On August 15, US president Donald Trump met with Russian Federation president Vladimir Putin in Alaska. On August 18, Trump met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a collection of European politicians in Washington. The goal of both meetings: Bringing an end to the Russia-Ukraine war now well into its fourth year.<\/p>\n
Media coverage of both events centered more on Trump than on the other participants, and more on Trump\u2019s motives and competence than on either the desired outcome or how that outcome might transpire.<\/p>\n
Trump, we\u2019re told, got rolled \u2014 used and humiliated \u2014 by Putin in Alaska.<\/p>\n
Trump, we\u2019re told, played the Emperor in his new clothes to a fawning Zelenskyy et al., hiding his cankles and flaunting his crackpottery.<\/p>\n
And in both cases, we\u2019re told, Trump\u2019s motives are impure: He\u2019s just after a Nobel Peace Prize and sees ending the war, on any terms, as a way to get it.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t think of any way to sufficiently emphasize my opinion on those speculations, so let\u2019s just go with all caps and too many periods:<\/p>\n
I. DON\u2019T. CARE.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t care if Trump\u2019s an easy mark for Putin.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t care if Trump\u2019s mad as a hatter or if other world \u201cleaders\u201d try to placate him by pretending otherwise.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t care if Trump\u2019s obsessed with cadging yet another participation trophy for his mantel.<\/p>\n
Nor do I care whether the Moscow gang or the Kyiv gang gets to treat the people damaged and displaced by this war as livestock at best, slaves as the norm, and meat for their mutual slaughterhouse project at worst.<\/p>\n
The ideal answer is \u201cneither, and none,\u201d and the second-best answer is \u201clet those people decide for themselves,\u201d but the only thing on the table at the moment seems to be shutting down the slaughterhouse part.<\/p>\n
If Trump can help make that happen, award him all the ribbons, plaques, and trophies he craves and let him babble nonsense to his heart\u2019s content on whatever subject he pleases.<\/p>\n
Two important things to remember:<\/p>\n
First, millions of people have been killed, injured, abducted, detained, enslaved, displaced, or some combination of those things, over the last 42 months. That needs to stop.<\/p>\n
Second, we\u2019ve gone 42 months with no one else succeeding in stopping it.<\/p>\n
So how about just letting Trump take his best shot at getting the job done, instead of quibbling over the details (which we can\u2019t even know from moment to moment), or over his supposed motives or inadequacies?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not like there\u2019s any shortage of things to complain about when it comes to Trump. Why turn this into one of those things?<\/p>\n
If Trump can help end this war, he has my support and should have yours.<\/p>\n