Showing posts with label lethal aid to Ukraine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lethal aid to Ukraine. Show all posts

Thursday, January 23, 2020

Democrats Are Impeaching The Wrong President

Day Two of the Trump Derangement Syndrome Impeachment Trial sent me into a persistent vegetative state. Watching Adam Schiff self-immolate was the only saving grace of Act II of this shameless circus.

In a video tweeted out by ABC News, Schiff is heard lauding the military aid approved by Congress to help Ukraine defend itself.  He mentions what that aid was and tugs at our heartstrings by pointing out more than 15,000 Ukrainians died fighting Russian forces and their proxies.
Mr. Schiff, Nancy Pelosi’s ringleader in this farcical trial, is impeaching the wrong president.

The Obama Administration allocated Ukraine the paltry sum of $33 million in nonlethal support in the form of meals-ready-to-eat (MREs), blankets, bomb disposal equipment, night vision goggles, radios and engineering equipment.

In June 2014, Obama’s State Department continued to rule out providing weapons to help Ukraine fight against pro-Russian insurgents.

Lech Walesa, the heroic leader of Poland’s 2005 Solidarity labor movement, was highly critical of the decision saying, “The superpower has not been up to the job, and therefore the world is at a dangerous point and maybe it really is the case that lots of bad things are happening in the world because there is no leadership.”

Just a month before, the German publication Der Spiegel spoke with intellectuals from the United States, Western and Eastern Europe about what the events in Ukraine meant for Europe and the rest of the world.

Yale Professor Timothy Snyder told Der Spiegel,  “I think Putin is playing an all-or-nothing game, geopolitically speaking. He no longer cares about tolerable relations with the EU or about a solid relationship with Ukraine. Putin has opted for something else, a much larger project, to destabilize Ukraine and the EU [emphasis mine]. It's an all-or-nothing game because there is no going back, now that he has embarked on this path.”
SPIEGEL: Because the United States remains oddly removed from the conflict, the German government and Brussels are virtually alone in their diplomatic efforts. Has the United States lost interest in Europe? 
SNYDER: For a long time, the United States and, most of all Barack Obama, believed that Russia wouldn't make any moves, that Europe was extremely stable, and that China was the difficult country it had to deal with. Now Putin has changed that. The United States probably isn't sufficiently involved at the moment, but the US government is interested in Europe again. This is a fundamental shift. Three things have changed internationally: The EU is being confronted with a fundamental threat for the first time, America once again values the transatlantic partnership, and Ukrainian identity has been strengthened. Anyone who thinks Putin is a strategic genius should take a look at what he's achieved. If he had allowed things to continue as they had, America would gradually have drifted away from Europe, (former) President Viktor Yanukovych would have continued to ruin Ukraine and the Europeans would have kept doing what they were doing.
The Obama Administration willfully ignored the increasing Ukrainian loss of life and spilled blood with its vague promises of sanctions and expressions of “concern” delivered safely from the sidelines.

One senior Obama Administration official explained, “Ukraine is not a NATO ally, complicating the question of how to support its government.”

Congress has not been queasy about authorizing lethal assistance to any number of questionable regimes, yet when it came to Ukraine, Obama suddenly worried about the formality of alliances?  Spare me.

The New York Times, noted for its access to the inner sanctums of the Obama Administration, sized up Barack Obama correctly in a published report entitled Pentagon Plan Would Help Ukraine Target Rebel Missiles. It confirmed Obama responds to strength with weakness.

That paltry $33 million in blankets and MREs was a cowardly attempt to help Ukraine without provoking Putin.

When the first public impeachment hearing was held in November of last year, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) reminded Americans of the hot mic moment in 2012 when The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, “This is my last election.  After my election I have more flexibility.”

Wenstrup said, "Maybe now we understand what President Obama meant when he told Russian President Medvedev that he would have more flexibility after his election. Maybe that flexibility was to deny lethal aid to the Ukraine, allowing Russia to march right in and kill Ukrainians."

So, we’re impeaching a president over a phone call?  Those 15,000 Ukrainians who died were not on President Trump’s watch.  The lethal aid was delayed a mere 55 days and did not disrupt Ukraine’s military.  It consisted of AN/TPQ-36 counter-battery radar and FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missile systems which lets the U.S. stand with its allies without putting boots on the ground.

According to Defense News, President Trump is seeking an additional $250 million in security aid for Ukraine in his 2020 budget request to Congress.  Incidentally, that report was published on December 4, 2019 BEFORE the jackwagons in the House voted to impeach our President.

UPDATE:  Welcome readers of Whatfinger News.    
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Thursday, November 14, 2019

After Three Years And Countless Deceptions, Democrats Lack The Credibility To Hurl Accusations At President Trump

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, articulated his trepidation with the Democrats’ case for impeaching President Trump during the first hearing not to be conducted behind closed doors.

“For years they accused the Trump campaign of colluding with Russia when they themselves were colluding with Russia by funding and spreading the Steele dossier, which relied on Russian sources. And now they accuse President Trump of malfeasance in Ukraine when they themselves are culpable. The Democrats cooperated in Ukrainian election meddling, and they defend Hunter Biden’s securing of a lavishly paid position with a corrupt Ukrainian company, all while his father served as Vice President.”

[SKIP]

“What we will witness today is a televised theatrical performance staged by the Democrats. Ambassador Taylor and Mr. Kent—I’d like to welcome you here and congratulate you for passing the Democrats’ Star Chamber auditions held for the last six weeks in the basement of the Capitol. It seems you agreed, wittingly or unwittingly, to participate in a drama. But the main performance—the Russia hoax—has ended, and you’ve been cast in the low-rent Ukrainian sequel.”

I’ll conclude by noting the immense damage the politicized bureaucracy has done to Americans’ faith in government. Though Executive Branch employees are charged with implementing the policy set by our President, who is elected by and responsible to the American people, elements of the civil service have decided that they, not the President, are really in charge.”

[SKIP]

“Officials showed a surprising lack of interest in the indications of Ukrainian election meddling that deeply concerned the President at whose pleasure they serve. Despite all their dissatisfaction with President Trump’s Ukraine policy, the President approved the supply of weapons to Ukraine, unlike the previous administration, which provided blankets as defense against invading Russians.”

”By undermining the President who they are supposed to be serving, elements of the FBI, the Department of Justice, and now the State Department, have lost the confidence of millions of Americans who believe that their vote should count for something. It will take years, if not decades, to restore faith in these institutions.”

“This spectacle is doing great damage to our country. It’s nothing more than an impeachment process in search of a crime.”

Since taking office, the Trump Administration has continued to pressure Russia over its involvement in eastern Ukraine.  In January 2018, the U.S. imposed new sanctions on 21 individuals and nine companies linked to the conflict in March 2018, the State Department approved the sale of Javelin anti-tank weapons to Ukraine, the first sale of lethal weaponry since the conflict began in July 2018 the Department of Defense announced an additional $200 million in defensive aid, bringing the total amount of aid provided since 2014 to $1 billion.

In his opening statement on October 22nd, behind closed doors, Acting Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor described a visit to the frontlines in northern Donbas over the summer in vivid terms that underscored his views on the importance of U.S. security assistance to Ukraine. 


"I could see the armed and hostile Russian-led forces on the other side of the damaged bridge across the line of contact," Taylor said. "Over 13,000 Ukrainians had been killed in the war, one or two a week. To this day, that continues. More Ukrainians would undoubtedly die without US assistance."

The Ukraine conflict, which began in 2014, has led to roughly 13,000 deaths and displaced roughly 1.6 million people. 
The Maidan uprising, which took place on the eve of the closing day of the Sochi Winter Games, astonished and enraged Putin.  He responded by ordering the takeover of Crimea at dawn on the morning of February 23, 2014. The war of aggression, occupation, and annexation that followed turned out to be the grim beginning of a new era and what might be the start of a new cold war, or worse.

At its heart, however, the conflicts within Ukraine and the fight Putin has picked with Ukraine, are about post-Soviet kleptocracy and where and whether there is a popular will to resist it.

The impeachment spectacle we witnessed yesterday and will have to endure in the coming weeks, perhaps even months, has been designed to turn a phone call into a crime. 
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