.

 

[BobKowalski]

Trump doing his best for the left/centre in national elections. After Canada, Australia’s Labour Govt is returned in a landslide.

Australia federal election: Anthony Albanese wins in landslide

Donald Trump loomed large over the election, with comparisons drawn between the US president and defeated opposition leader Peter Dutton.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[WT86]

And supporting the USA's "war on terror" in Afghanistan, or have you, like your president shitgibbon, conveniently forgotten that?

No, but Islamic terrorism is a European problem as much as an American one, and the sacrifices involved in the world wars and Afghanistan are not seriously comparable.

 

[KS55]

Is it weird? Obviously making everything free is preferable morally but you have to get congressional authorization and it wasn't possible. The UK is a rich country and the loan that was a fraction of what was given for free, at 2% interest on a 50-year term with several pauses in repayment as necessary. Hardly a great crime.

You don’t seem to realise that in converting lend lease to debt the US was essentially breaking its war time promise to UK. The US was essentially angry because it had somehow imagined that the UK owned its Caribbean colonies which could be handed over to the US and was annoyed to be told this was impossible.

 

[WT86]

You don’t seem to realise that in converting lend lease to debt the US was essentially breaking its promise to UK.

Think for a moment about what lend and lease mean.

 

[FlemishDuck]

Belgians might realize that if they had ever done it, but their foreign wars haven largely been about brutalizing people in Africa for financial gain.

Not true tbh, Belgians fought in many foreign wars as quasi thralls to the ambitions of others, from Hastings to Jerusalem to Austerlitz. What reason would we have to glorify it though? What good did it do for us?

If there is anything we have a smithen of nationalistic pride its that we have the proper kind of beer to get shitfaced on whenever this kind of bullshit comes around ... AGAIN. Which is btw what i'm going to do now, rather than trying to convince you because honestly ... no.

 

[KS55]

Think for a moment about what lend and lease mean.

I’m not going to debate with you as you make facts up Maga style. Lend lease was never supposed to be converted to debt on a one sided basis. Trump tried to keep Ukraine out of the room in ‘settling’ the war there and that is precisely what Truman did to UK in 1945. The fact that the decree was signed the very day after VJ Day tells you a lot. It was a well planned coup.
The promise was ‘don’t worry, we’ll keep you supplied and we’ll sort out a fair settlement in a conflab post war’. The fair settlement was supposed to consider matters like US markets post war, British contributions to US technology, not least in the development of the bomb etc etc.
I’m a big supporter of US leadership 1945 to the present, now junked by Trump, but it was/is not without US manoevres to benefit itself.
Still plenty of ‘free’ US airbases in UK with diplomatic immunity claimed for all.

 

[WT86]

I’m not going to debate with you as you make facts up Maga style. Lend lease was never supposed to be converted to debt on a one sided basis. Trump tried to keep Ukraine out of the room in ‘settling’ the war there and that is precisely what Truman did to UK in 1945. The fact that the decree was signed the very day after VJ Day tells you a lot. It was a well planned coup.

You're the one who's making up facts here.

"Congress had not authorized the gift of supplies delivered after the cutoff date, so the U.S. charged for them, usually at a 90% discount. Large quantities of undelivered goods were in Britain or in transit when Lend-Lease was ended on September 2, 1945, following the surrender of Japan. Britain wished to retain some of this equipment in the immediate post-war period. In 1946, the post-war Anglo-American loan further indebted Britain to the United States. Lend-Lease items retained were sold to Britain at 10% of nominal value, giving an initial loan value of £1.075 billion for the Lend-Lease portion of the post-war loans. Payment was to be stretched out over 50 annual payments, starting in 1951 and with five years of deferred payments, at 2% interest. During the war, the US lent Britain 88 million ounces (2.5 million kilograms) of silver. In 1946, Britain switched its coinage from silver to cupronickel as the price of silver had risen by 250% during the war due to its market scarcity, while the price of nickel matched the stamped coinage value; this recovered 20m ounces of silver per year for five years as the old coinage was progressively retired, generating a £30m net financial surplus after the US silver loan had been repaid.

The final payment of $83.3 million (£42.5 million), due on December 31, 2006 (repayment having been deferred in the allowed five years and during a sixth year not allowed), was made by Britain on December 29, 2006 (the last working day of the year). After this final payment, Ed Balls, Britain's Economic Secretary to the Treasury, formally issued thanks to the U.S. for its wartime support."

 

[west didsblue]

Trump doing his best for the left/centre in national elections. After Canada, Australia’s Labour Govt is returned in a landslide.

Australia federal election: Anthony Albanese wins in landslide

Donald Trump loomed large over the election, with comparisons drawn between the US president and defeated opposition leader Peter Dutton.

www.bbc.co.uk

By the time our next election comes round, if he hasn’t dropped dead, Trump will have completed his second term and if he can fiddle it, will be on to his third. By then he should have totally discredited right wing populist politics and all the other parties will need to do is remind everyone of stuff like this:

 

[KS55]

You're the one who's making up facts here.

"Congress had not authorized the gift of supplies delivered after the cutoff date, so the U.S. charged for them, usually at a 90% discount. Large quantities of undelivered goods were in Britain or in transit when Lend-Lease was ended on September 2, 1945, following the surrender of Japan. Britain wished to retain some of this equipment in the immediate post-war period. In 1946, the post-war Anglo-American loan further indebted Britain to the United States. Lend-Lease items retained were sold to Britain at 10% of nominal value, giving an initial loan value of £1.075 billion for the Lend-Lease portion of the post-war loans. Payment was to be stretched out over 50 annual payments, starting in 1951 and with five years of deferred payments, at 2% interest. During the war, the US lent Britain 88 million ounces (2.5 million kilograms) of silver. In 1946, Britain switched its coinage from silver to cupronickel as the price of silver had risen by 250% during the war due to its market scarcity, while the price of nickel matched the stamped coinage value; this recovered 20m ounces of silver per year for five years as the old coinage was progressively retired, generating a £30m net financial surplus after the US silver loan had been repaid.

The final payment of $83.3 million (£42.5 million), due on December 31, 2006 (repayment having been deferred in the allowed five years and during a sixth year not allowed), was made by Britain on December 29, 2006 (the last working day of the year). After this final payment, Ed Balls, Britain's Economic Secretary to the Treasury, formally issued thanks to the U.S. for its wartime support."

You still haven’t cottoned on to the fact that the end of lend lease was supposed to be negotiated which it wasn’t. The so called cut off date including a repayment demand was simply made up by Truman. There’s none of your imagined generosity in handing over a demand in that situation.
Has the US repaid William Penney yet?

 

[threespires]

I am not religous so I'm not arsed that he's dressed as a kiddie fiddler but are catholics not offended by this lunacy?

Probably no more so than your implication that all Popes/priests/Catholics(?) are kiddie fiddlers :-)

Anyway we've had madder people as Pope than this crazy bastard. Trump would maybe model himself on Benedict IX who I think I'm correct in saying actually flogged his Papacy to someone else to raise cash.

As Trump's attempts to distract from the fact he's shit at everything get more desperate I suspect this one will end up looking quite mild in comparison to what's to come.

 

[threespires]

one third of them declare themselves as Catholic yet say nothing - thats how cowardly they are

Trump's Catholic Cabinet: How will their faith shape their work?

More than a third of Trump's Cabinet nominees are Catholic. Three — Sean Duffy, Marco Rubio and John Ratcliffe — have already been confirmed by the Senate. Here are brief profiles of all nine of Trump's Catholic picks.

www.ncronline.org

True but I'm not sure that failing to object to that image is the biggest disconnect they appear to have with their proported faith.

 

[mancity2012_eamo]

Not true tbh, Belgians fought in many foreign wars as quasi thralls to the ambitions of others, from Hastings to Jerusalem to Austerlitz. What reason would we have to glorify it though? What good did it do for us?

If there is anything we have a smithen of nationalistic pride its that we have the proper kind of beer to get shitfaced on whenever this kind of bullshit comes around ... AGAIN. Which is btw what i'm going to do now, rather than trying to convince you because honestly ... no.

I can vouch for Belgian beer.
Top notch. These guys know a bit about brewing.

American piss not in the same league whatsoever.

 

[The perfect fumble]

t


The response to Trump's idiotic, jingoistic claims about the wars is not equally idiotic, jingoistic claims denigrating American involvement.

Belgium was neutral in WWII until it was invaded. Its military surrendered 18 days later. There was then a small, moderately successful resistance. The Belgians who actually fought deserve respect as anyone who fought for the allies does, but WWII isn't a story of Belgian heroics and American cowardice.

The US had instituted a draft and was providing billions in free materiel well before Pearl Harbor. But yes, it entered the war later than much of Europe. It takes a while to build up political will to send hundreds of thousands of your young men to die on another continent. Belgians might realize that if they had ever done it, but their foreign wars haven largely been about brutalizing people in Africa for financial gain.

I'm a great admirer of the phrase "If you want to get there I wouldn't start from here"

The 2nd World war has been packaged, even while it was being fought, as primarily a fight for freedom against fascism, in that sense it's seen as a good war, even a principled one, but if you believe this lie and it is a lie then latecomers like the USA can be accused of being unprincipled (I think that's the reference to bravery in the initial post) only entering the fight when she herself was attacked.

But the Second World War was fought by all the participating nations, in either self defence or in pursuit of their national interest, in other words for the same reasons every war has ever been fought.

The west was happy to accommodate fascism right up to the moment it couldn't and continued to accommodate fascist Spain for decades afterwards, as well as slew of authoritarian states all over the world as a bulwark against Communism.

Of course the Second World War defeated the cruel Nazis and liberated those who suffered brutal occupation, no one can argue that wasn't a desirable outcome, but we confuse the outcome with the initial motives of all the belligerent nations, there was nothing unprincipled about the USA entering the war "late" because no one entered that war on principal. The USA entered the war when her national interest required it, just like everybody else.

 

[bluethrunthru]

Worked his magic in Canada and Australia now - hope Carney and Albanese when they speak to him thank him for the effect his Twattism, sorry Trumpism, had on them winning their elections