I POSTED THIS TO FB ON SATTURDAY MARCH 1, 2025. I THOUGHT I'D SAVE IT HERE. I DID SOME GRAMMAR EDITS, BUT IT IS ESSENTIALLY THE SAME AS THE FB POST. I MAY AS WELL SEE HOW THIS STANDS UP WHEN HISTORIANS IN 2060 LOOK AT BLOGGER POSTS IF THEY CAN. LOL. ANYWAY...
What Trump and Vance did to Zelenskyy yesterday was petty, cruel, nasty, and dumb. What these two terrible leaders did also revealed to me that, for all the arguments from the anti-anti-Trump left that "Russiagate" was a "hoax," this is one more example of Trump being potentially compromised by Putin's Russia--with now Vance going along.
What Trump and Vance did to Zelenskyy yesterday was petty, cruel, nasty, and dumb. What these two terrible leaders did also revealed to me that, for all the arguments from the anti-anti-Trump left that "Russiagate" was a "hoax," this is one more example of Trump being potentially compromised by Putin's Russia--with now Vance going along.
I feel so badly for the Ukrainians. The evidence is clear to me that the US, for decades, led enough Ukrainians near or in power that NATO membership was likely at some point and that promise was somehow worth fighting for. The US' goals have not primarily been about helping Ukrainian people as much as using Ukraine as a proxy to bloody up post-Communist, kleptocracy Russia, which, incidentally, our nation initially and ironically helped create in the 1990s. Our actions in the mid to late 1990s and, in the early 2000s, to expand NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, remember?) shocked the now deceased major Cold War advisers Chalmers Johnson and George Kennan, who had spent their adult lives studying Russia and its nationalist impulses. They knew expanding NATO betrayed what was implied and sometimes said to Russian leaders. The actions exposed the fallacy in their own assumptions about US good faith and revealed to them that Soviet/Russian fears of "capitalist encirclement" were not cynical delusions. These two men at least had the integrity to go public with their mea culpas and warnings, which warnings continue to be prescient.
Worse, Ukrainian diplomats have already gone on record that a reasonable settlement with Putin was at hand in the spring of 2022, within weeks of Putin's February 2022 invasion. They have publicly stated how, during those negotiations, they were shocked that Putin kept saying "No NATO membership," which for these diplomats proved Putin's nationalistic concerns in that regard were real, not feigned. The US's and UK's deliberate--and threatening--scuttling of that potential deal has only led to far more devastation, and what could be a million deaths on both the Russian and Ukrainian sides. The big counteroffensive the Biden administration pushed has failed, and, while there is an uneasy stalemate, the Russians may be said to be in better shape militarily than they were a year or so ago. I shudder when I look at Ukraine's current position, the Ukrainian public's loss of confidence in Zelenskyy, and the continued hostilities between Russian-Ukrainians and those Ukrainians whose heritages go back a millennium.
This brings me to this reminder amidst the noise: We must never forget that, before February 2022, 22% of Ukrainians identified as Russian, speak Russian, and are favorably disposed to Russia. Ukraine's history and Russia's history have been intertwined since at least the thirteenth century, with initially for centuries, Ukrainian leaders ruling over a then-fledgling Russia.
I am so appalled at the way Trump has behaved against Zelenskyy and Trump's cruel and disrespectful denigration of Ukraine's sovereignty. This is truly a moment where I now desperately hope China and Germany may enter negotiations as relative neutrals, sorta how Teddy Roosevelt acted to help end the Japan-Russian War of the dawn of the 20th Century.
The US behavior at this point is an insult to the initial injuries against Ukraine from Clinton's, Bush II's, Obama's provocations, and Biden's warmongering. I should note, though, that during Trump's first administration, Trump issued sanctions against Russia, in part because of brewing issues with Ukraine. For the anti-anti-Trump left, that fact proves Russiagate was a hoax. For me, it was simply Trump not having the power or confidence at the time to overcome the military-industrial complex. Remember, nearly every major foreign policy person from his first administration, and his first VP, nearly all Cold Warriors, opposed Trump in 2024's election cycle. That is not a coincidence.
In any event, at this point, the military-industrial complex's guardrails appear to be severely weakened--which would have been largely true even if there was a President Harris as she would have been feckless, and facing a mutiny among her own party, let alone plenty of cruelly cynical Republicans. For those of us opposed to the existence of the US Empire, that development may seem good. However, that weakening of guardrails is occurring in a context that threatens stability within our own society. The weakening of the military-industrial complex is not happening in the way a President Bernie Sanders would have wanted to see, with the US becoming an honest, kindlier peacemaker and only competing with China on "belts and roads" initiatives, while promoting a global response to climate change challenges. I know, it sounds so naive. But, dammit, as Martin Luther King, Jr. said, those who are often called idealistic are most often the most effective realists when provided the opportunity.
After yesterday, I remain hoping against facts that someone calms down Trump and Vance, and gets them back to some reasonable recognition that the US and UK put Ukraine into this position and that blaming them is a disgusting insult to the injuries committed against Ukrainians and their present government. It is a humiliation Ukrainians will not soon forget, with consequences that may cause anti-Russian Ukrainians to act in ways that nationalists behave--you know, like Serbian nationalists circa 1910-1914.
Right now, I don't hold much hope for anyone currently in the Trump administration getting hold of Trump's demented mind to create trust to get to a decent peace between Russia and Ukraine. But I admit I am not reading these twists and turns on this issue as deeply as I used to do. I just find the whole thing detestable, and my own views so far outside the discourse on top of having no power. I feel like Isaac
Deutscher surveying Cold War America, though without his credentials. :) Anyway, I found yesterday morning I was doing more analysis-reading of the Lakers' victory over the Clippers on Friday night, where Luka appears to have gotten hot in his shooting in the second half after I had gone to bed. LOL.
