>fun_meter.jpg<

>https://voxday.net/2022/03/16/why-trump-failed/

>https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10617637/Trump-admits-misread-Putin-surprised-invasion-Ukraine.html

Why Trump Failed

>Posted on March 16, 2022 by VD

Donald Trump’s failure to cross the Rubicon is explained by his reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Former President Donald Trump admitted he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin was only trying to ‘negotiate’ when he sent troops to the Ukraine border and was ‘surprised’ when the Kremlin leader actually invaded the country.

‘I’m surprised — I’m surprised. I thought he was negotiating when he sent his troops to the border. I thought he was negotiating,’ Trump told the Washington Examiner during a Tuesday evening phone interview from his Mar-a-Lago estate. ‘I thought it was a tough way to negotiate but a smart way to negotiate.’

Trump, who seemingly developed a close working relationship with Moscow during his presidency, said Putin has ‘very much changed’ since the pair last worked together.

‘I figured he was going to make a good deal like everybody else does with the United States and the other people they tend to deal with — you know, like every trade deal. We’ve never made a good trade deal until I came along,’ Trump said. ‘And then he went in — and I think he’s changed. I think he’s changed. It’s a very sad thing for the world. He’s very much changed.’

I’ve mentioned this observation before, but Trump’s character has never been demonstrated more clearly than by this comment about Vladimir Putin. Trump’s strength is that he is a legitimately great negotiator. However, as with all successful men, his weaknesses are related to his strengths. Trump is a talker, not a doer. He is a negotiator, not a warrior. He conflates speech with action. He’s not a fighter, and never having been punched in the face or thrown down another man in the judo ring, he doesn’t understand men who are.

Of course he thought Putin was negotiating by mobilizing the Russian Army, threatening an invasion, and issuing an ultimatum, because he thinks everything is a negotiation. Hence his failure to take action after the fraudulent election of 2020; there probably wasn’t any chance of him actually doing so even if the US military could have been relied upon to obey its Commander-in-Chief – something we can’t know either way despite what various people claim – because for him even an approach to the Rubicon would have been a negotiating point rather than the beginning of a military action.

Remember, the Senate was massively surprised when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon and marched on Rome, because despite his military successes on the Mediterranean and in Gaul, they knew him to be a skilled politician and negotiator. And negotiators always prefer jaw-jaw to war-war.

So Trump is a negotiator and Putin is a fighter. What, one wonders, is Xi Xinping?

DISCUSS ON SG

Posted on March 16, 2022 by VD

Tagged philosophy, politics, war

>https://voxday.net/2022/03/16/the-least-of-the-charges/

>https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/i-am-asking-for-a-coherent-set-of

The Least of the Charges

>Posted on March 16, 2022 by VD

Hypocrisy is arguably among the least of the charges that can be accurately lodged against The Empire That Never Ended. Given that its influence rests entirely on lies, redefinitions, and sophistic rhetorical manipulation, it’s hardly a surprise that an institution also known as The Empire of Lies should be shamelessly hypocritical. But it is worth observing nevertheless, if only to disarm its rhetoric.

Since people insist on bringing up the moral principles of self-determination and freedom of association, I insist that those principles be equally and fairly applied. That is a thing that human beings do, when it comes to questions of morality, to demand that they be universally invoked if they are to be invoked at all. I don’t know what kind of weird moral world people are living in where they think it’s some irrelevant dodge to maintain the essential notion of universalism. Those who use the term “whataboutism” are alleging that their targets are avoiding hard conversations and real engagement through distraction, but that is in fact precisely the function that the term uses in our discourse, to allow people to wriggle out of considering America’s terrible history of crimes abroad. And to the extent that this dynamic is identified at all, it’s never matched with an attendant focus on the stuff that was disallowed from the conversation. People don’t say “that’s whataboutism” at 2:00 and then say “OK let’s get serious about what America’s drug war has done to Mexico” at 2:30.

The people who say “whataboutism” don’t want to talk about carpet bombing in Cambodia. They don’t want to talk about death squads in El Salvador. They don’t want to talk about reinstalling the Shah in Iran. They don’t want to talk about the murder of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo. They don’t want to talk about giving a hit list to rampaging anti-Communists in Indonesia. They don’t want to talk about the US’s role in installing a far-right government in Honduras. They don’t want to talk about US support for apartheid in South Africa. They don’t want to talk about unexploded ordnance that still kills and maims in Laos. They don’t want to talk about supporting the hideously corrupt drug lord post-Taliban regime in Afghanistan. They don’t want to talk about aiding literal Nazis and Italian fascists in taking over the government in Albania. They don’t want to talk about giving support to the far-right government’s “dirty war” in Argentina. They don’t want to talk about the US-instigated far-right coup in Ghana. They don’t want to talk about our illegal bombing of Yugoslavia. They don’t want to talk about centuries of mistreatment of Haiti, such as sponsoring the coup against Aristide. They don’t want to talk about sparking 36 years of ruinous civil war, and attendant slaughters of indigenous people, in Guatemala. They don’t want to talk about our drone war in Pakistan. They don’t want to talk about how much longer this list could go on….

I asked some really basic questions in this post – do you really think the United States operates under the principle of self-determination for other nations? Do Cuba or any other disfavored countries enjoy self-determination from the influence of the United States? Why are we allowed to dictate who neighbors ally with, where Russia is not? Are you all really so blind to your country’s history? And not one comment, among hundreds, has credibly provided a coherent answer to the basic moral questions at hand.

Those limited to the rhetoric should never be expected to directly answer dialectical questions. Because they can’t. All they have is emotion, and emotion is intrinsically irrational and incoherent.

And liars will never be troubled by their inconsistency. It’s the least of their concerns.

DISCUSS ON SG

Posted on March 16, 2022 by VD

Tagged globalism, rhetoric

>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CybJWxhf668

PBS NewsHour full episode, March 15, 2022

>107,962 views| Mar 15, 2022

[Yovanovitch]

Tuesday on the NewsHour, Russian forces escalate their bombardment of Kyiv as civilian casualties mount, and we speak with the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine about Russian motives and Ukrainian resistance. Then, the White House and Congress spar over COVID-19 funding, and we look at how COVID-19 is straining a mental healthcare system already under-resourced.

>>15885415

[Yovanovitch]

>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFBfOt2vzkA

Home and Abroad Public Forum: U. S.-Russia Relations

>1,237 views | Mar 4, 2022 | CFR

Panelists discuss the Russia-Ukraine crisis, U.S.-Russia relations, and implications for European security. This event is part of CFR’s Home and Abroad series, which explores issues at the nexus of U.S. domestic and foreign policy that affect America’s role in the world.

Speakers

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivo_Daalder

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Council_on_Global_Affairs

Ivo H. Daalder

President, Chicago Council on Global Affairs; Former U.S. Ambassador,North Atlantic Treaty Organization(2009-2013)

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiona_Hill_(presidential_advisor)

'Fiona Hill'

Senior Fellow, Center on the United States and Europe,BrookingsInstitution; Former Senior Director, European and Russian Affairs, National Security Council (2017-2019)

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Elise_Sarotte

Mary Elise Sarotte

Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Professor of Historical Studies, Henry A.KissingerCenter for Global Affairs, School of Advanced International Studies,Johns HopkinsUniversity

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_N._Haass

Presider

Richard Haass

President, Council on Foreign Relations; Author, The World: A Brief Introduction

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivo_Daalde

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Council_on_Global_Affairs

Ivo H. Daalder Protects The Interests Of NATO

President, Chicago Council on Global Affairs (just turned 100)

Former U.S. Ambassador, NATO 2009-2013) [OBAMA]

Call for dig on Chicago Council on Global Affairs

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Council_on_Global_Affairs

>>15885461

Ivo H. Daalder Protects NATO