Donald Trump

DONALD TRUMP: Last night's meeting with joint US/UK passport holder, George Conyne

Such a fascinating, interesting, outrageous, jaw-dropping, eccentric, subject ripe for satire - is the USA President - putting the cat amongst the pigeons and probably envious of Putin's power and authority!

It seems that Congress is much more important than the President and the Federal government.  He never mentioned that the House of Representatives and the Senate are bodies within Congress.  I had to look that up after I got home!  I now know a new word - 'bicameral', thanks to Wikipedia!

Trump pontificates, can get ignored but claims a victory anyway and the public is often none the wiser!

I felt the American speaker was, understandably, representing America and so felt unable to be self-critical over US led/NATO foreign policy since 1945.  For decades, the USA and Canada have taken, in their millions, the refugees, the outcasts and the riff-raff of the world.  But no more under Trump.

The speaker never once mentioned the UN.  This century, in particular, the US/UK have done their own thing without waiting for the authority of resolutions from the General Assembly or the Security Council over attacking Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11.  Under Trump, the UN is going to be further ignored, sidelined and dismissed, following the hostility, arrogance and sheer rudeness towards Antonio Guterres and the UN.

Joe Biden did show he had learnt the lesson of the catastrophe for those two nations when he counselled Netanyahu not to overreact after the 7.10.23 atrocity.  Yet the man, foolishly, did.

NATO encroaching on Russian borders was never mentioned.  I asked a question: 'If NATO had been disbanded soon after the Warsaw Pact, would that have made today's war more or less likely?'  George thought it wouldn't have made any difference.  I would have thought less likely, having read the Sixsmiths' book, below.

My own thoughts: Trump is all bombast and bluster but still gets his way on many things - Executive Orders.

Strange, creepy man that must be the most unsuitable person imaginable to be President of the most powerful and richest country in the world.  I wouldn't want any woman in my family anywhere near the man.  A man of dubious morals.

Yet, he says he wants to end the killings in Ukraine and Palestine.  A good thing but how can one man do that without all round good intent and vital concessions by all sides?

Good, I think, that he talks to Putin.  Or, is he an admirer of Putin that seems to be the case?  We all need to walk in the shoes of those who are not our natural friends/acquaintances, in order to understand where they are coming from.  And this self-examination is what Martin and Daniel Sixsmith do in their 2024 book, including the Russian history of internecine war for centuries (as everywhere else).  The title: 'Putin and the Return of History: How the Kremlin Rekindled the Cold War' - but we are not free of criticism, ourselves.

The following is written as someone who is a Quaker at heart  Hence, my criticism of centuries of the killers finishing off people of non-violence like me, in their never-ending futile wars:

I would have liked a little reflection on what our American friends, all from these shores and mainland Europe originally, have led us into.  We are the Global White Minority yet, since the Europeans initiated World War in two halves, we have seen this: wars in Korea, threatened over Formosa/Taiwan, SE Asia, lasting decades and slaughtering millions; as well as coups and destabilising governments around the world - like Chile and Cuba.  The UK fled Palestine in 1948 in the face of Jewish/Zionist terrorism to give us 77 years of more intermittent massacres by Western Christendom nations (and the other two Children of Abraham)!  Aggression was rewarded with territory gained, contrary to what our powerful nations tell other nations.  One rule for them ... !  The US and Germany are the top funders and suppliers of weapons and ammunition to kill, in 15 months, many tens of thousands of Gazans, Lebanese and West Bank Palestinians.  And they have always been the top suppliers of death-dealing products, for seven decades, to one side only.

We have seen centuries of control and domination over the Global Black Majority by the Global White Minority.  I see it as Grab, Brag, Occupy - our slogan for many centuries as we have gone around the world with the best of all possible intentions to give them the blessings of traditional Christian culture together with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It is not just the Christian Right who have supported imperialism, slavery to the bitter end, capital and corporal punishment, too, and the many fruitless wars to banish Communism and Fatah/Hamas.  Never achieved.

There was no concession, no acknowledgement that it was Russia that ended the Cold War and that we had no right to claim it as our victory and, to rub it in as our triumph.  No fairness seen in admitting that without Russia we could never have won both halves of that catastrophic World War.  And they lost between 20 and 30 million of their people in the Second World War, alone.  Both our European Napoleon and European Hitler, in two successive centuries, invaded Russia with their armies.

I am open to correction and a more balanced, sober analysis!