Day 874
The normalization machine
So much to write about, too little time1.
Let’s start with James David Vance, the former U.S. Marine corporal, whom Trump has tagged to become Team USA’s next VP.
JD on Ukraine:
Fastforward two years.
I gotta be honest with you, almost everything in this idiotic op-ed doesn’t add up.
And this, also courtesy of the NYT, from yesterday.
It’s obvi James David understands nothing (zero) about Russia or Ukraine. He is inventing crappy ideas, maybe popular ones, which sound good to him but have no correspondence with reality.
Worse, James David has spent years churning out bullshit about Ukraine.
Our little war, unfortunately, is a zero sum contest, a situation in which whatever is gained by one side is lost by the other.
Win you live, lose you die.
Looking on the bright side, kind of, George F. Will tells us JD isn’t averse to believing in something (else) without a good reason.
JD will no doubt fall in love with himself for doing his job, for connecting the dots assigned him in a Whac-A-Mole foreign policy devised to delight brownshirt billionaires, for tapping out weak derision of a nonexistent MAGA status quo, for casting the pro-business, pro-globalization, Obama/Clinton/Biden-manqué liberals as all that stands in the way of the perfection of the market, for laboring at a tone of such inelegance and witlessness it will feel like a year-long vist to Orwell’s Room 101. He will deliver speeches about it, hoping, one assumes, to reclaim some self esteem after reducing himself to the orange clown’s most important bootlicker.
According to The Financial Times, Trump, if elected, “will quickly demand peace talks between Russia and Ukraineand has developed ‘well-founded plans; for doing so, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has claimed after private discussions with the Republican candidate2.
Orbán’s description of Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine tallies with a policy paper on the conflict written by two allies for the former president who are expected to take senior national security roles in his administration if he wins November’s US election. The plan by Keith Kellogg and Fred Fleitz of the America First Policy Institute proposed that the US continue to strengthen Ukraine’s defences, but future military aid would require Kyiv to participate in peace talks with Russia.
We characterized the Kellogg/Fleitz plan as “nonsensical” on Day 8523 for what I hope are obvious reasons.
On the Ukraine jacket, good news. A court has allowed Roman Chervinsky to post UAH 9 million in bail as an alternative to remaining in pretrial confinement.
We recall that nimrods working for The Washington Post ran a batshit exclusive accusing Chervinsky of organizing the op to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline45.
With JD Vance as VP, Peter Thiel would finally have Trump right where he wants him. Why donate money to Trump when you can buy a candidate? (The San Francisco Standard, July 15, 2024)
Donald Trump will demand Russia-Ukraine peace talks if re-elected, claims Viktor Orbán. Hungarian prime minister says Republican candidate will rapidly push to end the war if he wins US election (The Financial Times, July 16, 2024)
Ukrainian military officer coordinated Nord Stream pipeline attack. Roman Chervinsky, a colonel in Ukraine’s special operations forces, was integral to the brazen sabotage operation, say people familiar with planning (The Washington Post, November 11, 2023)
Given the facts on the ground and the snail-like response (F16's years late-one example) by the West after its initial support, what is a realistic end game for this war that supports the goals of stopping the killing and maintaining an independent Ukraine? I only ask because from where I sit I see only bad options.
I suspect when China kicks off it's attack on Taiwan, Putin will go for the Baltics and Poland, given the US will be somewhat preoccupied.. The Ukraine war will be dragging on without much movement on either side. Article 5 will be invoked but I also suspect the US will have withdrawn from it's Article 5 obligations whilst staying in NATO. I think Trump getting in, and the abandonment of Ukraine is inevitable. Europe is quite capable of defeating Russia but I guess they lack the will.