RUTHFULLY YOURS

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.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/03/06/five-ukrainian-fables/

Fable One: Donald Trump Is Appeasing Russia?

Who wiped out the Wagner group in Syria? Who sold offensive weapons to Ukraine first? Who warned Germany not to become dependent on the Russian Nord Stream II deal?

Who withdrew from an unfair missile deal with the Russians? Who cajoled and berated NATO members to meet their military investment promises made following the 2014 invasion of Ukraine?

In contrast, who originally conceived a Russian “reset” in 2009? Who publicly virtue-signaled pushing the red “reset” button in Geneva with the current Russian Minister Sergey Lavrov?

Which ex-European leader got a million euros a year working for Russian energy companies?

Of the last four presidents, under whose watch did Putin not invade another country?

Which American president, in hot-mic style, offered to (and did) dismantle US-Eastern Europe missile defense plans in exchange for temporary Putin quietude (“space”) to aid his 2012 reelection?

Fable Two: A Trade War?

Donald Trump is not wildly slapping tariffs on Europeans.

He is simply saying that 1945 is now 80 years past and that the asymmetrical tariffs that Europe imposes on U.S. imports should be corrected. The massive trade surpluses Europe accumulates each year should give way to fairer, more balanced trade.

If Europe does not want tariffs, then simply calibrate its own tariffs on what America places on European imported goods, and work down jointly to zero tariffs on both sides.

Fable Three: America Is Bullying Europe?

The U.S. does not actively interfere in European elections and politics.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21451/ukraine-trump-marshall-plan

Trump did not rule out considering US assistance to a European military force should that eventuality become necessary.

Trump clearly believes that it is important for him to take a tough line with Zelensky, to demonstrate to Moscow that he is acting as an “honest broker” to end the war and bring Putin to the table for a serious negotiation. If the US leader is seen to be too accommodating to Ukraine, then this will simply confirm Putin’s long-held suspicion that the US and its allies — including Ukraine — are working to undermine the Russian state.

Such a move should send a clear signal to Moscow that, despite the very public spat between Zelensky and Trump in the Oval Office, the Trump administration remains committed to Ukraine remaining a free and sovereign state that is not constantly subjected to acts of Russian aggression.

Certainly, any deal that does not send a clear message to Moscow that the US will not tolerate any further provocative acts by Moscow will simply be seen as Washington punishing the victim in the Ukraine conflict — Zelensky — while rewarding the aggressor — Putin.

After the unedifying spectacle of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s meeting at the White House with US President Donald J. Trump, the Ukrainian leader agreed to sign the vital minerals deal with the Trump administration as an important step to ending three years of bloodshed.

One of the main purposes of Zelensky’s visit to the White House — his first since Trump began his second term as president — was to sign a deal allowing the US greater access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, which the Trump administration believes is an important first step in its efforts to end the Ukraine conflict.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21452/trump-redrawing-the-future

The true analogy [of Trump’s deal with Zelenskyy] is with the assistance granted by the United States to the United Kingdom during World War II: the Lend-Lease Act of 1941. Under Lend-Lease, the US provided Britain with goods and services… over the course of the war…. Adjusted for inflation to today’s dollars (as of February 2025), this amount equates to roughly $550 billion.

What, however, happens once the debt is repaid? Without a lasting strategic framework, financial leverage alone might not be enough to guarantee long-term security. The case of Hong Kong is a sobering precedent: the West was deeply invested in the city’s economy, but when communist China asserted control, international businesses largely packed up and left rather than confront Beijing.

At the moment, Trump’s unconventional proposal is probably the best offer for Ukraine — and the only realistic one. It gives the US “skin in the game,” enables Trump to have leverage when he approaches Russia, and prevents Putin, at least for a while, from retaking that part of the former Soviet Union.

Russia already has hundreds of miles of peaceful borders with NATO countries, including the Baltic states, and did not kick up a fuss when Finland joined NATO last year. The only country where joining NATO ostensibly appears to be a problem is Ukraine. Perhaps this exception should be regarded as a flashing red light, warning that Putin still might have his eye on Ukraine for its minerals, agricultural land and outlet on the Black Sea.

Trump has been a supporter of NATO but not as its guarantor. His worldview at the moment is that he rejects war, except as a last resort. To him, it seems, America’s true rival in the 21st century is not Europe, or Russia, and certainly not the amorphous, inconsistent entity known as the BRICs. It is China.

Although Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky finally agreed to the “Golden Parachute” US President Donald J. Trump offered him as a first step to have Russian President Vladimir Putin negotiate a ceasefire to the war he began three years ago, the meeting on February 28 between Trump and Zelensky — as the world, to its shock, saw on television — collapsed.

Trump seems to have been anticipating a signing ceremony; Zelensky seems to have been anticipating receiving assurances of greater security. Trump’s ultimate message apparently was: a Trump final offer is a Trump final offer.