First, to everyone accusing me of not watching the full almost hour video before posting about my opinions, you obviously don’t know me very well. I absolutely watched it all before weighing in.
This is another comment I made under my other post. Let me be clear. I am not saying I agree with with Zelensky. I am saying this was a “how are we going to react to his comments and actions” situation? There are ways to put someone firmly in their place while not risking losing the trust of other foreign countries. Putin now has an upper hand.
I agree with those who have said that Zelensky was definitely trying to push his limits and see what he could get. Absolutely. I also think that we planned to stop helping them with money either way, yes. AND that he definitely needed to dial it back acting like we somehow HAVE to help or owe him something, etc.
But I would have also not just ASSUMED that what he said was a threat - I would have tried to clarify some things with conversation and still been calm but firm and matter of fact - non accusatory - with dialogue like this:
“What you just said very much sounded like a threat. Whether you meant it to or not, we will not know, but it is not taken well for you to come here to our country after we have helped you for years, acting like we somehow owe you something. I am not Biden, and we will no longer be giving you more money, but we will help you to stop this war. Please explain what you meant by that statement."
Then I'd have let him talk for a minute with NO interruption. Then you can kind of read whether he might be lying or actually meant something else. Again, cultural and language differences are often at play.
Depending on what he said, they could then just firmly say, "If you want to sign a peace agreement let's do so, if you only came here looking for money, that is not happening and there is no reason to continue this meeting."
The other thing I noticed while watching is that Trump touched his arm while he was reprimanding and talking down to him (Ukranians do not do well with physical touch or loud talking as a Culture). Unfortunately I think some things were perception and assumption and Trump and Vance jumped the gun on just how angry they got so quickly.
And the whole thing with bullying him and humiliating him about the way he dressed, well I did a whole Facebook post with a source on that, too. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18xUEbtUkB/
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