Remember the 1940 meeting in which U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt publicly berated Belgian King Leopold III for resisting the Nazi invasion, and announced that the U.S. would now work to resolve matters with Nazi Germany?
Probably not. Mr. Trump’s recent conduct is unique among U.S. presidents. (Actually, in 1940, U.S. assistance to the Allies was highly controversial, although both FDR and Republican nominee Wendell Willkie favored it.)
We all saw Russia invade Ukraine in February 2022. Senator Marco Rubio explained in a moving video why this was important far beyond Europe: not only was it illegal aggression, but when the USSR’s disintegration had left Ukraine a nuclear power, Ukraine gave up its nukes when the U.S., Britain, and Russia guaranteed Ukrainian security. Now Russia has invaded twice. Rubio correctly argued that opposing Putin was essential because not doing so would tell all potential nuclear powers they couldn’t trust our promises.
No sensible U.S. citizen can feel great about Mr. Trump claiming Ukraine started the war, voting with North Korea, against U.S. allies, on a U.N. resolution condemning Russian aggression, having an obvious crush on Mr. Putin, and attacking Zelenskyy, publicly and unfairly.
Trump doesn’t care about peace or justice in Ukraine. If he did, he’d have enhanced U.S. and Allied efforts to discourage Russian aggression.
Mr. Trump only wants Mr. Trump to look good. He seems also a uniquely cowardly man who resents courage, whether shown by U.S. prisoners of war such as Sen. John McLain or Ukrainians resisting Putin’s war crimes. Thus, Mr. Trump seeks a “Great Powers” carving up of Ukraine. He believes he and Mr. Putin should discuss peace. Ukraine and our European allies, aware that Adolfs and Vlads don’t stop with Czechoslovakia or Ukraine, needn’t participate, but must take what Mr. Putin decides. Does Trump also figure that letting Putin grab eastern Europe and letting China absorb Taiwan will smooth the way to the U.S. grabbing Greenland and Panama?
For him, Ukraine doesn’t matter. Trump feels that he and Putin have “been through a lot together.” He means the uproar over Putin’s cyber-support for Trump in 2016 and the credible reports that Trump minions cooperated in that effort. Too, Zelenskyy declined Trump’s request to dig up or make up dirt on Joe Biden’s son.
It would be hard to find a bigger single undermining of world respect for the U.S., or one less necessary. Even Republicans are embarrassed.
Trump had already squandered U.S. power to push for a viable peace, by acceding in advance to Putin’s demands. Trump acting like a spoiled child and the Ukrainian President trying to handle the tantrum as best he could was the sort of scene the world has feared for years now.
My father fought in World War II. I came to manhood during the U.S. imperialistic destruction of Viet Nam, and opposed it. Rightly, I believe. I have since learned more about World War II, and the aggression of Nazi Germany and Japan, and why sometimes nations and individuals must unite to pay the necessary cost to oppose tyranny and uphold international law. Since then, starting wars has become even less acceptable – although Russia and the U.S. have both been guilty of it.
Trump argues that Ukraine resisting Putin heightens the risk of nuclear war; maybe so; but giving Putin everything he might want because he could trigger world destruction just doesn’t sit right. Appeasement doesn’t work.
– 30 --
[The above column appeared Sunday, 9 March, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, and should be posted soon on the newspaper’s website, as well as on the KRWG website under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the coming week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/). ]
[ I’ve not a lot to add to this one. There are many eloquent statements by people of all political complexions, pointing out additional ways Trump’s conduct was stupid, anti-freedom, anti-U.S., and subservient to Putin; but whoever hasn’t yet seen that likely won’t from whatever I add below.]
[But I will include comments by Republican David Brooks, who I think is a bit too kind to the U.S. but accurate regarding Trump:
“I was nauseated, just nauseated. All my life, I have had a certain idea of about America, that we're a flawed country, but we're fundamentally a force for good in the world, that we defeated Soviet Union, we defeated fascism, we did the Marshall Plan, we did PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) to help people live in Africa. And we make mistakes, Iraq, Vietnam, but they're usually mistakes out of stupidity, naivete and arrogance.
“They're not because we're ill-intentioned. What I have seen over the last six weeks is the United States behaving vilely, vilely to our friends in Canada and Mexico, vilely to our friends in Europe. And today was the bottom of the barrel, vilely to a man who is defending Western values, at great personal risk to him and his countrymen."
“Donald Trump believes in one thing. He believes that might makes right. And, in that, he agrees with Vladimir Putin that they are birds of a feather. And he and Vladimir Putin together are trying to create a world that's safe for gangsters, where ruthless people can thrive. And we saw the product of that effort today in the Oval Office."
“And I have — I first started thinking, is it — am I feeling grief? Am I feeling shock, like I'm in a hallucination? But I just think shame, moral shame. It's a moral injury to see the country you love behave in this way.” ]
[Others have quoted Churchill’s remark to then-Ptime-Minister Neville Chamberlain after Munich, in 1938: “You had the choice between war and dishnor. You chose dishonor, yet you will have war.” But Trump lacks even Chamberlain’s excuse. Britain did not feel ready to fight Germany; but no one is even asking the U.S. to fight Russia, but only to continue three years’ support of Ukraine and try to broker some reasonable peace agreement if that proves feasible.]
[ Finally, here are excerpts from a highly accurate and moving speech by a French Senator to the French Senate just days ago:
“My dear colleagues,
Europe is at a critical turning point in its history. The American shield is crumbling, Ukraine risks being abandoned, Russia strengthened.
This is a tragedy for the free world, but it is first and foremost a tragedy for the United States. . . .
“Never in history has a President of the United States capitulated to the enemy. Never has anyone supported an aggressor against an ally. Never has anyone trampled on the American Constitution, issued so many illegal decrees, dismissed judges who could have prevented him from doing so, dismissed the military general staff in one fell swoop, weakened all checks and balances, and taken control of social media. . . .
“This is the beginning of the confiscation of democracy. Let us remember that it took only one month, three weeks and two days to bring down the Weimar Republic and its Constitution. . .
“We were at war with a dictator, now we are fighting a dictator backed by a traitor.
Eight days ago, at the very moment that Trump was rubbing Macron’s back in the White House, the United States voted at the UN with Russia and North Korea against the Europeans demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops.
“Two days later, in the Oval Office, the military service shirker was giving war hero Zelensky lessons in morality and strategy before dismissing him like a groom, ordering him to submit or resign. . . .
“What to do in the face of this betrayal? The answer is simple: face it.
And first of all, let’s not be mistaken. The defeat of Ukraine would be the defeat of Europe. . . .
“What Putin wants is the end of the order put in place by the United States and its allies 80 years ago, with its first principle being the prohibition of acquiring territory by force.
This idea is at the very source of the UN, where today Americans vote in favor of the aggressor and against the attacked, because the Trumpian vision coincides with that of Putin: a return to spheres of influence, the great powers dictating the fate of small countries. . . . Mine is Greenland, Panama and Canada, yours are Ukraine, the Baltics and Eastern Europe, [Xi’s] is Taiwan and the China Sea.
“So we are alone. But the talk that Putin cannot be resisted is false. Contrary to the Kremlin’s propaganda, Russia is in bad shape. In three years, the so-called second largest army in the world has managed to grab only crumbs from a country three times less populated. . . .
“The American helping hand to Putin is the biggest strategic mistake ever made in a war.
“The shock is violent, but it has a virtue. Europeans are coming out of denial. . . . [T]he survival of Ukraine and the future of Europe are in their hands and that they have three imperatives.
“We must convince public opinion in the face of war weariness and fear, and especially in the face of Putin’s cronies, the extreme right and the extreme left.
“They say they want peace. What neither they nor Trump say is that their peace is capitulation, the peace of defeat, the replacement of de Gaulle Zelensky by a Ukrainian Pétain at the beck and call of Putin.
“Is this the end of the Atlantic Alliance? The risk is great. But in the last few days, the public humiliation of Zelensky and all the crazy decisions taken in the last month have finally made the Americans react.
“Polls are falling. Republican lawmakers are being greeted by hostile crowds in their constituencies. Even Fox News is becoming critical.
“The Trumpists are no longer in their majesty. They control the executive, the Parliament, the Supreme Court and social networks.
“But in American history, the freedom fighters have always prevailed. They are beginning to raise their heads.
“Our parents defeated fascism and communism at great cost.
The task of our generation is to defeat the totalitarianisms of the 21st century.
Long live free Ukraine, long live democratic Europe.”
-Claude Malhuret speaking to the French Senate March 4, 2025 ]
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