Is it right to dis Zelensky?

As the Wall Street Journal points out, “the United Nations is no great moral arbiter of anything, but at least the United States has tried over the years to have that group of nations recognize the truth about bad actors.”  But on Monday the U.S. voted against a General Assembly resolution calling out Russia for its invasion of Ukraine three years ago.  The resolution had been sponsored by Ukraine and several other European nations noted, “that the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation has had devastating and long-lasting consequences” and called for an early cessation of hostilities.”

Should we be concerned that Trump isn’t condemning Putin?  This is an interesting question because under normal circumstance we should object rather strenuously to an American president bobbing and weaving on such an important issue.  But these aren’t normal circumstances for several reasons, foremost of which is that Putin holds all the aces!

Consider, Putin already has a 700,000-man army in place in Ukraine, second, the nearest NATO army doesn’t yet exist, third, Putin does not care about the mounting casualties on either side, fourth, he owns the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, fifth, Putin is not trustworthy evinced by numerous occasions of lying, backstabbing and double dealing with Ukraine.  And for those who don’t recall, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees from Russia – so much for Russian guarantees.  As Mykola Bielieskov of the National Institute for Strategic Studies in Kyiv said. “Russia observes two kinds of agreements: one that’s backed by power, or one that it’s in Russia’s interests, unfortunately, Ukraine on its own does not qualify for either of these.”

So, it appears that Trump is laying low and trying to court Putin which is a very risky proposition because clear-thinking people understand that Putin is a killer – plain and simple.  Vladimir Putin is an evil man who ranks right alongside, Hitler, Mao, Stalin and the Ayatollah Khomeini.  But what else can Trump do if he wants to stop the carnage, start calling Putin a mass murderer and send in the Marines? – I don’t think so!  Putin does not care how many Ukrainians or Russians are killed in this war.  And he has told the world repeatedly, the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20^th century was the fall of the old Soviet empire and everything the man does is with the goal of re-creating, to whatever extent possible, the contours of that empire.

The recent dust-up between Trump and Zelensky is clear evidence of Trump sidestepping Zelensky – and that’s a big gamble on Trump’s part.  Meanwhile, Trump has two goals, first, he wants to stop the killing, but secondly, he wants to weaken the Russia-Iran-China alliance.

As of the time of this post, there are no specifics regarding the “minerals deal” among the U.S., Ukraine, and Russia so we’ll have to wait and see what happens.  But before the left goes bonkers again with cries of Russia! Russia! Russia! regarding Trump, we should also consider that Trump did not start this war, Putin did, abetted by Joe Biden’s words when he told the world, “Russia will be held accountable, but it depends upon what it does, if it made a minor incursion into Ukraine, Russia would not face devastating sanctions, but if they do what they’re capable of doing it is going to be a disaster for Russia.”  I guess 700,000 troops in a foreign country constitutes a minor incursion in Biden-world.

The bottom line here is that this war will likely not end well for Ukraine no matter what occurs, but if the slaughter is to end, someone has to make a deal and common-sense dictates that it’s never wise to insult the person with whom you’re trying to get a good deal from.