Everyone behaves like US isolationist foreign policy and not wanting to intervene and spend money on European problems is some radical departure for the US, and/or morally wrong. In point of historical fact, that was exactly the US foreign policy from the end of World War I until Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1941, when the United States was attacked. What happened in those intervening 23 years? Europe, or I should say the collected European nations, and the UK and France in particular, did a piss poor job maintaining law and order.
I do not think Trump is exactly alone in his belief that the United States should not be acting as the world's policeman when it is not being paid shit to do so. Many of the things Trump is saying out loud have infuriated American taxpayers for a long time.
Now all of that being said, I do undertstand the dilemma that Zelensky and European allies both face. Zelensky could have handled the meeting with Trump and Vance a hundred different ways that were better than the way he did, and he seems to have acknowledged this himself:
The Ukrainian leader describes Friday's fiery Oval Office meeting as "regrettable".
www.bbc.com
I understand Zelensky was in a difficult situation, but figure out a way to handle it. To me I am in similar situations all the time, when I go to Court and face a hostile Judge asking me aggressive questions. Zelensky is an advocate for the Ukrainian people. I am just an advocate for some client, but I am there to advocate the best I can under hostile fire and usually facing legal impediments and obstacles that must be hurdled. I understand I sometimes have to take artillery fire (or the in Court equivalent of it), deflect it, respond to it, sometimes dissect it, question it, or distinguish it. But one thing I cannot do, no matter what, is go on the attack and start attacking the Judge, who might very well be throwing me a life raft as my ship is sinking. I have had life rafts thrown my way, and in fact, I just got one from the Appellate Court on a ship that did sink.
As Minuteman said, Zelensky is not a private person. He cannot look like a pussy, nor can he look like the dog that is biting the hand that feeds him, or worse yet like he s trying to take food off the giver's own dinner table. Instead, he must dance around the giving of such appearances, whatever way he can. And he did not do a very good job of it. But this is what a politician's job is.
As far as the Europeans stepping up to the plate and rendering aid to Ukraine, does anyone really believe that they have done much more than sit back and let the US do the heavy lifting? This ingracious attitude has been pissing off many Americans for many years, going back to World War II, going back to my own relatives and family members who fought in those conflicts. The US ended up getting involved in World War II because of dramatic diplomatic, political and military failures by the European countries which were a combination of incompetence and indifference. And I think a lot of Americans, especially those in the military, look at Europe and they do not believe anything has changed. There is a dependence on the US to do what is necessary to maintain law, order and peace. While some Americans believe that there is a moral imperative for the US to do so, and believe in the concept of the righteous World Policeman, others feel that there is an inherent inequity in a situation in which one country is supplying, at significant cost, military weapons and technology, intelligence, manpower, and aid, and getting nothing in return except a half hearted "thank you" for what is out and out 100% pure charity, care of the American taxpayers. I am merely saying that this is what many believe, and they feel it has to stop and Europe needs to finally put on the Big Boy pants it has never worn in the last 2 centuries.
