🇺🇸 Lights, Camera, Freedom 🇺🇦
You can take all that talk about “stay out of Ukraine because it’s not our war,” and “Trump will keep us out of foreign wars,” and “why should we get involved when there is a great big ocean between us,” and dump it into the Fortress America trash can at the back of the isolationist laundromat.
This week President Donald Trump told a room of the wealthiest Arabs in the world that if anyone messes with them, he will use the full strength of America’s military to defend them. He described the power and force of American missiles and machines, and made it clear he would use them to defend allies. Enemies who threaten allies will “receive no mercy.”
“I will never hesitate to wield American power if it’s necessary to defend the United States or to help defend our allies, and there will be no mercy for any foe who tries to do us or them harm. We will have no mercy.” President Trump
Hard stop – The same American president who blamed the invasion of Ukraine by Russia on Ukrainians, and has provided (with only minor aberrations) three months of cover for America’s enemy Russia to continue its campaign of warcrimes, just pledged to go to war for Arab leaders.
In case there were any doubts about his resolve, the President emphasized that he would show “no mercy.” America will use military force to stand with our “allies and partners.”
What makes the Arab leadership so special?
Again he was clear: The greatest threat to peace in the world is not Russia with its three year war of rape, murder and torture of civilians, destroying the post-World War II order and legitimizing terrorism by a state actor. No, the greatest threat to the future are the mullahs of Iran with their nuclear ambitions.
Yes, Iran is the ultimate threat. Not the pre-existing nuclear power enemy from Moscow who actually threatens the use of nuclear weapons. Not an army of Kremlin rapists and torturers besieging Ukraine. Not the criminals engaged in mass murder of Ukraine’s pro-Western population.
The greatest threat is Iran – This according to the American president.
But what of NATO nations living in the grip of impending chaos from the Russian threat? Are these historic comrades and allies worthy of defense? Will American act “Without mercy” to their enemies?
You know the answer. The signaling from the White House has been mixed at best, often teetering on the abandonment of these historic allies.
One U.S. ally is the nation of Ukraine. Ukraine, not Russia, is America’s ally. It’s a fact that a child could absorb. The American president is clearly unaware.
Ukraine is a nation made up of overtly conservative, freedom-loving, pro-Western friends who have done what most people thought impossible – resist and defend against a Russian army of mass murderers and child rapists.
Ukraine was our ally prior to January 20, 2025. It was our ally when the U.S. signed the Budapest Memorandum pledging to support them if Russian tyrants were to do exactly what they did in 2014, continued to do throughout the Obama, Trump and Biden Administrations, and are doing at this moment under #47.
In fact Russia is violating the sovereignty of America’a ally and co-signatory to our sovereignty protection agreement at this moment – Even as I am typing this article, missile alerts are buzzing my telephone, forcing me to wonder is a child is being murdered by President Trump’s friend at this very moment.
But it’s May of 2025. Apparently, the free world does not apply. Worse, perhaps the nation of a “free world” is outdated and unhelpful to the White House.
Trump Opposes Reagan Vision of America as an Advocate for Freedom
It’s a new era. President Trump calls it the “Golden Age,” and that is not a reference to freedom, but actual gold — like the one hundred foot AI generated golden statue of himself in Gaza he posted on his official social media account.
The new concept is that of a big, bright transactional world where Reagan’s dream of a visionary America defending freedom and proclaiming hope as a “city set on a hill,” is inappropriate and outdated.
In his speech to Arab leaders at the economic summit, Trump made the following comments regarded as an attempt to reboot the Republican Party from its roots in the Reagan vision of freedom, in exchange for a transactional, ethically vacuous understanding of international relationships reduced to power, gifts and money.
“In recent years, far too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it’s our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use US policy to dispense justice for their sins.” President Trump
And here is the fundamental ethical crisis with America’s president – October 7 is correctly a horror to President Trump, but a thousand October 7’s committed by Russians against babies, children, the elderly and tens of thousands of civilians, is an ethical quagmire – an unacceptable voyeurism into the soul of Putin, who can not be personally criticized notwithstanding the fact that he is the world’s leading terrorist.
It’s the difference between Reagan’s acknowledgment of an “evil empire” and Trump’s unwillingness to acknowledge that his “good friend” at the Kremlin is the greatest war criminal since the Second World War.
Few Americans Should Be Happy By the Message
America First isolationists should be concerned that their poster child has turned on them. Reagan Republicans should recognized that Trump is doing to American ethics and foreign policy what no Democrat could have accomplished.
While the hope of peace in Ukraine this week languished in Turkey, the victim of disturbing mixed messaging from President Trump and conniving manipulation by the Russian autocrat, America entered a brand new conflict – the commitment to total war on behalf of Muslim leaders with mixed connections and sometimes contradictory relations to jihadist movements. Before a global stage, the President of the United States pledged to provide military defense to the same Arab billionaires who mandate censorship, murder journalists and certainly do not meet the standard for elections that Trump demanded at Putin’s request to oust democratically elected and supported President Zelensky.
America now talks of strength and war, while our leadership cowers like a whimpering dog before the Kremlin whose cover as a confidant strongman has been blown to smithereens before the world leaders — all except for the residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Until America rises from the gutter of a transactional statecraft enslaved by moral relativism, we will continue the slide into the abyss of foreign policy incoherence. The leaders of the world will view us as an enormous nuclear bomb-wielding paper tiger who can be bought for fancy gifts and flattery.
President Ronald Reagan tells Mr. Gorbachov to “tear down this wall.”
The path to actual peace may be hard-fought, but it is not complicated. The first step to a free world is to distinguish between right and wrong. The second step is to hold war criminals accountable.
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DW Phillips is a filmmaker, writer and director of Ukraine Story, a foundation for journalism and documentary reporting.
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“Ukraine is a nation made up of overtly conservative, freedom-loving, pro-Western friends who have done what most people thought impossible – resist and defend against a Russian army of mass murderers and child rapists.”
In my experience, I never encountered such pro-American and pro-British people anywhere in the world, with the possible exception of Georgia, Australia and Canada. Can’t speak for NZ because I’ve never been there. I expect they are the same.
The most pro-British people I encountered in the U.S. were in the Deep South.
Ukrainians mainly felt hurt rather than angry at the Trump-Vance hate fest in the Oval Office, but are now feeling something close to horror at Trump’s shattering betrayal.
“October 7 is correctly a horror to President Trump, but a thousand October 7’s committed by Russians against babies, children, the elderly and tens of thousands of civilians, is an ethical quagmire – an unacceptable voyeurism into the soul of Putin, who can not be personally criticized notwithstanding the fact that he is the world’s leading terrorist.”
A bizarre, sickening paradox.
“Before a global stage, the President of the United States pledged to provide military defense to the same Arab billionaires who mandate censorship, murder journalists and certainly do not meet the standard for elections that Trump demanded at Putin’s request to oust democratically elected and supported President Zelensky.”
Exactly.
Now let’s contrast Trump’s words to Arab leaders with this putrid drivel from yesterday:
“Look, nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together. Okay?” Mr Trump said.
“And obviously he wasn’t going to go. He was going to go, but he thought I was going to go.
“He wasn’t going if I wasn’t there and I don’t believe anything’s going to happen, whether you like it or not, until he and I get together, but we’re going to have to get it solved because too many people are dying.”
It’s mind-baffling and horrible to watch this gangster screw our nation up in every possible way, and absolutely no one is there in our castrated government to stop this POS.