Moves by President Donald Trump and his top officials in the last few days seeking a possible Russia and Ukraine peace deal, has exposed the leaders of little European governments, leaving them in disarray. According to American officials, the Europeans won’t be welcomed at the negotiation table as yet, because, as the old adage goes, ‘many cooks spoil the broth,’ and the descendants of slave trade and colonialism are now struggling for a role, however minor. Hardly a month into office, Trump’s contours of “America First”, is threatening to isolate Europe.
Unlike his first term, when he surrounded himself with four-star military Generals, Mark Milley, Jim Mattis, John Kelly, and hawkish John Bolton, who fell-out fast, this time, Trump brought JD Vance (Vice President), Pete Hegseth (Defence Secretary), Mike Waltz (National Security Advisor), and Tulsi Gabbard (Director National Intelligence) all junior veterans with grievances from Afghan and Iraq, debacles of unwanted adventures. For now, at least, they are bidding Trump’s wishes, however wild, without asking unnecessary questions which could slow him down.
His withdrawal from WHO, Paris Climate Accord, UN Human Rights Council, closure of USAID, snubbing LGBT, telephone call with Vladimir Putin, and the empty bravado to ‘buy’ Gaza, and cast three million Palestinians to the wildness have left European leaders scrambling for a meaningful response, and he is not done yet. The nosy brits, of the old collapsed empire, now in self-inflicted agony of Brexit, are pitifully out of place on the world stage.
As perennial instigators, meddlers and beneficiaries in world colonialism, occupation, unending conflicts and exploitation, European leaders even from little countries, driven by superficial understanding of trends, seem unable to realise their diminishing roles in the world.
Pete Hegseth, and Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellog, both admonished European leaders at NATO and Munich security meetings last week rubbing sour tastes in their mouth over Ukraine’s unlikely NATO membership, recovery of pre-2014 border, and non-deployment of US troops in Ukraine. That stance prompted France’s Emmanuel Macron to convene an ‘‘informal” meeting of scared European leaders.
And imagine, a very desperate and weather-beaten Ukrainian president, Vlodomyr Zelensky, reminding Europeans that they must learn to stand by themselves, and not always look to Uncle Sam, their benefactor-world policeman, for their security. JD Vance threw a spanner in the works with a reprimand that the threat to Europe’s security was “from within,” and not “China or Russia,” and highlighted the deficiencies in Europe’s internal democracy.
Trump’s policy of turning the Cuban territory, Guantanamo Bay, into an open-air prison for illegal migrants awaiting deportation back to their miserable countries of origin is a good one because they should no longer lecture anyone on human rights issues without being told to clean up their own dirty backside.
Some Uganda elites think that Uganda cannot do without US funding, important as it may be, yet Uganda is already doing so. The only caveat is that we must be serious with setting our priorities and implementing frugality, after all, Kale Kayihura, and Anita Among, both sanctioned, seem better off and even unbothered.
Otherwise, many people should be enjoying Trump’s cowboy, Rambo and 007 James Bond style as he runs Great America to a laughing stock, and probably self-destruction before our own eyes that many never expected, although necessary. On our side of the planet, the false giant, called the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) under President Felix Tshekedi seems to be in a free fall right now.
The light weight of M23 rebels is seizing territory after territory before a hapless EAC, SADC, African Union, and MUNSCO, possibly waiting for rescue from an impotent UN Security Council, bidding US interests. Meanwhile, the overdrive propaganda of blackmail on government, to ‘unconditionally free’ Kizza Besigye, who was nabbed plotting to assassinate President Yoweri Museveni and smash military facilities, isn’t bearing much fruit.
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