WWIII: American Made

By James Moore

“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If something happens, you can bet it was planned that way.” – Winston Churchill.

The above quote might be apocryphal. There is no audio or film or written record that Churchill ever offered up such an insight. The words have also been attributed to Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, but no confirmation exists of those claims, either. Hardly matters, though. I don’t think there has ever been a truer declamation in human endeavors, and it’s also central to why I believe the scene in the Oval Office with President Zelensky was a set up. After fifty years of writing and reporting on politics from city councils to state legislatures, congress, and presidential campaigns, I acquired a fairly refined olfactory skill of smelling a rat, and there were a couple of large ones in that meeting.

Consider the run up to the drama. Elonald Trump made clear only days after he took office that he was going to cut a deal with Putin to end the war. Initial negotiations did not even invite the Ukrainians to the table at a summit in Saudi Arabia. The Russian mass murderer, though, who moonlights as a dictator, accelerated his attacks on Ukraine. Even as Zelensky sat with fellatio performing artist J.D. Vance and Elonald in the White House, Russia was stepping up drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians. The dying is a long way from done, and Trump is apparently not getting regular reports sent to the presidential golf cart. The meeting was supposed to finalize a deal where Ukraine would trade rare earth materials in exchange for armaments from U.S. defense contractors, but Elonald had no intention of settling terms. Was never even a part of his plan for the meeting. It was set up to humiliate Zelensky and make him look like he was resisting peace.

President Zelensky was expected to genuflect and offer thanks multiple times before the scope of any deal was outlined, if ever there were one being contemplated. There was, however, no indication from the American president that he might agree with any arrangement. He seemed to want to bully and embarrass a man that the wider world believes will be remembered by history as a courageous leader standing up to Russian aggression. Vance’s role was to accuse the Ukrainian hero of embarrassing the U.S. but he and the president were managing that task quite well without additional assistance. The minerals were a pretense to get Zelensky to Washington, to give him the appearance of a Dickensian character, begging, “Please, sir, may I have another?”

The history that was made and recorded was the first time a U.S. president has raised his voice in a confrontational manner against another sovereign nation’s leader. Not even Hitler yelled at Neville Chamberlain as they worked out a truce that was allegedly designed to prevent war. Hell, in talks with Poland’s Foreign Minister, before the invasion of Sudetenland, Hitler was stern but still diplomatic. His crazed mind was less visible than the one Elonald is sporting around the West Wing. The goal of the meeting was to figure out potential values of Ukraine’s rare earth materials and use that value to purchase a continuous supply of military weaponry for its national defense. The U.S. position seems to be that it is already owed the mineral resources as payment for defense armaments already supplied to Ukraine.

Zelensky can now be effectively branded as the man who did not want to make a deal for peace, even though nothing was presented to him other than Vance’s hillbilly hypocrisy. Putin can accelerate the war and drive on deep into Ukraine while the White House puts out disingenuous news releases that he had refused offers to negotiate a peace settlement. The American president argued that Zelensky did not want to sign a cease fire but the Ukrainian insisted there have already been thirty with Putin in the past ten years since he invaded Crimea and he violated all of them only days after execution. If Ukraine were to get no money for its natural resources, meanwhile, how would it rebuild after the war? Investment capital will not exactly run in that direction unless bonds are guaranteed by third party countries, and who will want to do that with Russian guns still pointed eastward?

“I tried to help him,” Elonald said. “But he didn’t want to end the war.”

Shortly after the Ukrainian president was kicked out of the White House, the U.S. State Department announced it was sending another $3 billion dollars of weapons to Israel under an emergency authorization. The amount includes munitions and D9 armored bulldozers, which have but one purpose, and that is to destroy homes and roads on the West Bank and kill and remove Palestinians. Israel is not done with its unlawful expansion and is spreading its genocidal tactics to the West Bank and Americans are happily providing the resources. It’s a great time to be working for a defense contractor in this country, but not in one of our national parks. We are firing rangers and service workers and nature guides and experts under President Musk’s orders to reduce waste, which will also increase decay and misuse of our parks.

Every European country appeared to support Zelensky after he exited Trump’s tirade. Each of their national leaders issued public statements saying, “You will never walk alone.” Unlike the U.S., they are prepared to help Ukraine defend itself without a transactional agreement, which makes war feel inevitable. The first front of the new world war will likely develop along the western frontiers of Ukraine and NATO allies will send men and materiel to stop Putin’s advance. He will suddenly have multiple enemies and will likely also try to capture the least defensible territories like Latvia and Estonia, to procure ports on the Baltic Sea. Russia is economically weak, though, and will be unable to sustain any conflict without weapons and troops from China and North Korea, which will complicate the fighting. Iran, angry with the West and its unilateral support of Israel, can be expected to offer air support for Putin’s warriors. Eventually, tactical nuclear weapons will be deployed and humans and communities will be vaporized.

This article was originally published on Texas to the world.

 

James Moore is the New York Times bestselling author of “Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential,” three other books on Bush and former Texas Governor Rick Perry, as well as two novels, and a biography entitled, “Give Back the Light,” on a famed eye surgeon and inventor. His newest book will be released mid- 2023. Mr. Moore has been honored with an Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for his documentary work and is a former TV news correspondent who has traveled extensively on every presidential campaign since 1976.

He has been a retained on-air political analyst for MSNBC and has appeared on Morning Edition on National Public Radio, NBC Nightly News, Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, CBS Evening News, CNN, Real Time with Bill Maher, and Hardball with Chris Matthews, among numerous other programs. Mr. Moore’s written political and media analyses have been published at CNN, Boston Globe, L.A. Times, Guardian of London, Sunday Independent of London, Salon, Financial Times of London, Huffington Post, and numerous other outlets. He also appeared as an expert on presidential politics in the highest-grossing documentary film of all time, Fahrenheit 911, (not related to the film’s producer Michael Moore).

His other honors include the Dartmouth College National Media Award for Economic Understanding, the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television News Directors’ Association, the Individual Broadcast Achievement Award from the Texas Headliners Foundation, and a Gold Medal for Script Writing from the Houston International Film Festival. He was frequently named best reporter in Texas by the AP, UPI, and the Houston Press Club. The film produced from his book “Bush’s Brain” premiered at The Cannes Film Festival prior to a successful 30-city theater run in the U.S.

Mr. Moore has reported on the major stories and historical events of our time, which have ranged from Iran-Contra to the Waco standoff, the Oklahoma City bombing, the border immigration crisis, and other headlining events. His journalism has put him in Cuba, Central America, Mexico, Australia, Canada, the UK, and most of Europe, interviewing figures as diverse as Fidel Castro and Willie Nelson. He has been writing about Texas politics, culture, and history since 1975, and continues with political opinion pieces for CNN and regularly at his Substack newsletter: “Texas to the World.”