Someone Had Plundered

 Yesterday must have been a pretty deflating one for any foreign policy observers out there who still thought Trump's mercurial behavior might result in an unexpected last-minute shift toward favoring Ukraine's defense. All the signals from the administration in recent days tend to indicate—to the contrary—that they do indeed plan to execute the worst-case version of their threatened "America First" policy when it comes to the Eastern European nation fighting for its life. 

First, Hegseth went out of his way to tell European policymakers that the United States is fundamentally uninterested in supporting the continent's defense against territorial aggression. And then—later in the day—Trump had a call with Putin, the read-out of which suggested that he does indeed intend to sell out the Ukrainians. The terms he and Hegseth have identified for a "negotiated peace" to the conflict would essentially amount to unilateral concessions to Putin's war aims. 

All of these worrying signs come as Trump has sought to negotiate access to Ukraine's rare earths minerals, so that the United States would "get something" in exchange for providing military aid to the embattled country. The message is loud and clear: Trump does not care about defending Ukraine out of either a principled support for democracy vs. autocracy, or the enlightened self-interest of advancing the shared interests of the democratic West against Putin. 

Quite to the contrary—he wants to know what is in it for him, at the crudest gut-level of economic self-interest. 

The spectacle of the world's richest country (the United States) trying to extract mineral wealth from a country that has already been forced to its knees by a war of unbridled imperial aggression is, to put it mildly, rather appalling. I was reminded of Byron's line about the "last poor plunder from a bleeding land." (Which had also come to mind for me during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, when our country expropriated central bank assets on its way out the door.)

The line comes from a section in Byron's "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," in which the poet berates the English at length for their theft of the Elgin Marbles from Greece. What disgusts Byron most about this petty pilfering is that Greece was already facing occupation and defeat at the hands of a foreign despotism when it occurred. The once-free land was already prostrate—and now, here comes the world's most powerful country to pick their pocket while they lie bleeding on the ground? 

I can't help but think that the same passage applies with equal force to Trump's efforts to extort mineral wealth from Ukraine while it is facing an existential threat from Putin's invasion. He is stealing the watch off the wrist of a mugging victim while they lie unconscious on the pavement. He is trying to make off—gratuitously, cruelly—with the "last poor plunder from a bleeding land" (much as the U.S. government did—for more complicated legal reasons—in Afghanistan). 

I went back to look up the rest of the passage in Lord Byron's poem—and found it was even more apropos to the situation than I had recalled. Tell not the deed to blushing Europe's ears; his Lordship writes, The ocean queen, the free Britannia, bears/  The last poor plunder from a bleeding land:/Yes, she, whose generous aid her name endears,/ Tore down those remnants with a harpy's hand.

The sense of national disgrace that Byron felt at the spectacle should be our own. The U.S. government, "whose generous aid her name endears"—or did once endear, in the time when it was still defending Ukraine and supporting her cause simply because it was the right thing to do—now seeks to pilfer from other countries like a craven sneak-thief. 

Our ears should indeed blush for shame. We, once renowned for our freedom and generosity as a nation—have become pirates and errand-boys for Putin's dictatorship. The last, the worst, dull spoiler, who was he/ Blush, Caledonia! such thy son could be! writes Byron. And so we should blush today—blush that our country, which once helped free Europe from fascist aggression—has lived to abet the territorial aggression of dictators on the same continent—and filched from their victims the last they had to give.