Europe is caught on the horns of a dilemma with Donald Trump - Yorkshire Post Letters
From: Gareth Robson, Kent House Road, Beckenham.
Another day, another tirade from the big-mouth in the White House. It was Europe's turn to get the treatment today, December 9, (and I think he includes us in Europe). Our openness to immigration is already eroding under a wave of carping from large parts of Europe's and the UK's population but apparently it's not eroding quickly enough for Trump's liking - he is rallying Europeans to choose leaders he approves of (Orban, the virtual dictator of Hungary, being the only one he endorses by name but we get the idea).
These are leaders who would join his ugly crusade.He is shouting publicly that we should reject liberal democracy and the rule of law - they are making us decay, he says, and will lead to many countries in Europe ceasing to be viable.
I pause to wonder what his motives are. Three answers are hard to dismiss: money for himself and his family and associates; his craving for adulation from Americans (and others); and dirty out-and-out racism or white supremacy.
His plan for Ukraine is to let Russia have its way in return for a profit-share for the US, with Europe goaded into sacrificing our military and money in order to resist (if we can?) further Russian land-grabs.
Basically an armed guard to keep US investments safe. Wind the clock forward, he and his successors would happily allow a further Russian takeover of Europe in the future as long as the US once again got its cut.
For sure, this is the third time in a century that the US has faced the demand for (or the necessity of?) ending barbarity in Europe. They were reluctant on each previous occasion but neither Wilson nor Roosevelt saw their intervention in Europe primarily as a business opportunity. That's what we face now.
The leader of the free world eyeing a Europe ready to be carved up between the US and Russia. How convenient for him (and Russia) that the UK was prised away from the political structures of the EU (even if NATO remains - but read again Trump's pronouncements about NATO).
Europe is caught on the horns of a dilemma: either spend eye-watering amounts on defence (most of it spent on US weapons) and have European troops readied for combat; or do nothing and wait either for Russia to invade (unopposed by the US) or for the US to turn us into a series of puppet dictatorships. How did it come to this?