Shakedown in the Oval Office

As I wrote about the death throes of democracy yesterday, little did I realise how, a short while later that same day, both the President of the US, Donald Trump and his bootlicking deputy, JD Vance would not only escort it into the abyss, but then stalk and nuke it too.

By now, practically everyone in the world is aware of how Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was ambushed and humiliated in the White House Oval Office – in the presence of Trump’s lapdogs inner circle and the international press.

Watching international diplomacy get nuked left me in no doubt that a scene from an organised crime movie had come to life. However, that isn’t true at all. We were in fact watching the workings of a rogue government, a very well-organised crime syndicate in which the President is the de facto mob boss surrounded by his cabinet of craven henchmen.

What we witnessed was Trump trying to publicly legitimize his criminal attempt to extort Ukraine’s mineral wealth. That it took a seasoned grifter like Donald Trump to attempt openly flaunting imperialism’s true nature, is almost worth admiring. For Zelenskyy, however, it was nothing short of a hatchet job.

Zelenskyy was the victim of the proverbial shakedown, but I have little sympathy for him. The treatment he received at the hands of America’s recently reconstituted Mafia government was shocking, yes, but undeserved, no.

Far from being a victim, Zelenskyy was a willing pawn in America’s proxy war with Russia. He enjoyed years of diplomatic and military aid from the US, and in return willingly prolonged an unnecessary war that did nothing for his country or people. It only served the interest of American imperialism.

While I have no affection for Russia’s Vladimir Putin, I understand how he could have been goaded into invading Ukraine by the threat of NATO expansionism on his borders. The relationship between these two countries is also not as straightforward as the Israel-Palestine one, where Israel is clearly the aggressive, often depraved oppressor. At the same time, Palestine resists, albeit violently at times. Those who view the Russia-Ukraine conflict in binary terms frequently overlook these little details.

There is a clear moral to this sorry new chapter in American imperialism, however. While in the short term it may be beneficial to lie in bed with imperialist trash, there will come a time of reckoning. While Zelenskyy is the chump feeling the sting of betrayal at the moment, Benjamin Netanyahu will hopefully get his too.

Israel, which is also a willing proxy of America, enjoys America’s support at the moment. Trump has already put his feelers out for annexing the Gaza Strip so that he can build his loathsome Riviera over the dead bodies that Netanyahu, sadistically blew apart over fourteen months.

Trump’s outrageous plan of course finds favor with Netanyahu because he’s far too caught up in the humiliation of not defeating Hamas and wants nothing better than to see them turfed out by the Americans. It’s only a matter of time, however, before Trump sees him as an obstacle to America’s leading crime organization.