Conquer Club

European officials who emerged from a meeting with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said they now expect that tens of thousands of American troops will be pulled out of Europe — the only question is how many, and how fast. And they fear that in one-on-one negotiations with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Trump is on his way to agreeing to terms that could ultimately put Moscow in a position to own a fifth of Ukraine and to prepare to take the rest in a few years’ time. Mr. Putin’s ultimate goal, they believe, is to break up the NATO alliance.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/16/us/p ... risis.html

Trump says Zelensky ‘should have never started’ war with Russia

https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... ar-russia/

“Right now, In Saudi Arabia, the most undemocratic place on the planet, a war criminal and a convicted felon are deciding the future of Ukraine. If we are silent, it will be like Munich 1938 all over. Do we have the determination to speak out for a better world because it is being sold out now, and the American delegation is allowing this to happen.

We cannot allow this to happen.”

I didn’t think it would be like this. I was sure that when Donald Trump started shooting off his mouth about Ukraine and kissing up to Putin, the combined voices of NATO would speak up as a strong deterrent. When he began undermining his allies, I was convinced that Germany, the UK, France, Poland, etc., would rally together to remind the Americans that Europe would not be pushed around.

And I guess I was also hoping that our big European cousins would be there to reassure Canada that everything would be okay.

But that’s not how it went down at the NATO meetings in Brussels.

Even as Trump was tearing down the European peace around them, the senior delegations were trying to tiptoe around the obvious. They sat politely as American MAGA bros lectured them about their failure to defend democracy and listened politely as they were told that the United States was a superior country because everybody had access to a gun.

The Europeans were rattled. They were freaked out. They didn’t expect that Project 2025 would be aimed at them and the future of liberal democracy.

They just couldn’t believe that right before their very eyes the clock was being pushed back to the 1930s.

In Romania, JD Vance is interfering with the country’s election process. In Germany, Musk is promoting the extremist far right. In the Baltic states, there is a deep fear that Trump is going to sell them out to Putin. And in Ukraine, Trump is now blaming Ukraine for the war and pushing for an election to replace President Zelensky.

Coming from Canada, where our very right to exist as a nation has been called into question, I felt the diplomatic niceties were not the order of the day. And over the course of the meetings, I had a few choice exchanges with American Republicans.

In the official interventions that I made, I went hard at the duplicity of Trump and the need for allied nations to stand up for the rule of law.

This blunt language opened doors for representatives from many countries to approach me to discuss what could be done. I told them bluntly that now was the moment where we either stood up for the vision of a democratic West or allowed it to be torn apart.

In the final morning session, I shook up a staid presentation by pointing out that while we were talking about our shared values, two criminal leaders were meeting in Saudi Arabia to sell out the people of Ukraine.

Following my intervention, the Latvian delegation completely dropped the gloves and went hard on Trump. The hall erupted in cheers.

Afterward, the lead Latvian delegate came up to shake my hand, saying:

“We decided it was time to start acting like Canadians.”

I learned in Brussels that Canada has never been more alone than it is today.

Defending our nation from a gangster state is going to be an expensive and long-term commitment. We will have to hunker down and make tough decisions about our economy and national defence.

We are alone, yet we are not truly alone.

Many of our allied countries share our fears. They just don’t know what to do.

But we can resist the Trump/Putin plan. My hope is that in the coming months, nations like Europe, Australia, Japan, Latin America, and Canada can work together to oppose the Trump gang.

…In The Bulwark, Mark Hertling, who served as the Commanding General of the United States Army Europe, commanded the 1st Armored Division in Germany, and the Multinational Division-North in Iraq, underlined the dramatic shift in American alignment. In an article titled “We’re Negotiating with War Criminals,” he listed the crimes: nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children kidnapped and taken to Russia; the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, and energy facilities; the execution of prisoners of war; torture of detainees; sexual violence against Ukrainian civilians and detainees; starvation; forcing Ukrainians to join pro-Russian militias.

“And we are negotiating with them,” Hertling wrote. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo points out that the talks appear to be focused on new concessions for American companies in the Russian oil industry, including a deal for American companies to participate in Russian oil exploration in the Arctic.1

Dukasaur wrote:

…In The Bulwark, Mark Hertling, who served as the Commanding General of the United States Army Europe, commanded the 1st Armored Division in Germany, and the Multinational Division-North in Iraq, underlined the dramatic shift in American alignment. In an article titled “We’re Negotiating with War Criminals,” he listed the crimes: nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children kidnapped and taken to Russia; the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, and energy facilities; the execution of prisoners of war; torture of detainees; sexual violence against Ukrainian civilians and detainees; starvation; forcing Ukrainians to join pro-Russian militias.

“And we are negotiating with them,” Hertling wrote. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo points out that the talks appear to be focused on new concessions for American companies in the Russian oil industry, including a deal for American companies to participate in Russian oil exploration in the Arctic.1

Dukasaur wrote:

…In The Bulwark, Mark Hertling, who served as the Commanding General of the United States Army Europe, commanded the 1st Armored Division in Germany, and the Multinational Division-North in Iraq, underlined the dramatic shift in American alignment. In an article titled “We’re Negotiating with War Criminals,” he listed the crimes: nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children kidnapped and taken to Russia; the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, and energy facilities; the execution of prisoners of war; torture of detainees; sexual violence against Ukrainian civilians and detainees; starvation; forcing Ukrainians to join pro-Russian militias.

“And we are negotiating with them,” Hertling wrote. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo points out that the talks appear to be focused on new concessions for American companies in the Russian oil industry, including a deal for American companies to participate in Russian oil exploration in the Arctic.1