FLASH NEWS
At least now we know the truth!
2025-03-01 00:48:48 / IDE
At least the Oval Office meeting between President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky took place in front of the cameras. A fake public friendship from Trump and Vance, followed by betrayal behind the scenes, would have been far more dangerous to the Ukrainian cause.
Instead, Trump and Vance have openly shown Americans and America's allies their ties to Russia and their hostility toward Ukraine in general and its president in particular.
The truth is ugly, but it is necessary to face it.
Today's meeting refuted any claim that this administration's policy is driven by any strategic effort to advance the interests of the United States, however misguided that effort may be.
In the Oval Office, Trump and Vance displayed a deeply personal animosity. There was no attempt to argue for America's interests.
Vance complained that Zelensky had traveled to Pennsylvania to thank American munitions workers because, according to Vance, this action seemed like an attempt to support the Democratic presidential campaign.
“Let me tell you, Putin went through a lot of suffering because of me,” Trump said angrily. “He went through a fabricated witch hunt, where they used him and Russia, Russia, Russia.”
Both the president and vice president showed the US-led alliance system something it urgently needed to learn: The West's national security system is being led by two men who cannot be trusted to protect America's allies – and who feel a deep sympathy for the world's most aggressive dictator.
During the Cold War period, Americans were concerned with the fear that a person with secret loyalty to a hostile foreign power could rise to high office.
In the late 1940s, the Alger Hiss case rocked the country. Hiss’s accusers claimed—and it was later proven—that he had betrayed U.S. secrets to Soviet spies in the 1930s, when he was serving as a young official in the Department of Agriculture. The secrets were not very important; they involved a design for a fire extinguisher for American warships. But Hiss was a rising figure. The prospect of a man with such a background later becoming Secretary of State or Director of the CIA once terrified America.
But what happens when a leader's loyalties are not secret but open? What happens when a leader says openly, on national television, that he despises our allies, rejects treaties, and sees a foreign enemy as a personal friend?
And what happens when he does this constantly?
People can get used to anything. But to this?
It's not hard to imagine a president of Estonia or Moldova sitting in that Oval Office chair, being reprimanded by Trump and Vance.
Or a president of Taiwan.
Or, the leaders of key US allies, like Germany and Japan, countries that have entrusted their security to the patriotism and trust of previous American leaders – only to now face treacherous people holding the highest offices.
We are seeing the self-destruction of the United States.
“America First” always meant “America alone” – a predatory America whose role in the world is no longer based on democratic values.
The US voted at the UN this week against Ukraine, siding with Russia and China against almost all other democracies. Is this the image Americans want for themselves? Because that is exactly what America is becoming.
The Trump administration's elimination of PEPFAR, the American program to fight HIV in Africa, is symbolic of the path the US is taking.
President George W. Bush created this program because it did a great deal of good at a low cost and demonstrated to the world the moral basis of American power.
His successors continued it, and Congress of both parties funded it, because they saw that this program advanced both US values and interests.
But Trump and Vance don't want the US to be that kind of country anymore.
America's allies urgently need a Plan B for collective security, in a world where the US administration prefers Vladimir Putin to Zelensky.
The American people must confront the mess that Trump and Vance are making of their country's once-good name – and the services they are doing to dictators and aggressors.
There may not be a deeper motive here.
When Vance made his personal turn from “Never Trump” to “Always Trump,” he needed a way to prove that he had gone to the dark side, with no chance of return or redemption. Perhaps his support for Russia provided that opportunity.
But no matter how shallow their motives, the consequences are profound.
In his first term, Trump sometimes seemed like an independent actor within his own administration. He expressed strange and disturbing opinions, but his cabinet secretaries were mostly normal, responsible people.
This time, Trump is building a national security system that follows him blindly. He has intimidated or convinced his own party in the House of Representatives to accept and the Senate not to oppose his pro-authoritarian agenda.
The good, great America that once inspired global admiration still exists. But it no longer has a consensus on party.
The pro-Trump party exposed its face to the world today in the Oval Office. And no one who saw that face will ever forget that disgusting sight./ bota.al
Happening now...
ideas
top
services
- POLICE129
- STREET POLICE126
- AMBULANCE112
- FIREFIGHTER128