Looking at the photo of FDR, Churchill and Stalin as he was constructing his last blog post, Mad Dog was struck by a discomforting thought: Here were the warriors for the great and good cause--the defeat of the monstrous Hitler--sitting amiably next to another monster, Stalin.
Here we had the leaders of two democracies sitting next to a dictator, who imposed famine on Ukraine and whose crimes are now well enough known to send angels shrieking from the room.
But that monster was helping the democracies defeat the more immediate threat: Hitler and fascism.
Expediency, incarnate.
Without Stalin, the enemy of our enemy, Hitler would certainly have won the war against England and America.
So FDR sat next to Stalin and used him as the situation required.
Eric Arthur Blair (aka George Orwell) tried to get his book, "Animal Farm" published in 1943, in the middle of the fight against Hitler, but no English or American publisher would touch this polemic against Stalin and the Russian revolution. They knew Britain and the US needed Stalin. They were not going to spit in the eye of an essential ally.
Now we have the revolting spectacle of Trump shouting in the face of a truly brave and righteous man, "You don't have any cards without us!" For Trump, it's all a game, a protection racket, a gottcha moment.
President Zelensky knows he is in the position of Poland circa 1939--He's got Russia attacking on one border and from the other side he's got Trump, like Hitler and Stalin, two tyrants salivating to carve up his country.
Be practical, Trump says. You're dead meat without me. Putin is now an essential ally as Trump sees it. We can be indifferent to Europe, but Trump wants to play along with Putin, maybe to profit from that relationship.
Zelensky now knows it's the frying pan or the fire.
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