Als Europäer habe ich eine Frage für Amerikaner, die weinen, dass ihr Steuergelder in den Krieg in der Ukraine geschickt wird: Haben Sie Amnesie? Die USA waren das einzige Land in der NATO, das nach dem 11. September Artikel 5 ausgelöst hat. Sollten wir auch die Rechnung für Afghanistan und den Irak schicken? Was ist mit Jugoslawien und Kosovo? fr
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„Do you have amnesia?“ No, we have bipolar disorder.
The types of Americans who say that sort of thing don’t even know about this. They don’t understand either how Europe has been buying U.S. arms instead of making them themselves basically as a favour to the United States. And they don’t understand how much NATO has historically allowed the U.S. unprecedented influence in Europe.
NATO has never been charity from the United States as Trump likes to portray it as. It has always been in its own geopolitical interests and transactional in nature. The U.S. gives an assurance of protection against a Russian threat should it manifest, in return Europe has participated in the U.S. imperialist wars, has allowed the U.S. to heavily influence its foreign policy, and buys U.S. arms.
Europe has participated in those wars and had our people die in them. We have bought billions in arms. We have bent the knee when it comes to our policy vis-a-vis places like Iran, despite needing Iranian oil for our own interests. But now that Russia is causing war in Europe the U.S. suddenly has somewhere else to be.
Also, the U.S. would still have a gigantic military without NATO, possibly even a larger one. Because they want one to project power. The huge military spending has never been about protecting Europe, only about projecting American power and pleasing defence contractors. The idea that Trump portrays American defence spending as a „cost“ for NATO is ridiculous.
But Trump supporters and American nationalists will never admit this. One group because they can’t accept any criticism of their dear leader, the other because they can’t accept any criticism of their country or the idea that their country is not some benevolent guardian of freedom protecting Europe for freedom and democracy.
To be clear, not talking about all Americans here. I know plenty of Americans who are great. But I’m talking about a particular type of American.
Several NATO members sent troops to get killed in the Middle East in a highly unpopular war after 2001. Because our ally invoked article 5, and although the cause was very questionable, we agreed to support our ally. Because that is what you do with allies.
23 years later that remains the only time a NATO country has triggered article 5. And now that ally is not only sucking up to Russia and refusing to support its allies, it is also threatening to invade us.
Could someone tabulate the cost of the Afghan war, by country, so that we might send the bill to the WH? Bit of a joke, but more seriously, if indeed the nature of military alliances is to become mercantile, then it should go all around. All parties should adopt this approach.
While it’s easy to complain about the minimal tax dollars sent to Ukraine, the argument here simply annoys Americans.
The US did trigger article 5, for the war in Afghanistan. The US also handled the bulk of the fighting in the war, and the bulk of the cost. While the US sent over 100k troops during the “surge”, Germany never sent more than 5k and Germany had one of the largest deployments.
Is that the commitment the EU is expecting from the US for NATO, let alone a non-ally like Ukraine?
Watching live feed of Mike Waltz being interviewed at CPAC. This is full blown propaganda. I’ve not seen anything like this since Germany in the 1930’s. The questions about Ukraine are all tailored to be Russia friendly, the comments from Waltz are often lies or just outright verbal kicking of Zel and europe.
This is insanity. These people know they are lying surely? I fear greatly for America and by extension the rest of us.
Yeah ime when I ask questions like you are to the people who bring up the tax money thing… they usually just tend to try to talk louder/over me, use a lot of “theys”(whoever they is), and all around just wanna be worked up over something.
Or they’re a lot more calm/agreeable and just hear random things that there’s waste/corruption and aren’t skeptical about it and they get quickly lost if these things are brought up – they’re basically almost apolitical.
Then there’s some that know about this stuff and aren’t like the above but dislike the tax things… they’re usually libertarians, or at least say they are.
There’s obviously more varied opinions, this is a quick analysis of what I’ve seen and experienced of some of the different flavors. Also many Americans are very aware of what you’re talking about and support it their tax dollars helping w/ NATO n their allies, etc etc. But here we are rn.
Then they really are stupid, because Ukraine hasn’t been getting anymore aid from us. Zelenski, has handled this all so poorly, and every action taken next to the enemy of his friends, he made us all look like we were being untruthful this this entire time. We helped Ukraine with true dedication for years, I personally did donate too.
You, don’t have the right to scold us. Slava Ukraine. Good luck.
I don’t think they care. I hope we all realise the time for words are rapidly over
No, half their country is brain rotted not amnesiac and also they don’t actually care about any of the issues they talk about. They only agree with Trump no matter what he says. That is it.
You could argue that is what we owed them after WWII
Mentioning Yugoslavia and Kosovo flies in the face of the common trope that NATO is a defensive organisation also