JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: RADICAL SOLUTIONS FOR RADICAL
TIMES.
THE ROAD TO HELSINKI:
HANDSHAKE DEALS &
KNEE JERK DIPLOMACY
By Jack Random
Donald Trump touched down in Singapore, had dinner and
announced he had a deal with Kim Jong-un, Supreme Leader of North Korea. Kim had agreed to unconditional
denuclearization. Trump had only
offered a handshake and agreed to call off military exercises. Problem solved. North Korea no longer posed a threat to
the United States or its allies.
This diplomacy thing is easy. Golf is hard.
Standing over a five-foot putt with the match on the line: that’s
pressure. Somebody show me the way
to Jerusalem. We’ll solve this
whole Palestinian problem in a weekend.
What do you say?
No, Mr. President, we’re not going to Jerusalem. There’s no one on the Palestinian side
that would sit down with you – even for a photo op. And Netanyahu has a court date. It wouldn’t look good.
Last August Trump suggested in an Oval Office meeting that
we invade Venezuela. He persisted
with the idea for weeks, raising it again with Latin American leaders who
expressed universal opposition. No
word on whether Trump was surprised at their position but he seemed to forget
about Venezuela and all of Latin America until the refugee crisis arrived at
our southern border.
We recently learned by executive tweet that our president
thought the joint statement he and Kim signed in Singapore was a binding
agreement. How long before we find
out that Trump believes he received the blessings of Latin American leaders to
bomb the hell out of Honduras, El Salvador or Guatemala to stem the flow of
refugees? Not that he needs
anyone’s blessings to bomb someone or invade a country.
This diplomacy thing is easy. Fire all the diplomats and let the chief negotiator take
over. Fuck Canada and who needs
NATO? Germany is Putin’s puppet
and Angela Merkel will pay the price of open borders. She can start by boosting military spending to 4% of gross
domestic product. Do it! Do it now or do without American
military might!
Trump doesn’t seem to understand
that Chancelor Merkel is not a dictator.
She cannot raise her nation’s military budget or its contribution to
NATO with a wave of her hand any more than he can.
Trump tried to persuade French
President Emmanuel Macron to dump Europe and follow Britain’s lead in exiting
the European Union. After all,
it’s worked out so well for Teresa May as she watches her Brexit implementation
team implode the week before welcoming the American version of blundering Boris
Johnson to Britannia. The
beleaguered prime minister must be filled with trepidation as she is compelled
to display public hospitality to the least popular American leader since Thomas
Paine.
Come on, Manny! Dump the bastards! We’ll take care of you. Vlady has a soft spot for Paris. He always has.
Not one to miss an opportunity
for dramatic climax, the Donald saved his last stop for his closest and most
trusted friend: Vladimir
Putin. They will meet on foreign
ground in the city of Helsinki, Finland.
There will be no other dignitaries and no transcribers. Only the two leaders and their
interpreters will know what words or transactions flow between them behind
closed doors. Of course the
possibility of eavesdropping always exists – especially with the former head of
the KGB and current boss of the FSB-GRU.
It’s just you and me, right
Vlady? Man to man.
That’s right, Donald. We can talk with complete
confidence! Believe me!
The secrecy has of course given
birth to a wide range of theories about what might transpire between the two
leaders. Those who believe the
whole Putin-Trump collaboration is a hoax generally believe nothing is amiss. Why shouldn’t two of the world’s most
powerful men and those at the heart of an ongoing investigation meet in
confidence? Why shouldn’t they
encourage the most imaginative conspiracy theorists? The American people are so sick of hearing the endless
speculation they are turning a deaf ear.
Trump’s followers have always believed the mainstream is out to get him
– by any and all means, legal or illegal.
Those who believe there is
something greater than puff behind the Putin-Trump connection have long
expected the two lead conspirators to find an opportunity for private
dealing. Those who believe Trump
is indebted to Putin and his oligarchs both financially and politically expect
this closed-door meeting to initiate a payback.
Trump dignified Kim Jong-un with
a handshake, a photo op and compliments in front of the cameras before canceling
long-scheduled military exercises.
These were gifts that the North Korean leader treasured and for which he
gave nothing in return.
Would it be surprising if Trump
had a few gifts for Mr. Putin? How
about an agreement not to enforce the Magnitsky Act? That’s pretty much where all this conspiracy speculation
began in earnest, right? That’s
why the Russian connection gathered for a meet and greet in Trump Tower while
the presidential campaign was still raging. For the first time in history international sanctions hit
the Russian leader and his circle of corrupt friends where it hurt the most:
personal bank accounts. It opened
a window for a hard look at crooked Russian money laundering operations at the
Bank of Cypress and Deutsche Bank – the banks that cater to Russian
mobsters. Oh, and by the way, soon
to be Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross was a proud vice chairman at the Bank
of Cypress. Imagine that.
No sanctions had ever been so
effective and Vladimir Putin was pissed enough to invade a sovereign
nation. Who can doubt that he was
pissed enough to sic his GRU hackers at Hillary Clinton? Why wouldn’t he invest a few million in
fake news disseminated by Facebook – America’s free source of targeted
propaganda?
Who knows why Putin did what he
did? Maybe his hatred for Obama
and Clinton was sufficient. Maybe
he needed no additional motivation to mess with American democracy. Maybe he’s pissed off that America
still has the reputation of a democracy when in fact it’s fast slipping into an
autocracy controlled by the most powerful corporations in the world.
Who knows what Putin has on
Trump? Maybe he just wanted an
amateur to slap around on the international stage? Mission accomplished.
Smile for the cameras,
baby! Me and you against the
world!
What we do know is that Putin is
winning this game. Despite a
floundering economy, the Russian Federation has restored its reputation as a
world power. He has succeeded in
blowing a hole in the European Union with his promotion of Brexit. His man in Washington has created
discord in NATO via public humiliation.
Pony up, Angela! And you too, Macron! No one gets a free pass!
Putin had to be laughing when
Trump derided Europe’s most powerful nation as “captive” to Russian energy.
There may be an element of truth
to Trump’s insulting observation.
Germany needs imported energy to fuel its economic machine but Russia
needs a European market to buy its natural gas. Germany imports nearly equivalent amounts from Norway and
the Netherlands. Do they hold
Germany captive?
It has been speculated that
Trump wants Germany to buy American natural gas at an inflated price. That would seem particularly unlikely
to happen at this point. For one
thing, it would be detrimental to Russia.
Trump appears to be reorganizing
the world order with Putin and himself at the top, Britain and Israel on the
second tier and Europe somewhere below and on par with Indonesia and North
Korea. China appears to be the new
chief adversary with minor adversaries in Iran, Mexico, Venezuela and other
assorted nations – Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador – that pose problems or
take more than they give.
Judging from
the befuddled looks on the faces of Trump’s advisors when he derided Germany,
no one really knows what the president is going to do. I seriously doubt that Trump knows what
he is going to do except in that fraction of a second before he does it. If there is no one to talk him out of
it, then we enter a twisted new world where fake facts and distorted realities
begin to make sense.
They say
he’s KGB! He’s fine! Putin is fine! We’re all fine!
Here’s my
prediction for the Trump-Putin summit:
Something will follow that benefits Putin. The question is:
What does Putin want? A
weakened NATO? Already
accomplished. Drive a wedge in the
British-American relationship?
Accomplished. Weaken the
British government?
Accomplished. Maybe he
wants payback for the counter-intelligence agent that exposed one too many of
his operations. Maybe Trump could drain the talent pool out of the State
Department. Already done.
Who needs
diplomats? I’m the only diplomat
we need! What’s a diplomat
anyway? It’s a negotiator, right? Who’s the greatest negotiator ever
born? Right here, baby! Smiling at you.
Maybe Putin
wants acceptance of a Russian Crimea.
Maybe he wants a hands-off policy in Ukraine. Maybe he wants the CIA to pull out of Eastern Europe.
Nobody but the
man in Moscow knows for sure.
Jazz.
“Trump is trying to destabilize the
European Union” by Josh Rogin.
Washington Post, 28 June 2018.
“US indicts 12 Russian spies in
2016 DNC hack that used malware, bitcoin and phishing” by Kyt Dotson. Silicon Angle, 13 July 2018.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF
THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES AND AN ARRAY OF NOVELS, SHORT STORIES AND MEMOIRS. HE SERVED MANY YEARS AS A COMMENTATOR
FOR GLOBAL FREE PRESS.
