From Munich to Munchkins

The Czech Republic, a country with peculiar historical authority to speak of the moral crime of major nations negotiating away another nation’s sovereign territory for their own falsely perceived, cowardice-motivated advantage, has issued an official statement declaring support for Volodymyr Zelensky’s legitimacy as Ukrainian president, and the inviolability of Ukraine’s territorial integrity at the hands of tyrannical aggression. On the first point, they overtly claim to be combatting Vladimir Putin’s propaganda, which they say is grounded in his awareness of his own electoral illegitimacy, although it is clear they are making this statement now in answer not to Putin himself, but rather to Putin’s most effective Western spokesman, Donald Trump. On the second point, of course, they speak from experience as the victim of the most infamous modern surrender of another country’s land as a bargaining chip in the name of “peace.” And of course we all know how well that bargain turned out, in spite of being negotiated by serious (though morally deficient) adults with brains, who, unlike their pathetically reduced counterpart today, were not actually trying to serve the aggressor’s interests.

To amplify the Czech government’s point, it is worth noting, to put it mildly, that Trump has directly said of Zelensky, within the past few days:

I don’t think he’s very important to be in meetings. He’s been there for three years. He makes it very hard to make deals.

In other words, negotiations about how to end Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine ought to take place only between Russia’s president and the Putin-admiring president of the United States, to the exclusion of the president of the country whose territory is now occupied by Putin’s invaders, and whose future survival and conditions of existence are the central issues under negotiation. One does not have to be a nine-dimensional chess wizard like Trump, nor even an American voter dumb enough to have voted for this anti-American traitor three times, to see what kind of “deal” Trump feels would be harder to make in Zelensky’s presence.

“Winning,” America’s world-historical loser calls it. And his trained monkeys clap.