WHAT DID WE WITNESS IN THE OVAL OFFICE ON FRIDAY?

 

Many bloody wars have been started over what I think were stupid reasons. For example WW1, which was one of the bloodiest wars in history was started because of the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sofia. With the right diplomacy that war could have been easily avoided. As a result over 10 million soldiers died before it was over and it changed the political landscape of Europe. It would also be the catalyst for the creation of the first Marxist-Leninist state called the Soviet Union. Communism has been responsible for the deaths of over 100 million people in the Twentieth Century alone and that is a conservative estimate. In my view the war in Ukraine could have been easily avoided. Putin is a tyrant but America has to be held accountable for it's part in bringing on the war. 

In August 1939 Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin signed a non-aggression pact. Hitler had blamed the defeat of Germany in WW1 on the fact that the country had involved itself in a two front war. They were fighting Britain and France on the western front and Russia on the eastern front. If there was going to be a war Hitler's plan was to defeat France and England first and then turn his attention to Russia and defeat it. By August of 1939 he was in control of Austria and Czechoslovakia. An agreement had been reached between Hitler and the British prime minister Neville Chamberlain at Munich for Hitler to take over the Sudetenland area of Czechoslovakia but to go no further. Hitler's reasoning for taking the Sudetenland was that it was occupied by people of German ethnicity. Chamberlain naively agreed to the deal hoping it would satisfy Hitler's hunger for new territory. On March 15, 1939 Hitler violated the agreement and took over all of Czechoslovakia. England and France decided that if Hitler invaded another nation they would declare war on Germany. Hitler had his eye on Poland but he didn't believe that England and France would actually follow through and declare war This is when Hitler decided to sign the non-aggression pact with Russia. Stalin also naively believed that he could trust Hitler. Hitler would invade Poland from the west and Stalin would invade from the east. Together they would divide the country between them. If Stalin had taken the time to read Mein Kampf he would have understood that Hitler was only playing for time. Russia would be his ultimate target after finishing off France and England. 

Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 and to his surprise Britain and France declared war on Germany. On May 10, 1940 Hitler invaded France and quickly took the country. The British army and a large part of the French Army were trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk. For reasons that are still debated today Hitler held back his forces from completely destroying the British and French armies at Dunkirk. This allowed the British enough time to evacuate their army from France along with a large portion of the French army. Because of the English Channel Hitler was not able to invade England because he didn't have the logistic capability to do it. It was then that Hitler decided to try to defeat Britain by a massive air campaign which came to be called the Battle of Britain in the Fall of 1940. This attempt by Hitler ultimately failed. Contrary to his own strategy outlined in Mein Kampf he decided to invade Russia which would begin a two front war with an unvanquished enemy in the west and a new one in the east. 

On June 22, 1941 Hitler invaded Russia. Stalin was taken completely by surprise. Hitler made several strategic errors during the war but this turned out to be his greatest mistake. In my view if Hitler had honored the non aggression pact Stalin would never have broken it. He had what he wanted which was most of Eastern Europe. At first Hitler met with great success but eventually the bitter Russian winter would do what the Russians weren't able to do. This gave the Russians time to put together a counterattack. In the Spring the Germans launched a second offensive that was very successful at first but ended in disaster when an entire German army was defeated and captured at Stalingrad. This became the turning point of the war. The Russians would mount a final counterattack that would ultimately end with the capture of Berlin and the death of Hitler in April 1945. Russia would lose about thirty million soldiers and civilians in WW2. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 Hitler made his second biggest mistake by declaring war on the United States. The United States combined with Britain and and the Free French forces by opening a second front with the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. Germany was caught in a vise. Hitler's downfall was the two front war that he so hoped to avoid. After the war the Soviet Union by various means would take over Eastern Europe. This was not only meant to spread Communism but to create a buffer zone between Russia and Germany. The Russians never wanted to experience the repeat of a horror like WW2.

NATO or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in the late 1940's to be a deterrent to what seen as the Communist threat to Western Europe from the Soviet Union. Until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 NATO was confined to Western European countries. The following is from the History NEWS NETWORK. U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. President George H.W. Bush had assured Gorbachev during the Malta summit in December 1989 that the U.S. would not take advantage of the revolutions in Eastern Europe to harm Soviet interests. The first concrete assurances by Western leaders on NATO began on January 31, 1990, when West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher opened the bidding with a major public speech at Tutzing, in Bavaria, on German unification. The U.S. Embassy in Bonn informed Washington that Genscher made clear “that the changes in Eastern Europe and the German unification process must not lead to an ‘impairment of Soviet security interests.’ Therefore, NATO should rule out an ‘expansion of its territory towards the east, i.e. moving it closer to the Soviet borders.’” The Bonn cable also noted Genscher’s proposal to leave the East German territory out of NATO military structures even in a unified Germany in NATO.

Every president with the exception of George H. W. Bush and Donald Trump has violated this agreement. Vladimir Putin is a tyrant and should not have invaded the independent country of Ukraine but I feel he has been prodded into doing this because we have not honored our promise regarding the expansion of NATO. Because of the legacy of WW2 the Russians can't help but be paranoid about the expansion of NATO. In addition Putin believes that Ukraine rightfully belongs to Russia because for most of Russia's history Ukraine was part of Russia. Again he is mistaken on this because it would be equivalent to Mexico saying that California and the Southwest rightfully belongs to them. About two thirds of the people in Ukraine are ethnic Ukrainian and they live mostly in western Ukraine. Eastern Ukraine is composed mostly of ethnic Russians. From 1930 to 1933 Stalin starved between 5.7 and 8.7 million Ukrainians to death with his first 5 year plan that began in 1928. After this starvation period he purposely resettled eastern Ukraine with ethnic Russians.

 Trump is for America first. Putin is for Russia first. The myth created by the Democrats that Trump and Putin are colluding together is pure nonsense. Both the Mueller report and Durham report have debunked this myth. The facts show that Trump was tougher on Putin than either Obama or Biden in his first term. By making America energy independent Trump put the hurt on the Russian economy which is highly dependent on energy. When Trump says that the invasion of Ukraine would have never happened under his watch he is correct. The Russian economy wouldn't have been able to sustain an invasion plus Putin respects Trump's strong leadership in much the same way the Soviet government respected Reagan's leadership in the 1980's. Because of the weakness of the Carter administration the Soviets were bold enough to invade Afghanistan in 1979. During Obama's administration Putin invaded Crimea and under Biden he invaded Ukraine. Putin never attempted anything like this during Trump's first term. As president Theodore Roosevelt said America must speak softly and carry a big stick. Trump carry's a big stick and the leaders of the world know it. Both friend and foe. Biden did nothing but prod the bear by refusing to make the guarantee that Ukraine would not join NATO. After the war began Biden along with the Democrat party and many in the Republican party threw in behind the Ukrainian cause and have done everything they could to fuel this war with billions of American taxpayers money which has also helped fuel the cycle of inflation that we are now in. I believe that millions of corrupt people have gotten rich off of this war and Zelensky can't even account for how it has been spent.

I am not sure what I witnessed in the Oval Office on Friday but I put great faith in Trump's negotiating skills. I believe that this was part of the negotiation process. It was done in public to send a message to the American people, Zelensky, and Putin. As far as Zelensky goes it was similar to when Reagan walked away from a good deal in Iceland. Reagan was letting Gorbachev know that SDI was not negotiable. Gorbachev, like Zelensky was holding a weak hand of cards and it wasn't long before Reagan was able to negotiate drastic cuts in the numbers of missiles that were in both countries nuclear arsenals. Reagan's position of strength inspired the people of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to overthrow Communism. Trump is also sending the message to Putin that Ukraine will not be part of NATO and he can trust in America's word again. Trust but verify. With the offer to mine rare earth metals he is not only helping America but giving Zelensky the security guarantees he is asking for. American workers in Ukraine would be less threatening to Putin than boots on the ground which we want to avoid. The Biden administration and European leaders have made Zelensky into a rock star but in reality he is a petty tyrant in his own country. He has to realize that his time has come and gone. President Trump is offering him a deal that he would be a fool to refuse.