Vox Media: on War & Peace
Donald Trump:
To eradicate ISIS, we need action, not talk
Trump and Pope Francis have made no effort to hide their shared enmity over the past few years. During the presidential campaign, the Pope--who is revered for his deep humility and sincere affinity for the poor and downtrodden--was cutting about Trump's
plan to build a border wall with Mexico. "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel," Francis said in February 2016.Trump fired back via Facebook: "If and
when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS's ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened.
ISIS would have been eradicated unlike what is happening now with our all talk, no action politicians."
Trump added, huffily, "No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man's religion or faith."
Source: Vox.com on 2020 Presidential Hopefuls, "Trump-Pope Meeting"
May 24, 2017
George W. Bush:
2008: Support for Ukraine in NATO is a threat to Russia
Ukraine isn't joining NATO anytime soon, and President Joe Biden has said as much. Still, NATO's open-door policy--the alliance's foundational principle that any qualified European country could join--cuts both ways. To the West, it's a statement of
autonomy; to Russia, it's a threat. The core of the NATO treaty is Article 5, a commitment that an attack on any country is treated as an attack on the entire alliance--meaning any Russian military engagement with a Ukraine as NATO member would
theoretically bring Moscow into conflict with the US and the 27 other NATO members.The prospect of Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO has antagonized Putin at least since President George W. Bush expressed support for the idea in 2008. "That was a real
mistake," said the ambassador to Ukraine under President Bill Clinton. "It drove the Russians nuts. It created expectations in Ukraine and Georgia, which then were never met. And so that just made that whole issue of enlargement a complicated one."
Source: Vox.com on Foreign Influences: "NATO expansion"
Jan 27, 2022
Lincoln Chafee:
Calls drone strikes "extrajudicial assassinations"
He does think Hillary Clinton is far too hawkish to be president--and indeed, she's more hawkish than our current Democratic president and more hawkish than most of the Democratic Party. She supports the Obama administration's
anti-ISIS airstrikes in Iraq and Syria; Chafee opposes them. Her State Department helped develop the legal rationale for the drone war; Chafee calls drone strikes "extrajudicial assassinations."
Source: Vox.com e-zine on 2020 presidential hopefuls
Oct 16, 2015
Page last updated: Dec 02, 2023