Cliff Kincaid
Coup plotters risk war with Russia
By Cliff Kincaid
In what was called a "strong message" to President Trump, the House of Representatives earlier this year passed the "NATO Support Act" by a vote of 357 to 22. That's the template for what follows impeachment – voting Ukraine into NATO, provoking Russia, and sending American soldiers off to fight and die in another corrupt foreign country.
The people testifying against Trump are part of the same group of bureaucratic losers who have mishandled our foreign policy for decades.
Consider the opening statement on impeachment before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence by George P. Kent, the Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, U.S. Department of State. He declared his admiration for foreign born bureaucrats opposing Trump and added, "...they are the 21st century heirs of two giants of 20th century U.S. national security policy who were born abroad: my former professor Zbigniew Brzezinski; and his fellow immigrant Henry Kissinger."
Let's recall that Kissinger, the architect of America's Vietnam defeat, had insisted in 2009 that President Obama could create a New World Order and that he had a good foreign policy team. He made these comments on CNBC during a "celebration" of 30 years of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China. Kissinger is perhaps best known for convincing President Nixon to establish diplomatic ties with China after insisting that China had abandoned communism and was no longer a threat.
That doesn't seem to have worked out so well.
It just so happens that George Kent's professor, the late former top Carter Administration official Zbigniew Brzezinski, served an administration that achieved notoriety for abandoning Iran to the Iranian ayatollahs and Nicaragua to the communist Sandinistas.
Those policies didn't work out so well, either.
They had wanted Trump to continue the Obama policies of supporting the Syrian Kurds, most of whom are associated with the Marxist-Leninist PKK terrorist organization. Trump rejected the advice of leaving American troops in the middle of a confrontation with the Turkish Armed Forces. In this case, Trump sided with a NATO member. Still, that didn't satisfy the Trump critics.
"American Betrayal," screamed NBC News foreign correspondent Richard Engel, in a special Sunday night show on Trump-hating MSNBC. His main witness to this "betrayal" was a Kurdish terrorist wanted for his crimes in Turkey.
Having failed to get the U.S. into a war with Turkey, the foreign policy bureaucrats have turned their attention to Ukraine.
In the name of saving Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia under a Democratic president, Barack Hussein Obama, the Democrats are trying to impeach a president who has done far more than Obama in providing defensive weapons and loans to Ukraine.
Looking at the controversy objectively, it is clear that Trump was asking that Ukrainian authorities investigate the corruption that was making the country weak in the face of the Russian threat. It just so happens that some of the corruption involved Joe Biden's son. Trump didn't think their political status should exempt them from scrutiny.
The Obama Administration not only failed to provide Ukraine the weapons the country needed for self-defense, but was complicit in draining financial resources away from a major Ukrainian gas company to the Biden family. With good reason, Trump found fault with that approach. He couldn't remain silent in the face of the evidence.
Rather than be impeached over this, Trump should be given an award for helping Ukraine get its fiscal and financial house in order. The Trump pressure campaign is just what that country – and American taxpayers – needed.
By making policy over Ukraine into an impeachable offense, Rep. Adam Schiff, a congressional sponsor of the recent Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation dinner, is making Ukraine's membership in NATO – and a possible war with Russia – almost inevitable. He understands the stakes, declaring in a Los Angeles Times column, "The heart of the [NATO] alliance – known as Article 5 – is the readiness to come to the aid of any member state if it is attacked." That's why it's significant that one of his key witnesses, the aforementioned State Department official George P. Kent, said, "Ultimately, Ukraine is on a path to become a full security partner of the United States within NATO. "
These bureaucrats and congressional liberals want American soldiers to fight and die on behalf of Ukraine against Russia, in a war that could go nuclear. But Trump's interest in the Ukrainian role in opposing his 2016 candidacy for president is something else that must be thoroughly investigated by Congress before NATO membership for Ukraine is even considered.
Practically speaking, NATO membership would be an obvious provocation inviting more Russian aggression, at a time when NATO is weak and most of its members can't or won't pay for their own defense. What Trump has been saying about the NATO deadbeats is entirely factual. He has questioned the value of NATO when only five of its 29 members actually pay their way. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted down an amendment from Senator Rand Paul demanding that NATO members spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense, which the alliance agreed to in 2014.
On October 22, without any fanfare or even much coverage, the U.S. Senate voted 91-2 to accept tiny Macedonia as a member, expanding NATO to 30 members. The only two "no" votes came from Republican Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee.
The Democrats' impeachment campaign, which is destined to fail in the Senate, is likely to be followed up by congressional demands for NATO membership for Ukraine. Emulating the debate over the NATO Support Act, most Republicans are likely to go along with the Democrats, in order to demonstrate their toughness. American troops will then be called on to sacrifice their lives for another corrupt country – part of which is already under Russian occupation – that can't defend itself.
Many Americans might be surprised to learn that 300 American soldiers have already been in Ukraine training its military, in a dangerous deployment authorized by Barack Hussein Obama back in 2015. Trump's America-First base of support would be outraged if they knew and would want Trump to bring the troops home. Trump supporters might say that a corrupt Ukraine whose government opposed Trump's election is not worth one more American dollar and certainly not one American soldier's life.
For their part, the coup plotters know that a war with Russia will cost many lives and damage the U.S. and world economies. It is a cynical and dangerous ploy that is unfolding before our eyes. But they are prepared to risk war with Russia for the chance to deny Trump a second term.
© Cliff Kincaid
November 18, 2019
In what was called a "strong message" to President Trump, the House of Representatives earlier this year passed the "NATO Support Act" by a vote of 357 to 22. That's the template for what follows impeachment – voting Ukraine into NATO, provoking Russia, and sending American soldiers off to fight and die in another corrupt foreign country.
The people testifying against Trump are part of the same group of bureaucratic losers who have mishandled our foreign policy for decades.
Consider the opening statement on impeachment before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence by George P. Kent, the Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, U.S. Department of State. He declared his admiration for foreign born bureaucrats opposing Trump and added, "...they are the 21st century heirs of two giants of 20th century U.S. national security policy who were born abroad: my former professor Zbigniew Brzezinski; and his fellow immigrant Henry Kissinger."
Let's recall that Kissinger, the architect of America's Vietnam defeat, had insisted in 2009 that President Obama could create a New World Order and that he had a good foreign policy team. He made these comments on CNBC during a "celebration" of 30 years of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China. Kissinger is perhaps best known for convincing President Nixon to establish diplomatic ties with China after insisting that China had abandoned communism and was no longer a threat.
That doesn't seem to have worked out so well.
It just so happens that George Kent's professor, the late former top Carter Administration official Zbigniew Brzezinski, served an administration that achieved notoriety for abandoning Iran to the Iranian ayatollahs and Nicaragua to the communist Sandinistas.
Those policies didn't work out so well, either.
They had wanted Trump to continue the Obama policies of supporting the Syrian Kurds, most of whom are associated with the Marxist-Leninist PKK terrorist organization. Trump rejected the advice of leaving American troops in the middle of a confrontation with the Turkish Armed Forces. In this case, Trump sided with a NATO member. Still, that didn't satisfy the Trump critics.
"American Betrayal," screamed NBC News foreign correspondent Richard Engel, in a special Sunday night show on Trump-hating MSNBC. His main witness to this "betrayal" was a Kurdish terrorist wanted for his crimes in Turkey.
Having failed to get the U.S. into a war with Turkey, the foreign policy bureaucrats have turned their attention to Ukraine.
In the name of saving Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia under a Democratic president, Barack Hussein Obama, the Democrats are trying to impeach a president who has done far more than Obama in providing defensive weapons and loans to Ukraine.
Looking at the controversy objectively, it is clear that Trump was asking that Ukrainian authorities investigate the corruption that was making the country weak in the face of the Russian threat. It just so happens that some of the corruption involved Joe Biden's son. Trump didn't think their political status should exempt them from scrutiny.
The Obama Administration not only failed to provide Ukraine the weapons the country needed for self-defense, but was complicit in draining financial resources away from a major Ukrainian gas company to the Biden family. With good reason, Trump found fault with that approach. He couldn't remain silent in the face of the evidence.
Rather than be impeached over this, Trump should be given an award for helping Ukraine get its fiscal and financial house in order. The Trump pressure campaign is just what that country – and American taxpayers – needed.
By making policy over Ukraine into an impeachable offense, Rep. Adam Schiff, a congressional sponsor of the recent Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation dinner, is making Ukraine's membership in NATO – and a possible war with Russia – almost inevitable. He understands the stakes, declaring in a Los Angeles Times column, "The heart of the [NATO] alliance – known as Article 5 – is the readiness to come to the aid of any member state if it is attacked." That's why it's significant that one of his key witnesses, the aforementioned State Department official George P. Kent, said, "Ultimately, Ukraine is on a path to become a full security partner of the United States within NATO. "
These bureaucrats and congressional liberals want American soldiers to fight and die on behalf of Ukraine against Russia, in a war that could go nuclear. But Trump's interest in the Ukrainian role in opposing his 2016 candidacy for president is something else that must be thoroughly investigated by Congress before NATO membership for Ukraine is even considered.
Practically speaking, NATO membership would be an obvious provocation inviting more Russian aggression, at a time when NATO is weak and most of its members can't or won't pay for their own defense. What Trump has been saying about the NATO deadbeats is entirely factual. He has questioned the value of NATO when only five of its 29 members actually pay their way. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted down an amendment from Senator Rand Paul demanding that NATO members spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense, which the alliance agreed to in 2014.
On October 22, without any fanfare or even much coverage, the U.S. Senate voted 91-2 to accept tiny Macedonia as a member, expanding NATO to 30 members. The only two "no" votes came from Republican Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee.
The Democrats' impeachment campaign, which is destined to fail in the Senate, is likely to be followed up by congressional demands for NATO membership for Ukraine. Emulating the debate over the NATO Support Act, most Republicans are likely to go along with the Democrats, in order to demonstrate their toughness. American troops will then be called on to sacrifice their lives for another corrupt country – part of which is already under Russian occupation – that can't defend itself.
Many Americans might be surprised to learn that 300 American soldiers have already been in Ukraine training its military, in a dangerous deployment authorized by Barack Hussein Obama back in 2015. Trump's America-First base of support would be outraged if they knew and would want Trump to bring the troops home. Trump supporters might say that a corrupt Ukraine whose government opposed Trump's election is not worth one more American dollar and certainly not one American soldier's life.
For their part, the coup plotters know that a war with Russia will cost many lives and damage the U.S. and world economies. It is a cynical and dangerous ploy that is unfolding before our eyes. But they are prepared to risk war with Russia for the chance to deny Trump a second term.
© Cliff Kincaid
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