Woke up early early this morning to find out how Z did w/ Uncle Joe and Kamala.
The [US intelligence] assessment highlights what intelligence analysts see as the potential risk and uncertain rewards of a high-stakes decision that now rests with President Biden, who met with Z of Ukraine at the White House on Thursday1.
… was the first bunch words I skimmed. The second was something about Z losing star power on Capitol Hill2.
The decision to leak a US intelligence assessment to The New York Times about a controversial key aspect of Z’s Victory Plan might be more significant than the actual assessment, which may or may not be cockeyed.
The crops are dying in Ukraine and Haitians are eating people’s dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio.
Our impressions of Z’s ongoing America tour are contradictory. On the one hand, these are the most important — and most difficult — chit chats of his life. On the other hand, we look at the president and he is unshaven, in pajamas and wearing waxies. We see the same Z as three years ago, someone for whom thesis and its antithesis are irrelevant and the Hegelian approach no longer applies, for whom evolving real ideas is passé and reality is no longer expressed in rational categories.
The Economist writes that the recent shift in public opinion in the West in favor of freezing the war at the expense of Ukraine, that is, at the expense of territorial concessions on its part, is not only a figment of Putin’s imagination: Radek, Xi, Olaf, Pavel, JD, Donald, Elon, Lula… the list goes on. But let’s assume this view is disputable and reversible.
Practicing philosopher Volodomyr Pastukhov says the situation is dire.
[T]he West is not arming itself, is not preparing for [as Mark would say3] a balls-to-the-walls confrontation with Russia. The rise in military spending is proceeding at a pace that does not indicate any serious intentions on the part of Europe, and US military budgets are primarily targeting China. It is quite difficult to brush off this reality aside. Unless you are Z.
Z’s Victory Plan provides for his political survival, maybe. The president and his potent managers are hedging their bets and, faced with causal ambiguity, will present any outcome of talks in Washington as success, even if it is Plan B.
But Putin also has been taking no chances, starting in the fall of 2022: capture all of Ukraine – victory, capture part of Ukraine – also victory, capture nothing – victory nonetheless.
Regardless of the outcome breakfast with Trump this morning, Z does not need to look closely and listen to our reality because he lives inside his own special one in which the impossible is possible. In his reality, victory over Russia is more than real, and the only impediment to achieving it is the indecision of Ukraine’s partners.
Trump said that Z came to America as a salesman4. To Pastukhov, Z more resembles a missionary who wants to convert unbelievers than cinch a deal. Like a true zealot, he believes in his cause and will not allow anyone to doubt its feasibility.
We know this type of character, because we all watched Darkest Hour and Into the Storm. The problem is that the real Winston Churchill did not resemble the actors portraying him in 21st-century films, and the world was a different place then. There will be no sequel to Sean Penn’s Superpower.
Pastukhov says the denouement will come quite soon, he thinks in a few months, six months at most. Either Z will somehow miraculously convert Americans to the true faith, or vile human nature will take its toll, and Plan B will turn into the aviation equivalent of looking for the black box recorder after a plane crash.
Conditions for making an emergency landing are already obvious. Whatever the outcome, Z and his will declare it a success. And it will indeed be a victory, because the touchdown will be less dangerous than it could have been, although much worse than we would have preferred.
U.S. Intelligence Stresses Risks in Allowing Long-Range Strikes by Ukraine. Intelligence agencies concluded that granting Ukraine’s request to use Western missiles against targets deep in Russia could prompt forceful retaliation while not fundamentally changing the course of the war (The New York Times, September 27, 2024)
c/o The New York Times, a publication we admire for publishing some of best photographs illustrating our 11-year bloody mess.
(54:48)
But take a look at the war in Ukraine, and I think it’s something we have to have a quick discussion about, because the President of Ukraine is in our country and he’s making little nasty aspersions toward your favorite President, me.
(54:48)
But take a look at the war happening right now in Ukraine. It would have never happened if I were President, to start off with, and there didn’t even have to be a settlement. It wouldn’t have happened, period. Russia wouldn’t have gone in. I spoke to Putin about it a lot. I got along very well with Putin. I spoke to him a lot. I was the one that ended the pipeline, Nord Stream 2, in Europe going to Germany, and he said that was a bad thing. That was the biggest job. Didn’t they say how nice I was to Russia? No, I wasn’t nice, but we got along. We had a good relationship, which is a good thing, not a bad thing. But what’s happening in Ukraine is a very serious matter. Let’s say we did settle and a deal would’ve been made with Russia years ago, three years ago before it all began, and we could have made a deal easily, could have made it easily. If we had a President who was intelligent, we could have made a deal easily.
(55:47)
But what do you have left now? Three years of horrible fighting. The country is absolutely obliterated. Millions and millions of people, including all of these great soldiers, they’re dead. Those gorgeous buildings with golden towers are demolished and laying broken on their side, and you’ll never see that kind of a town or city again. It can never be duplicated. They’re all demolished, other than Kyiv. You’ll never be able to rebuild the cities or towns the way they are, impossible to do. They were thousands of years old. And just think about it, just three years ago, you had a beautiful civilization, millions of people that were living that are now not with us any longer, magnificent towns and cities that were so beautiful, could never be reconstructed. Other than Kyiv, which is actually starting to be hit right now. He wanted to save that.
(57:02)
Most of the country is gone. The heritage is gone. So many people are dead. Many people have left for Poland, for Hungary, and for other places, never to return. And that includes many, many Russian soldiers are dead. A deal could have been made, there wouldn’t have been one person that died, and there wouldn’t have been one golden tower laying shattered on its side. A deal could have been made if we had a competent President instead of a President that egged it all on. And Biden and Kamala allowed this to happen by feeding Zelensky money and munitions like no country has ever seen before. Every time he came to our country, he’d walk away with $60 billion. He’s probably the greatest salesman on earth. But now Ukraine is running out of soldiers. They’re using young children and old men because their soldiers are dying, and other things are happening to them that we won’t even discuss. So many are badly injured. And what do you have? What deal can we make? What deal can we make? It’s demolished. The people are dead. The country is in rubble. And who are these people that allowed this to happen? Who are these people? I said, “Don’t let it happen.” This never happened in my four years. I told President Putin, “You’re not going to do it.” He would never have done it. They started to form after I left, and I actually thought they were forming as a negotiating tactic for Putin. I thought it was a negotiation, but through a lot of bad statements and stupid statements, he went in. And he’s no angel. It’s all such a horror. Biden and Harris caused this situation by the stupidity of what they said, by every move they make. But they caused the situation and now they’re locked in. They’re locked in. I watched this poor guy yesterday at the United Nations. He didn’t know what he was saying.
(59:37)
They just don’t know what to do. They’re locked into a situation. It’s sad. They just don’t know what to do. Because Ukraine is gone. It’s not Ukraine anymore. You can never replace those cities and towns and you can never replace the dead people. So many dead people. Any deal, even the worst deal, would’ve been better than what we have right now. If they made a bad deal, it would’ve been much better. They would’ve given up a little bit and everybody would be living and every building would be built, and every tower would be aging for another 2,000 years. And it will only get worse with these people. Kamala, she doesn’t know what she’s doing. More people will die. More cities will fall. The ones that fell will continue to receive more and more bombs. They’ll be broken up asunder worse than they are right now.
(01:00:46)
Nothing is standing. The crops are dying. There’s really nothing for the Ukrainian people to move back to. And it didn’t need to happen. Those buildings are down, those cities are gone, they’re gone, and we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal, Zelensky. There was no deal that he could have made that wouldn’t have been better than the situation you have right now. You have a country that has been obliterated, not possible to be rebuilt. It’ll take hundreds of years to rebuild it. There’s not enough money to rebuild it if the whole world got together. They’re not going to be satisfied until they send American kids over to Ukraine and that’s what they’re trying to do, and the moms and dads of America don’t want their kids fighting Ukraine and Russia, and we’re not going to have our soldiers die across the ocean.
Are the crops dying? Or just the people?