Jefferson was right about Europe

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 7^th day of March in the year of our Lord 2025. I will be talking about Europe, Zelensky, and the war in Ukraine as well as the President’s speech to Congress and the Democrat reaction to it.

Disclaimer – the views expressed about Democratic Party politicians do not necessarily apply to Party rank-and-file

I will start today’s Report with a disclaimer. When I talk about Democrats and say nasty but always truthful things about them, when I refer to them in some disparaging terms I am talking about the politicians and their useful idiots in the media and not about individual Americans who identify as Democrats many of whom are dear friends or even relatives. So, I have no apology to offer for anything I have said or will say today about Democrat politicians. Because if I did not believe my position to be true I would certainly change it. In addition, there are some Republican politicians almost as bad as Democrats. Almost, but not quite – because they know better but are simply reacting as the self-serving political hypocrites that they are.

What exactly did Jefferson say about Europe?

The title of this Castle Report is taken from a quote by Thomas Jefferson offered more than 200 years ago. It is just as true today as it was then.

I have deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign toys. They are nations of eternal war.

Yes, they are nations of eternal war and since the end of World War II we, the United States, have been as well because we have served as the military enforcement arm of European nations, especially NATO members. Some events have recently come to pass that give me reason to hope that situation might be at least starting to change. One of those events was the meltdown in the Oval Office by President Zelensky of Ukraine.

Why would a man with almost no cards in his hand – at least no winning ones – make such a defiant spectacle of himself in the office of the President of the United States? The New York Post has the answer for us:

Before meeting Trump, Zelensky met with anti-Trump Democrats who advised him to reject the terms of the mineral deal the president was offering, according to Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). Just finished a meeting with President Zelensky here in Washington. He confirmed that the Ukrainian people will not support a fake peace agreement where Putin gets everything he wants and there are no security arrangements for Ukraine. He attached a picture of Zelensky at a conference table, with Murphy seated on the opposite side.

Some people have said that by listening to the democrats Zelensky betrayed his country and its people. But my question is, what about the Democrats? Who or what did they betray? They betrayed the American people and hindered the President’s ability to end a war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives. That could be a violation of the Logan act regarding foreign policy. But it is at least dangerous and reckless uncaring behavior.

What was Trump trying to accomplish?

Trump offered Zelensky a deal whereby he could express his gratitude to America by ceding the mineral rights to the very valuable rare earth minerals under the Ukrainian soil. You can hear my Castle Report called Ukraine is a Gold Mine by going to the index and finding 6-14-24. In that podcast I explain that neocon Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, tells us that we have to stay in the Ukraine war because it has a lot of valuable minerals under its soil.

Trump knows about the valuable minerals and he therefore proposed that Zelensky sign an agreement ceding the rights to those resources to the US in return for continued military and other economic support. The deal also would expect Zelensky to show gratitude and humility for the roughly $200 billion already provided to Ukraine. Zelensky was not humble and he was not grateful. He was, instead, arrogant and demanding, just as the Democrats advised him to be.

The Democrats, it seems, misread this room just as they misread the election. The American people gave their opinion that they wanted peace and Trump was the only one promising it. Here, with what amounts to an adversary, the Democrats intentionally sabotaged the President’s efforts to end the war, a truly despicable act potentially causing many deaths for partisan political purposes. It comes very close to a political crime resulting potentially in mass loss of life.

Did Trump offer the best deal for America?

Having said all that, I don’t like the deal Trump offered Zelensky and here is why. I don’t think Zelensky should be grateful but neither do I think he should be insulting. It was Zelensky with Democrat encouragement, who wanted this Oval Office meeting. Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained that they wanted to handle the negotiations diplomatically, but Zelensky insisted on the meeting. He, with Democrat encouragement, wanted this staged show for the world to embarrass Trump while the war continues.

He, Zelensky, insisted on a US guarantee of security for Ukraine and continued to press for NATO membership, both unobtainable dreams. The reason I don’t think he owes the US gratitude is that the US is at least partially responsible for this war through its actions toward Russia going back to 1990 and especially its involvement in the Ukrainian coup of 2014. Additionally, in the early stages of the war Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin explained to us that the real purpose of US involvement in the war was to weaken Russia. Lindsey Graham helped by telling us how valuable Ukraine was in terms of its natural resources.

The U.S. should not emulate Europe in planting mining colonies

In other words, it was about the US and its own political or imperialistic desires and not about Ukraine and its people. The proposal for Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, so valuable in today’s world, I don’t like either, in fact, I completely disagree with it. It is not much different from the European colonial period where the Nations of Britain, France, Germany, and Portugal went about the world acquiring colonies by military conquest. The US had to come along and in a sometimes-vain effort, clean up the mess as we tried to do in Vietnam. So no, I don’t like it at all and I hope the President will take a different approach.

What Trump should do instead (involves disengaging from Europe)

What approach would I recommend to President Trump? I would tell him to understand what has happened so far and why. Ukraine should be free to negotiate deals with private companies of it’s choosing for the minerals it is incapable of mining on its own. We should advise Zelensky that he should make some accommodation with Russia. Because unless he wants our help in the negotiations we are out immediately. If he does accept our help then we will help him with negotiations with Russia. And then we are out, because we have decided to finally listen to Mr. Jefferson and follow his advice. I would tell the Europeans that NATO was formed as a defensive alliance. But all it has done is provoke war and now it has us on the brink of a nuclear confrontation.

The United States is, therefore withdrawing from NATO and if you Europeans want to continue your destruction of Ukraine you are on your own. If you get yourself involved in a kinetic war with Russia please keep it on your side of the Atlantic and don’t come crying to us as you have so many times before. Zelensky’s demands on their face are absurd, unobtainable, and a waste of breath. The only purpose I can see in them is political show for Trump’s Democrat enemies at home and his European enemies abroad.

We have problems of our own

Make a deal with Russia, make a deal with China, and start the process by talking to them. Talk to everybody and be a friend of liberty everywhere but guarantee only our own. Ask all those Democrat Senators if they would be willing to send their own sons and daughters into the Ukrainian meat grinder to ensure the independence from Russia of the Russian speaking provinces of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea.

There is so much in this political world that is just for show and simply jostling for power. Unfortunately, that gamesmanship costs lives and in the case of this war hundreds of thousands of lives. Stop all this war and colonial exploitation, come home, mind your own business, and start paying attention to problems here.

We have people here without medical insurance or any way to get medical treatment when they need it. People in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee have no homes due to the hurricane. People in California are the same due to wildfires. Infrastructure is crumbling and needs maintenance in virtually the entire country. I like the instructions to drill baby drill although it sounds trite there are hundreds of thousands perhaps millions of jobs in that industry. Let’s put people back to work actually doing something and not hire them to make our fake numbers look a little better.

Eliminate the waste and fraud (and the abuse)

No more stimulus and no more giveaways because that just fuels inflation and costs everybody in the long run. It is always a net loss for everyone except the power-seeking politicians. Bill Bonner again:

The feds hold no bake sales. They sell no cookies, door to door, nor engage in charitable fundraising. They produce few goods and offer few services that people would willingly pay for. When they want money they just take it.

So, it was last year that they took $4.9 trillion in tax revenue. But they spent $6.7 trillion. Whence cometh the difference? From other forms of taxation—inflation, primarily and tariffs.

If I could accomplish one thing only from these Castle Reports it would be to show people that unless we do something to quickly balance the budget and reduce debt we are headed for disaster. Trump is at least trying to stem the flow of waste and fraud. People, I hope, can understand that Medicare, Medicaid, and especially Social Security are made stronger by eliminating waste and fraud, not weaker. The Democrats choose to alarm people when fraud is found. And I suspect it is not because they believe their frightening headlines, but because they profit from the fraud and they want to keep it coming.

Hopefully, the election process will punish those politicians who cannot read the room and continue to act like spoiled children. Didn’t their rout in the recent election teach them anything? Can’t they understand that the man they hate is standing there speaking to them because the American people wanted him there? Yes you can sit on your hands, hold up childish signs, and scroll through your phones while the President is speaking. When the President introduces some poor child with lifetime cancer just sit there and don’t applaud. The people see you and they won’t forget so just keep it up because the midterms are just around the corner.

End the war in Ukraine, get out of Europe,…

In conclusion folks, it is past time for the war in Ukraine to be ended. It took an act of criminal insanity for the US to involve itself in a border war between two countries on the other side of the world. Ukraine or the Ukraine means borderland and it was once just a region with shifting borders until Lenin created it as a territory just after World War I ended. Why would the US commit this act of insanity. For one, Ukraine has become a massive black hole swallowing up hundreds of billions and is in effect a giant laundromat. Something like 30% of all weapons delivered were sold on the black market to terrorists and Mexican drug cartels yet we keep sending. For two, the US and the Europeans say they fear that Russia wants to conquer Europe, but I suspect it’s the other way around.

The Soviet Union could not conquer Europe, only Eastern Europe, and the Russian Federation is far less capable. But if the Europeans are under some delusion that they can defeat Russia in a war, someone should enlighten them. Countries with 6000 nuclear missiles do not surrender or accept defeat with missiles still in their silos.

… and face what certain politicians really want

Finally, folks, I pray for Donald Trump and I wish him much success. Since 1971 the dollar has lost 88% of its purchasing power. The top 1% have taken over 50% of all wealth just since 2008. US manufacturing jobs have been cut by nearly half; this was not an accident but by design. Now for the first time an administration is at least trying to dismantle the system of fraud and waste. What do Trump’s resisters want? More debt, more unchecked spending, more opaque finances? Resistance as they see it really means, keep the checks flowing.

At least that’s the way I see it,

Until next time folks,

This is Darrell Castle.

From CastleReport.us, appears by arrangement – Ed.