Wednesday, October 2, 2019

So what's wrong with Trump using military aid to shake down Ukraine?

Updated October 5, 2019 and revision.

A version of this was published in Winter Park Times as Whose side is Trump on anyway?  10/11/19
https://winterparktimes.com/opinion/columnists/whose-side-is-trump-on-anyway/

So what is wrong with withholding military aid from a foreign country to get them to do your bidding? President  Donald Trump asks. If it serves our national interests, no problem. If it does not, what then?  Late last month a whistleblower stepped forward to complain that Trump's use of withholding military aid to Ukraine was for Trump's own self-serving political benefit. The second whistleblower coming forth it appears has the first-hand knowledge of Trump's pressuring the Ukrainian government.  With the late September White House release of a memorandum of a telephone call on July 25 between Trump and the newly elected president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky,  it was revealed Trump tied denial and granting of military aid to promote his personal domestic political advantage in his campaign for reelection in 2020.  The week before the call Trump had frozen the military aid. President Zelensky said he was ready to get the aid needed to fight a hot war with Russia within their borders.  Donald Trump immediately replied," I have some favors to ask, though.." Those favors Trump asked included finding evidence Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in 2016 elections and for Ukraine to provide dirt on Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's son's business dealings in Ukraine. Trump viewed Joe Biden as his most likely challenger for his re-election in 2020.   The result was that the House of Representatives with Democrats in the majority opened a formal impeachment inquiry to see if there was cause to impeach President Trump for compromising US  national security by seeking dirt from a foreign leader on a political rival for his own domestic political benefit. In depositions in the House committees, just resigned US envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, provided a series of emailed conversations with fellow US diplomats that verified  withholding military aid and an invitation for Zelensky to  visit the White House were used as sticks and carrots  to get  a reluctant  Zelensky to reopen a previously dead-end investigations into Hunter Biden's business dealings with a Ukraine energy company. Trump also asked Ukraine to open an investigation to blame themselves for foreign interference in the US 2016 election instead of Russia. The Senate Intelligence committee chair released their findings that it was indeed Russia, not Ukraine, that did the meddling in 2016.https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-intelligence-committee-report-on-2016-russian-election-interference-offers-roadmap-for-2020-meddling/

 None of this happens in a vacuum. A reason Trump may be  did not care much if Ukraine was weakened for lack of military aid  fits into Trump's questionable  bromance with Russia's President Vladimir Putin and his seeming support of Putin's foreign policy goals  of expansion into their former  Eastern European USSR satellites,  most of whom were protected by a mutual defense treaty by virtue of their membership in NATO. One member gets attacked, and all come to its defense.  Stopping Russia in Ukraine upfront would prevent another war from spreading to the rest of Europe.  Ukraine is not a  NATO member, but its western leaning government is dependent on US aid since Russia took over Crimea and conducted hot warfare to grab  Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. 13,000  Ukrainians had already died in the conflict.  As the result of Russia's interference in the 2016 elections exposed by US intelligence agencies and a special counsel investigation, western democracies and the US  had slapped economic sanctions on Russia that hurt their economy and Putin's oligarch pals.  Rarely have both political parties been unanimous about anything, but Congress has had a full bi-partisan agreement that it is in US security interests to help Ukraine fight off the Russians and they had approved and funded military aid.   From his 2016  campaign and into his administration, Trump had tried to weaken NATO. He called NATO's mutual defense mission obsolete. He threatened to withdraw using the European lack of promised funding as an excuse. He has also tried to lift sanctions on Russia and has sought to get Russia off the hook for their active measures to help him get elected in 2016 and shift blame to Ukraine. This would provide Trump with an excuse to end Russian sanctions. This summer Trump diverted money allocated by Congress for improving NATO's defense to funds to build his wall. He froze funding to Ukraine for anti-tank weapons to use in this latest shakedown and extortion of Ukraine.  This begs the question: Whose side is Trump on, anyway.

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Trump helps Russia be great again again. Trump gave  green light to Turkey to invade northern Syria to hit the Kurds .  The winner: Russia


https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a29365548/trump-ukraine-texts-diplomats-smoking-gun/    /Writer calls Trump's attempts John leCarre meets the Marx Brothers and the
evidence a smoking arsenal.  It puts things in perspective in a way only humor can do.



      and threatens to pull out of NATO





...the newly released emails presented by Kurt Volkertale.https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/03/politics/chairs-on-volker/index.html Pay attention to page 9 and 10.

History and timelines of sanctions against Russia for Ukraine incursions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during_the_Ukrainian_crisis










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