Reversal
No president should have the power to do what Trump has now done four times: summarily shoot people by declaring a fake war and then treating criminal suspects who must be detained and prosecuted as combatants who can be killed without trial, and last, enjoy with “superpower dictator” Putin.
Trump’s surprise U-turn claim that Ukraine could win the war against Russia’s invasion seems to be his latest ploy to avoid imposing the “severe consequences” that he promised for his buddy Putin’s obstruction of ceasefire negotiations. [But] it’s all empty talk to divert attention from Trump’s failure to impose the promised “severe consequences” on Putin for refusing to negotiate a ceasefire. EU Kaja Kallas, as her country [Estonia] also got incursion by Russia’s jet fighter, warns Trump that Europe can’t shoulder Ukraine war burden alone.
Trump has allowed his “chemistry” with foreign leaders — really their willingness to fawn over him — to become the basis for US foreign policy. That embarrassing reality leads to erratic and dangerous decisions.
Shooting down Russian planes will lead to war, a Kremlin envoy has said in a chilling warning to NATO.
The threat comes amid rising tensions between Moscow and its European neighbours with Russia accused of violating their airspace after a number of drone incursions.
Poland is looking to pass a law that will allow its military to down Russian drones over Ukraine without needing approval from NATO or the European Union after multiple crossed into their territory earlier this month.
Estonia’s airspace was also violated by three Russian fighter jets on Friday, while Moscow has been accused of being behind a swarm of drones that shut down Copenhagen airport on Monday.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Thursday backed President Trump’s call for member countries to shoot down Russian planes that enter their airspace but suggested they should only do so once they’ve exhausted other options.
In an interview on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends,” Brian Kilmeade asked Rutte whether he agrees with Trump, who told a reporter, “Yes, I do,” when asked whether NATO countries should shoot down Russian jets that violate their airspace.
“Do you think that he’s right? Because Germany pushed back and said, ‘Well, we don’t think we’ll do that,” Kilmeade said. “Should they be prepared to knock down Russian drones and planes?”
“If so necessary,” Rutte said. “So, I totally agree here with President Trump, if so necessary. But our military, Brian, have trained and prepared for this. We know how to do this.”
Rutte said there have been Russian incursions into NATO airspaces for decades, and member countries know how to accurately assess situations and determine the proper course of action to protect their people.
Trump’s greatest bug—or feature—might be his flightiness, coupled with a certain showmanship, a bit of flair. What holds one day may not hold the next. This results in chaotic whiplash, like with tariffs and “Liberation Day“ rates that, in many cases, did not end up holding.
It results in executive orders that make news cycles but don’t actually change all that much, like this week’s executive order classifying antifa a domestic terrorist group. It makes it hard for firms and individuals to plan ahead, to know what type of workers they’ll be hiring and how expensive materials will be and what the law permits.
It’s possible this is a tactic to try to get Russian President Vladimir Putin to come to the negotiating table. It’s possible it’s a tactic to get NATO to step up its commitments—the timing of which would make sense, as NATO has been issuing forceful rebukes to Putin following Russian drones entering Polish airspace (and being shot down) and Russian fighter jets entering Estonian airspace two weeks ago and now drones over Copenhagen Airport that might be linked to Russia—and to take Article 5 more seriously.
It’s also possible, since it’s Trump, that it’s a genuine reversal of his own beliefs and his administration’s approach, which would be quite a shift given Vice President J.D. Vance’s aggressive tack taken with Volodymyr Zelenskyy back in February. Since Trump took office, the United States has taken no additional steps to increase sanctions pressure on Russia, though it has tried to browbeat India, a big buyer of Russian oil, through tariffs.
Then again, is it a true reversal? Trump said, back in March following the spat, that he’s “not aligned with anybody.” “I’m aligned with the United States of America,” he added. The only commitment Trump is making now is the continuation of U.S. weapons support for NATO. It’s possible Trump is trying to exert more influence over how NATO handles territorial incursions. It’s possible Trump learned new information over the course of his meeting with Zelenskyy. But this might also be a somewhat toothless pronouncement from Trump, or, possibly, some sort of foreign-policy 4D chess move that will reveal itself prudent in time. With Trump, it’s very hard to say.
Scenes from New York [related UNGA / UN General Assembly] “….The Secret Service found and seized an illicit network of sophisticated equipment in the New York region that was capable of shutting down the cellular network as foreign leaders prepared to gather nearby for the annual U.N. General Assembly, the agency announced on Tuesday,” reports The New York Times. “Officials said the anonymous communications network, which included more than 100,000 SIM cards and 300 servers, could interfere with emergency response services and could be used to conduct encrypted communication. One official said the network was capable of sending 30 million text messages per minute, anonymously.
The official said the agency had never before seen such an extensive operation.” The Secret Service is in charge of security for U.N. meetings held in New York. There’s not yet information on a specific plot that had been planned to put these devices to use, but “initial analysis of the data on some of the SIM cards has identified ties to at least one foreign nation, as well as links to criminals already known to U.S. law enforcement officials, including cartel members.” President Donald Trump has taken this and run with it, naturally. But there’s also some early indicators coming out that the Secret Service is not being totally truthful here, so take it all with grains of salt.
Alas, to prevent Putin from using a ceasefire to rearm and reinvade Ukraine, or incursion into Poland or Estonia, or Denmark, a strong security guarantee is needed. That requires a U.S. backstop, explains Finland’s president. Trump is remaking the foreign policy in his image: crude, harsh, gratuitously mean.
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If you feel powerless to help Gaza, you still has a choice: donate. When so much of what exists is false, authenticity is a powerful weapon we can wield that the state never could. So if you feel lost, hopeless, depressed, angry and afraid, I implore you to return - again and again - to the feeling of love that exists within you that brought you here in the first place. It is only through this that we can remake the world. To redress Gaza’s famine, displacement, and destruction, independent and impartial humanitarian organizations - UN agencies, international and national NGOs - must be allowed to deliver relief at scale. To salvage Gaza’s people from the devastation inflicted by Israel, it must be unified with the West Bank to form an independent and sovereign Palestinian State, not to be parceled and colonized by the former.
Meanwhile, children continue to be shredded by US bombs, and the starvation reaches new depths of hellish collective punishment. If both parties are going to continue to support an ongoing genocide, at least they can both be honest about doing so, rather than having one openly bloodthirsty party, and another—unconvincingly—playing the role of powerless, bumbling humanitarian.
Please keep donate Gaza especially if you, as reader, has [background] International Relation [whatever universities]. IR Graduate means [you must, at least] get some semester [about] studying Middle East [in macro, not specifically Gaza].
We need more people to share fundraisers instead of only talking about Gaza. Some people think that those in Gaza don’t need money but that’s wrong. Almost everyone lost their source of income while essentials, food & medicine get sold for astronomical prices. So I put my attempt in all social media as I can, in twitter / X, in substack [since October 2023 I put link donation], in bluesky or bsky, in threads, in instagram.
Link to donate World Food Programme - Palestine appeal: click here
[Daniel Brühl]
Most campaign shared or circulated in social media are for REAL people in Gaza. They’re legit. There are a lot of small campaigns for struggling families. This is their only lifeline. By donating & sharing, you are literally making history and alleviating part of their pain
Please do not rely on me alone for sharing your campaign. I’m only 1 person and sometimes I’m not online which is unreliable. I never ignore anybody on purpose but I have a very limited capacity & very little energy and time.
[Refaat Alareer IF I MUST DIE] Refaat Alareer was extremely hungry, November 2023, days before killed by Israel airstrike. If November 2023 already [one-by-one Gazan] extremely hungry, imagine September 2025 or almost 2 years Israel’s Genocide in Gaza.
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