Same Old Trump?

Admin: We had a longer morning than expected today for my wife’s cataract surgery. During pre-op prep her blood pressure dropped sharply for no apparent reason. Everything worked out well in the end, but the end was about an hour and a half later than expected.

A few days ago I published most of a lengthy tweet by Russian war correspondent Marat Khairullin. The overall theme of the tweet was simple and, to my mind, inarguable: The West doesn’t want to give up Odessa—the major Black Sea port—and so Russia will inevitably take Odessa, one way or another. It will happen.

I did not include what Khairullin did—a map of the “Kellogg plan”, so named after Trump’s knucklehead “Ukraine envoy”. Like most readers, I suspect, I was a bit surprised to learn that Kellogg was still around and that any one would pay any attention to what he had to say, so I didn’t want to give his goofy idea any play. It turns out, however that after Kellogg’s “exclusive” interview with The Times:

Trump envoy: Ukraine could be divided like postwar Berlin

General Keith Kellogg suggests UK and France could lead western zone of control in interview with The Times

Most of the Western MSM picked the story up. So, here’s the map—it’s utterly delusional, but fwiw:

I wouldn’t even be bothering with this—as I didn’t a few days ago—if it weren’t a possible confirmation that we’re dealing with the same old Trump. And by that I mean, the Trump who filled his first cabinet and White House and NatSec positions with a collection of knuckleheads and enemies, presumably with the notion that these appointments don’t really matter much when you have a stable genius actually running things. However, as I explained back then, these positions really do matter. These people do have actual authority that isn’t negligible and they have real power—not least, the power to speak publicly. Which is exactly what Kellogg did, placing himself at complete odds with what Trump and his SecState—the functional one, for diplomatic purposes—Witkoff are trying to accomplish. Kellogg is trying to prolong our war with Russia, Trump is trying to get Putin’s help in reshaping the world. Worse, Kellogg can apparently count a number of prominent GOPer senators in his Russo-phobic camp, along with three veteran Neocon stooges: Mike Waltz, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth.

Trump expended valuable landslide-derived political capital getting all his nominees confirmed more or less on schedule, including some manifestly unqualified ones like Hegseth—confirmed on a tie breaker vote by Veep Vance. Now Trump has been rewarded for appointing these goofs by seeing all three of them turning on him. Ray McGovern suggests that this trio may soon be gone, because Trump is still riding high in the polls and they’re dispensable—they should all be gone today, that’s true. The problem is that any new nominees may not be so easy to get confirmed, now that Trump’s foreign policy has faltered and his tariff initiative ran aground within days. And when you’re trying to reshape the federal government you need more than just Musk’s DOGE—you need day to day administrators at the top of the departments and agencies. This is no way to run a government.

The good news, of course, is that Trump and Witkoff do have Veep Vance and Tulsi Gabbard on their side. Nevertheless, as Alastair Crooke points out, Trump’s true mandate derived from rampant economic and social discontent rather than from his deceptive claims to be a peacemaker. Those claims no doubt added to his appeal, but they were not the real driver of his landslide. What his voters don’t realize is that Trump’s agenda cannot be easily divided between domestic and foreign policy—it’s very much interconnected, as we saw with the tariff initiative.

Trump needs a fully supportive team to keep things on track. Instead, we have competing, disparate voices—in fairness, including from Trump himself.

Also disturbing is that Trump—facing increasing attacks—has resorted to lies. This weekend featured a particularly egregious example, but one with ample precedent. When confronted with the MSM parroting Neocon propaganda about a supposed Russian massacre of civilians in Sumy, Trump unwisely turned first to obfuscation and then … to lies. ‘Blame it all on Biden—I’m just the new guy’—works for a while, but sooner or later people will want to know, If you’re such an anti-war guy, why don’t you just, like, stop the war? Here’s a transcript of Trump’s press exchange:

Q: Do you have a reaction to Russia's Palm Sunday attack on [Sumy]...?

DJT: I think it was terrible and I was told they made a mistake, but I think it's a horrible thing. I think the whole war is a horrible thing. I think the war is, for that war to have started is an abuse of power ...

Q: They said they made, you were told they made a mistake? You mean it was unintentional?

DJT: They made a mistake. I believe it was ... Look, you're going to ask them. This is Biden's war. This is not my war. I've been here for a very short period of time. This is a war that was under Biden. He gave him billions and billions of dollars. He should have never allowed. If he, if he had any brain, which he didn't have and doesn't have and now it's being proven, uh, he wouldn't have allowed that war to start. I would have absolutely not, that war would never have taken place. But remember this, this is Biden's war. I'm just trying to get it stopped.

Got that? It’s Biden’s war, not mine. We’ve heard that quite a few times before and it’s getting rather stale—because Trump has the authority to stop the war. The fact is, Trump doesn’t want to level with We the People and say forthrightly: I’m continuing this war because I still think I can use it as leverage to get Putin to do me some geopolitical favors.

But, again, it’s worse. The whole ‘It’s-Biden’s-war’ narrative is a tissue of lies, as I’ve pointed out numerous times. Trump was the one who drastically upped the sanctions and military supplies to Ukraine, making Ukraine a real threat to Russia—and he has repeatedly bragged about that fact, when he has felt that would serve his purposes. The reality is that, but for Trump’s foolish policies, Putin and Russia would not have felt as threatened. But don’t take my word for it—Trump can speak for himself:

Will Schryver @imetatronink

Trump Owns the Ukraine War

By claiming to be the first POTUS to send serious US weaponry to Ukraine, and boasting that "lots" of Russian tanks were thereby destroyed, and then saying arms shipments will continue until Putin "makes a deal", Trump has now assumed ownership of the Ukraine War.

https://x.com/i/status/1894872520500879460

(Partial transcript below)

4:09 PM · Feb 26, 2025

Guess who listens to every single word Trump says in public? That’s right. The diplomats at the Russian embassy, and they report it all back to the Kremlin. The Russians are fully aware that they can’t actually trust Trump, no matter Putin’s public rhetoric. That fundamental lack of trust is exactly why Trump can’t do a fast deal. If this were really all about stopping the killing Trump could do that himself virtually overnight. Andrei Martyanov provides the brutal truth, as spoken by Sergey Lavrov:

Meanwhile, one of the greatest statesmen of our time responds:

MOSCOW, April 14 - RIA Novosti. Russia and the United States have not yet agreed on the key parameters of the agreement on the settlement in Ukraine during the contacts, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. "No," the minister said, answering a question from the Kommersant newspaper whether it was possible to formulate the main parameters of the agreement during Russian-American contacts. "The key components of the settlement are not easy to agree on... They are being discussed," he stressed.

You see, reality is a bitch and the only thing being discussed today, once all of the layers of diplomatic pigeon speak, pathos, protocols and PR are peeled off, is how much Moscow is willing to save whatever remains of the American face in this conflict which the US lost by a mile.

Here’s the longer version of how Trump prepared the war. Again, the Russians know all this. Trump talks to We the People as if we’re children, who only remember Javelins. There was much more:

Will Schryver @imetatronink

Some Sins Will Not Wash Away

I disagree strongly with those who seek to exonerate the Trump 45 administration of culpability for the war in Ukraine.

I submit it is indisputable that the trend line of US/NATO preparations of the #MotherOfAllProxyArmies in Ukraine began to go parabolic during the 2017-2021 period.

Sure, the US/NATO had not yet provided the AFU with artillery, armor, or air defense systems — but the AFU didn't NEED that kind of stuff at the time. They had, by far, the largest and most potent army and air defense array in Europe (ex-Russia).

They were provided with and trained on the use of US/NATO ATGMs (Javelin / NLAW). And it is obvious, in retrospect, that select AFU contingents were already being trained in the use of systems such as the American M-777 howitzer and HIMARS MLRS, both of which were introduced on the battlefield within about 90 days of the beginning of major warfare.

Most importantly — and I believe many are now conveniently overlooking this crucial element — the AFU was provided with and trained on advanced US/NATO secure communications systems and battlefield management software applications.

AFU command and operations were integrated with the US/NATO command structure, and comprehensive access was provided to US/NATO ISR — satellite, airborne, and "on the ground" personnel.

During the Trump 45 period, US "on the ground" intel bases numbering in the double-digits were operated throughout eastern Ukraine — manned by covert and "volunteer" NATO-affiliated personnel.

As I have argued repeatedly, it was precisely this access to US/NATO ISR capabilities that elevated the AFU from "potent" to "very formidable" in this war. And the training and preparation for this aspect of war-fighting rose in a steady crescendo in the five years preceding February 24, 2022.

Perhaps President Trump himself was "kept in the dark" regarding these preparations. I doubt it, but I consent to that possibility. In any case, it does not alter the fact that these developments occurred during his tenure, and constituted the final stages of the preparation for open warfare against Russia that ultimately commenced in early 2022.

Attempting to mitigate the culpability of the Trump 45 administration while simultaneously heaping all the blame on Biden and Zelensky is not only disingenuous, it is historically erroneous.

The empire carefully orchestrated and choreographed "Project Ukraine" over the course of many years spanning multiple US presidential terms, and there was no discernible diminution of their focus and efforts at any point along the time line.

5:51 PM · Feb 23, 2025

It’s time for Trump to get control over himself and over his team. We the People deserve that, and he owes it to us.