Let's talk about Trump, NATO, and taking it personally....

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Belle of the Ranch 3 min 4 chapters transcribed

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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0:01

Well, howdy there, Internet people. It's Belle again. So today, we're going to talk about Trump, NATO, and taking it personally. We've been talking a lot lately about Trump's slights against our NATO allies, and some of you have noted that I seem to be taking it personally. Here's a message.

What are the personal implications of Trump's comments on NATO?

0:24

Quote, Belle, why do you care so much about Trump talking about NATO? It's politics. You don't seem to get worked up about other stuff. I was in Afghanistan in 2006 and Iraq in 2002. I never worked with foreign troops. I'm not sure why you're taking this so personally. I know some of y'all caught that and we'll come to that later. Maybe I do take it personally.

How does Belle's military experience shape her views on NATO?

0:53

I remember that day in September and everything getting locked down. How chaotic and scary it was. And years later, I was in Landstuhl. That's in Germany. I treated people from everywhere. From California to Georgia and everywhere in between. Not that Georgia. Not the one with Atlanta. The country Georgia. They're not even a NATO member and I was helping their boys recover from the wounds they got fighting in our war. I saw the price our allies paid. So yeah, maybe I take it personally that we're turning our backs on them and in some cases threatening them. You may not have seen them because it's hard to integrate units and operations when you have a bunch of languages involved. But I find it hard to believe you were in Afghanistan in 06 and weren't aware of NATO presence.

1:54

That was ISAF. It's hard to think of those dressings and write it off as just politics. Like it's the same as when congresspeople call each other names on Twitter. It just feels different to me. Now, I answered the question, assuming that something was a typo, because it very well may be. And it seems like a genuine enough question for it to just be a typo. But it's worth noting that the U.S. losing the rest of NATO is so damaging that competitor nations might run influence operations to try to convince Americans it's a good idea. Specifically, Russia has a huge interest in seeing NATO break up. Maybe it was a typo. But just in case it was a slip... Have you ever seen those spy movies where the spy inadvertently blows their cover in a really simple way?

2:54

They hold something the wrong way. Or they don't know a pop culture reference for the country they're pretending to be from. Or they do know the second verse to the national anthem. You were in Iraq in 02, huh? You sure you don't mean 03? Look, that might have just been a simple typo.