Trump thinks Putin's mind works like his

Trump's walk-back of his avowals that he believes Putin's denials with respect to interfering in US elections is a window into Trump epistemology.

Here's the walk-back:

I believe that he feels that he and Russia did not meddle in the election...I believe very much in our intelligence agencies...what he believes is what he believes.

That, incidentally, does comport with what he said about the Putin:

He said he didn't meddle. He said he didn't meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times...Every time he sees me, he says, 'I didn't do that".. And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it.

Trump actually did not say that Putin didn't meddle. He said Putin "means it" when he say he didn't meddle.

In other words, Trump thinks, or purports to think, that Putin thinks like he does: Whatever he wants to believe is true is true. Or, whatever he finds convenient to affirm is true.

By Trump's edits shall you know him

Josh Marshall details various ways that Trump's current business is dependent on funding from Russian oligarchs and operatives dependent on Putin, then notes Putin's hand in the GOP platform:

The Trump Camp was totally indifferent to the platform. So party activists were able to write one of the most conservative platforms in history. Not with Trump's backing but because he simply didn't care. With one big exception: Trump's team mobilized the nominee's traditional mix of cajoling and strong-arming on one point: changing the party platform on assistance to Ukraine against Russian military operations in eastern Ukraine. For what it's worth (and it's not worth much) I am quite skeptical of most Republicans call for aggressively arming Ukraine to resist Russian aggression. But the single-mindedness of this focus on this one issue - in the context of total indifference to everything else in the platform - speaks volumes.

This sparked a recent memory.  Tony Schwartz, Trump's "co-author" of The Art of the Deal (actually its sole author, as the publisher verifies), recounts the sum of Trump's input:

Are gays Putin's Jews?

Copping to next to no prior knowledge here, a claim about Putin's motives and world view caught my eye once, then twice in my weekend reading about the Ukraine crisis:

First, from Timothy Snyder:

Russian intervention in Ukraine is directed against the EU, which Moscow has now decided is a threat to its interests and indeed a civilizational challenge. President Putin’s global crusade against gays has become, during these last few weeks, a specific foreign policy doctrine directed against the EU. The Kremlin has made clear that control of Ukraine is one step towards the creation of a Eurasian Union, a rival organization to the EU which will reject European “decadence” in favor of a defense of Christian heterosexuality etc. For months press organs close to the Kremlin have referred to Europe as “Gayropa.”

Beyond disputin', an element of truth

The author of the words below might ask Americans, as the malign plutocrat banker Potter asked George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life after sketching out his life and prospects, "Do I paint too grim a picture? Or do I exaggerate?"

It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America’s long-term interest? I doubt it. Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under the slogan “you’re either with us or against us.” 

But force has proved ineffective and pointless. Afghanistan is reeling, and no one can say what will happen after international forces withdraw. Libya is divided into tribes and clans. In Iraq the civil war continues, with dozens killed each day. In the United States, many draw an analogy between Iraq and Syria, and ask why their government would want to repeat recent mistakes.

That's Vladimir Putin in the New York Times. Yes, he does paint too grim a picture, and exaggerate. The Libya intervention was authorized by the Security Council, e.g., by Russia under Medvedev   And Obama's proposed strike on Syria has little in common with Bush's invasion of Iraq. But the broad question -- have American military interventions post-9/11 done more good than harm? --is hard to answer in the affirmative.

 Again, below, does Putin paint too grim a picture?

Why did Putin do it?

Like almost anyone watching, I would be delighted if a U.S. strike against Syria could be averted by an agreement to place Syrian chemical weapons under international control.

At the same time: A world in which Vladimir Putin defuses a crisis by proposing and following through on an executable plan to reduce violence is not the world I thought we live in.  I can't help but at least half-expect yesterday's hope to go up in a puff of smoke, perhaps as Assad simply denies that his regime has any chemical weapons (Syrian buy-in thus far has been voiced by foreign minister Walid al-Moualem). Yet events are rushing forward. France has proposed a Security Council resolution calling on Syria to empower the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to destroy its chemical weapons and require Syria to join the OPCW, the implementing authority for the Chemical Weapons Convention. It's hard to see Russia blocking some kind of Security Council resolution to execute its proposal, if not France's current draft per se, and China too has indicated support. So even if action to secure Syrian CW does not materialize quickly, the Russian proposal seems to be on course at least to break the Security Council logjam and hence defuse the impetus for near-unilateral U.S. action. 

Why did Putin do it? The authorization for military action against Syria that the administration has sought seemed headed for near-certain defeat.  Almost two thirds of Americans are opposed to a strike.  Regarding international conflict, Americans don't want the country to lead, whether from in front or behind. According to the latest New York Times/CBS poll, released today, 62 percent say the U.S. should not take the lead among all other countries in the world in trying to resolve international conflicts, and 61 percent oppose air strikes against Syria. Those numbers are trending the wrong way for the administration.  So why would Putin move to avert a military strike that pretty clearly was not going to happen, at least not until further atrocities hit the headlines? Four possibilities come to mind:

Lost in paraphrase: a touch of Indian tact?

Below, compare WSJ reporter Jackie Range's paraphrasing preface to a statement by Indian Prime Minister Singh to what Singh actually said. A significant nuance in Singh's warning about Pakistan may have been flattened:

India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday termed Pakistan as the epicenter of terrorism and said Islamabad needs to do much more to crack down on militant activities on its soil.

"We have to galvanize the international community to deal with the epicenter of terrorism, which is located in Pakistan," Mr. Singh said, while replying to the debate in the lower house of Parliament on the security scenario in the country.

Singh's phrasing seems to differentiate malign forces "located in" Pakistan from Pakistan itself.

[Update, Dec. 14: more phrasing from Singh that stops short of accusing the Pakistani government of colluding with terrorists:

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said he hopes relations can be "normalized" — but not until "our neighbor stops allowing its territory to be used for acts of terrorism against India" (AP).

In a similar vein: the Indian government's recognition of its poor security apparatus recalls but makes an instructive contrast with Putin's bitter criticism of Russian security capabilities in the wake of the terrorist attack on the Beslan School in 2004. Putin used the occasion to gut democratic institutions, granting himself the power to appoint governors who to that point had been elected and otherwise consolidating the power of the Kremlin. Contrast the democratic accountability of India's new home minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram:

Mr. Chidambaram said several bills would be introduced to strengthen legal provisions relating to the "prevention, investigation, prosecution and punishment of terrorist acts," including setting up a national investigation agency.

Mr. Chidambaram also said India would create a coastal command to supervise and coordinate maritime and coastal security. The nation has 7,500 kilometers (4,660 miles) of coastline; the Mumbai attackers came by sea.

India's intelligence gathering and sharing needs to become more effective and results oriented, the home minister said, and its intelligence organizations need advanced technical equipment. Commando units from India's armed forces are being stationed around the country. Some 20 counter insurgency and anti-terrorism schools will be set up across India for training commando units of the state police forces, he said.

The home minister asked the Parliament to pass the necessary new laws before the current session ends Dec. 23.

Much now depends on the government's ability to follow through on its plans: "This needs to be quantified and needs to be implemented, only then are we going to see anything worthwhile," said Ajay Sahni of the South Asia Terrorism Portal, a New Delhi-based research outfit.

Here's praying that India's leaders and institutions can withstand the pressures of this fury- and terror-inducing attack -- and of the wrenching economic slowdown now gripping the country.