by liberal japonicus
An open thread was requested to talk about the Witkoff deal. Some prescient comment from March on Witkoff, the man called ‘the dumbest of Trump’s advisors’ by one of Woodward’s background sources.
Witkoff is also good at giving away negotiating positions, when he chooses to do so. This includes a certainty that there can be no NATO membership for Ukraine and that Ukrainian elections will be necessary—both Russian demands, of course.
The free give-aways didn’t end there.
He made some startling remarks about Russian control of territory in Ukraine being the “elephant in the room” for peace talks. While his grasp of Ukrainian geography and even the battlefield realities seem shaky, what Witkoff is sure of is that all the territory that Russia has seized militarily is Russian-speaking (as, of course is much of Ukraine, though the Russian language is much, much less popular now). Witkoff believes that the inhabitants of these regions naturally want to be part of Russia. They had “referendums” while under Russian military occupation, after all. Witkoff even referenced what he called a Russian “sensibility” that Ukraine is a “false country,” but seems to think that “sensibility” will somehow go away if only Vladimir Putin is allowed to keep all the territory he has conquered by force, and a little more. This is among the dumbest things I have ever heard.
What a fucking bunch of clowns.
It must be incredibly frustrating for Dmitriev. He keeps putting out ever more outrageous demands, in the hopes that Witkoff will say No, so he can blame the US for negotiations failing. But Witkoff keeps giving him everything he asks and more. Over and over. The draft plan differs from Russia’s maximal demands only in giving Russia even more.
About all that’s left is Russia demanding mas
sivereparations from Ukraine. Watching this space….What a fucking bunch of clowns.
Definitely true of Witkoff, and many other Trump appointees. But I am amazed by the number of people I have encountered over the last few months who said variations of “but Trump will eventially get/is getting impatient with Putin, so it looks like things are going to change”. To me it has looked absolutely clear from the beginning that Trump’s intention is essentially to give Putin whatever he wants, that he will throw Ukraine to the wolves, and that any little zigzags have been purely performative. There could be many explanations: that he is bought and paid for, that Putin has kompromat on him, that he hates Zelensky ever since the perfect phone call, or that he is at heart a weak and pathetic man who kowtows to those he sees as ruthless, strong and powerful. It could be a combination of any of these. But as for the bunch of clowns, dumb or not, if they know they are giving Trump what he really wants, it may not be their competence that is the problem.
I fault Obama for not acting on Crimea in 2014. But the behaviour of the Trump administration over Ukraine is a stain on America which, to paraphrase Trump, is probably the greatest ever seen.
I am amazed by the number of people I have encountered over the last few months who said variations of “but Trump will eventially get/is getting impatient with Putin, so it looks like things are going to change”.
It’s pretty human to expect things that you really, really want to see happen will indeed happen . And it’s also all to easy to assume that others will do what you would expect anybody to do. Even when you know, if you stop and think about it, that the person isn’t even remotely rational, let alone sensible.
So, we’d like to see Trump cease being Putin’s patsy when it comes to Ukraine. And, given how Putin is behaving, any normal person would long since have gotten exasperated. So, easy to think any little glimmer in that direction is the beginning of a real change. No matter how many times it proves not to be.
“There could be many explanations”
My best guess at this point is that he just likes Putin, in a kind of fanboi crush way.
Putin is doing it the way Trump wishes he could do it.
I see a hot debate, whether this will be called ‘apeacement’ or ‘apiecement’.
(and whether Ghislaine Maxwell will be successfully nominated as Secretary of Whore after pardon and damages for suffering).
As for reparations, I would not be surprised in the least, if that became part of it (maybe even with a coerced ‘admission of guilt’ for the war on the part of Ukraine).
For wjca, since it’s an openish thread…
Status report on dewarping documents from photographs. I’ve finally settled on a camera (iPhone 17) and set up lighting, so I’m starting to take pictures seriously. Current state of the art for my dewarping software shown in these images. First one is a 24MP “original” taken with the iPhone. Second one is the dewarped output for it. I’ve settled on the .avif format as the best combination of quality, compression, and availability.
https://mcain6925.com/ordinary/demo1.avif
https://mcain6925.com/ordinary/demo2.avif
firefox is very insistent that i not visit https://mcain6925.com/ordinary/demo1.avif
Yeah. I get warnings about the site being potentially unsafe. But I cheerfully downloaded the files anyway. Now I just need to get the software to open them.
Now I just need to get the software to open them.
Any of Chrome, Firefox, or Safari should do it.
Any of Chrome, Firefox, or Safari should do it.
Also Edge, if you have a fairly recent release. Microsoft has been slow to support AVIF at the operating system level.
As a Wall Street Journal editorial on Friday put it: “Mr. Trump may figure he can finally wash his hands of Ukraine if Europe and Ukraine reject his offer. He’s clearly sick of dealing with the war. But appeasing Mr. Putin would haunt the rest of his presidency. If Mr. Trump thinks American voters hate war, wait until he learns how much they hate dishonor. … A bad deal in Ukraine would broadcast to U.S. enemies that they can seize what they want with force or nuclear blackmail or by pressing on until America loses interest.”
Well, I hope the Wall Street Journal editorial is right about American voters, but I fear it is not. Surely if American voters hated dishonour as much as all that, there would not be a second Trump presidency. The piece from which I have taken that is in today’s NYT:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/22/opinion/ukraine-russia-negotiations-trump-deal.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3E8.xN85.ecN93aJ-jZL7&smid=url-share
However, I do have some (tiny amount of) hope that if this kind of criticism is very widespread, along with all the signalling from Europe, Trump might (once again!) back slightly off from this kind of approach. I guess this is what’s behind today’s statement that this was not his final offer. But to follow that by saying if Zelensky refuses to accept the terms, “then he can continue to fight his little heart out.” makes me feel sick. The Chamberlain comparison makes sense; appeasing Putin has been Trump’s consistent approach as POTUS in both his terms.
Surely if American voters hated dishonour as much as all that, there would not be a second Trump presidency.
I’m not sure exactly what would be the focus of ‘hating dishonour’, but I don’t think American voters, as a general rule, give a shit about what goes on outside of the borders, unless it is for the purposes of mythologizing, so the 2nd Trump dumpster fire is only marginally related to that.
I hope the Wall Street Journal editorial is right about American voters, but I fear it is not. Surely if American voters hated dishonour as much as all that, there would not be a second Trump presidency
It all depends on what American voters perceive as dishonor. Perhaps surprisingly, they seem more likely to take that view of foreign policy screwups than they do of dishonorable behavior on the domestic (or personal!) front.
A bunch of clowns indeed – the implosion of the GoP is quite funny to watch (or should we actually be worried …?) in the way the downfall of the GDR was quite funny to watch (but the there was the, still ongoing, decades-long hangover…) :
Some Republicans are now finding themselves in the extraordinary position of clarifying what long seemed obvious: Nazis are evil.
“It’s something that we all should know, but the fact of the matter is, it had to be said,” said Representative David Kustoff of Tennessee, explaining why he felt the need to denounce Nazis and antisemitism at a recent gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
He was joined there by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who declared, “I’m in the ‘Hitler sucks’ wing of the Republican Party.”
And even Laura Loomer, the far-right activist, who is Jewish, has argued on social media that “the GOP has a Nazi problem.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/23/us/politics/republicans-antisemitism-carlson-fuentes-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3U8.2zff.86d5NwQCde2M&smid=url-share
(gift link; not sure it’s ethical to contribute to Bret Stephens’ salary, but hey ho)
I don’t think American voters, as a general rule, give a shit about what goes on outside of the borders, unless it is for the purposes of mythologizing
I think this is probably true. Although I suppose foreign affairs is only one of the ways an administration may behave dishonourably. January 6th was within the first Trump administration, and I guess was a sort of epitome of dishonourable behaviour. But it is debatable to what extent honour is even an applicable concept in the context of nations or administrations. Breaking promises and commitments, now, that’s another matter, and can have serious practical repercussions.
With all this rage, we must also have a bold, simple policy plan — one that every American can understand. In the richest country in the history of our planet, we should not fear raising the minimum wage to $20 an hour, which had a 74 percent approval rating in 2023. We should not fear an America with free public college tuition, which 63 percent of U.S. adults favored in a 2021 poll. When 62 percent of Americans say their electricity or gas bills have increased in the past year and 80 percent feel powerless to control their utility costs, we should not fear the idea of expanding rural broadband as a public utility. Or when 70 percent of Americans say raising children is too expensive, we should not fear making universal child care a public good. And darn it, we should not fear that running on a platform of seismic economic scale will cost us a general election. We’ve already lost enough of them by being afraid to try. The era of half-baked political policy is over.
I’m well aware that not everyone here thinks kindly of James Carville, but I’m betting that nonetheless few will disagree with the extract above. Here’s the whole thing:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/opinion/democrats-platform-economic-rage.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3k8.RLeA.wVApkzjlRXhM&smid=url-share
Perhaps someone here can explain something to me. Trump says Ukraine must accept the Russian-written “peace proposal or “risk losing US support. So, let’s assume a counterfactual: Ukraine accepts the proposal. What good is US support supposed to do them, even assuming it lasts more than milliseconds beyong Russia moving it’s troops forward?
It looks to me that the actual choice is between losing US support or losing US support. The only difference is between losing a bunch of territory at the same time or not.
I’m troubled by the purported peace proposal (I also note that since I started to write this, Trump is backing away from it). I want to see Ukraine free and prosperous and as intact as possible with a security guarantee (as the last one didn’t work). This war is terrible and needs to end. And it needs to end in such a way as it doesn’t happen again down the road as happened after Crimea. In a perfect world, Russia would be out of Ukraine. It’s not a perfect world.
I can’t tell whether or not Ukraine is on the brink. Certainly there is a conscription problem. If US support were to end, and the Europeans not step up, it would be a disaster. Even if the EU and UK did step up, it would be hard and embolden Putin and drag this debacle out even longer.
My take on Trump is to try to see the play and not focus on the particulars. One possibility: Trump is trying to get the Europeans to truly step up. Trump successfully got member nations to pay their fair share to NATO (well, collectively at least). The pause in US support brought Europe in even more. But despite the implementation by NATO of PURL (launched by Gen. Rutte and Trump) to fund the acquisition of ready to use weapons in US stockpiles for Ukraine, total military aid from Europe declined 43 percent in July and August of this year (humanitarian and financial support remained steady). I think that is the latest data. With the plan, the EU and the UK raced to take part in high-level talks and are voicing ever stronger support for Ukraine. I wonder if this really has nothing to do with appeasing Putin but lighting a fire under the Europeans (yet again)? It is their backyard, after all. And while they have stepped up, it doesn’t make up for decades of underfunding the military and building a (mostly former) dependence on Russian gas. Europe isn’t in a great position to take up the slack. And it should be.
Another reasonable take here: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-expert-conversation-separating-signal-from-noise-in-trumps-ukraine-peace-plan/
Hoping the Europeans really step in and Trump drops the hammer (e.g. Tomahawks). But I have my doubts on both.
“Even if the EU and UK did step up, it would be hard and embolden Putin”
How would that embolden Putin? My assumption would be the opposite.
“My take on Trump is to try to see the play and not focus on the particulars.”
If you will pardon my language, my take on Trump is that he has no f****ing idea what he’s doing, other than finding ways to make money for himself, his family, and a close circle of already obscenely wealthy people.
In terms of actual governance, I think he’s basically making it up as he goes along.
He wants to make a lot of money, he wants to be adored, and he wants to punish people who aren’t nice to him (as he sees it). If there’s more to him than that, I’m not seeing it.
I’m well aware that not everyone here thinks kindly of James Carville, but I’m betting that nonetheless few will disagree with the extract above.
I disagree with all of it.
Charles, you amaze me (not).
One possibility: Trump is trying to get the Europeans to truly step up. Trump successfully got member nations to pay their fair share to NATO
Since there is nothing in it for Trump personally, it’s hard to credit him with caring about whether they step up. He may complain about it, but then he complains about anything and everything. Actually doing anything is rare.
As for “getting NATO members to pay their fair share”, it’s hard to see a valid complaint from the US on that. The one and only time that NATO has invoked its mutual defense clause was when the Europeans stepped up to support the US in Afghanistan. They stepped up to support us! Seems to me we’ve got no complaint.
The European members of NATO have not increased their defense spending in response to anything Trump has done. If you must credit anyone, “credit” Putin.
russell:
How would that embolden Putin? My assumption would be the opposite.
Sorry, that was not clear. I meant if the US stepped back and Europe and UK stepped up, it would nonetheless embolden him. I suppose if PURL were still on the table, it would work for a while, especially if the US continued to supply intelligence. But Putin knows Europe and the UK cannot sustain the delivery of materials by themselves, at least not at this point. IMO, a US pull back in any form will embolden Putin, regardless of how the EU/UK respond.
IMO, a US pull back in any form will embolden Putin, regardless of how the EU/UK respond.
I agree with this. And in fact, if you ignore the noise/chaos around Trump’s conflicting messaging (like the recent couple of days), the consistent trend is that he continues to imply (or worse) that he will pull back unless Ukraine gives in to Russian demands with a side order of servile and performative gratitude to him. This has now happened in almost exactly the same way 3 or 4 times – including messaging that “it’s going well”, “we’re making real progress” etc etc, until Putin pulls the plug. And then it starts all over again, including ongoing destruction and death in Ukraine, until the next Trump-initiated “diplomacy” which results in essentially the same suggested settlement.
Trump will go with whatever end game in Ukraine allows his family to continue to service Trump Organization debts that are held by Russian entities. Without that, the family fortunes all go to shit.
The same is probably true for Saudi Arabia and Trump at this point.
It’s not just about making money, it’s also about whose money is actually backing all of those big splashy projects that they put the family name on.
So the Department of Defense (which Pete Dawg wants to be called the Department of War because the packing penis wasn’t fooling anyone) has now declared that they are investigating Sen. Mark Kelly because Kelly had the temerity to remind US military service people, past and present, that they have a duty to uphold the Constitution which supersedes their duty to follow any order that would violate the Constitution.
https://www.npr.org/2025/11/24/nx-s1-5619314/pentagon-mark-kelly-trump-hegseth-military
You, know, keeping that oath that they swore when they joined the service.
And on social media the Ancient Orange One is calling Kelly et al’s statement a “clear act of sedition.”
This from the same merry band of miscreants who commuted Stuart Rhodes’ federal sentence for having committed Seditious Conspiracy during the January 6 insurrection – while leading a group that called themselves the Oath Keepers.
So Kelly is being investigated for warning service people that if they violate the law and the constitution, they will end up a convicted felon like Rhodes.
They are going to keep pushing until there is a confrontation. And then they will push some more.
Do not yield.
“Trump will go with whatever end game in Ukraine allows his family to continue to service Trump Organization debts that are held by Russian entities”
You seem to think that Trump wouldn’t just walk away from his debts, in spite of all past evidence.
You seem to think that Trump wouldn’t just walk away from his debts, in spite of all past evidence.
Those other debts weren’t being enforced by the Russian Mafia.
Those other debts weren’t being enforced by the Russian Mafia.
Doesn’tneed to involve the Russiab mafia. The Russian government has demonstrated its ability to conduct its own enforcement operations around the globe.
bc and GFTNC, thank you for your explanations.
TBH, I can’t make sense of any of this mess. It’s utterly unclear who exactly is driving the bus on our end. Or what their motivations are.
Putin wants Ukraine absorbed into Russia. Ukraine doesn’t want to be absorbed into Russia. The UK and EU very much do not want the conflict to expand.
What do we want? Who is the “we” that is deciding?