One of the few people in government who has acted with any kind of courage and integrity in what was an obvious trap set by CNN, NYT and Co.; Mueller; and the American Intelligence Establishment for Trump was Rand Paul.
He almost alone has come to the defense of Trump amidst the barking hysteria that has characterised the opposition to the trip. He has correctly defined Trump Nato/UK/ Putin summits as a glowing success. It bolstered European investment in it own security. It proposed a vibrant sustainable nationalism (through a real Brexit) in the light of an EU being torn asunder under intense economic, migratory, nationalistic, cultural, religious tensions.
Trump stressed Europe's need diversify its energy sources to prevent dependence of Russian gas and potential influence. He approached Russia with a working platform to resolve the issues related to the flash points of the Ukraine and Syria and develop a less adversarial relationship. It likely involved some informal proposals to recognize the Russian annexation of Crimea (a historical and cultural fact); to stop the continued growth of NATO into former Soviet republics which is viewed by Russians as encirclement and isolation and which fans the flames of xenophobia and tribalism; to end sanctions.
That's all positive. The vicious, disingenuous screeching reaction to Trump's iniatives comes from the old Cold Warriors of the Intelligence/Defense Establishment who are desperately in need of an Enemy and have deemed Russia, with something like 10% of the military budget of NATO; with no ideological maxims; with no global or Western territorial aspirations, as such. This in place of the far more likely potential enemy in China, to whom the West has become industrially and financially dependent, but which does have vast territorial ambitions in the South China Sea and all of Asia.
Trump's rhetorical style is rambling, speculative, unanchored and unguided which leaves him open to the targeted attack that we've seen over the last 2 days. All by the forces of the old Pax Americana which is an imperial construct that has existed since Wilson post WW1, and with avengeance since WW2. That is collapsing now, done in by its own failure and hypocrisy in its icons of Multilateral Free Trade; a borderless globe with free movement of people, product, services, capital; an amoral order marked by relativism, radical individualism, atheistic humanism.
The truth is that Russia's 'meddling' involves little more than the same tactics that America has employed in at least 100 foreign elections since 1945. Those that have not actually involved the imposition of tin horn dictators or military cliques with their death squads and dungeons in places like Iran, Guatemala, Viet Nam, Indonesia, Chile, Argentina, Iraq, Lybia and more.
Trump's trip had nothing to do with disparaging the 'heroes' of the Intelligence Services. It had everything to do with creating a post Cold War order that is NOT built on the free movement of capital OVER the prosperity and equitable distribution of wealth in nation states. Trump is in fact beseiged by traitors (to the American Constitution and American people), who are in full scale rebellion against a viable and peaceful world order. It was a brave and principled set of proposals by President Trump.
