Trump, Putin summit demonstrates ‘jaw-jaw' better than ‘war,-war’

Trump, Putin summit demonstrates ‘jaw-jaw' better than ‘war,-war’

 

On December 30, 2021, former President Biden virtually guaranteed Russia would invade Ukraine 2 months later. He rejected Russia’s security concerns in his last conversation with President Putin, daring him to act upon his sensible demand NATO cease expansion into Ukraine and support of Ukraine’s war on Russian leaning Donbas Ukrainians. Biden knew Russia would attack believing he'd set a Vietnam war style trap to demolish Russia. 

Big mistake. That was the last time Biden spoke to Putin, ignoring the destruction of Ukraine, and worse, putting the world on the cusp of nuclear war for the last 3 years of his reckless foreign policy. Biden’s diplomacy that entire time was to lavish over $150 billion in weapons to Ukraine and unleash draconian economic sanctions on Russia that did nothing to prevent the impending collapse of Ukraine’s military and domestic society. That was not diplomacy. That was madness.

 

Worse than Ukraine’s destruction? Every one of those last 1,100 days of Biden’s reckless reign put the US and Russia on possible nuclear collision course. The war was really a US proxy war to weaken, isolate Russia using Ukraine proxies. Every Ukraine attack deep into Russia employing US missiles, intelligence and moral support threatened a possible Russian nuclear response.

 

Ukraine’s equally reckless President Zelensky even goaded NATO to attack Russia by claiming a Polish citizen killed by an errant Ukraine missile hitting Poland was actually Russian, requiring a NATO response.

 

Just one big mistake, one miscalculation, one rogue actor could have set off nuclear war. For Biden to demonize Putin instead of talking to him, even advocating his removal from office, may have been the most irresponsible conduct by a US president in the 80 year nuclear era.

 

That’s why we in the peace community, seeking to avoid nuclear war as well as an end to America’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, celebrate the Trump, Putin Kumbaya session in Alaska Friday. Praising each other for constructive discussion seeking peace, comprehensive mutual European security, reestablishment of diplomatic engagement and yes, reduction of nuclear tensions should have been a cornerstone of Biden’s failed foreign policy.

 

Former UK Prime Minister Harold MacMillan put it best. “Jaw-jaw is better than war-war"

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 

It’s not ‘Who lost Ukraine?’ It’s ‘Who destroyed Ukraine’?

 It’s not ‘Who lost Ukraine?’ It’s ‘Who destroyed Ukraine’?

When Mao won the Chinese civil war in 1949, adding China to the USSR in the roster of commie countries, the US war hawks of that era excoriated the Truman administration for ‘losing’ China’. Their unhinged claim was that the commie filled State Department made Mao’s inevitable takeover possible. That helped fuel Sen. Joe McCarthy’s equally unhinged campaign to smoke out all those imagined commies in the Truman administration a year later.

A whiff of that 1949 anti commie hysteria is playing out on mainstream media ahead of Friday’s sit down between President Trump and Russian President Putin seeking a ceasefire and end to this disastrous war destroying Ukraine.

Morning Joe Scarborough this morning pondered whether Trump will cave to the evil Putin’s Ukraine dismembership demands to achieve the peace that might garner him a Nobel Peace Prize. Yep, Moring Joe laid out the ‘Who lost Ukraine’ meme on Trump to prepare us for the onslaught of anti-Trump, anti-Russian hysteria sure to follow if a settlement reflecting the reality of Ukraine’s dismembership is inked in Alaska tomorrow.

A settlement is only possible if a US/Russia settlement verifies the battlefield reality. Ukraine’s military is teetering on collapse with over a million dead cannon fodder and 4 oblasts gone to Russia forever. If Trump accomplishes peace…which is far from likely, the blame game will focus on Trump who ‘lost’ Ukraine which will end up as a greatly diminished rump state dependent on US/European life support for years to come.

Historians instead should begin with the 6 administrations preceding Trump’s second term 2.0: George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump 1.0 and most grievously Joe Biden. H.W. Bush, Clinton, W. Bush, Obama, Trump 1.0 and Biden all promoted NATO expansion into Ukraine and dismissed all Russian security pleas that such expansion was a Red Line Russia would view as an existential threat.

While his predecessors put Ukraine on the road to destruction, Joe Biden essentially pulled the trigger on a war Ukraine had no chance of winning. Putin tried to avoid invading. He saw Ukraine massing 60,000 elite troops on the Donbas border to polish off the Ukrainian separatists there seeking independence and safety from Kyiv neo fascists. His plea of December 21 2021 was dismissed out of hand. Biden told Putin that Russia’s security interests, which included autonomy for Ukrainian separatists as well as a neutral Ukraine not in NATO, were ‘not subject to discussion whatsoever.’

Biden knew that response would provoke a Russian invasion. But Biden miscalculated that US weapons combined with draconian Russian sanctions would result in a Vietnam style defeat for Russia, possibly even the overthrow of President Putin.

So here we are three years, eight months later with Putin, not Trump holding all the cards in tomorrow’s negotiation. Trump knows the correct outcome is settling on Russia’s terms: no return of Ukraine territory, no NATO for Ukraine and a demilitarized Ukraine that can never attack inside Russia territory again. He also knows he’ll be branded by America’s ravenous war hawks as ‘The man who lost Ukraine’ should he end the war.

Nobody lost Ukraine. But we now know who destroyed Ukraine. The only question to be answered is…How severely Ukraine will be destroyed before the guns go silent.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL

Germany’s Merz to Israel’s Netanyahu: ‘No more genocide weapons for you.’

 

Germany’s Merz to Israel’s Netanyahu: ‘No more genocide weapons for you.’ 

 

Germany, conductor of the worst genocide in the 20th century, is pushing back against Israel, conductor of the worst genocide this century.

 

German Chancellor Merz halted all offensive weapons sales to Israel in a vailed understatement, “The even harsher military action by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, approved by the Israeli Cabinet last night, makes it increasingly difficult for the German government to see how these goals will be achieved. Under these circumstances, the German government will not authorize any exports of military equipment that could be used in the Gaza Strip until further notice.”

 

Given that Israel, with near total US complicity, is determined to eliminate all 2,300,000 Palestinians from Gaza’s 139 square miles to expand Greater Israel, its unlikely German weapons exports will ever resume.

 

Germany’s principled action is not insignificant in the effort to cripple Israel’s destruction of the Palestinian people. That’s because Germany accounts for 30% of Israel’s grisly genocide arsenal. Sadly, the US accounts for 69% of the remaining 70%. The Trump administration is so ecstatic about Israel clearing out the remaining 2 million or so Palestinians not yet murdered, that it may simply increase its grotesque weaponizing of the genocide to make up the slack.

 

Americans should contemplate that would equate with America supplying Nazi Germany with the Zyklon B gas to eliminate European Jewry and other Nazi undesirables in WWII.   

 

Trump can fuel Israel’s genocide because not a single member of the Trump administration dare call US policy genocide. Nor does a single member mainstream media. Congress is a teensy better with just 10 of 535 congresspersons having the moral clarity to charge Israel with the G word. 

 

Until Trump channels Germany’s Merz and tells Netanyahu, ‘No more genocide weapons for you’, the genocide will continue till all 2,300,000 Palestinians in Gaza are dead and gone.

 

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 

 

Does Trump have the guts to end America’s lost proxy war against Russia?

 Does Trump have the guts to end America’s lost proxy war against Russia?

For seven months Trump has reneged on his promise to end in one day America’s proxy war against Russia destroying Ukraine. Ukraine loses more soldiers and more territory every day with no chance of prevailing.


Tho a one day settlement was impossible, Trump came close to following thru by publicly berating Ukraine President Zelensky for continuing the war and threatening to cease all US weapons which keep Ukraine fighting. Then he pivoted back to war, demanding Russia’s Putin implement immediate ceasefire or face draconian sanctions. Putin responded to that nonsense with increased military attacks. Now with the upcoming summit this Friday, Trump has the opportunity to achieve peace in Ukraine.


Russia has already signaled concessions to achieve ceasefire. According to the Wall Street Journal, Russia told US envoy Steve Witkoff Russia would implement a full ceasefire if Ukraine would withdraw its remaining troops in the Donbas almost entirely controlled by Russia. In return Russia would freeze the lines in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the other 2 Ukraine oblasts Russia demanded full control over, rather than push on for full annexation. Russia would require Ukraine to remain neutral between East and West, giving up all intentions to join NATO.


Implementing that ceasefire would be a good start to permanently ending hostilities. But neither Ukraine President Zelensky nor European NATO leaders have bought into this sensible solution.


Zelensky maintains his delusional refusal to give up a single square mile of territory that will never return to Ukraine control. He could have kept every square mile of territory had he completed the peace deal with Russia in April 2022 that the US and UK sabotaged. Seventy percent of Ukrainians want the war to end forthwith. But the fool Zelensky keeps demanding ‘push on.’


European NATO leaders, especially UK’s Starmer, France’s Macron and Germany’s Merz are still committed to this failed war to maintain NATO dominance and isolation of Russia. They fear the loss of the US gravy train that pumps up their economies. They are as delusional as Zelensky.


Trump’s third obstacle to peace is the US national security state which abhors the US losing a senseless war of choice. War fanatics like Senator Lindsey Graham and retired generals paid off by the weapons makers, dominate mainstream news condemning inevitable US surrender. No voice for ending this proxy war madness is allowed to pitch peace on the airwaves or op ed columns. They will pound on Trump relentlessly should he chalk up another US war loss, albeit one bringing peace to Ukraine.


The only ceasefire and permanent war settlement possible will go down as a US/NATO defeat. Wonderful. NATO needs to disband as it has gone on trying to weaken, isolate Russia 34 years after becoming obsolete upon dissolution of the USSR in 1991.


Does Trump have the guts to force a settlement that overcomes the resistance of Zelensky, NATO leaders and the US war party? We may soon find out.


Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL