MN-Skeptic wrote: ↑Fri Feb 25, 2022 3:51 pm
On my way home from shopping, I was thinking about what Trump would have done differently. I realized that he would have gotten the same info re Russia's build-up of military forces at Ukraine's border and the detailed information on when they would have attacked. And he would have sat on it. He wouldn't have warned anyone. Not Ukraine. Not our allies.
According to the book "Only I Can Fix It" by Carol Lennig and Phillip Rucker says that Trump had serious plans to pull the US from NATO during his 2nd term. That was apparently a major goal of
Putin's his.
Watching the news today, I was reminded of some things that happened with Trump that got me to thinking. I'm certain this is nothing original or even revelatory. I just thought I'd toss it out here in case anyone wanted to comment, tell me I'm getting paranoid, add any other information or whatever. So, here goes nothing.
Obviously, Putin wanted Trump to win and helped him do so. For a number of years, the Republican platform had included a plank saying that the Republicans supported Ukraine in their struggles against Russia. During the 2016 Republican convention, the only thing Trump wanted changed was for that particular plank to be removed, though IIRC, there was never any explanation given for doing so. His team had nothing to say about anything else.
Then after Trump gets into office, he starts heavily criticizing NATO and making noise like he might pull the US out. Later, he starts claiming that it wasn't Russia who interfered in our election and got him elected, but rather Ukraine was interfering to try to get Hillary elected, but they failed. And, of course, the was the whole thing with trying to extort Zelenskyy into helping him against Biden by threatening to withhold much needed weaponry from them.
On top of all that is the report that he planned to actually go ahead and pull the US from NATO in his second term.
We also know that Putin has been planning to try and grab the rest of Ukraine for a while now. I'm wondering if Trump wasn't a big part of Putin's plot to take Ukraine (and who knows how much beyond that if the US was out of NATO.) Trump himself is unlikely to have come up with the idea of removing the Ukraine plank from the Republican platform, and why would he specifically blame Ukraine for and claim they tried to help Hillary? Since he was wanting to weaken our relations with out allies (as well as weakening NATO as a whole) he could just as easily have blamed a European country like his flunkies have tried to do with Italy and Germany in regards to the "stolen" 2020 election. Blaming Ukraine, however, may have helped turn his followers against Ukraine in general and make it easier for them to find excuses to support Russia in this war - which is what they're doing right now. And threatening to withhold the weapons from Ukraine would have been a win-win for Trump and Putin. If Ukraine refused to give into the pressure, then it's harder for them to push back against Russia - making Putin, and thus Trump, happy - and if they did give in and dummy up evidence of corruption by the Bidens, it would likely have helped Trump win a 2nd term, something Putin also wanted.
Trump wasn't able to achieve Putin's dream of having the US out of NATO, but Putin may have decided that he was either too far along in his plans to turn back even though he no longer had an ally in the White House, or he felt that what Trump had done had softened support for Ukraine among the American people enough that Biden would essentially have his hands tied as to how far he could go to support Ukraine.
Maybe I'm wandering a bit too far into tin foil hat territory, but if that's what's been going on, it seems even more important to keep Trump (or a different candidate who's willing to follow Trump/Putin's playbook) out of office. He (or a surrogate) could still pull us out of NATO and let Putin lose on the rest of Eastern Europe to rebuild the Russian empire.
@CBSNews // UN
The Russian military seized two vehicles of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, changed into Ukrainian uniform and are moving to the center of Kyiv. They are followed by a column of Russian military trucks, says Deputy Defense Minister.
@Orly_licious
s titular Mama June in Fogbow's Favourite Show™ Mama June: From Not To Hot! Fogbow's Theme Song™ Edith Massey's "I Got The Evidence!" 
Ukraine’s military.
x4