If blunt talk doesn’t put world leaders at ease, but rather causes them to correct course, isn’t it the right thing to do?
It’s an “Ugly American” question I get it. But it is a necessary one as well.
As President Trump “went there” today at the beautiful and spacious new NATO headquarters, there were too many TV cameras sweeping the gathered world leaders and their reactions to miss clearly their looks of discomfort at his blunt assessment.
Following his historic speech in Riyadh where he–with equal bluntness–demanded that the nations of the middle east must become the first and primary force against the cancer of the expanding Islamic extremism, he also forcefully reminded Europe and NATO that while America is their partner in this fight, they too must bear some of the burden.
In some capacity the genius of Trump’s “America First” focus is that he is forcing the rest of the world to grow up. To even mention the cost of the American tax-payer in his speech to NATO had to have been a first for any U.S. President.
And he is correct…
NATO sits rightfully concerned about several crises, some of their own making. Refusing to do much to stop ISIS, NATO’s inaction created the refugee crisis. The refugee crisis–in return–is the cover being used to attack the NATO homelands. And Russia sits on NATO’s back doorstep eagerly waiting and watching.
Combine NATO nations’ largely vapid religious and moral conditions and what was a great collection of nations once gathered for the collective protection of nations of similar values, it is now hard to even identify what some of the nations’ values are.
When President Trump purposefully identified the refugee crisis, unlike what former Deputy Secretary of State Nicholas Burns told Shannon Bream on FoxNews, he wasn’t breaking with historic policy nor expressing hostility towards the legitimate displaced peoples of Syria. He was in fact identifying a lack of commitment to a nations’ own sovereignty (that he perceives is present within the NATO members) and attempting to subtly encourage them to in fact address as much in their own domestic agendas.
At the end of the day President Trump is not invested in NATO’s success nearly as much as he is committed to American safety, and like a former British Prime Minister by the name of Churchill he seems to see and even understand the threat of the great and looming evil even when the Chamberlain-like figures of May, Merkel, and Obama have had a hard time admitting the evil even exists–even after horrid acts and atrocities take place.
I learned at an early age that while I didn’t like it, the only people in my life who truly loved me, were friends and family who dealt straight with me. This flies in the face of snowflakes today, but it is genuinely true.
The addict whose family holds the intervention, the spouse who confronts their partner, the best friend that says they can no longer be friends unless and until change occurs–these are incredibly difficult things to hear and say.
But they must be said.
For to not say them is to condemn the individual (or in Trump’s case the civilized world) to the destruction that would ensue.
Ironically the “Make America Great Again” President is arguing for the most compassionate and long term good for the globe in a way that the constant apologizing of the globalists never will.
That President Trump takes seriously both the threat of Islamic extremism, and the culpability of nations not taking care to take preventative measures against attacks, who go even further to invite those who perform those attacks seemingly into their midst, and THEN still won’t pay their portion of the check for the rest of the freedom loving world to help protect them is merely analysis.
That President Trump has the courage to go to the homeland of the extremists, and stare into the eyes of the nation’s they seek to exploit and urge in the most sincere and direct way as possible to change their ways is genuine care.
Blunt talk is uneasy to endure sometimes.
But other times…
It can save our lives!
