REPRISE: Trump Orders Tlly6666666666666ty7ylerson to skip NATO summit, proceed directly to Moscow instead

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BACKGROUND

1) “Von der Leyen nicht zu Trump-Vereidigung eingeladen – Xi Jinping schon,” Die Welt, den 10. Januar,2025;

2) “Von der Leyen not invited to Trump swearing-in – Xi Jinping was,” DiecWelt, January 10, 2025;

Donald Trump has lost no time insulting the 27 member states of the European Union, including our most important BATO allies. He has sbubbed the president if the European Commission, Ursula van der Leyen, while he has invited the President of China, Xi Jinping, to attend his inauguration on January 29.

Whether a conscious slight by Donald Trump orthe product of the incompetence of the people he has named to theWhite House staff, the slight is inexcusable.

Not even out of the starting blocks, atrumpmhas shot himself in the foot for no apparent reason.

This unforgivable blunder is likely to be a foretaste of much worse to come.

It recalls Trump’s shooting the finger to NATO by ordering his new Secretary if State, Rex Tillerson, to skip a NATO summit and to proceeddirectly to Moscow instead.

Todaywe REPRISE the cokumn in The Trenchant Observer we wrote at the time, on January , 2017.

Refecting a strong intuitive feeling I had this morning, today i purchased the internet domain “Trump47imoeachment.com”.

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March 21, 2017 Trump Orders Tillerson to Skip NATO summit, Travel to Moscow Instead

Originally published in The Trenchant Observer March 21, 2017. Reprinted in The Rape of American Democracy: Republican Actions and Democratic Failures, 2016-2017 (2024), Chapter 17, pp. 60-62.

News that Rex Tillerson would skip an upcoming NATO foreign ministers meeting and travel instead to Moscow is the kind of news that produces a “What the f…?” reaction, almost too grotesque and unbelievable to be true.

But it is true.

To be sure, Vladimir Putin has been lying low, not engaging in any particularly egregious behavior (except in the eastern Ukraine), but apparently he and Donald Trump have concluded it is now safe to proceed with pro-Russian actions.

This is the second big pay-off to Putin since Trump became president on January 20, 2017. The first was an easing of U.S. sanctions against Russia to enable the Russian FSB (successor to the KGB) to resume collecting licensing fees for imported cell phones and other electronic equipment. Trump administration officials justified this as a mere “technical adjustment”, but in fact it was a favor to the very agency that was involved in intervention in the 2016 campaign and elections in the U.S., and also the agency alleged to have compromising information on Trump (kompromat) as alleged in the Christopher Steele “golden showers” dossier.

See “’Technical adjustment’ on Russian sanctions may involve more than meets the eye,” The Trenchant Observer, February 2, 2017.

Beyond the salacious details about Trump allegedly cavorting with Russian prostitutes (which Putin boasts are “the best in the world”), the Steele dossier alleges that Putin himself ordered the Russian intervention in the U.S. elections, and that there was active collusion and cooperation between the Trump campaign and individuals around Trump and Russian officials.

While news media have generally reported that the allegations in the Steele dossier cannot be corroborated, in point of fact a number of details in the dossier–though not the details of the “golden showers” episoode–have been confirmed by intelligence officials speaking on background. Moreover, the dossier was a raw intelligence product. One would not expect that all of its details could be corroborated, given the nature of Steele’s sources.

See

1) Andy Towle, “Rachel Maddow: Details of Trump-Russia Dossier Keep Checking Out as its Author Reemerges from Hiding,” Towleroad, March 8, 2017 (8:15am).

2) Rachel Maddow, “More Pieces Of Donald Trump Russia Dossier, ” MSNBC, March 7, 2017,, found on YouTube here;

Reflect for a moment on the message Trump is sending to our NATO allies, Russia and other countries.

Consider also the message Trump is sending to voters in countries like France who will participate in elections such as the French presidential election, where Marine Le Pen of the far-right Front National, with Russian financial support, is running on a pro-Russian platform.

Days after meeting with Angela Merkel of Germany, now the embodiment of the liberal military and political order based on the United Nations Charter, and for many the current leader of the Free World, Trump is doubling down by snubbling NATO and giving Russia a great propaganda victory.

What Trump is doing is anathema to foreign policy experts who understand the importance of not bowing to a dictator who engineered an unprecedented attempt to throw the 2016 presidential election to Trump, and to also influence the Congressional elections, and who has invaded and currently occupies part of the Ukraine.

The greatest irony is that Trump’s actions come at the same time that the FBI director, James Comey, has confirmed in Congressional testimony that Trump and his campaign are the current subjects of a counter-espionage investigation into cooperation and collusion with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign.

As for Tillerson, we should recall how he strained credulity by testifying in his Senate confirmation hearings that he had not discussed Russia with Trump.

See

John Nichols, “Rex Tillerson’s Jaw-Dropping Testimony Just Completely Disqualified Him,” The Nation, January 12, 2017.

Perhaps the best that can be said for Tillerson is that he is either oblivious or indifferent to the symbolism and impact of his actions toward NATO and Russia. Otherwise, he looks like a willing tool of the Trojan horse candidate who has become the pro-Russian president of the United States.
 

What if Ukraine loses the war of self-defense against Russia?

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BACKGROUND

1) Robert Kagan, “TRUMP IS FACING A CATASTROPHIC DEFEAT; If Ukraine falls, it will be hard to spin as anything but a debacle for the United States, and for its president,” The Atlantic, January 7, 2024 (1:04 PM ET);

At T-12, Trump minus 12 days. we need to ask what will happen if Russia wins its war of aggression against Ukraine.

For a comprehensive analysis of the current situation regarding the war, with realistic consideration of military and political realities, see Robert Kagan’s article cited above.

Few policymakers and analysts have thought much about the consequences of such a Ukrainian defeat at the hands of the Russians.

Most avoid the thought by entertaining the illusion that there can be negotiations that could lead to a ceasefire or some kind of a settlement. They argue among themselves about the potential terms of such a ceasefire or settlement, despite the fact that neither Vladimir Putin nor Ukraine is interested in such negotiations.

Vladimir Putin has been absolutely clear. His conditions for entering negotiations amount to total capitulation on the part of Ukraine.

Wolodymyr Zelinski appears to be open to territorial concessions, but his statements in this regard must be read as a brilliant maneuver to get on the right side of Donald Trump. The Ukrainian constitution prohibits any “territorial concessions”.

Moreover, peremptory norms of international law prohibit terms in a peace settlement recognizing the acquisition of territory by military force or even its temporary occupation due to the illegal use of force in violation of Article 2 paragraph 4 of the United Nations Charter, the bedrock principle on which the United Nations is founded. Any trreaty or agreement violating these norms of peremptory international law would be void ab initio under international law, and have no legal effect.

Political leaders know these facts.They are deliberately lying to their populations and to each other by holding out the possibility of a negotiated solution to the conflict.

They can negotiate with themselves about agreements that would leave Russia in control of conquered territories until the cows come home, but they are only blowing smoke in the air. They are only lying to each other and to their populations.

Not one of these political and military leaders and analysts has addressed in any detail the situation that would exist and the consequences that would follow if the leading powers ignored these bedrock principles of international law and the U.N.Charter.

These leaders and analysts are unwilling to face the hard realities of the Ukraine war. To do would require determined and energetic actions, including preparations for a war that may last decades (or at least until Putin leaves the scene); the imposition of sanctions against Russia that would really hurt those imposing them; and an all-out effort to persuade or coerce the nations of the so-called Global South to join the regime of international sanctions against Russia.

To face the hard realities of the Ukraine war would require countries to move toward establishing wartime economies that could sustain the production of munitions and advanced weapons systems over the course of a long and drawn-out war.

Finally, to face the hard realities of the Ukraine war would require recognition of the fact that our military forces, our soldiers, NATO soldiers, might need to become directly engaged in the war to prevent a Russian victory. This requirement, moreover, could become urgent very quickly if the Ukrainian forces begin to falter.

This is a sobering reality. So was the reality facing England, France, and other democratic countries in Europe in 1938 and 1939. They temporized. They delayed. They harbored illusions that peace could be ensured by negotiating an agreement with Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, as British prime minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister tried to do in Munich in October 1938.

As late as May 1940 Chamberlain and Foreign Minister Lord Halifax sought to negotiate a separate peace with Germany. Fortunately, Winston Churchill successfully resisted their entreaties.

The world and the U.S. need a leader of the caliber of Winston Churchill to lead us through the coming years of war with Russia.

Instead, we have Donald Trump.

We can only hope that we will be surprised.

David Ignatius’ panagyric to Jake Sullivan. Hagiography devoid of criticism which could have beeb written by Sullivan himself, and practically was.

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BACKGROUND

1) David Ignatius, “The strategist in the hurricane; As national security adviser, Jake Sullivan often had to improvise — and weigh some very imperfect responses,” Washington Post, December 31, 2024 (6:30 a.m. EST);

If you want to understand the failures of Joe Biden’s foreign policy, there is no better place to start than with David Ignatius’ Wahington Post column on December 31, 2024. Unadulterated hagiography, unburdened by a hint of criticism or hard-nosed reporting, Ignatius’ column reveals how Sullivan has masterfully spun the story of his achievements over the last four years and longer. The result has been a submissive press, and a foreign policy establishment unwilling to take Sullivan’s self-serving assertions on directly.

With such a perfectly designed and executed foreign policy ss that presented by Sullivan and Ignatius, one is hard dressed to grasp the significance of Joe Biden’s catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, or how that strategic and humanitarian disaster appears to have emboldened Vladimir Putin to incade Ukraine in Fevruart 2022, or how the cowardice of Biden and Sullivan in the face of Putin’s nuclear threats have ed to a long drawn-out war with nonend in sight.

Sullivan is brilliant, beyond any doubt. He has so impressed Biden that one might think of Sullivan as the real architect of U.S. foreign policy over the last four years.

We have forgotten the lessons of The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam’s brilliant 1972 book which described the influence on decisions in the John F. Kennedy administration and their disastrous consequences in Vietnam.

Without real criticism from academia and the press, and with absolutely no ear for hearing such criticism, the Biden administration stumbled into failure after failure in what will eventually be seen as the worst foreign policy record of any president in recent years.

A Parable of our time: “Our democratic house is on fire!”

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James Rowles, “A Parable of our time: ‘Our democratic house is on fire!”’, first published in The Trenchant Observer, September 23, 2021, reprinted in James P. Rowles, The Rape of American Democracy: Republican Actions and Democratic Failures, 2016-2021 (2024).

A Parable of our Time

See,

Robert Kagan, “Our constitutional crisis is already here,” Washington Post, September 23, 2021 (3:32 p.m. EDT).

There is a man running up and down the street, with his hair all frazzled and his eyes filled with terror, shouting, “The house is on fire! Our house is on fire! Our whole democratic city is on fire!”

Outside a cafe, on a bright sunny morning, a number of people sit calmly drinking their coffee. A few, but not as many as in the past, are reading their newspapers.

“Help! Help!” the screaming man implores. “Don’t you know, the whole city is on fire!”

The seated individuals proceed calmly to drink their coffee and chat among themselves.

“Don’t you know?” the wild man implores again, “The whole city is on fire!”

Different individuals respond variously.

“You exaggerate,” one says. “We don’t see any flames.”

“The houses in the next street are on fire,” the wild man rejoins.

“Don’t worry,” another replies. “Someone will take care of it.”

“Fake news!” another shouts out, aggressively.

“What about you newspapers readers?” the wild man screams, in exasperation.

“We know,” one of them replies. “But what do you expect us to do about it? Someone will take care oi it.”

Another newspaper reader says, “I haven’t read anything about it in my newspaper, or heard anything about it on my television stations.”

“Of course not, John,” another cajoles. “Look at the newspapers you read and the television stations you watch.”

Another man, a thoughtful-looking gentleman, declaims, “You’re right. Something is going on. We ought to launch an investigation to see who started the fire.”

A teenager, sitting with her parents at the cafe, leaps to her feet and shouts out, “We know who started the fire, and who the arsonists are who have been pouring gasoline on it!”

“In this town,” the wild man screams, “we have a volunteer fire department. You are all members of our volunteer fire department.”

“Don’t get so excited,”a senior member of the group rejoins. Someone will take care of it.”

“The alarm bell at the fire department hasn’t even rung,” says another.

“Who disarmed the bell?” the teenager shouts out, as she is ignored.

“The wild man, with growing terror in his eyes, screams, “Our democratic town will be destroyed if we don’t act to save it!”

“Go on, get out of here. You are disturbing our morning coffee,” one man yells back, as other coffee drinkers join in. “Yes, go on, get out of here. You’re disturbing out morning coffee.”

The screaming man yells, “The whole town is on fire, and half of its citizens are pouring gasoline on the fire!”

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One might ask, “Does this parable have anything to do with current politics or democracy in America?”

One associates to Katherine Anne Porter’s brilliant novel, Ship of Fools (1962)–made into a movie of the same name in 1965. In the final scene of the movie, the protagonist, a dwarf, is watching the other passengers get off the ship, including those who had argued vociferously in the movie in defense of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

Looking directly into the camera, he says, “You are thinking,”What does Thia all have to do with us?”He then says, “Nothing” Puffing on his cigar,he turns and walks out of the station.
The movie ends.

The Trenchant Observer

Merry Christmas! The last Christmas before Crazy. The last Christmas without an apparent Russian Asset in the White House. The last Christmas before the billionaires’ unchecked rule. The last Christmas before the Unknown.

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“Merrily we roll along, We are safe now, safe in the hands of Donald Trump and the billionaires. Antitrust is out. Arbitrary rule is in.

We have a president, who surely briefed on the contents of the House Ethics Committee Report, proceeded to nominate Matt Gaetz to be Attorney General of the United States. With the full support of Elon Musk.

Merrily we roll along. But what can we expect?

We can expect a lot of controversies, a lot of distractions from the serious business of government and the proper management of international affairs.

What will happen in Ukraine? Who cares?

Merrily we roll along.

Netanyahu and Israel, if they agree to a ceasefire in Gaza, won’t do so until after Trump takes office on January 20, 2025. In the meantime, for Israel Gaza will remain pretty much a free-fire zone, as it occupies Syrian territory in open defiance of international law.

Who cares.

What will the Russians exact from Trump? Will Elon Musk, deeply enmeshed in business in China, moderate Trump’s policies toward that country?

How long will the two biggest alpha males on the planet continue to work harmoniously with each other?

How does Trump like people calling Elon President Musk?

Both men strive to always be the center of attention. How will that work out?

The president-elect, knowing the contents of ahe House Ethics Committee Report on Matt Gaetz, nominated Gaetz to be Attorney General of the United States.

Think about that for a minute.

Then we can all join the dance and song, as “Merrily we roll along”.

What could possibly go wrong?

Democracy v. the billionaires, tyrants, and time

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With their Trumpist conquest of the government and the political and information systems, they will be hard to dislodge,

It’s really a race against time. Will the people reassert their power before the institutions of democracy and their means of doing so peacefully are dismantled?

It is a worldwide struggle. America is the stronghold of the billionaires and the wealthy, of those with the money to buy the technology that can help defend their positions and to advance toward their goal of tyrannical or oligarchical control?

Dec. 10, 2024

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