Thread: Trump changes tone on NATO, vows to work with alliance to defeat ISIS

Trump changes tone on NATO, vows to work with alliance to defeat ISIS

Published August 15, 2016 FoxNews.com

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, in what was billed as a major foreign policy address, on Monday backed off past threats to withdraw from the NATO alliance -- saying that if he's elected, the U.S. will work with the 28-member bloc to defeat the Islamic State.

During his speech in Youngstown, Ohio, Trump called for working "very closely with NATO," describing radical Islamic terrorism as the dominant global threat and one that must be confronted at all levels.

In doing so, Trump acknowledged having previously described NATO as "obsolete" for not dealing adequately with terrorism.

"Since my comments, they have changed their policy," Trump said, calling this apparent development "very, very good."

Trump's latest NATO comments indeed mark a turnaround from warnings that if he's president, the U.S. might not come to the aid of alliance members if they are attacked by Russia or another country.

Those remarks, made earlier this summer, drew heavy criticism from not only from Democrats and Republicans but also from NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

“I will not interfere with the U.S. election campaign, but what I can do is say what matters for NATO. Solidarity among allies is a key value for NATO,” Stoltenberg said.

Part of the NATO treaty established in 1949 requires that if one member nation is attacked, all the other nations must come to that country’s defense.

Trump also on Monday called for an American policy shift, vowing to focus resources on stopping the spread of radical Islam.

“If I become president, the era of nation-building will be brought to a very swift and decisive end,” Trump said.

The Republican presidential nominee noted he opposed the Iraq war more than a decade ago, while blaming what he called the "disastrous" decisions of President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his 2016 rival, for the spread of radical Islamic terror.

“We cannot let this evil continue,” Trump said of the radical Islam threat.

During his speech Trump proposed “extreme vetting” of Muslim immigrants and visitors to the United States, vowing once more to block those who sympathize with extremist groups or don't embrace American values. He said the policy would first require a temporary halt in immigration from dangerous regions of the world.

"We can never choose our friends, but we can never fail to recognize our enemies,” Trump said.

Ahead of Trump's address, Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden vigorously challenged the Republican nominee's preparedness to be commander in chief. Biden called Trump's views "dangerous" and "un-American" and warned that Trump's false assertions last week about President Obama founding the Islamic State could be used by extremists to target American service members in Iraq.

"The threat to their life has gone up a couple clicks," he said.

While Trump has been harshly critical of Obama's handling of the threat posed by the Islamic State, his own policies for defeating the group remain vague.

His most specific prescriptions Monday centered on changing U.S. immigration policy to keep potential attackers from entering the country.

Trump's campaign aides said a new ideological test for admission to the United States would vet applicants for their stance on issues like religious freedom, gender equality and gay rights. The government would use questionnaires, social media, interviews with friends and family or other means to determine if applicants support American values like tolerance and pluralism. The U.S. would stop issuing visas in any case where it cannot perform adequate screenings.

Trump did not clarify how U.S. officials would assess the veracity of responses to the questionnaires or how much manpower it would require to complete such arduous vetting. Nor did the campaign say whether additional screenings would apply to the millions of tourists who spend billions of dollars visiting the United States each year.

Trump also slammed Clinton, saying she lacks the "mental and physical stamina" to take on ISIS.

He said destroying the terror group would be the centerpiece of his foreign policy and he would partner with any countries that share that goal -- specifically singling out Russia as a nation the U.S. could have a better relationship with.

The Republican nominee's foreign policy address comes during a rocky stretch for his campaign. He's struggled to stay on message and has consistently overshadowed his policy rollouts, including an economic speech last week, with provocative statements, including his comments falsely declaring that Obama was the "founder" of the Islamic State.

Trump spent much of the speech building a case that Obama and Clinton are to blame for the creation of the terror group that has roiled the Middle East and carried out attacks in the West. He specifically highlighted the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in late 2011, arguing the move created a vacuum for terror groups to thrive.

Reiterating a favorite criticism of Republicans, Trump also panned the Obama administration for not using the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism" to describe sympathizers.

Obama, Clinton and top U.S. officials have warned against using that kind of language to describe the conflict, arguing that it plays into militants' hands.

Trump's immigration proposals were the latest version of a policy that began with his unprecedented call to temporarily bar foreign Muslims from entering the country -- a religious test that was criticized across party lines as un-American. Following a massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in June, Trump introduced a new standard, vowing to "suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies, until we fully understand how to end these threats."

That proposal raised numerous questions that the campaign never clarified, including whether it would apply to citizens of countries like France, Israel, or Ireland, which have suffered recent and past attacks. Trump had promised to release his list of "terror countries" soon. But aides say the campaign needs access to unreleased Department of Homeland Security data to assess exactly where the most serious threats lie.

Clinton pre-empted Trump’s speech at a rally earlier Monday with Vice President Biden in Scranton, Pa., where she claimed Trump often “has no plan” when it comes to foreign affairs. She also criticized him, before he softened his rhetoric on NATO, for past comments questioning America’s NATO commitments, accusing him of discussing “walking away from our European allies.”

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016...ting-isis.html

The anti-Trump seems to have two basic strategies. Either make desperate inflammatory claims against him or claim that he isn't really going to do the things he says he is going to do.

I actually saw reports in the British media talking about how Trump's hands were too small, that he had small hands. They were talking bad about his hands, the things on the ends of his arms. Then people were saying he wasn't really going to do anything about illegal immigrants despite the fact that even the president of Mexico had reacted to what Trump was saying.

And here they are saying that Trump isn't going to do anything about NATO, despite the fact that he has repeatedly said that NATO countries are not paying their way and that he intends to change that. He has voiced other criticisms of NATO as well.

Awhile back the Washington Post, one of their writers, Phillip Bump, I think it was actually did a study of Trump's hands. And concluded based on measurements and what size hands should be for one's height, Trump's hands are the right size. It's unbelievable that a newspaper would even take seriously such a thing, but they did, and determined that there's nothing small about Trump's hands, they are the perfect size for a man of his height. Where the small hands thing came from I don't know, probably the same people calling Trump a racist and a bigot because he wants to keep Radical Islamic Terrorism out of our country. So what do you call someone making fun of the size of someone's hands??!!! Isn't this what kids do when they're being mean to other kids, something to puff themselves up by putting someone else down?

For those who don't understand the meaning of the "SMALL hands" comments:

Trump's 'Big Hands'? What Science Says About Men's Anatomy

By Sara G. Miller, Staff Writer | March 4, 2016 02:44pm ET



Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Dec. 14, 2015.
Credit: Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock.com

At last night's Republican debate, a new issue surfaced when candidate Donald J. Trump responded to Sen. Marco Rubio's previous remark about the size of certain body parts.

"And he [Rubio] referred to my hands: 'If they're small, something else must be small.' I guarantee you there's no problem. I guarantee," Trump said.

Although news organizations have understandably decided to pass on fact-checking this claim, it does raise a scientific question: Is the size of a man's hands related to the size of his manhood?

There have been conflicting results about this question, said Debby Herbenick, a sex researcher at Indiana University.

Some studies have found a correlation between finger length and penis size, and others have not, Herbenick told Live Science. But these studies look at groups of people, not individuals, she said.

Certainly, you'll find people with big hands and small penises, small hands and big penises, and every other combination in the real world, she said.

A 2011 study, for example, suggests that there may, in fact, be a link between hand size and penis size. The study, published in the Asian Journal of Andrology, found that the ratio between a man's index finger and ring finger was linked to penis size. Specifically, the researchers found that having mismatched index and ring fingers (meaning these two fingers are different lengths) was linked to having a longer penis.

The association is not as out-of-left-field as it may seem. Some research suggests that testosterone exposure in the womb may play a role in both penis size and finger length, although more studies are needed to confirm this idea, the researchers said.

How big are we talking?

In a 2013 study, researchers found that the average American man's penis is 5.6 inches (14.2 centimeters) long when erect. But there's a great deal of variability. In the study, the researchers found that the shortest penis measured 1.5 inches (4 cm), while the longest measured 10.3 inches (26.2 cm).

Given the range of sizes, it's no surprise that a European condom company, TheyFit LLC, set out to broaden the playing field in 2011 by offering an array of condoms in 95 different sizes.

But, as the age-old question goes, does size really matter?

According to a 2012 study in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, the answer is yes — well, for some women that is. In particular, women who have frequent vaginal orgasms are more likely than other women to say they climax more easily with men with larger penises, according to the study.

"Male anxiety about penis size may not reflect internalized, culturally arbitrary masculine stereotypes but an accurate appreciation that size matters to many women," study researcher Stuart Brody, a psychologist at the University of the West of Scotland, told Live Science in 2012.

But men need not fret if they aren't well endowed. There's also a great deal of variability in women's size preferences, Barry Komisaruk, who researches female sexual response at Rutgers University, told Live Science at the time.

Another study, from 2013, found that penis size is a bigger factor for taller men. In the study, the researchers found that a larger penis had a greater effect on how attractive taller men were to women.

Of course, on the question of whether size matters for the Office of the President, well … "whatever your genitals look like, it just doesn't matter," Herbenick said.

http://www.livescience.com/53946-hand-size-penis-size.html

The insults went both ways.

Donald Trump Mocks 'Little Marco' Rubio At Fox News Debate ...

:40

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p_ltuXcOH4
Mar 3, 2016 - Uploaded by tpmtv
Donald Trump Mocks 'Little Marco' Rubio
At Fox News Debate. tpmtv .... Big don and little marco just ...

Marco started it. Trump just punched back. Candidates are free to do whatever mudslinging they want, that really doesn't bother me. What bothers me is the STUPID, SICK, MENTALLY ILL CORRUPT MEDIA doing it.

Trump flip-flops on NATO, offers cooperation to fight IS

• Reuters, Youngstown, Ohio |
• Updated: Aug 16, 2016 08:35 IST

Trump laid out his foreign policy vision for America that contradicts many of his previous positions. (AFP)

---

Republican Donald Trump said on Monday he would work closely with NATO allies to defeat Islamic State militants if he wins the White House, reversing an earlier threat that the United States might not meet its obligations to the Western military alliance.

In a policy speech, Trump said he would wage a multi-front “military, cyber and financial” war against Islamic State, although it was not clear how that would differ from the Obama administration’s fight with the jihadist group.

“We will also work closely with NATO on this new mission,” said Trump, whose remarks about the defense organization earlier this summer drew heavy criticism from allies and even some of his fellow Republicans.

Trump said a newly adopted approach to fighting terrorism by the organization had led him to change his mind and he no longer considered NATO obsolete.

He was apparently referring to reports the alliance is moving toward creating an intelligence post in a bid to improve information sharing.

While Trump appeared to claim credit for prodding NATO to focus more on the threat of terrorism, the 28-nation alliance has been grappling with the issue for more than a decade. NATO invoked Article 5, its collective self-defense mechanism, for the first time in its history to offer support to the United States after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Trump called for shutting down access to the internet and social media for those aligned with Islamic State, which holds territory in Syria and Iraq. But he said he did not want to detail military strategy because it would tip off potential foes.

“We will defeat radical Islamic terrorism just as we have defeated every threat we’ve faced at every age and before,” Trump said, blaming his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, and President Barack Obama for aiding the rise of Islamic State.

In a speech in the swing state of Ohio, Trump also said that in implementing his call for a temporary ban on Muslims immigrating to the country, he would institute “extreme vetting” and develop a new screening test to try to catch people who intend to do harm to the United States.

As president, he said, he would ask the U.S. State Department and Department of Homeland Security to identify regions of the world that remain hostile to the United States and where normal screening might not be sufficient to catch those who pose a threat.

The Clinton campaign said Trump’s plan to have immigrants submit to ideological tests was “a cynical ploy to escape scrutiny of his outrageous proposal to ban an entire religion from our country and no one should fall for it.”

Reading from a teleprompter, Trump said Clinton did not have the judgment and character to lead the country.

“Importantly, she also lacks the mental and physical stamina to take on ISIS and all of the many adversaries we face,” he said.

Trump, a wealthy New York businessman whose volatile campaign has alienated some in the Republican establishment, faced a fresh rebuke on Monday as he falls behind Clinton in opinion polls ahead of the Nov. 8 election.

The Wall Street Journal, a leading conservative voice, said in an editorial he should fix his campaign within weeks or step down. Echoing growing alarm about Trump’s candidacy among many leading Republicans, the newspaper said Trump had failed to establish a competent campaign operation.
‘Stop blaming everyone else’

“If they can’t get Mr. Trump to change his act by Labor Day, the GOP will have no choice but to write off the nominee as hopeless and focus on salvaging the Senate and House and other down-ballot races,” the newspaper said.

Labor Day, which falls on Sept. 5 this year, marks the end of U.S. summer vacations and traditionally launches the final phase of the long U.S. election season.

“As for Mr. Trump, he needs to stop blaming everyone else and decide if he wants to behave like someone who wants to be president - or turn the nomination over to Mike Pence,” it said, referring to the Indiana governor, who is Trump’s vice presidential running mate.

Adding to Trump’s woes this week was the news, first reported by The New York Times, that the name of his campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was on secret ledgers showing cash payments designated to him of more than $12 million from a Ukrainian political party with close ties to Russia.

Manafort denied any impropriety in a statement on Monday. “I have never received a single ‘off-the-books cash payment’ as falsely ‘reported’ by The New York Times, nor have I ever done work for the governments of Ukraine or Russia,” he said.

Artem Sytnik, the head of Ukraine’s anti-corruption bureau, confirmed in a briefing with reporters that Manafort’s name appeared on a ledger and that more than $12 million had been allocated as an expenditure, referencing Manafort.

But Sytnik said the presence of Manafort’s name “does not mean that he definitely received this money.”

The Clinton campaign said the news was evidence of “more troubling connections between Donald Trump’s team and pro-Kremlin elements in Ukraine.”

Trump has spoken favorably in the past of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Last month, he invited Russian hackers to find “missing” emails from Clinton’s time as secretary of state, when she used a private email server to conduct government business, although he later described that comment as sarcasm.

The current RealClearPolitics average of national opinion polls puts Clinton 6.8 points ahead of Trump, at 47.8 percent to Trump’s 41 percent. Polls also show Trump trailing in states such as Pennsylvania that are likely to be pivotal in the election.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/us-pre...so2kp7sUI.html

See, this is just another example of how totally dishonest the STUPID, SICK, MENTALLY ILL CORRUPT MEDIA is. Trump has not flip-flopped on NATO. Trump wanted 2 things from NATO. He wanted a revamp of their objectives to focus more on Terrorism than on fighting Russia. He also wants the NATO countries to comply with their financial obligations under the NATO agreement with the United States. How is cooperating with NATO to fight ISIS, something he wants NATO to do and has said so plainly and loudly, a "flip-flop"? Is the MEDIA so stupid as to believe that because NATO complies with one of his requests to FIGHT TERRORISM, that he's not going to insist the NATO countries comply with their obligations??!! NO, they will still have to comply with their financial obligations. One doesn't have anything to do with the other.

The CORRUPT MEDIA is disgustingly ignorant and dishonest. I've heard this all day on the news about Trump changing his position on NATO. Trump hasn't changed even a comma on his NATO position. They pay or we don't defend them. That simple. Fighting terrorism is something he wants them to focus on as part of their objectives, something they aren't doing at all or at least not doing very well. After Trump said they need to focus on Fighting Terrorism, NATO announced that it was going to form a NATO Counter-Terrorism Unit. GREAT!! Trump is already improving things and he's not even President yet.

Is This Why Trump Is Changing Gears? Report Says Manafort Organized Anti-NATO Protest