RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jns.org/the-trump-foreign-policy-teams-real-problem/?utm_campaign=

It was the gaffe that critics of the Trump administration have been praying for. However it happened, the inclusion of Atlantic  editor Jeffrey Goldberg in a group chat on the Signal App among the administration’s leading defense policymakers about an impending attack on the Houthis in Yemen, was a gob-smacking blunder of epic proportions.

It not only embarrassed participants in the conversion, like Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. It called into question the competence of President Donald Trump’s national-security team and the process by which it communicates and shares information at the highest level.

If, as appears to be the case, it was Waltz’s office that  was responsible for connecting Goldberg to the chat, it’s something he’ll never entirely live down, even if Trump is prepared to forgive him.

But as much as Goldberg’s unwitting scoop deserved the headlines and the endless discussions it generated, it was actually not the most troubling news event of the week for Trump’s national-security team.

The worst administration blunder didn’t involve the group chat about Yemen or any other issue that the president’s critics are obsessed with. Instead, it was the comments of Steve Witkoff, his special envoy to the Middle East, on “The Tucker Carlson Show” podcast. The interview made clear that the person Trump has tasked with conducting negotiations about the war in Gaza and the release of the hostages taken on Oct. 7, 2023, is utterly clueless about malign actors like Qatar, Iran and its terrorist proxies.

https://www.commentary.org/articles/gregg-roman/american-aid-subsidized-terror/?utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8ThjN4AlJ1

The world should shudder to discover that America’s foreign aid—long intended to uplift those in need overseas—has instead nourished extremists who despise the United States. On February 26, I appeared before the House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) to expose evidence of these betrayals. Far from a mere policy dispute, the misuse of U.S. assistance I documented underscores the magnitude of the negligence and, in certain instances, possible criminal collusion within our humanitarian apparatus. During the hearing, which featured pointed exchanges between subcommittee Chairwoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Ranking Member Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), it became clear that certain federal programs, especially those under the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), have strayed far from their original mission.

More than once, the session erupted in arguments over whether the Biden administration’s policies had inadvertently or deliberately financed radical agendas across the globe. Witnesses included policy analysts, a journalist, and former federal officials. Stansbury lamented what she called “carnage,” “gutting,” and “global realignment” allegedly forced by the new administration’s approach to foreign assistance. Nevertheless, as the hearing progressed, a common thread emerged from multiple testimonies: Federal foreign aid has funded an array of extremist-aligned groups overseas—often at odds with American interests. Greene underscored that the subcommittee would consider criminal referrals if it emerged that U.S. aid had directly abetted terrorist attacks on Americans, declaring that “if USAID funded terrorism that resulted in the death of Americans, then this committee will be making criminal referrals.” Such a stance highlights how severe these findings are.

https://quadrant.org.au/news-opinions/america/the-only-game-in-town/

It would be nice if plucky Ukraine could win the war, but that’s impossible. Trump, like him or not, grasps what his critics refuse to see

Last Tuesday evening I had the delightful experience of watching Sean Spicer, Trump’s first press secretary in 2017, putting Andrew Bolt right about Trump and Ukraine, followed by the lovely Miranda Devine (the Aussie at the New York Post) doing a similar job on Sharri Markson. I just wonder whether Bolt and Markson do any homework. Did they view the whole press conference at the Oval Office? It seems not. Otherwise, they would not have arrived at the characterisation of the meeting which fed their prejudices.

Did they know of the difficulties Trump’s emissary Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Marco Rubio had in separately in dealing with Zelensky in the lead up to him coming to Washington? Both were both given the brush off by Zelensky when trying to get the minerals deal done.

Did they know that Zelensky met with leading Democrats immediately before meeting Trump? What an extraordinary underhand meeting to have had. It seriously calls into question his judgement and frame of mind.

It was wonderful near the end of President Trump’s State of the Union Address when he figuratively waved the letter from Zelensky in which he offered to sign the minerals deal and participate in peace talks. What a quick turnabout almost immediately after the armament supplies were suspended.

Here is a brief selection of quotes which I read from various commentariat glitterati following the spat at the White House.

https://stevehayward.substack.com/p/munich-1938-versus-munich-2025

EXCERPTS…..LONG READ VALUABLE HISTORY AND OPINION

Trump’s critics across the political spectrum are charging that his seeming deference to Putin and pressure on Ukraine amounts to the worst Western betrayal or moral failure since the infamous Munich Agreement of 1938, in which Britain and France sold out Czechoslovakia to Hitler without the Czechs being at the table. The lesson from Munich was simple: never again embrace appeasement. The specter of Munich loomed over Western statesmen ever since. Lyndon Johnson, for example, openly told his advisers that if he failed to stand firm in Vietnam it would be “another Munich.” George H.W. Bush thought much the same thing in 1991 in pursuing the first Iraq War.

One person who offers a dissent of sorts from the conventional lesson is Winston Churchill. Churchill’s speech in the House of Commons debate on October 5 blasting the Munich agreement is well known, and rightly celebrated as perhaps his greatest speech ever. It ended with the memorable peroration:

“We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat. . . [W]e have sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road; [the people] should know that we have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged, and that the terrible words have for the time being been pronounced against the Western democracies: ‘Thou art weighed in the balance, and found wanting.’ And do not suppose this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year, unless, by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.”

Perhaps something like this will yet be said of Trump’s startling about-face in American policy toward Ukraine and Russia. Already Churchill’s famous remark that “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else” is making the rounds.

And yet Churchill strikes a different note when he evaluated the Munich disaster in his World War II memoir, The Gathering Storm. As Churchill often did in his grand narratives, he paused to offer extended reflections on the wider meaning and applicability of the spectacle:

“It may be well here to set down some principles of morals and action which may be a guide in the future. No case of this kind can be judged apart from its circumstances. The facts may be unknown at the time, and estimates of them must be largely guesswork, coloured by the general feelings and aims of whoever is trying to pronounce. Those who are prone by temperament and character to seek sharp and clear-cut solutions of difficult and obscure problems, who are ready to fight whenever some challenges come from a foreign Power, have not always been right. On the other hand, those whose inclination is to bow their heads, to seek patiently and faithfully for peaceful compromise, are not always wrong. On the contrary, in the majority of instances they may be right, not only morally but from a practical standpoint. How many wars have been averted by patience and persisting good will! Religion and virtue alike lend their sanctions to meekness and humility, not only between men but between nations. How many wars have been precipitated by firebrands! How many misunderstandings which led to wars could have been removed by temporizing! . . . Final judgment upon [the choice for war or peace] can only be recorded by history in relation to the facts of the case as known to the parties at the time, and also as subsequently proved.”

Churchill goes on from here to argue that in the face of uncertainties, the decisive factor that should have tipped Britain and France against appeasement was not fear of weakness or rewarding threats of aggression, but honor; Britain and France should have honored their treaty commitments to Czechoslovakia: “Here, however, the moment came when Honour pointed the path of Duty, and when also the right judgment of the facts at the time would have reinforced its dictates.”

And here, we must say, America’s foreign policy leaders have not held up America’s honor as a factor in foreign policy decisions for decades. How honorable was it for America to encourage the Hungarians to revolt against Soviet rule in 1956, and then not lift a finger to help? Of course, President Eisenhower rightly feared any tangible assistance to the Hungarian rebels risked a nuclear confrontation with the USSR—just as President Trump says that further warfare in Ukraine steadily raises the risk of World War III today.

Needless to say, the word honor doesn’t belong in the same continent with President Biden’s disgraceful exit from Afghanistan in 2021—a dishonorable display that surely played a role in Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine fully in 2022.