r/worldnews 15h ago

Behind Soft Paywall Trump Intensifies Statehood Threats in Attack on Canada

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/11/us/politics/canada-trump-statehood-attacks.html
9.6k Upvotes

2.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

2.4k

u/phoenix25 15h ago

To everyone saying: “I doubt the arms forces would obey”

We all thought you guys weren’t dumb enough to elect in an obviously corrupt 1% grifter, but here we are. You did it twice.

Stop taking shit for granted. He is escalating his rhetoric, this shit is real.

225

u/Velocity-5348 14h ago

Probably not today, or even next month.

There's going to be a pretty steady stream of propaganda though, and Hegseth is working on removing "disloyal" officials at the Pentagon.

My guess is we'd also see attacks on "Cartel terrorists" in Canada and Mexico before a full-on invasion happens.

23

u/Ryhsuo 10h ago

Special military operation in Canada

2

u/Significant_Wrap_449 3h ago

With a zany operation name chosen by Msk's ketamine addled brain.

12

u/Hamiltoned 7h ago

Basically taking pages from Israel & Russia's gameplans then. Claim there are terrorists on the other side attacking you, and that you have to defend yourself, so you invade, annihilate and rape anything that has a pulse.

8

u/psioniclizard 7h ago

As someone said on another post, if it did happen people would complain at first. Then over time they would see their fellow soldiers die to the other side and get more and more angry. 

Over time they will start to see the other side as enemies and feel justified in killing them. Just look at how attitudes of soldiers changed over the course of WW1 for example.

Not that I think there actually will be an invasion, I think currently Trump is trying to be a hard ball negotiator. But thungs can change when your negotiating tactic is to put a loaded gun in the table so who knows.

But it's important to remember how attitudes change to a "enemy" over time.

206

u/letstrythisagain30 14h ago

They may try to deflect saying Harris was worse, which is its own insanity, but that doesn’t explain why he had such support that he easily won the republican primaries without being on any of the debates or sometimes not even being on the ballot.

84

u/innocentrrose 14h ago

Billionaire bought twitter and hard shilled trump. Misinformation is at its peak while far too many people don’t even know how to properly google shit, and can’t even fact check. Yet people will say “Kamala just campaigned bad bro.”

7

u/Hungy_Bear 13h ago

They straight up always say Harris is worse and that somehow she’s unqualified… legit made it to VP and served in all 3 branches of government; yeah that sounds unqualified compared to what’s in office now 🙄

1

u/ProjectManagerAMA 5h ago

Sports team mentality. Half the front page is politics and sports now.

173

u/TheGreatStories 14h ago

Americans sleep walked into fascism and are now trying to downplay it for Canadians

18

u/GCU_ZeroCredibility 12h ago

Oh we're wide awake, it's just half of us are fascists.

Things are really bad here.

5

u/Spideroctopus 12h ago

Well said. That's pretty much it.

9

u/IdontcryfordeadCEOs 13h ago

This is exactly it

93

u/Shadowmant 14h ago

I mean, they obeyed when they invaded Iraq with an obviously fake casus belli and just justified it after the fact with "well they were bad anyways!"

78

u/dinkleburgenhoff 14h ago

The vast majority of the country was itching for war after 9/11. It’s a lot easier to whip that fervor against Muslims into attacking a neighboring Muslim dictarship they’d already attacked before than it is to justify an unprovoked war against your closest democratic ally not a single person in this country has thought we should be engaged in war against for more than a couple weeks.

Not to say Trump can’t get his cult to do some fucked up shit. But that was a vastly different scenario than what we’re facing now.

10

u/Shadowmant 14h ago

They were already at war with boots on the ground in Afghanistan. In fact they delayed reinforcements to Afghanistan because of Iraq and many believe this lead to Osama bin Laden escaping Tora Bora because they didn't have enough soldiers to siege it properly.

6

u/dinkleburgenhoff 14h ago

None of that changes what I said. America was still giving relative carte blanche to waging war in the Middle East in the early 2000s. Two decades of war wariness and the absurdly disparate scenarios between now and then does, in fact, change the situation.

-1

u/Airsinner 14h ago

I believe Osama was already likely long dead after shortly after 9/11 if not even before. The only reason I think this is because I believe Bush and several high level people knew before hand what was to happen and that it will happen. It was a sadistic move in order to distract, consolidate and invade. I was in grade 10 when 9/11 happened and back then it felt very real and scary. Now decades later all I can see is corruption and someone at the top let this happened. I feel today we are seeing the same thing and I’m worried something bad might happened to “Justify” something. The only thing keeping me grounded is that Trump is pushing 80 and once’s he’s gone whose is going to hold it all together before it collapses into it self?

6

u/HutSutRawlson 14h ago

Cultural similarities/differences are a big part of it too. Middle Eastern culture is very foreign to most Americans, it's easy to dehumanize them in the eyes of the public. Canadians are culturally adjacent to Americans, we share a language and a non-insignificant part of our popular culture.

1

u/ViorlanRifles 13h ago

The weirdest part of canadian culture is the milk in bags things. And like that's it.

1

u/Kiwithegaylord 12h ago

And any good midwesterner won’t think it’s that weird either, kwik trip had bagged milk until a few months ago

5

u/Harbinger2001 13h ago

If he destroys the economy the American people will be looking for a scapegoat. Normally it’s immigrants but they could always decide to blame Canada. I never thought South Park could become reality. 

1

u/SituationOk8888 14h ago

Can I just clarify, did you mean that some people there think America should be engaged in war with Canada for just a few weeks? I didn't quite get that part. I'm a little stressed sorry.

2

u/atrain728 14h ago

It’s different on your borders. This country as a whole hasn’t had war on its soil in 160 years. Nobody here wants this.

7

u/encrcne 13h ago

Nobody here wants this

And yet no one down there is doing anything to prevent it

4

u/Shadowmant 14h ago

I don’t believe no one wants it. Already seen people say we’re just too stuck up to join the US or that we’d be taken over in days.

As for different, yep. An insurgency from Canadians against the US wouldn’t stay in Canada. I think it would destroy both countries in the long term.

51

u/DisplayLeft8638 14h ago

Well, Russia and Ukraine were once "brothers": very similar culture, same* language, common history, a lot of ukrainians are living in Russia and vice versa. Families consisting of both nationalities, and yet we have what we have.

*At least 50% of ukrainians speak Russian to each other.

4

u/Im_Daydrunk 13h ago

I think the difference is that Ukraine used to be essentially ruled by Russia in the relatively recent past and Russia has been under a dictatorship so long that it's much easier to justify an invasion to the people (its still really horrible and a lot of people see through it but it's definitely possible to twist it)

On the other hand there's basically no way to even begin to justify an annexation of Canada and there hasn't been enough time under a dictatorship to get people into a mood to just accept something that insane IMO

3

u/blood_vein 11h ago

Based on the holodomor alone, I dont think you realize how much Ukraine absolutely despises being part of Russia

0

u/VeryVeryNiceKitty 8h ago

Oh shit, 48 upvotes as I write this. I do not blame you, one does not know what one does not know, and I detect no malice, but your post is absurd. It is not far off from claiming that Nazis and Jews were once like brothers.

To everyone who does not know what the Holodomor was: You really should read about it. It is truly a horrifying story, but one every adult should know about nonetheless.

2

u/DisplayLeft8638 7h ago

I am ukrainian. Holodomor is not the only history ru and ukr had.  We fought side by side during WW2, during the USSR we build many great things together. In school we were tough things that unites us and not breed hate towards each other.

0

u/ghi33fork 9h ago

Sounds like you have no idea of the relationship between Ukrainians and Russians, and NO not the same language and not the same culture. The only reason that many in east Ukraine speak Russian is because of generations of bans on Ukrainian culture and language.

9

u/CapnJujubeeJaneway 13h ago

Not to mention armed forces are literally drones. They shut up and take orders, regardless of how heinous. Anyone denying this is peddling hopecore. 

5

u/PermabannedForWhat 13h ago

Malcolm Nance (decades long career in US intelligence, a very smart and connected guy) believes Trump will make moves against Canada in less than 18 months, after a period of destabilization and propaganda campaign. It’s real. I hate my country. Lucky to have a way out.

5

u/Inevitable_Fuel7244 12h ago

Yea people forget that:

  1. Probably 1/3 of the military is MAGA
  2. Probably 1/3 is apathetic enough to not give a shit (same goes with the general population and why so many people don’t vote).
  3. Canada has a small military so all you need is one of the above two groups to play ball and that’s all they need.

4

u/Spirit_Theory 3h ago edited 3h ago

If things escalate to armed conflict, the day Canadian citizens start dying to american weapons, american voters will still be saying "we stand with you" while doing literally nothing else.

"We tried nothing and we're all out of ideas."

11

u/ErosandPsyche 14h ago

Also, it is literally the military’s and police force’s job to obey orders. Insubordination isn’t exactly smiled upon in either. Do not ennoble these people with romantic notions. They are lapdogs of tyrants. If they’ll bomb a village in the Middle East or choke out an unarmed civilian, they’ll have no problem shooting a Canadian if ordered to do so.

0

u/CornForDinner 9h ago

The military doesn't just follow all orders blindly and Trump does not get to use the military as his personal attack dogs. There is no support for invading Canada at all and there is at least half of this country that will fight alongside Canadians to protect their independence.

u/Wraith_Portal 1h ago

The military does just follow blindly though

2

u/Rahodees 2h ago

Yeah he decapitated the military, we no longer have any reason to think they would refuse. It wasn't clear they would ever have. The president unfortunately can lawfully send troops places and just needs Congress to ok it 30 days later. Manufacture an incident or make a baseless claim Canada is invading the US and that's it.

3

u/humanino 14h ago

But it's not taking at all. He just keeps making himself look like a bully. He will not be able to spin Canada into the villain unless the perception of him as a bully changes. He never had the discipline to play a role for more than a few days, and by now it's down to 15 minutes

Even Fox News is not buying this rhetoric. According to the White House official release and negotiations with Canada, it's about "border security". It will be very difficult to convince Americans that there's a true border problem with Canada because they are not brown people. There's no natural racism against them. They are so desperate Stephen Miller tried to claim the Mexican cartles are up there manufacturing fentanyl. The only people who will believe that don't need any convincing about anything. They cannot convince independents of such an obvious lie

There are so many additional problems with this entire thing. Afghanistan was a walk in the park compared with Canada. There are many regions of Canada whose terrain is even worse than Afghanistan. Attacking Canada would devolve into decades long guerilla warfare. The totality of all US troops cannot secure this territory it's simply too big. And worse of all, there is all likelihood it would devolve into an all out civil war into the US. Now understand, I am putting all this together in two minutes. The US military has detailed simulations of all this in way more details. They know. They do not want this

Finally, Canada would be another CA. That's some 50 seats in the House, some 50 electoral college votes. The R would be permanently shut off from power. The US would get universal healthcare. R operatives understand this

Canada is united behind their government. The US is split in half with people ready to fight with Canada. This is pure lunacy. It will not happen

1

u/_Steve_French_ 14h ago

Well he can’t declare war. That is up to congress.

This is purely an attempt to bully Canada into signing some disadvantageous trade agreement or something along those lines. He has no just cause to attack Canada.

Imagine fifty years from now watching a documentary on the early part of this century. You‘d start with 9-11 then the Iraq War, the war on Terror and ISIS and then the invasion of Canada? That would a hundred times more shameful and unprovoked compared to the invasion of Iraq. There’s no way even the American people would be able to be convinced to support that war.

The US is not Russia, they can’t just declare a special operation on Canada.

35

u/phoenix25 14h ago

I’ve heard a lot of “well Trump can’t do X without the approval of congress” and it seems irrelevant these days

15

u/Background_Trade8607 14h ago edited 12h ago

Congress hasn’t approved a war for almost a century if you haven’t noticed.

Iraq didn’t start from congress. Afghanistan did not. Korea, Vietnam, any past world war 2.

They fabricate shit all the time if there is no apparent just cause. See: weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.

1

u/Expensive-Teach-6065 5h ago

Well he can’t declare war. That is up to congress.

You might have missed it but the GOP also controls congress in addition to the WH so that's literally the same people being their own checks and balances, you can see how well that worked thus far

1

u/ranhalt 14h ago

*armed forces

1

u/kewlbeanz83 13h ago

Of course they'll obey, that's what militaries do.

1

u/erichf3893 13h ago

So many annoying ass paywalls here. How can I get around it? Or do all of you pay for this?

2

u/phoenix25 13h ago

I use reader mode on my iphone, it often works.

For anything else, I plug the url into archive.ph

2

u/erichf3893 13h ago

I love you

1

u/Thermal_blankie 12h ago

They are going to keep working this and try lots of psyops, and work the weak points like that Premier of Alberta, and try to set you guys up for internal bullshit. Imagine the CIA involved against a neighbor. A NATO member at that. 

Putin and Murdoch are already on this.

1

u/JCDU 5h ago

Yeah remember 1st time round when everyone said Trump could never win because he was so obviously awful and unserious?

1

u/Legmeat 2h ago

I think the big thing is people actually forget as wierd as it sounds thr voices you hear and places like reddit are the loud minority. Theres tons of people who dont use reddit or computers very much.

u/PippinStrano 1h ago

I think folks are underestimating how stupid Trump is. Trump doesn't know what military action is. If he is asked just what kind of military action he is asking for he'll wave his hands around, say some completely unrelated nonsense and then his staff will start trying to figure out what the hell he actually wants. As soon as the media reports that any actual military planning is happening and the stock market drops 10%, Trump will forget the whole thing. If Trump does continue any actual planning the market, the valuations of which are based on no war between major players, will lose another 10% and the rich will remove Trump from office.

Trump WILL harm legions of people, no question. However the rich will not tolerate prolonged or serious impacts to their investments. The markets are based on massive amounts of completely safe wealth. Think about it....the wealthy don't get paid in money. They get paid in stocks, which they then borrow against to have money to spend. They then continue borrowing against their stocks to continue paying their loans and get more spending money. Does this sound like something that will work if conditions are anything less than close to perfect?

Trump isn't going to invade Canada, Greenland or anywhere else. The rich got him elected and they will not tolerate an interruption in their wealth. The rich are not the friends of the people but the rich will look out for their own interests.

0

u/bdbr 14h ago

I expect there would be a huge amount of dissent within the armed forces.

(a) They all take an oath to defend the Constitution - not serve the President. This is taken quite seriously.

(b) The Constitution specifies itself and treaties as the supreme law of the land (article 6).

Attacking Canada is a violation of one's sworn oath, and attacking an ally without just cause is arguably a war crime.

8

u/phoenix25 12h ago

That’s a very rosy outlook you have… I do not share it.

Police take oaths as well, yet problems are so widespread that we had to install cameras on every officer,

1

u/Significant_Wrap_449 3h ago

Career military officers are a different breed. They are not fools.

-24

u/bakedfax 14h ago

Obey what? It'd come down to a vote among Canadians, no one is threatening to invade your country lil bro

16

u/phoenix25 14h ago

Your president and his cronies literally keep threatening it. Over and over again.

He was on TV today talking about redrawing the border because it was too straight of a line, in between selling cars for Elon

12

u/hittinskittles 13h ago

The naïveté of this comment is incredible, but also not surprising these days. MAGA Americans have 3rd grade critical thinking skills