Letter from London: All Along the Watchtower

Photograph Source: President Of Ukraine – CC0

There must be some way out of here…

Before Ukraine declared it was ready to agree to a proposed 30-day ceasefire after the US said it would resume giving weapons, a talented friend living in London texted me last week:: ‘I met three Englishmen who are joining the reserves because they want to offer their support. All late-50s, early 60s, useless in war, but all well-off and feel they need to make a stand.’ So what is going on here, I was left thinking? Has Trump created a European Frankenstein which soon will have his number? Do these no doubt upstanding citizens who are joining the reserves see themselves as knights in shining armour? Even Sabrina Carpenter at the BRIT (British Record Industry Trust) Awards was playfully performing on stage with dancing soldiers in bright lollipop-red uniforms and bearskins.

…said the joker to the thief

Who knows what happens next but we do now know that Polish leader Donald Tusk across the Channel was about to announce military training for all Polish men. Was this before or after we learned that Trump was now considering redeploying US military personnel from Germany to his and Russia’s close friend Hungary? There were even growing German fears that F-35 jets bought for the German army can be ‘turned off’ remotely by Washington.

There’s too much confusion…

At the same time, unverified word was coming in on social media that Putin ‘regrets’ triggering a full-scale war in Ukraine costing hundreds of thousands of lives. This was according to Putin pal and Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko. Odd, I was thinking. That doesn’t sound like Putin. Had I not once heard this before? We are sold so many whoppers—from both sides of the equation—that it gets harder to tell them apart. ‘Putin didn’t expect it would turn into such a war,’ added Lukashenko, with peculiar meekness, not to mention an accompanying loud silence greeting Russia’s continued rolling advance, an advance thanks in part to the incentivisation of the US pausing its intelligence and satellite imagery for Ukraine. (The UK incidentally was continuing its own weapon supplying, intelligence, and ‘help on the cyber front,’ as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster—head of the Cabinet Office—Pat McFadden phrased it at the weekend.)

…I can’t get no relief

Were these words by Lukashenko timed to make the self-possessed Russian leader look gentle, look generous? Or was it part of some macabre form of performative stalling while his boss madly fought on before any ceasefire? Whatever, it disappeared as a story just as quickly as it came, lost down the plughole of history, a plughole so choked we may need one of those giant plungers.

Businessmen, they drink my wine…

Of greater certainty over here was that JD Vance was vying with salutist South African Musk—whose Teslas Brits are offloading in record number—as the UK’s least popular member of the US administration. (Peter Thiel, the other South African businessman, the one not only behind Vance’s political career but his conversion to Catholicism, has not really registered here.)

…ploughmen dig my earth

When Vance sniped at European leaders for publicly backing Zelenskyy while calling for an end to the war in private, most Europeans and Brits were peering over the Atlantic at the ripped up fields of sensible discourse, feeling more baffled than insulted. I for one could not recall a single European leader calling for war. Those last week saying Europeans were desperate to take a pop at the Russians must have had their conspiracy theories in a mix. In truth, people were both publicly AND privately urging Zelenskyy to rebuild bridges with Trump, painful though that must have been for some Europeans, for Zelenskyy, and for the UK. I can only guess the Europeans-want-to-fight narrative was to help the tiresome Russian-urged and US-furthered anti-European one.

None of them along the line…

I must say, I missed Vance’s response—if there was one—to the subsequent EU unveiling of €800 billion ($864 billion) in defence spending. ‘The EU is now going to blather on yet again about ‘strategic autonomy’, ‘building up its defence to reduce reliance on America’ etc,’ sniped a cynical Dominic Cummings. But Europe was deadly serious, it seemed. It wanted an independent deterrence. Trump was fast-learning that he had weakened Ukraine but strengthened Europe. That night, almost 70 missiles and over 190 drones were fired on Ukraine by the Russian friend of the White House. Once again, these were massive strikes after the US had paused its shared intelligence with the Ukrainians—‘suffocating’ Ukrainian hope, as former UK defence secretary Ben Wallace put it—while boasting a softness on Putin. The UK as a result—whatever it said publicly—was now in the throes of reassessing its transatlantic relationship. An element of which was explained by UK journalist and neighbour Dan Hodges in the Mail On Sunday at the weekend. He wrote of a real risk for the UK in sharing human intelligence with the US—as there was a danger of compromising UK assets, according to one senior intelligence source, because of Trump’s closeness to Putin. I had just read this when an erudite American I knew sent me a link to it without comment. Basically, Trump ‘within the service’ was now considered ‘a possible agent of influence’. (‘The potential deal is a devil’s brew,’ wrote Robert Service last week of whatever it is that Trump and Putin are up to.) Where does this leave his supporters? Must they be considered pro-Putin too? The Hodges article ended: ‘The truth is that Britain’s intelligence services no longer trust the President of the United States. It isn’t hard to see why.’

…know what any of it is worth

‘I am finding it quite frankly more difficult to deal with Ukraine,’ admitted Trump last week. As people know, US intelligence had previously meant Kyiv received advance warning of attacks. People were now trying to figure out how any peace failure by Trump would be presented if fighting remained. Would it be dispensed as Zelenskyy’s fault? Or is this, in fact, what is already happening?

‘No reason to get excited…’

As one articulate USAF veteran posted to me publicly last week on the back of my last Letter: ‘Many of us in USA feel ill. Betrayal of values, ethics, Allies/friends. Our standing up for freedom. Against bullies trying to take over countries. All fought for, and against. We’re here.’ A friend in the American Northwest wrote: ‘Yeah, that must be really terrible for soldiers to have to deal with. Especially if they’ve lost friends on the battlefield. I was out in Idaho visiting my Dad‘s place and even the Mormons, who are super conservative, are worried about Trump.’ Vance even managed to mention former Brit Army reservist and Christian convert Adam Smith-Connor yet again while firing off his usual invective about Europe. Smith-Connor was the anti-abortion protestor arrested outside an abortion clinic while inside one of the 150-meter protection zones that exist for women’s safety around all abortion clinics in the UK.

…the thief, he kindly spoke

However, loathing for Vance here came loudest when he inanely dismissed what could only have been the UK or France by complaining about a ‘random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years’. As it happened, repercussions from a war took place simultaneously with a 500kg unexploded WW2 bomb with 200kg of explosives shutting down the Gare du Nord railway station in Paris, along with all its proud inter-European London-Paris, Paris-London, Brussels-Paris and Paris-Brussels rail services. That bomb of course was from days of the likes of the US and UK and Canada fighting fascism together. Not forgetting the more recent conflicts including the use of NATO’s Article 5 in response to the September 11 attacks—and the subsequent loss of many UK lives helping the US.

‘There are many here among us…

Colonel Simon Diggins OBE (Retired) posted of Vance’s remarks: ‘What is distasteful is the disgraceful, and incomparably rude, haranguing of a brave defender of his country by @JDVance and his Fratboy mates. You make peace because it is the right thing to do, not so you can exploit a badly weakened country. As for democracy, Jan 6 2020?’

…who feel that life is but a joke’

Of course, all this was happening while the still new US administration was fraternising with Zelenskyy’s political opponents, including opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, as well as members of ex-president Petro Poroshenko’s team, giving a no doubt misleading impression of scrabbling about for someone Moscow would be happy with. At the EU summit of leaders towards the end of last week in Brussels, Zelenskyy was reported as supportive of plans for a truce, even if only partial, to halt air, sea and critical infrastructure hits, as if testing from his side if Putin was serious or not about ending this—his—war. No one here in London was actively saying Zelenskyy should resign if it leads to lasting peace but it was certainly there as a thought. Nor was anyone serious here pretending Russia wouldn’t keep some of what it has taken. Though probably not inspired by George Washington saying America should steer clear of permanent alliances, the US had not at this point informed its present so-called allies that it was halting participation in military exercises in Europe.

‘But you and I, we’ve been through that…

The world has been reeling elsewhere in horror too. Craig Spencer is that rare thing—an ER doctor and Ebola survivor. He knows of which he speaks. A few weeks ago, Uganda declared an Ebola outbreak. When I was there in Entebbe and Kampala a year ago, I was told the protocol during such outbreaks was for the US to send one of its Ebola experts over. Where would we be without US expertise in this field, I remember thinking? Well, now we know. No experts came.

…and this is not our fate

According to Stanley, the new administration simply would not let anyone go. This meant for instance no immediate border screenings, either. Nor was there any of the essential contact with WHO because CDC staff were forbidden from speaking to them. As Spencer explained, Uganda tried calling the White House directly to tell them about the outbreak and did so for two whole days. But no one took the call. This was because hundreds of frontline experts had already been fired.

So, let us not talk falsely now…

Nor was it true, according to Spencer, when the t-shirted South African said to the US cabinet a few weeks ago, before his latest fiery showdown, ‘one of the things we accidentally cancelled very briefly was Ebola prevention’—the South African even paused for a laugh at this point—which he said was something quickly restored. Not according to Spencer. Prevention efforts were not resumed at all. The kids left to run amok over everyone’s data had taken apart the entire response structures for ending Ebola outbreaks abroad. Okay—or so you could slither the argument—the purely transactional US had already decided it only wanted to engage with the rest of the world when there was something in it for them.

…the hour is getting late’

Having nothing in place to protect Americans at home would certainly mean something in it for them.

All along the watchtower…

The majority of people over here are deeply concerned about the US, perhaps especially the absence of criticism of the Russians, only an apparent bully’s disregard for Ukraine (as if Ukraine was frightened of bullies, anyway). Recent polling says the majority of Brits now consider the US an unreliable ally. With all this talk of upping our own defence budgets, Brits know they will have to monitor carefully new procurements—and not just because of last week’s accusation by Dominic Cummings of fake defence budgets and counterproductive purchasing. Nor will we necessarily sufficiently grasp Ukraine’s profound importance to Russia in a way that goes beyond war. (This is also important for peace.) Ukraine will never be to us what it is to Russia. Regardless, peace still cannot come soon enough.

…princes kept the view

Back here, many people were also tiring of Americans doing-down of neighbour and friend Canada—with whom, like it or not, the UK shares more than just a King. Indeed, it goes without saying the UK has more historical ties with Canada than with Ukraine, even than with the US. Canada standing up for itself inspires many Brits here right now like a home run.

While all the women came and went…

I used to relish travelling to Toronto when I lived in New York. (Despite Canada’s significantly lower rate of firearm homicides than the US, I do realise there was an awful shooting in a pub there at the weekend leaving at least 12 people wounded.) A quick flight from LaGuardia and I was there. I particularly enjoyed the idea of all that trust in having so many unlocked doors. Also, there were Scots connections galore, including my host who moved there from Edinburgh. This love for Canada came on the tails of a boyhood in Scotland crammed with Mounties and Canadian forests and lots of Neil Young songs. I wanted to visit that ‘town in North Ontario’ in Helpless. I wanted to see those ‘blue, blue windows behind the stars’. I knew it was the Scots after the Vikings who were the first settlers in Canada, stepping off their briny boats as early as the 1600s, though the largest wave came from the 1760s—after the Highland Clearances—to the 1860s. This was aboard Scots ships like the Hector from Loch Broom which landed in Petou in Nova Scotia (New Scotland). Why, even The Thirty-Nine Steps Scots writer John Buchan became Governor General of Canada.

…barefoot servants, too

However, no sooner had our eyes settled last week on the brazen way Canada was responding to Trump’s shifting tariffs, and no sooner had King Charles donned his Canadian medals aboard HMS Prince of Wales when visiting a Senior Service regularly monitoring Russian ships in the Channel, than China fired back to the US: ‘If war is what the US wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end.’ At the same time, a spy ring receiving orders from Russia was found guilty in London last Friday following the biggest spy investigation in the UK. The spy ring was made up of UK-based Bulgarians found guilty of kidnapping, disinformation, surveillance of a journalist, surveillance of Ukrainian troops in Germany, even secret weapons trading with China, all from a modest little base on the East coast of England close to where the setting of the last book by John le Carré. As if more was needed, news was also coming in fast of Russian forces aided by North Koreans breaking through more Ukrainian lines weakened by the absence of US intelligence, severing the messy Kursk offensive in two, and now eying up a major supply route. Trump may have left Kyiv ‘blind’ but Ukraine was next reported as having thwarted a Russian attack through a gas pipeline in Kursk with what it called ‘very high’ enemy losses.

Outside in the distance…

Right now, with US shares doing worse than the rest of the world, most US manufacturing seemed to be of enemies. Someone I know insists this mayhem good, and I recoil when they call it chemotherapy, saying it takes the body closer to death in order to kill the fatal disease. ‘The alternative is death,’ he says, citing banker Jamie Dimon a year ago saying the US would have a fiscal collapse within five years if it continued on its current path. I wander about in a subsequent daze, wishing I could sit under a tree for a moment, in a nice warm climate, reading poetry instead. (Actually I did re-read TS Eliot’s Ash Wednesday on Ash Wednesday last week, and it was unseasonably sunny.) Meanwhile, our Trump-supporting Reform UK party was imploding while tearing shreds out of each other. This was just as the Massed Bands of HM Royal Marines marched solemnly nearby. In battle, Royal Marines are often the tip of the sword—not to be confused with the spear-phishing regularly used to access info on UK citizens and organisations as revealed in the recent spy ring trial. Every soldier in Europe must be quietly checking the horizon. ‘Trump and Putin expected that multipolarity would mainly involve Russia, China, America and perhaps India and Brazil,’ also wrote Robert Service. ‘They may have to think again if old Europe—for the first time in its many centuries—manages to unite for the sake of its survival and well-being.’ The combined population of Europe is larger than the US and Russia. Here in the UK last week, RLC (The Royal Logistic Corps) regiment trucks were transporting UK tanks to and from ranges. With the UK back at the heart of European policy-making, this no longer looked like a game of soldiers.

…a wildcat did growl

As if all this was not enough, Silicon Valley giants continued to move their tanks closer to the lawns of UK artists—make art not war—though final plans were not expected in parliament before the summer. This was all about letting US companies train AI models on copyrighted content for free. The NHS was already spending a lot of money on expensive foreign—typically US—IT systems, including Peter Thiel’s data analysis and surveillance company Palantir with a contract of up to £330 million ($387 million). ‘Their equipment has helped to enable Donald Trump’s brutal crackdown on migrant communities and the mass targeting and detention of marginalised people,’ said Scottish Green politician and lecturer Maggie Chapman. The only good news was that top copyright lawyer and artist-saviour Nicholas Caddick KC had just said any theft of artists’ content may be breaking the Berne Convention which states that a creator’s work—music, painting, etc—is protected the moment it is written or recorded or ‘painted’.

Two riders were approaching…

I went to the horse’s mouth and asked an American AI chatbot what the hell was going on. ‘From an artist’s perspective, this could feel like exploitation,’ it admitted to me. ‘On the other hand,’ it added, disingenuously, ‘AI developers might argue that broad access to data fuels innovation and that AI models don’t “copy” works directly but rather learn from patterns.’ A part of me always dies when I read AI lingo. One UK minister with a penchant for hip suits and over-tight language—or should that be the other way round?—was claiming any such surrender—my words not his—will help bring lots of cha-chings to the nation’s not so busy till—so someone here would be making money—but, please, for a moment, can we just step back a bit? Imagine handing over your life’s work for free in order for others, people you don’t even know—from another country freshly voting against you with Russia and North Korea at the United Nations—to make money out of you? (Altogether different, I would argue cheerfully, to using an openly attributed Bob Dylan song as your thread of attuned despair.) In the meantime, another 20 people were killed after yet another large-scale Russian drone attack, including a double-tap on first responders in Dobropillia—basically, Trump’s friend targeting rescuers. This was after Trump defended Putin on air by saying he was ‘doing what anybody would do’. Closer to home, I wondered how the three late-50s, early 60s Englishmen, who were joining the reserves, were getting on.

…the wind began to howl

*With apologies to Bob Dylan

The post Letter from London: All Along the Watchtower appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Peter Bach.

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