Thursday, February 20, 2025
D+105
1938 UK Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden resigned, stating Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had appeased Nazi Germany
1939 The American pro-Nazi organization German American Bund held a rally at Madison Square Garden and 20,000 attend
1971 National Emergency Center erroneously ordered US radio & TV stations to go off the air. The mistake wasn't resolved for 30 minutes
2023 President Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Kyiv, Ukraine
In bed around 9, awake at 2 unable to sleep, and up at 2:30. 7° outside, wind chill of -4°, an improvement over the last few days. The high temp of 23° expected today, looking forward to a balmy high of 38° next Monday when I see Dr. Ryzka at the VA. I washed, dried, and folded a load of napkins.
Prednisone, day 305, 5 mg., day 16, Kevzara, day 2/14. 2.5 mg. prednisone at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. Other meds at 10 a.m. .
The End of NATO, the Western Alliance, and the Pitchpoling of the World Order. Am I catastrophizing again? Denny the Downer? The world going to hell in a handbasket? Waiting for Caela's arrival yesterday, Geri and I watched Nicolle Wallace's Deadline White House program. She interviewed Michael McFaul, former US ambassador to Russia, NY Times diplomatic reporter Michael Crowley, and retired General Barry McCaffrey. I said to Geri after the interviews were completed "I think that was the most depressing half-hour of television I have ever watched." Perhaps that was hyperbole, considering 9/11, the Cuban Missile Crisis, so much in 1968, Watergate, and so on, but perhaps not. Donald Trump and his people are turning our world on end. He has effectively killed NATO as a North American-European defensive alliance that preserved Europe from wars of aggression from the end of WWII until Russia seized Crimea in 2014 (discounting the Balkan wars after the breakup of Yugoslavia). He has embraced Vladimir Putin despite his record of murdering his opponents, allying with brutal dictators like Assad in Syria, fomenting wars in former Soviet republics, and invading Ukraine. Now he has invited him to the White House as an honored guest of the United States. Barry McCaffrey commented on Nicolle Wallace's program that "Vladimir Putin is a gangster. He is a murderous dictator. He kills his own internal enemies within eyesight of the Kremlin. He is involved in mass atrocities in Syria and Chechnya, in Georgia, in the invasion of Crimea, and now his continuing war against the civilian population of Ukraine. There is no question that Vladimir's basic motivation was to recreate the Soviet empire. Now it's Ukraine, now it's the 20% he holds of the country. The next step will be the rest of the country, the Baltic States, and Poland. The Europeans understand this. So, listening to what's going on in Washington now, it is difficult to process this. It's utter madness. It's against the security of the United States and its allies." I believe McCaffrey is correct.
Nicolle Wallace did a fact-check on some of Trump's lies about Ukraine. Trump said the US had provided $350 billion to Ukraine. The accurate amount is $183 billion. He said the US has provided $200 billion more than Europe. That is inaccurate. He said the US gets nothing back. That too is inaccurate. 70% of Ukraine's aid has been spent in the United States or on U.S. forces. McFaul commented that Trump's lies, all parroting Putin's lies, make it appear to the world that the US president is not in control of the facts, which weakens his allies' bargaining positions vis-a-vis Russia. "This is a dangerous moment in American history, a really dangerous moment. This is not a laughing matter. This could be a pivotal moment when we lose our allies, we lose Ukraine, and then we are weak when we have to take on places like China."
When Wallace asked McCaffrey what happens if Trump continues down this path, he said "The damage is done. It's now irrevocable. There's not a shred of rational argument among European powers to trust United States commitment to NATO and Article 5." The interview went on and on, one piece of bad news after another.
Weirdly I think of my high school civics teacher, Mr. Burke, who was a schvitzer. He would occasionally ask the class if 'it was warm in here or is it me" to which the whole class would laughingly reply "It's you, Mr. Burke!" Now I'm thinking it's not only me who thinks we are in real trouble in this country, this world.
Telling headlines: In the Wall Street Journal, "Trump’s Attack on Zelensky Signals a New World Order Taking Shape," "Trump’s Turn to Russia Spooks U.S. Allies Who Fear a Weakened NATO," "Trump Tilts Toward a Ukraine Sellout (by The Editorial Board)
In the Washington Post: "Trump’s flood of false claims about Ukraine: In remarks and social media posts, the U.S. president echoed Russian talking points," "Experts say Trump comes close to the red line of openly defying judges"
In the Atlantic: "The Trump World Order," "The End of the Postwar World."
The Cost of American Support under Trump. From Anne Appelbaum's "The End of the Postwar World."
A few days before the Munich conference, the U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went to Kyiv and presented President Volodymyr Zelensky with a two-page document and asked him to sign. Details of this proposed agreement began to leak last weekend. It calls for the U.S. to take 50 percent of all “economic value associated with resources of Ukraine,” including “mineral resources, oil and gas resources, ports, other infrastructure,” not just now but forever, as the British newspaper The Telegraph reported and others confirmed: “For all future licenses the U.S. will have a right of first refusal for the purchase of exportable minerals,” the document says.
HANDS UP! STICK'EM UP!
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