“If it is not possible to end the war in Ukraine, we need to move on,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio. "The president is getting bored," David Ignatius on the war in Ukraine.

 

Our top diplomat, Marco Rubio, says U.S. will decided in days if the end to the war in Ukkrain is “doable.” On MSNBC David Ignatius said he thinks “the president is getting bored” with the war.

“If it is not possible to end the war in Ukraine, we need to move on,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said as he departed meetings in Paris. The following is from The New York Time’s article on this:

“It is not our war. We didn’t start it,” Mr. Rubio said. “The United States has been helping Ukraine for the past three years and we want it to end, but it’s not our war.”

He added: “If it’s not possible — if we’re so far apart that this is not going to happen — then I think the president’s probably at a point where he’s going to say, well, we’re done. We’ll do what we can on the margins." He described Mr. Trump as feeling “very strongly” about this.

This is the subtitle of The Washington Post article on the same subject: “Rubio’s remarks appear to reflect the president’s frustration with the difficulty of achieving peace in Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion.”

The president is frustrated. Poor baby! We dare not have a presdient who is frustrated.

I wish someone would remind Rubio, who I assume knows a bit of history, that we didn’t start World War I or World War II either. Rubio says he wants to see if winning the war is “doable.” Doable!?!? 

While two other presidents must have had dark days of uncertainty during wars we were fighting to save the democratic world, the country never heard Woodrow Wilson or FDR going public saying that they wondered whether winning either war was “doable” and say they would stop helping our allies because it wasn’t.

On MSNBC David Ignatius1 interpreted this as “the president is getting bored.”

The Washinton Post doesn’t have proof that Trump is frustrated. David Ignatius doen’t know for a fact that the president is getting bored, but I think both are making educated guesses based on an accurate assessment of Trump’s personality.

The war in Ukraine, while obviously not a world war, is the closest war to a world war we’ve been engaged in since World War II. It is a proxy war between the forces of democracy and the forces of totalitarianism. It is a war against the most powerful evil country in the world which invaded its neighbor. 

Russia invaded Ukraine to overthrow its pro-Western government and reassert control over Ukraine, which President Putin views as part of Russia's sphere of influence. The invasion aimed to "demilitarize and denazify" Ukraine, reflecting a distorted view of Ukrainian identity and history. (Reference) Putin’s goal was more modest than Hitler’s, but that shouldn;t make a difference. 

Even so, the president of the United States is getting bored with it the war and doesn’t want to be bothered thinking about it. 

Add to this, to the extent he cares about being called “Putin’s puppet” and having people suggest another strongman is pulling his strings, if the United States pulled out of the war he wouldn’t have to deal with this.

At least he wouldn't unless Russia defeated Ukraine and instituted a reign of terror and revenge there which Trump would be blamed for. Then again, Trump probably wouldn’t care because he’d be consulting with Putin at the White House about how to dump our traditional allies and become a partner with Russia.

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1

David Reynolds Ignatius (born May 26, 1950) is an American journalist and novelist. He is an associate editor and columnist for The Washington Post. He has written eleven novels, including Body of Lies, which director Ridley Scott adapted into a film. He is a former adjunct lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and was a Senior Fellow to the Future of Diplomacy Program from 2017 to 2022

What do they think of Trump's cozy relationship with Putin in the other Manchester? By Hal M. Brown

....

.

You know that we have a Manchester in New Hampshire. Fans of Ted Lasso know there's a Manchester in England too.

I was going to unpack everything that was wrong in Trump’s post (above) about why nobody should waste time worrying about Putin. Then I read the first article a web search turned up. It happened to be in the Manchester Evening News (here). 

This was covered in the American media, in Newsweek for example, but it was also reported on in other countries. I came across an article about this in the Manchester Evening News. At first I didn’t think much about this because I assumed it was Manchester, New Hampshire. Then I noticed “MAN UTD” on the top of the page. 

As a fan of the series “Ted Lasso,” I knew this referenced Manchester United, one of the best soccer teams not only in Great Britain but in the world. 

Donald Trump couldn’t couldn't give a rat's ass about what anyone in England, Europe, or Lower Slobovia for that matter, thinks about his cozy relationship with Putin, his abandoning Ukraine, and his shitcanning Amercia’s role as leader of the free world. As I wrote yesterday, Trump only wants revenge for being treated like crap for the previous four years. 

He wants to bask in the warm glow of a sun that shines only on his magnificence. If that level of narcissism was the only psychopatholgy he had it wouldnt be all that bad. He might just be a modern day Caligula.

Unfortunately, it isn’t enough for him to be powerful and to enjoy the trappings and privileges of the presidency. He has to have people cower in fear of him and to bow down to him. It isn’t enough for him to be emperor, he has a driving need to be an evil emperor. When he says “off with their heads” he wants to have the execution televised from the White House lawn.

Trump still believes he has to feign empathy. This may change. Repeatedly he has expressed how it saddens him to know about the death and suffering in Ukraine. He says that he want it to stop. He tries to look and sound sincere. This is all performative. He says the words and people, if they are gullible, just might think he actually feels something. 

Trump never acknowledges that it is Putin who is aggressively targeting civilians and destroying powerplants so people freeze. This because that undermines his narrative of casting Russia as the hero and Ukraine as the villian. If Trump admitted this it would lay bare the lie that he cares about the suffering of Ukranians.

Trump is incapable of experiencing empathy. The only one he ever feels sorry for is himself. The last time this happened was when he had to endure sitting in a hot courtroom during the E. Jean Carroll trial. He’ll think he has to fake it as long as he believes that his grip on absolute power is unassailable. 

Once he believes nobody can ever dethrone him I think he’ll say to himself “fuck putting on the act I’d rather be golfing.”

Addendum:

Trump isn’t particularly good at method acting, but he’s been good enough to convince millions of voters that he cares about them despite not caring about anybody but himself. Perhaps ironically, this is the acting technique developed by a Russian, Konstantin Stanislavski. This seeks to encourage sincere and expressive performances through identifying with, understanding, and experiencing a character's inner motivation and emotions. Actors trying to go beyond getting into the character’s head and get into their hearts. You don’t have to really have empathy to do this well, but it helps. 

Here’s a list of the best American method actors. The one that is generally considered the inspiration for all of them is Marlon Brando.

When I think of what has been happening to America I often flash in my mind to the final scene in “Apocalypse Now” which is simply known as “the horor, the horror” scene. You can view it here.

I must have Brando on my mind since I concluded yesterday’s Substack with this:

I want to thank all of my readers and my Substack subscribers. You can read all of my Substack posts here. If you subscribe you will recieve an email every time I post. Respectful comments are always welcome even if you disagree with me. I generally reply to comments.

I post on BlueSky though the day, You can read my posts here.

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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