Mid-Week Updates

The Harris-Trump debate of course. And more human tragedies in Ukraine and Israel.

Yes, she made me laugh. Who? Kamala Harris did. The segment where she excoriated Trump for inviting the Taliban over to Camp David was classic, funny. In fact she did remarkably well and managed to push all of Trump’s buttons and cleverly brought John McCain into the debate. It is hard to say if she accomplished what she set out to do - pulling the swing voters in - but she surprised by exceeding expectations. And she presented herself as a reasonable mainstream candidate as opposed to Trump whose anger and bitterness were on full display last night.

And yet, Trump did manage to underline that the past few years under Biden have been far from uplifting for America and that its global standing is steadily being eroded. He is far better in pointing out the problems on both the domestic and international side, yet he fails to bring it home by presenting a way forward with that the hint of optimism that Americans love and swing voters need. He missed a chance by only praying to the converted which is what he always does. And he lied repeatedly, but so did Harris.

As you scroll down you will know what has me concerned here at the newsletter. Neither candidate was able to propose a way forward for America in either Ukraine or the Middle East. Harris’ take on Israel was so boilerplate and so crafted to address to almost anyone that it was just too lame to even take it seriously. And Trump only walks back into time by saying that none of the global turmoil would have happened under his watch. If foreign policy is your thing it was a truly terrible and discouraging debate.

The heart of the matter is that Trump and Harris are both mediocre entities in a world that is desperate for a stronger and far more strategic America. That requires vision, competence, new ideas and bold leadership. None of that was on display last night. It does not matter if you are left or right, on team Harris or a Trump fan, we should all be deeply worried over the vacuum that will be the White House come January next year. Harris pointed out during the debate that Putin will have Trump for lunch. Yes, that’s correct. And he’ll have Harris for dessert.

Dark Despair

Wars have turning points and so have the emotional responses to them. Sometimes things get to such depraved and depressing levels that people break. This tweet sums up that sentiment and it was in response to the funeral of Yaroslav Bazylevich’s family whose wife and three daughters were killed in a Russian missile attack on Lviv in Western Ukraine exactly one week ago. The man lost his entire family. I have added the video that Mylovanov here refers to at the bottom of this post.

It is not easy to predict how these sentiments change the nature of the conflict, but it is not hard to see that the ensuing bitterness will contribute to more resolve but also resentment, if not outright hate of the enemy.

We can look at comparable situations and we do not have to look very far as Israel last week descended into a level of grief and concurrent anger not seen since October last year. Israelis are breaking and in the month leading up to the one year mark of October 7th people are reliving the horror again, it is pure agony. As a result, protests intensified and most commentators took the cold blooded execution of the six hostages as the turning point to argue that no deal with any of Israel’s adversaries would ever be possible. The hostage deal indeed appears to be dead although Blinken keeps trying. And the calls for stepping up military activity on all fronts got louder, in Israel’s north and in the West Bank where things are also beginning to spiral out of control.

Even I, yes, got quite bitter and consequently engaged on social media which is something I hardly ever do as it can be pretty pointless. Last week after a Dutch foreign policy expert tweeted that there should be more political attention to what was happening in the West Bank I answered that yes, a lot of arms were smuggled into that area from Iran, through Jordan and across its border with Israel. Of course I knew full well that he wanted Dutch parliament to debate Israel’s role, but I could not resist pointing out something he had not thought about. It got lots of likes but also hate and negativity, I even made it on a list of ‘ZionNazis’. Yes, that is apparently a thing these days.

What I noted was that if you dive into the ensuing comments and the sort of people who in particular make counterpoints and take a strong anti-Israel stance it is surprising to see how committed they are in their support for Ukraine. Isn’t that an odd position to take? Does it not all come down to a very simple and basic good vs. evil? Democracies vs. dictatorships and theocracies? In other words if you support Ukraine in its fight against Russia shouldn’t you also support Israel in its wars with Hamas, Hezbollah and ultimately Iran?

And if you are not convinced of that position, let me reiterate: Russia and Iran are aligned and are collaborating in executing their reign of terror as a jointly operated global franchise. The latest news points to the fact that Iran has shipped hundreds of ballistic missiles to Russia. Maybe the Bazylevych family met its tragic end thanks to the never ending Iranian efforts to keep exporting its lethal tools to the worst characters on the global scene. You know the same guys who will have the next occupant of the White House, whoever it is, for lunch.