Trump team working to remove top NATO official

[riversedge]

Source: washington post




By Josh Rogin December 13 at 7:01 AM

The incoming Trump administration is looking to get rid of the No. 2 official at NATO, an American nominated by President Obama whom most Republicans don’t trust. But NATO’s Brussels leadership may not play along, setting up an early confrontation with President Trump.

Two Trump transition sources told me that a representative of the transition team met late last month with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels and delivered a private but deliberate message: The incoming administration would like Stoltenberg to replace Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller. Gottemoeller, who was nominated for the post by Obama this past March, started her job in Brussels only in October and has a multi-year contract. She works for NATO, not the U.S. government.

If NATO leadership agreed to remove Gottemoeller, it would set a new precedent for U.S. government control over American officials in top NATO positions. If the NATO leadership doesn’t agree, the incoming Trump administration could work to marginalize Gottemoeller and render her ineffective. Either way, her role is set to change when the new U.S. president comes into office.
............................

Gottemoeller’s allies see the Trump transition team’s quiet move to replace her in NATO as a brazen, brute-force tactic to pressure the alliance to bend to Trump’s will.

“This is a whispering campaign by schoolyard bullies......................

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2016/12/13/trump-team-working-to-remove-top-nato-official/?utm_term=.a57e9fd455b9

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I see nothing but conflict for the next 4years.




https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=480

NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller speaks at the Halifax International Security Forum in Halifax on Nov. 19. (Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press via Associated Press)

[Botany]

1. Can we just cut out the middle man and have Putin pick who wants to run NATO

This is a nightmare. Russia has taken over the White House.

[BainsBane]

24. I know, and he doesn't even bother

To hide it.

[Botany]

26. Carter Page one of Trump's men is in Moscow right now

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/08/world/europe/carter-page-donald-trump-moscow-russia.html

MOSCOW — Carter Page, an early foreign policy adviser to Donald J. Trump who was scrutinized by the F.B.I. on suspicion of private communications with senior Russian officials over the summer, was back in Moscow on Thursday.

Mr. Page was closelipped about the purpose of his visit, telling RIA Novosti, a Russian state-run news agency, that he would stay in Moscow until Tuesday and would meet with “business leaders and thought leaders.”

Mr. Page, who founded an investment company in New York called Global Energy Capital, drew attention during the summer for a speech that criticized the United States and other Western nations for a “hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality, corruption and regime change” in Russia and in other parts of the former Soviet Union.

He worked as an investment banker in Russia for at least three years in the 2000s, advising on several major transactions involving Russian state companies. Mr. Page’s extensive business links in Russia prompted suggestions that he might be serving Mr. Trump as a back-channel liaison with senior Kremlin officials.

*******

We are fucked. Trump will have us in a war in no time.

[stillcool]

30. it's not sinking in...

I read the words on the page, and I can't comprehend. This can not be....feels like insanity.

[Botany]

31. i still can't watch the news or read a paper .... sleeping is still a chore

This was and is a coup. Trump has cheated for everything in his life
why should this be in different?


Trump publicly called for Russia to hack the DNC and HRC’s campaign.

Donald Trump Calls on Russia to Find Hillary Clinton’s Missing Emails


DORAL, Fla. — Donald J. Trump said on Wednesday that he hoped Russian intelligence services had successfully hacked Hillary Clinton’s email, and encouraged them to publish whatever they may have stolen, essentially urging a foreign adversary to conduct cyberespionage against a former secretary of state.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Mr. Trump said during a news conference here in an apparent reference to Mrs. Clinton’s deleted emails. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/us/politics/donald-trump-russia-clinton-emails.html?_r=0 happened in July 2016

[JustAnotherGen]

28. Plus 10000

[Hugin]

2. Is there any question who runs Trumpski?

Really. Anyone?

OBTW... Regardless of what Fox "We report what the Kremlin decides" News and Rinse Penis says, the election was manipulated.

[still_one]

3. didn't trump say he would look at pulling out of NATO?

[bettyellen]

13. He has to work to delegitimize it first so he has a "reason to"....

Destroy it. Scarily enough i heard this could be his criteria for a SC justice as well- someone so disruptive and unwilling to follow prootcall that they make a mockery of the institution.

[still_one]

14. gosh, I really hope he is removed from office

[blm]

4. The 'no difference' crowd can go fvck themselvesgently..

….with a chainsaw.

Fvcking ignoramuses.

[MBS]

10. This thought also crosses my mind at least twice a day.

I've lost all patience with these folks.

[BainsBane]

25. [phone]

[JustAnotherGen]

29. Plus 1 trillion

[Baitball Blogger]

5. Jesus Christ on a trailer hitch - Trump is Putin's traitor puppet!

This man should be exiled instead of inaugurated for president!

[MissB]

6. I don't see Jens Stoltenberg agreeing to remove her.

I don't see him swayed in any way. He's a super smart guy.

[DK504]

7. NATO

must be freaking out. Putin's Puppet and his cronies are going to blow up the United States. I don't want to look to the end of the logical conclusion. It ain't pretty.

[haele]

9. At least 7 NATO members are in Russian crosshairs.

Expect Putin to move on Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and to finish off Ukraine as an independent country by the end of summer. Poland, the Czech Republic, and Romania are not far behind; probably in mid 2018, if Europe destabilizes and elects a bunch of RW Nationalist in this next round of elections - and if he still has enough army to do so.
Russia historically has only felt secure with satellite buffer states protecting the power base from any potential threat; and Putin's party has shown there is no interest in playing any part of global unity unless they can exclusively call the shots.
Thanks to Stalin and his practice of moving Russian settlements into all the Soviet territories, there are enough generations ethnic Russians in all those countries to "justify" Putin's "Great Leader" move to "protect" them by taking back all those former Soviet territories - especially ones with ports and access to resources.

Haele

[duffyduff]

23. You'd think this Hitler wannabe would have talked to Gorbachev.

The biggest reason the USSR and eastern bloc countries fell is because the USSR couldn't afford to sustain it.

I see nothing now that would change that.

[Dan]

8. I hope

that we don't go to war with NATO once we become Putin's puppet under dTrump.

[AlexSFCA]

11. no surprise

the only surprise here is that trump is actually following through on what he's been saying. He was pretty clear about weakening NATO and voters knew about it. Interestingly, I am finding that Trumps views on NATO and free trade are surprisingly similar to Sanders'.

Looks like we will be moving towards nationalism/isolationism.

[lark]

12. Gee, I'd take a big bet that drumpf suggested replacement is another Russia lover.

Every thing seems to go back to that for him, it's truly his prime motivating factor. Russia must have promised him the moon and he's stupid enough to believe them.

[Txbluedog]

15. Not the moon, just debt forgiveness

Trump doesn't want to be subjected to Putin's debt collections methods

[lark]

17. But, but

Don and Putin are BFF's, Putin wouldn't hurt him, he's too yooge.

[wordpix]

21. Drumpf's Russia obsession probably traced to Arctic oil or Putin showing Don how to be

an incredible dick-tator for life.

[bdamomma]

16. putin has his puppet

doing his binding. Gives Putin the green light to do anything he damn well pleases as well as Trump. They both want to dismantle NATO.

[Txbluedog]

18. I bet they give in and let him replace her

The Europeans are nothing if not good boot lickers

[Tanuki]

19. Trump is too stupid and ill-informed to have an opinion about Rose Gotemoeller,

so I am quite curious about who is pushing this. Journalists, step up and do your job....names, please!

[wordpix]

20. You're right, Comrade Trump is so busy with Kanye how would he even know Gotemoeller's

name and what she does? How did Drumpf zero in on her, with all the other transition things he has to do? Needs investigation for sure

[BumRushDaShow]

22. Imagine this - the U.S. becomes a "pawn"

between Russia and the rest of the world. It would not surprise me that other foreign nationals now start involving themselves in our elections in order to tilt the outcome in their favor.

[exboyfil]

27. Right hardliners are against her

because she is too accommodating to the Russians according to them.

It could be the case that she isn't, and she is a bone thrown to the right wing to quell the firestorm surrounding everything else.

Rubio and others say that she is far too soft on Vladimir Putin's compliance with arms control deals that she herself helped negotiate. "Our main concern with Secretary Gottemoeller’s appointment," they write, "is an apparent unwillingness to keep the North Atlantic Council and individual member states apprised of key updates on Russian arms control violations...her frequent public ‘misstatements’ on this topic, and her reputation as a ‘Russia apologist."

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/the-rubio-led-assault-rose-gottemoeller-16730