Trump and Responsibility

Responsibility and taking responsibility matters

This is just a very quick post to follow up on yesterday’s comments about the United States and their role in the war on Europe (Ukraine being the current focus in that war).

I woke up early this morning to read the news of last night’s fatal attack on Kyiv. I went through my socials and messaged friends and contacts in the capital. They were all thankfully unharmed, though had experienced a particularly unpleasant night. One friend sent me their phone-video of a Shahed drone buzzing above their apartment block at two in the morning. I have heard that sound countless times, and it is still churning.

I wrote to one Ukrainian friend this morning that I blamed the Americans. They replied that they blamed the Russians.

Fair enough. Russians had their fingers across the launches of the barrage last night.

But there is responsibility. I — and others far brighter than I — persist in warning that peace means war, that the Pax America offered by Trump is only a means, clearly and unmistakably pushed by Russian information manipulation, by which Moscow subjugates and destroys Ukraine. And then moves on to weaken Europe.

There was no need for proof that concessions to Putin evoke only more violence. But last night we had more of it. Trump, desperate for a Nobel at any cost, at any Ukrainian life, posted that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was somehow the reason for the continuing war. This is despite the fact that Zelenskyy is trying his best to protect Ukrainians, including those millions currently enslaved by Russia.

(Zelenskyy is in any case bound by the Constitution (something that matters in Ukraine, unlike in the United States), and can more give away Crimea than he can stop the Black Sea coming in tomorrow morning.)

Trump is legitimising and normalising Russia’s brutality and conquest, undoubtedly encouraged by Russian information manipulation to accept the coerced hierarchical reality that Russia somehow owns Ukraine. His Vice President even said that both Russia and Ukraine will ‘have to give up some of the territory they currently own’.

The statements by the US leadership, especially Trump’s post on social media last night, to me led directly to the Russian attack last night.

Trump’s eagerness to end the war — not because he loves Ukrainians and wants to see them stop dying — is forcing him to push Kyiv to make the most unfair concessions. And it is opening the way to the next part of Russia’s war against us.

Putin will likely escalate the attacks on Ukraine, sensitive to Trump’s desperation. Attacks will likely get worse than last night’s. More Ukrainians will be slaughtered. The Americans might wish to recuse themselves from this war, increasingly and terrifying aware that the script in this television movie is getting away from them, but there is a point where it becomes obvious that Washington is aiding the Kremlin.

I have yet to see any preparedness or willingness among European governments or commentators to protect Ukraine and the rest of Europe from Washington (not that we have done anything to protect Ukraine and the rest of Europe from Moscow). To be honest, I do not yet have any quick answers. But it is imperative that we find some soon.