NY Times headline reminds me of what we hear on so many cop shows. It also reminds me of how often TV cops don't say these words for the sake of drama.

 

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I was struck by the title of this article in The New York Times:

The article begins:

This time, when President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine arrives in the Oval Office, he will come with backup.

An array of European prime ministers and presidents are flying in for the meeting on Monday to make sure that a viable, defensible Ukraine survives whatever carving up of its territory is about to happen at the negotiating table.

But they are also there to make certain that the trans-Atlantic alliance emerges intact. President Trump’s instant reversal on the critical issue of obtaining a cease-fire before negotiating over land or security guarantees has left many of them shaken, and wondering whether Mr. Trump had once again been swayed by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

By most accounts, the European officials want to ensure that Mr. Trump has not pivoted too close to the Russian side, and does not try to strong-arm Mr. Zelensky into a deal that will ultimately sow the seeds of Ukraine’s dissolution. And they want to safeguard against the risk of the United States, the linchpin of European security since NATO’s creation in 1949, undermining that interest.

This reminded me of the TV cop show trope when a cop, sometimes alone and sometimes with a partner, is about to enter the house of a suspect they believe is dangerous.

When we watch the show we may say “call for backup you idiot or idiots. Sometimes one partner says it to another. 

For dramatic effect the cop, or pair of cops, never wait for backup. They always enter the house by themselves.

Officer Zelenskyy went into the criminals lair by himself the first time. We know what happened to him then.

Now he is being more than prudent. He is being damn smart. 

In fact, since he knows the nature of the threat and that the crime boss he’s about to confront has been laying in wait for him and has consulted with his international criminal counterpart, he is bringing his version of a SWAT team.

I say, good for him.

Addendum:

I was pleased that other media didn’t use the word “backup.” For example, the AP:

Excerpt:

KYIV (AP) — European and NATO leaders announced Sunday that they’ll be joining President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington for crucial talks with President Donald Trump, rallying around the Ukrainian leader after his exclusion from Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The remarkable move — with one European leader after another announcing that they’ll be at Zelenskyy’s side when he travels to the White House on Monday — was an apparent effort to ensure that the meetinggoes better than the last one in February, when Trump berated the Ukrainian president in a heated Oval Office encounter.

This is how The Washington Post put it:

How’s that for a wishy-washy title?

The BBC focused on the day itself rather than the fact that Zelenskyy is being accompanied by other world leaders:

The worst title I saw was this from the UK edition of The Guardian.

It seems obvious to me that whoever wrote this insulting unserious title is patting themselves on the back thinking how fucken clever they are. In fact, it suggests that Zelenskyy is weak and not smart.

Afterthought:

If there’s any doubt that Trump has become an enemy, all Zelenskyy and the European leaders have to do is read this Trump Truth Social post:

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Trump just gave Europe its Pearl Harbor by backing Russia in the Ukraine war. By Hal M. Brown

 .

This is all over the news, not just on HUFFPOST.

Trump on Tuesday blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Trump’s statement comes as US and Russian officials discussed ending the three-year war in Ukraine without any Ukrainian officials present — which Zelenskyy criticized on Tuesday.

“[Zelenskyy] should’ve ended it in three years,” Trump, who has repeatedly and baselessly claimed the war wouldn’t have happened if he were in office at the time, said. “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal. I could have made a deal for Ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land, and no people would have been killed, and no city would have been demolished and not one dome would have been knocked down. But they chose not to do it that way.”

Trump added that he likes Zelenskyy “personally,“ but, he added, “I care about getting the job done.”

“You have leadership now that’s allowed a war to go on that should have never even happened, even without the United States,” Trump continued.

It is being reported about on TV as I write this:

If you don’t count Trump’s other lies where the truth was in plain sight, the size of his first inauguraton crowd and the Big Lie about the election being stolen in 2020, for example, this is Trump’s most dangerous to democracy gaslighting lie ever. The first democracy threatening lie was about January 6th. We saw what we saw, and Trump wants us to believe we were hallucinating. 

We also saw what we saw when Russia first amassed troops around Ukraine claiming it was just a military exercise, and then began a massive invasion. Trump wants us to think we didn’t see this. We’re the ones who are mentally ill, right?

American’s have a favorable opinion of NATO and our membership (see Pew Research poll). If they could vote on whether we remain as a member we would.

Another Pew Research poll of Americans opinions on supporting Ukraine in their war against Russia shows oeverall support but a division depending on poltical affiliation.

Overall, 30% of American adults say the U.S. is providing too much support to Ukraine in its war with Russia. That’s up slightly from 27% in November 2024, just after the U.S. presidential election. At the same time, the share of adults who believe the U.S. is not providing enough support to Ukraine has increased slightly: 22% say this, up from 18% in November. These shifts mean that U.S. opinion about support for Ukraine is now closer to preelection levels.

Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are far more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to say the U.S. is giving Ukraine too much support (47% vs. 14%). The share of Republicans who think the U.S. is giving Ukraine too much support has increased 5 percentage points since November. Meanwhile, Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to say the U.S. is giving too little support to Ukraine (35% vs. 10%); the share of Democrats with this view is up 7 points since November.

If NATO membership and support for Ukraine were up to Americans, we would be in a very different position. Instead, it is up to one person, Donald J. Trump. 

On Feb. 10th I wrote Three weeks in and we have Fort Sumter.

I wrote:

What has just happened mere few weeks into the Trump presidency is that we have had our Fort Sumpter in the form of Trump attacking federal agencies and, as I wrote yesterday, locking Democratic members of Congress out of federal buildings.

The war is about to escalate as Trump threatens to defy court orders and Vance, Musk, and some Republican members of Congress say he has every right to do this.

It is worse than that. There are also thinly veiled threats to try to take control of the media.

In the brief time since I wrote that the move to make us into an autocracy has escalated. 

Yesterday Trump all but announced that we have shitcanned our membership in the community of democratic and mostly democratic nations and allied ourselves with Russia. He started by trying to bully our neighbors, Canada and Mexico, and then symbolically ripped to shreds every treaty we have with our allies.

There was a chance that when Trump said what he said he was having a senior moment. He could have walked his words back. He could have done his usual moonwalk somehow saying he didn’t really mean that Ukraine started the war. It looks like it is too late for him to do this because he followed up by continuing to attack Zelinski and in a typical Trumpian move said he wanted Ukraine to give the US half of her national resources. Then, just a few minutes ago, it has been reported that Trump called Zelenski a dictator and that he better have free elections or he may not have a country.

What Trump has done may not have been as much of a surprise attack as Pearl Harbor was. We should have seen this coming. Even so, he might as well as ordered a fleet of aircraft carries to send their aircraft to bomb, not just Ukraine and NATO, but all of our allies.

Trump is now an enemy agent in the NATO alliance. I see a case being made for NATO to kick the country he has taken control of out for their own security.

Trump has declared war against democracy both at home and abroad. He might as well have added two parenthetical words to his slogan so it reads Make America (and Russia) Great Again.

Some afterthoughts:

In the unlikely event that Trump either withdraws from NATO or NATO severs its relationship with the United States, they could do one of two things. They likely would significantly increase military aid to Ukraine. They could go much further than this. They could fast-track Ukraine becoming a member of NATO.

This would mean a NATO war with Russia. This would be World War III. There’s no way to know which side Trump would be on. If he decided to be on Russia’s side, not only would the American public be outraged, but it is quite possible our military would refuse to back him. This could lead to a military coup. Hesgeth would be barred from the Pentagon, the nuclear codes Trump has control of would be disabled, Trump would be arrested for treason, and a tribunal of generals would be put in charge of Executive Branch of the United States.

Addendum:

This is what Trump posted:

Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn't be won, that never had to

start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and "TRUMP," will never be able to settle. The United States has spent $200 Billion Dollars more than Europe, and Europe's money is guaranteed, while the United States will get nothing back. Why didn't Sleepy Joe Biden demand Equalization, in that this

War is far more important to Europe than it is to us

— We have a big, beautiful Ocean as separation. On top of this, Zelenskyy admits that half of the money we sent him is "MISSING." He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and

the only thing he was good at was playing Biden "like a fiddle." A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left. In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only "TRUMP," and the Trump Administration, can do. Biden never tried, Europe has failed to bring Peace, and Zelenskyy probably wants to keep the "gravy train" going. I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have

unnecessarily died - And so it continues.....

The Russian webstie posted this along with what Trump posted:

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