100 Comments
User's avatar
Dutchmn007's avatar

Writers @ The Atlantic & the NYT hardest hit! ;<)

Allan W's avatar

I’m not sure better late than never. I was kind of enjoying the thought of history, writing out any help from NATO countries. Looking forward to the additional military expenditures that we could spend on our own military instead of sending to Europe.

Let them cook their own goose

Lee J Ellis's avatar

One way or the other, we are going to have to take a really hard look at our involvement in NATO. If this is how they respond, is it worth being involved with NATO at all?

Eric F. ONeill's avatar

Particularly since most are becoming little Islamic republics themselves…

Craig Harry's avatar

Tell me oh wise one, how many muslims live in, say, the UK?

Eric F. ONeill's avatar

At this point, approximately 6 per cent in the UK alone.

Craig Harry's avatar

So not an Islamic Republic in anybody's fevered imagination then?

Craig Harry's avatar

Read the articles of the NATO charter and get back to me when you're better informed

BradK (Afuera!)'s avatar

I'm reminded of the scene early on in Gladiator where Commodus arrives at the end of the battle just after Maximus has secured victory. He asks the Emperor, "Father, have I missed the battle?"

To which he responds, "My son, you have missed the war."

Let's hope NATO suffers the same fate as the cowardly Commodus.

Craig Harry's avatar

So let me get this straight. My next door neighbour, which has spent the last six months shouting abuse at me over the garden fence, breaks into a house on the other side of town and smashes the joint up. The guy whose house it is then sends his dog to urinate in my neighbour's garden and maybe leave a present in his fish pond. Any you can't understand why I'm in no rush to chase the dog off? Really?

anymajordude's avatar

now now, let us not completely damn them. paris will remain a nice place to visit.

Madjack's avatar

It’s worth a mass…

michael holt's avatar

Better yet, let Europe stew in their own juices.

Craig Harry's avatar

Not once your nice Mr Putin has finished with it. Believe me

Thomas Horvath's avatar

Oh yes, Putin, who has taken 4+ years in a way with Ukraine, is going to march through actual NATO countries with ease. Is that what you are implying?

Craig Harry's avatar

Russia is pretty hopeless at most things but one they can do is bomb cities back to the stone age. We both know that

anymajordude's avatar

the point of "defending" europe was mostly about containing the USSR. yes france and england are/were "our" friends, but after WW2 they were basically dependents. So, like women, you have to both defend them and buff up their egos at the same time. The problem with trump is that he leaves out the ego buffing. So, fine, give them a participation trophy. We are stuck with them. Whatever keeps them happy.

IRG "U Can't" C Me's avatar

Don't worry. They won't be sending any ships, military, etc.

Thomas Robinson's avatar

At some point Ms. Applebaum will grow tired of being wrong in her stentorian and condescending way.

glenn's avatar

The EU and UK are waking up to being squeezed in Trumps pincer move between Iran and Ukraine, revealing European hypocrisy at its finest. Trump knows European’s late stage virtue signal is to stave off the optics he can use to dissolve NATO for good.

Trump is right. NATO has always been a one way street, where the US backstops Europes defense, especially when they want to poke the nuclear armed bear via their proxy war.

To be fair, the global Marxist technocrats have never seen an American president acting in the interests of America. It’s taking them time to adjust, but they will. Trump is dismantling 60 years the US being Europe’s ATM. For years, we were like the rich uncle that pays for everything, and is always criticized for being “crude”. Our wealth slowly drained, aided and abetted by a devious deep state machine, most Americans are just waking up to. And a lot of those threads point right back to London. No surprise there.

There’s already well thought out writings here and on X that show it was the London puppet masters that closed the Straights, not Iran. A gambit Trump was ready for in two ways. First, American quickly backstopped shipping underwriting risk with insurance. Two, America doesn’t import any oil from the Middle East, and we’ve now secured a very large supply in Venezuela. So while futures drive up the price, our energy industry is making money hand over fist, and selling back to Europe. Likewise, Russia is profiting nicely as well. So Trump can sit back and say “you guys (Europe and Asia) are the ones that need the Straight opened, not the US. You decide, we’ll wait” and interestingly, our Naval fleets have pulled back from the straight to a low risk position.

So the Atlantic, NYT, WaPo, and countless shrilling podcasters can keep pushing the “incompetent Trump, loose cannon” narrative, but outside that closed and moldy echo chamber, the rest of the world, including the Iranians, know better.

Craig Harry's avatar

NATO was always a projection of US power. JFK's Secretary of State once said "We fought the last two World Wars in Europe and if they let us we'll fight the next one there". Only a deeply transactional fool doesn't see the value in NATO

Singleshot's avatar

Europe is becoming increasingly irrelevant, as it transforms into a third-world Islamic geography.

reel life's avatar

Unfortunately, that transformation is quite relevant. If Europe goes down, we and the free world are in worse shape.

Craig Harry's avatar

5% of the UK population is muslim. Don't believe everything you read

Thomas Horvath's avatar

Then why should I believe what you wrote here? And if they're only 5%, why is the UK bending over backwards to accommodate their feelings to the point of arresting people for social media posts?

Al Gonzalez's avatar

This is so typical of the weak, feeble NATO deadbeats that have freeloaded and now want to front run on the US’s military success. The European leaders are like freshmen frat boys talking shit and just posing and hiding behind their upper classmen who have their number and will not hesitate to call out their feeble minded weak alligator arms they show when the check shows up. They are sheep.

IRG "U Can't" C Me's avatar

Lol. Relax. They won't be sending any ships, military, etc.

Al Gonzalez's avatar

Relax? These chumps came to the table late in Ukraine and our money has been stolen by Ukrainian Oligarchs. European leadership has no credibility. Meloni probably has more testosterone than Macron and Starmer combined.

Dougal's avatar

Too many people want Trump to lose this war, no matter what the consequences are for the United States and the rest of the world. For four decades presidential administrations, with the exception of Obama's, have recognized and confronted a bellicose, criminal, genocidal Iran and sought to contain them. Trump's vigorous campaign may end the need for that. Let's hope for its success. At minimum, he will reduce Iran's capabilities to murder and incite chaos for many years to come.

Dan Henry's avatar

Wrong.

People are very concerned about the consequences from another war in which Americans are sacrificed in pursuit of Israel’s objective.

The Iraq War is still fresh for many Americans - we saw this debacle and don’t want a repeat.

That is what real American patriots do.

Dougal's avatar

Israel opposed the Iraq War. Because they felt it strengthened Iran.

Israel''s and our interests dovetail in many ways, most notably as a dual police force in the most incendiary region in the world. Israel exists because Americans and the British thought Zionism was a good idea to protect the Jews. We still think that. A strong majority of Americans support our helping to defend Israel. I learned today that AIPAC gives out $50 million in political donations. 8 of the top ten recipients were Congressional Democrats. On aligned group was number 7 in the descending list of contributions and one conservative Republican was number 10 on the list, receiving the least amount in the top ten. It was on the website Open Secrets. That should prove to you that support for Israel is widespread and if this war is successful in removing the Iranian regime, they will be even more popular.

Dan Henry's avatar

When you start out with bullshit on the Iraq war there is no need to go further.

The Israelis stovepiped intel into Feith’s office screaming there was WMD in Iraq. That fact is common knowledge.

So peddle your hasbara bullshit elsewhere.

Dougal's avatar

You fail to mention in your bullshit reply that every credible intelligence agency in the world believed that Saddam was secretly developing nuclear weapons. Why? Because he wanted certain of his enemies, Iran for one to think he did have them and certain of his enemies that he didn't, namely the US. He was playing both sides. He could easily have proved to Bush that he didn't have them, but the Iran would likely invade at some point in the future. Iraq is majority Shia. Iran wants it still. But given their miscalculations, the current regime will never get it.

The fact is that Saddam was responsible for the deaths of more Muslims than any man who ever lived. He started the Iran-Iraq War in which a million people died. Thousands more died when he invaded Kuwait. Like Nasser before him he was trying to create a united Arab federation with himself in control. That way he thought he could destroy Israel. He was paying $25,000 bounties to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. He was one of the most evil men who ever lived and like the Iranians he miscalculated terribly and ended up dead.

This war is necessary. If the regime is eradicated, it will create a new historical era in the Middle East, one that will be much more peaceful than it has been for the past century.

Dan Henry's avatar

Man you are one ignorant SOB.

Saddam’s sons-in-law defected In August 1995, Hussein Kamel (Saddam’s son‑in‑law and head of Iraq’s military‑industrial/WMD complex) and his brother Saddam Kamel defected to Jordan with their wives (Saddam’s daughters) and several senior officers.

• Kamel brought documents detailing Iraq’s past nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile programs and was debriefed by UNSCOM/IAEA and Western intelligence.

• According to a debriefing transcript reported by Newsweek and summarized by FAIR, Kamel said that after the 1991 Gulf War Iraq had destroyed its stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and banned missiles, leaving only design and production documentation and some dual‑use capability.

All public record that was ignored because the neocons wanted their war.

Ghenghis Khan killed more Muslims than anyone else in history.

If Saddam was so evil then why did the U.S. supply him with chemical weapons which he deployed on the Iranians and then later the Kurds. Look up Don Rumsfeld giving him a cake.

If you feel this war is necessary then get your ass to the frontline hero.

If not then stop spewing your lies chickenhawk.

Dougal's avatar

And you can take your chicken hawk shit and stuff it up your ass. I don't give a shit if you served. I didn't, but I'm named after my father's cousin, his closest friend growing up, who was shot through the mouth and killed at Okinawa. My great, great grandfather was a Captain in the US Colored Troops in the Civil war as a white officer and was severely wounded twice while fighting side by side with his men.

It was Carter who supplied the Iranians with those chemicals and they were for agriculture and other peaceful pursuits. So stop with your re-writing history to serve your stupid left-wing politics. There was no intent to supply chemical weapons to the Iraqis. They misused the material. This false charge has repeatedly been refuted and yet you all keep repeating like a broken record.

I have studied the history of modern Israel in detail and read ten book on the subject in the past years. Here they area;

Menachem Begin's The Revolt (1952);

Jabotinsky by Hillell Helkin (2014);

The Six Day War by Churchill and Churchill (1967); and

Palestine 1936 by Oren Kessler (2023);

The Yom Kippur War by Abraham Rabinovich (2024, 2017)

The Battle for Jerusalem: An Unintended Conquest (50th Anniversary Edition) by Abraham Rabinovich.

Rise and Kill First by Ronen Bergman (2018)

The Arc of a Covenant by Walter Russell Mead (2022)

On Settler Colonialism Adam Kirsch (2024)

Jerusalem, The Biography; by Simon Sebag Montefiore, 2011

Ghosts of a Holy War; Yardena Schwartz, 2024

If you are so fucking brave go enlist in the IRGC if you think the war is wrong.

Dougal's avatar

Yes, Ghengis Khan did kill more Muslims than Saddam. Saddam has killed more than anyone in the modern era. I should have known that. The Mongol Empire was the second largest in human history, after the British. With the Russia Empire coming in third.

The fact remains and was widely reported at the time that all the major and credible intelligence agencies at the time believed Saddam was secretly working toward nuclear weapon capacity.

Saddam's son in law was not the only source of intelligence they had. And who was to say he wasn't still working with Saddam to misinform us? Yes, the evidence now tells us we got it wrong about Saddam's nuclear intentions, but I think it's irrelevant. He was a long term threat to US security and the entire Middle East and probably would have been succeeded by his psychotic sons when he died. Iraq either invaded or supplied the invaders in the 1948, 1967 and 1973 wars against Israel. I think it was a miscalculation to take out his government, given what we now know, but only because it did strengthen Iran and allow them to kill our troops in Iraq through their Shia proxies. The disassembly of the Ba'athist ruling elite was a mistake. We should have done what we just did in Venezuela-- cut off the head of the snake, let the Ba'athists rule and continue to confront Iran rather than strengthen them. Like a lot of Democrats I supported the war and think it was worth it getting rid of Saddam.

Thomas Horvath's avatar

Oh, is that what "real" American Patriots do? They agree with you on everything? You have some special status in the community of real American Patriots? Seems to me that just because something may be Israel's objective does not mean it's not ours. And tens of thousands of Iranians were just murdered by the regime, implicating a willingness amongst the population to rise up if given the opportunity. Iraq had no such uprisings before we did what we did. And they had no nuclear capabilities whatsoever.

So stop it with this "real" patriot crap. It makes you look small-minded and obnoxious.

Dan Henry's avatar

Fuck you hasbara - define the U.S. national interest in attacking Iran? Let’s see what you come up with genius.

The US has stood by when thousands were killed by other regimes - Hungary, Czechoslovakia come to mind. Then of course there were the regimes we supported who did the same - Chile and Indonesia.

Also, who do you know in Iran that has confirmed these numbers? Puking out Israeli and Trump propaganda isn’t proof of reality.

Your Iraq comment confirms you don’t have a fucking clue. Iraq is now run by the Shia’s who are aligned with Iran.

Alan Wolfson's avatar

I love how many liberals call themselves “patriots “ when all that entails for the is rage at and hatred of Trump and his supporters. Reflexive mindless opposition is not patriotism. Rooting against America at every turn only because success means the man you hate so irrationally is not patriotic.

Dan Henry's avatar

Another ignoramus.

Alexander Hamilton:

“If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defence, which is paramount to all positive forms of government”.

James Madison:

“The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.”

Thomas Jefferson:

“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…”

Ben Franklin:

“It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.”

Thomas Paine:

“It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government.”

Bill H's avatar

The spice must flow

Kevin Fedon's avatar

I may steal this Dune reference. Well played sir.

Richard's avatar

Applebaum is married to the Foreign Minister of Poland. She is hostile so the question must be asked about Poland's overall position vis the US. And has she registered as an agent of a foreign power.

Demonhype's avatar

I have been saying I'm tired of being the world's wallet, toilet, and whipping boy. And simultaneously an existentially powerful threat to all of earth and a joke that can't even beat a third world hellhole. When your enemy is both supremely brilliamt and powerful and absurdly weak and stupid at the same time, its not a good bet the other side is the one in the cult.

We pull the money, your clubhouse goes broke. Sounds like we have plenty of leverage. Of course, we always have, we just misused or abused it to aid elite interests, after all, isn't that how Obama got Ukraine to shut down the very warranted criminal investigation into Baby Biden?

IRG "U Can't" C Me's avatar

Right....are they sending ships and military?

Madjack's avatar

I wouldn’t have started this operation(mostly because im preternaturally a pussy) but now started we must finish it successfully. This is critical.

Senator J. McCarthy's avatar

The TDS crowd's identity is defined by shouting, "Now we finally got him!" only to discover they revealed their hand before the final play has been made. They've lost every single time, but they are addicted to eating political hand grenades - so we let them.

Alan Wolfson's avatar

Tom, until I read this column I agreed with that school of thought 100%. But I think I had an epiphany today about the liberal media blueprint. They write for an audience of one, the hive-minded left. They care not how often they are wrong because liberal lemmings are so desperate for the dopamine hit of any Trump failure. So in order to obfuscate their consistently incorrect predictions or summaries, the recipe is to throw in generous pinches of hate-Trump insults. Thus even when the few liberals capable of rational analysis realize that Anne Applebaum got this one (and a million others) wrong, they can shrug and think “well, at least she hates Trump” and hope that next time she could be right. I think that the endless failures to “get Trump” have destroyed their capacity for rational thinking. Which I suppose is the textbook definition of TDS.

Craig Harry's avatar

So let me get this straight. My next door neighbour (who has spent months hurling abuse at me over the fence) breaks into a house two streets down and smashes the place up. The guy whose house it is sends his dog to urinate in my neighbour's garden, maybe leave a present in the fish pond. And you can't understand why I'm in no rush to chase the dog off? Of course I do in the end, but you truly don't understand why?

David Shimm's avatar

Ooh! A strongly worded letter.

ANDREW LAZARUS's avatar

This is perhaps the only comment on the right track, perhaps by irony.

None of these powers are going to risk their own military hardware. They don't intend to help "us"—they may help themselves. For example, the Iranians are allowing tankers to pass with cargo paid for in Chinese yuan.

A more telling datum from today is that Trump is willing to reduce sanctions in Iran[!] so that they can sell their own oil. Does that sound like success? The price of oil will keep accelerating, but the Trump Cult will find some new "triumph" to celebrate.