Timothy Snyder: The War Trump Chooses

[Nevilledog]

https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-war-trump-chooses

The Americans claim that their attempt to humiliate the Ukrainian president in the White House yesterday was about peace. On that premise, nothing they said makes any sense.

The attempted mugging of a visiting president was about the world war that Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and JD Vance have chosen. If we attend to what Vance and Trump said yesterday, we can work our way to the unreason of American policy, and to the chaos that will follow.

JD Vance opened hostilities against Volodymr Zelens'kyi with a claim about negotiations with Russia, treating them as a formula that will magically end the war. Zelens'kyi had said, calmly and correctly, that negotiations with Russia have been tried before and have not worked. The Russians have betrayed every truce and every ceasefire since their first invasion in 2014. And that first invasion of course violated a number of treaties between Ukraine and Russia, as well as the basic principles of international law. Zelens'kyi ran for president in 2019 as the peace candidate, promising to negotiate with Putin to end what was then a war that had been ongoing for five years. Russia did not respond to these overtures, except with contempt, and then with the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

During and after the Oval Office meeting yesterday, Americans suggested that all that had happen was a unilateral Ukrainian ceasefire, and that then the end of the war would automatically follow. Americans indicated that Zelens'kyi was too stupid to understand this. Zelens'kyi's quite reasonable point was that a ceasefire would have to be followed by efforts to strengthen Ukraine, or the war would simply start again. The evidence is on his side. Even during Trump's ostensible peace campaign these last six weeks, Russian authorities have never said that they would end the war. The Russians keep committing war crimes every day. Yesterday Russia was attacking hospitals in Kharkiv. The Russians have only said that they would talk to Americans, which is not the same thing as agreeing to take part in a peace process. From the Russian perspective, a ceasefire is an opportunity to halt external support for Ukraine and demobilize the Ukrainian army, preparatory to the next attack. Even were this not obvious from Russian statements and actions, no responsible Ukrainian leader could simply accept the American premise that a ceasefire itself is all that is necessary, or simply take Americans at their word that all would be well afterwards.

*snip*

[marble falls]

1. Thankyou, Mango Jebus. What will Netanyahu do to deal with this? ...

... whatever response the US or Israel takes will only make Iran even less likely to negotiate.

[Dan]

2. Can't trust this administration or America

Under this president and congress.

The real sad part is that Trump doesn't care about this nation or anything except who compliments him last.

[red dog 1]

3. About Vance, Timothy Snyder writes:

"There is a reason that Vance will not go to the Ukraine. He is an online person. Last year, at the Munich Security Conference, he refused to meet Zelensky, on the justification that he knew everything he needed to know already. Then he spent time on the internet in his hotel room and posted about certain adolescent concerns."

(This A$$HOLE is a heartbeat away from being POTUS)

[Solly Mack]

4. K&R

Good thing Trump brought respect back to America.

Snort.