The Russian connection: why care?

A version of this was published in the on line edition of the Sky Hi News, 2/20/19
https://www.skyhinews.com/news/opinion-muftic-the-russian-connection-why-care/

While we are waiting for the Mueller

Special Counsel report on Russian interference in the 2016 elections to see if the Trump campaign or Donald Trump himself conspired with the Russians, ask ourselves, why should we care?  The Russian connection did not register in the top three issues motivating voters to cast ballots as they did in the 2018 midterms. In NBC exit polls about 50 percent of the voters thought it was important but only 60% of Democrats and 20% of Republicans approved of Mueller’s handling of his probe.  Here is why we should care. Russia is at minimum an adversary whose national interests are at odds with US security concerns.  The cold war may be over, but Vladimir Putin’s agenda has roots in long-standing Russian history, if not in the old Communist vs Capitalist terminology.

Thanks to Mueller’s frequently court filed indictments and sentencing documents, it is accepted by most that indeed the Russians did conduct a propaganda campaign to convince US voters to pull the lever for Trump. There are some recent developments deduced from Mueller’s filings charging Trump’s campaign Chair Paul Manafort lied about a meeting he and his sidekick Rick Gates had with Ukrainian suspected Russian intelligence operative   Konstantin Kilimnik in a New York cigar bar August 2, 2016. Trump campaign’s internal polling data, useful for targeting social media messages, was handed over to Kilimnik and a peace plan for Ukraine was discussed that would have resulted in lifting sanctions imposed by the West for Russia’s grab of the Crimea and eastern Ukraine. The evidence Mueller’s team presented convinced the judge to agree to revoke Manafort’s plea agreement, subjecting him to more jail time.  If this were the Cold War, Manafort’s actions could have been considered treason. 

Much of the Mueller findings presented in court filings involve Ukraine, Crimea and sanctions levied on Russians for their territorial incursions. Manafort was a political consultant to the former president of the Ukraine who was ousted for his pro-Russian policies. Other elements at play are Russia’s  historical expansionist imperatives:: Crimea, the Baltics, and Balkans are centuries old  keystones to Russian national desires for  access to warm water ports for their otherwise ice locked military and trade vessels, keeping former Satellites as buffers against Western invasions (they were invaded by both the Nazis and Napoleon), and their objections of  placing NATO troops and intercontinental ballistic missiles at their skirts. Putin publicly believes that the breakup of the Soviet Union was a Russian tragedy with the loss of the USSR satellites that provided ports and buffers. None of this is in the US or our allies’ national security and military interests defending against such expansionism.

Manafort’s joining the Trump campaign in early 2016 was simultaneous with Trump’s fleshing out the details of Trump’s pro-Russia foreign policy., lifting sanctions against Russia, reducing and weakening NATO to cripple it as a deterrent to Russian desires to control the Baltics and the Balkans, including Montenegro.

 Trump has uttered so many words of praise for Vladimir Putin, observers had termed it a “bromance” and attributed it to Trump’s long-time interest in building Trump Tower Moscow.  Trump Inc. was in negotiations for the Tower well into 2016.  Even since his election, Donald Trump has held secret meetings with Putin, and sometimes echoes Putin’s public talking points word for word, preferring reports from Russian intelligence over his own agencies. Trump recently lifted sanctions against a powerful Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, a friend of Putin, and he pulled the US out of the IMF (intercontinental ballistic arms control treaty), instead of strengthening it, permitting Russia without oversight or penalty to continue to develop their mid-range ballistic missiles.  He has made public efforts to pull out or defang NATO, but so far, he has made little headway

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-manaforts-2016-meeting-with-a-russian-employee-at-new-york-cigar-club-goes-to-the-heart-of-muellers-
probe/2019/02/12/

https://www.jurist.org/news/2019/02/federal-judge-revokes-manaforts-plea-deal-after-manafort-lied-to-mueller

https://www.nbcnews.com/card/nbc-news-exit-poll-voters-divided-mueller-s-handling-investigation-n932836

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putin-we-ll-target-usa-if-washington-deploys-missiles-in-europe/ar-BBTQlUK?ocid=ob-fb-enus-280

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/top-us-general-calls-for-more-troops-and-warships-to-counter-growing-russian-threat

Trump gives "intelligence" a bad name.

A version of this was published on line at the Sky Hi News, February 5, 2019
https://www.skyhinews.com/news/opinion-muftic-trump-gives-intelligence-a-bad-name/

Aside from reports Donald Trump has a short attention span and poor reading comprehension skills, there is another disturbing meaning to Trump's definition of   "intelligence".  Those who have tried to brief him, including his former secretary of state, reportedly called him a “***moron “. There are recent reports by other intelligence briefers who said he was "willfully ignorant" and he exploded in anger when he was given information that contradicted his public statements and agenda.   Not only is he ignoring and dismissing his own intelligence agencies' conclusions, he is forging US foreign policy based on something other than rational use of any objective real-world facts supplied by his own agency appointees. If our country survives the next two years without a major foreign policy blunder, we can count ourselves lucky.

 He has recently dismissed the conclusion presented in their annual report on threats to national security to Congress by US intelligence heads that contradicted his own assertions. No, Mr. President, ISIS is not dead; no, Iran is abiding by their disarmament agreement, and, no, North Korea will not give up nuclear capability because it is too basic to their regime's survival. The "crisis" at the Southern border did not even register in their list of top ten security threats.  Trump called the intelligence chiefs “naive”, he sent them "back to school”, and now he termed in press remarks their findings are just opinions with which he can disagree, as if these professionals were writing an op ed piece with an ideological agenda.  Thousands of agents risk their lives to gather such facts and awesome technology provides even more information. That gulf between Trump's words and the intelligence agencies' conclusions is enough to make us wonder where he ever got some of his ideas.  Could he be   listening to foreign intelligence service findings whispered in his ear by even Russian President Vladimir Putin himself? He has had several one on one secret meetings with him. After all, he has taken Putin's word over our own services in public before.   Last July in Helsinki, Trump dissed US intelligence agency reports that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections, and instead accepted Putin’s words of denial as the truth.

There are good reasons to suspect Trump has been listening to Putin because the foreign policy he is conducting supports Russia’s goals. Trump and Russia do not support US security policies that have created peace and prosperity in Europe post-Soviet era. Trump's foreign policy initiatives aid Russian actions to expand their influence and control to former Soviet spheres of interest.  Putin's stealth invasion of Ukraine and his Crimea annexation resulted in the West imposing punishing sanctions on Putin’s oligarch friends. Trump just lifted sanctions on one oligarch, and would like to remove all sanctions, period. While repeating Putin’s very words, Trump called NATO “obsolete” and he threatens to pull out from NATO, a mutual defense treaty, which would clear the way for Russia to try Ukraine /Crimea - like takeovers in the Baltics and Balkans without triggering an automatic military response. US pulling out of Syria would leave Russia with greater influence the Middle East.  Trump’s recent pulling out of the IMF treaty will allow Russia to develop their mid-range nuclear capability out in the open. No IMF treaty? No sweating compliance or fearing punishment when or if they have been outed and making this a much more dangerous world.

Trump's disdain for US intelligence services has a history in the Iraq war and   faulty US intelligence verification that there were indeed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  There were at that time no international inspectors on the ground in Iraq. Saddam cleverly created the fiction he had the capability in order to deter future attackers. The situation is very different in Iran. Thanks to the multinational Iran nuclear deal, that country has been constantly monitored by inspectors on site and shipments of nuclear material into Iran have been subject to inspection and control.  Trump pulled out of the deal.  Some fear Trump may be cooking up a reason to invade Iran, egged on by hawkish advisers.  Destroying the Iran nuclear deal would end those inspections, but fortunately other signators continue the program without us.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/trump-moron-tillerson-publicly-confirms.html

http://time.com/5518947/donald-trump-intelligence-briefings-national-security/

https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2019/01/intelligence-chiefs-diverge-trump-main-threats-us/154511/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_the_Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Action

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/politics/nato-president-trump.html

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/16/politics/donald-trump-putin-helsinki-summit/index.html

Fruits of isolationism are bitter

published as column in Sky Hi News all editions, June 7 2017

The Trump administration has accomplished little in three months The courts and Congress have become distracted in Russian matters or have found executive orders unconstitutional.  House passed Obamacare repeal/replace is on life support in the Senate. There is  one exception. Trump has succeeded  in making  the United States  isolated.   He has also succeeded in helping to make  Russia, China,  and  Europe great again.

The blow back  will be on the US economy and more.  Political  power and economic vibrancy  are closely  tied. The two  working together  make the trade deals that contribute to our economy and our power to export and to cooperate in other areas such as fighting terrorism and intelligence sharing..What Trump has accomplished is to leave the USA in less control of its own destiny, and  instead having to dance to the tune of others.

In a short three months, Trump’s policies have  effectively  led to US withdrawal from  leadership and influence in the rest of the world.  He ended the TPP (the Asian trade agreement)designed to block Chinese economic expansionism), synchronized  US foreign policy with Russia’s,   and pulled out of the Paris climate accord  that had been approved by every country in the world, except Syria and Nicaragua. Trump  purposefully neglected to confirm the fundamental purpose  of NATO, mutual defense, an attack on one is an attack on all, virtually  inviting Russia to test NATO’s resolve in the Baltics and the Balkans. NATO is the main barrier to further Russian geographical expansion.

Into the vacuum of leadership have stepped Angela Merkel of Germany and Emmanuel Macron of France, willing and able  to lead the Western World. China is aggressively forging trade, military, and political influence in Asia.

The  Paris climate accord  was not a binding treaty, It was a voluntary agreement on goals to be determined on terms and goals controlled by each country,  leaving them to use whatever means they wanted to reduce carbon pollution.   With or without the Paris accord, the world is accelerating a shift to wind and solar and battery power. In the US, less polluting natural gas is taking over coal. In fact, countries will meet their carbon reduction goals ahead of the Paris schedule . The reasons? These alternatives are cheaper due to technological advancement per a recent article in Foreign Affairs.  In the meantime, China is seizing the day and becoming the leading manufacturer of solar panels and other alternative energy technology.

If we want to compete in the world economy, we need to keep pace with the rest of the modernized world. During the 2016 campaign,  Donald Trump’s slogan, Make America Great Again and America First, resonated with those who felt their economic well-being  was victimized by international trade and environmental regulations..   They did know they wanted to return to the good ole days   where a high school diploma landed an assembly line job that paid middle class wages, that coal and oil were king, robotics were science fiction, and there was no competition from foreign imports, What could have helped would have been job retraining, education, re-direction to encourage development of  industries of the present and the future economies in their regions. None of this is funded in the Trump budget blue print.

_________

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2017-05-22/paris-isnt-burning

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/03/16/trump-first-budget-proposal-dramatic-cuts-fund-military-buildup/99212718/

See: 12/16/16 post: Making Russia Great Again..

Russian connection red flags were flying very early in the Trump campaign

Update 10/30/17

Aside from the criminal indictment, there are some other questions.
Did Manafort and his associate influence Donald Trump's position on Russia in the 2016 campaign? Trump's position favoring  certain specific policy  issues involving Russia began to express after Manafort joined the 2016 campaign.

Here are some of my blog postings tracking the Manafort influence in the Trump campaign last year.

The House hearing on the Trump tweet and the Russia connection yesterday in which the FBI director and the national security chief publicly confirmed that they could find no evidence Pres. Obama ordered a wire tap on Trump towers and that since last July the FBI was investigatiing the Russia connection, was historical.  The red flags were flying even before then regarding the Russian influence in the campaign.  Below is myblog posting which was published in the Sky Hi News June 19, 2016.Paul Manafort, mentioned in the column, joined the Trump campaign in March 2016 and was named campaign chair in April, resigning in August.. Beginning in March 2106, Trump began his anti-NATO crusade. http://www.factcheck.org/2016/05/whats-trumps-position-on-nato/

By the September "Commander in Chief" forum, Trump's foreign policy was in synch with Russia's in many ways.  In a September 8 post in this blog, I wrote the following: "Donald Trump in the recent "Commander in Chief" forum called Vladimir Putin a better leader than President Obama.  That bromance between Trump and Putin is more than just a matter of flattery and egos.  It has real repercussions for future conduct of foreign policy if Trump is elected. 

 Trump supports foreign policies that dovetail neatly with Russia's,, excusing the Russian grab of the Crimea, going

along with the stealth invasion of Eastern Ukraine, calling NATO obsolete as a military defense alliance, and fuzzy about whether Russia's ally Assad in Syria must go, None of those policies are in America's or our allies' interests. Only when it comes to fighting ISIS do Russia and the US have much in common, but even then the devil will be when any peace agreements are negotiated, as Russia will be firm to protect Assad."

"

The June 19 post about the early red flags:

There are many in Grand County who have more than a passing interest in what happens to NATO.  They still have family in eastern European countries that are current members of NATO and were once Soviet satellites.  Lithuanians and Poles  have settled here and have become respected members of our community. Those countries belong to NATO.  Other Eastern European settlers in Grand County from countries not in NATO are Russians and Moldovans.

Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians (the three Baltic States) and Poles in particular must be looking at alarming statements from Donald Trump for his comments that “We don’t really need NATO in its current form. NATO is obsolete…if we have to walk, we walk.”  Many  look with raised eyebrows  at the  sometimes called “bromance” with Russian President  Vladimir Putin.  Putin called Trump  "a brighter person, talented without a doubt." Putin reiterated has admiration of Donald Trump June 19 on Fareed Zakaria ‘s CNN program, as well as asking why the West still needs NATO.

Trump’s public assertion that not only is NATO obsolete, but their members are not living up to their promises to contribute. There is far more at stake than money.

Russia is on the march in a seeming attempt to reassemble former Soviet satellites , restoring past glories.  Russians also resent and fear  their former neighboring buffer states becoming NATO members and permitting missile defense installations (even if the defense systems are turned toward the Middle East) . Their grabbing  or helping surrogates grab   parts of non NATO members of Georgia, the Crimea and eastern Ukraine has been seen as a threat in particular to the NATO member Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.  NATO was quick to move more forces to the Baltics in response as a warning to Russia not to mess with members of NATO. Without NATO, the small Baltic states in particular would be vulnerable to a Crimea and Ukraine like grabs, making Poland and Romania especially at risk. In his June CNN comments, Putin slyly ignored Russia’s land grabs which would have answered his question of Why NATO?

There may not be a conspiracy involved, just a case of Trump’s ignorance or isolationist advocacy or wanting to make a deal with Russia,  but there is an interesting connection with his most inner advisor. It is his campaign chairman,  Paul Manafort, who was a political consultant to  once  president of the Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych was attempting to stop some in his country who wanted greater trade ties with the West, while he was closely connected to Russia  and wanted his country to be more connected to them. A revolution followed in 2014.  During that revolution, Yanukovych fled first to the eastern Ukraine and now resides in exile in Russia.

Many in the United States’ foreign relations community on both sides of the aisle  look at Donald Trump’s foreign policy with alarm.  A particularly large howl was raised in a March open  letter  by 121 GOP national security leaders.  George W Bush’s secretary of State, Richard Armitage, announced  this month he would vote for Hillary Clinton.

 http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/06/16/richard-armitage-plans-vote-hillary-clinton/he would vote for Hillary Clinton.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/29/politics/election-2016-trump-foreign-

policy/

https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/07/trump-nato/492341/

http://warontherocks.com/2016/03/open-letter-on-donald-trump-from-gop-national-security-leaders/

http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/06/16/richard-armitage-plans-vote-hillary-clinton/

Tensions between Vice President Pence and Michael Flynn pre-exist the "lie" flap

General Michael Flynn's departure from the White House may have much deeper roots than just his lie to both Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence about conversations with the Russian ambassador.  The conflict between the two goes back to the days of the campaign post GOP conventions.  I noted that in a column at that time. In the Vice Presidential debate, Pence parted ways on Russia from  candidate Donald Trump's line.
From my blog posting 10/5/16:
"One event in the Vice Presidential debate, October 4, was the position of GOP candidate Mike Pence regarding Russia.  The comments on Russia got lost in Pence's  absolute denial that Donal Trump ever said Russian President Vladimir Putin was a better leader than Pres. Obana. The quibble could be whether the correct term was "stronger". In any case, there is plenty of video available on Trump's comments which makes Pence look like a liar, albeit a smooth one delivered with conviction.

 What should also be the story is that Pence took a hard line on Russia saying we should stand up to them..  This deserves some closer scrutiny and looks like there is a division on foreign policy between the two running mates.  Take a look at the debate as can be accessed via You Tube regarding Pence's views of Russia incursions into the Crimea, Ukraine and Georgia...a great contrast from Trump's prior statements.
What does count in 2016 ,however, is Trump's position, though Pence might use his own quotes in his own future campaigns.

It stands in sharp contrast with the GOP presidential candidate himself, Donald Trump, who has been advocating a foreign policy that strangely runs parallel to the same as Russia's, from declaring NATO obsolete, not objecting to the Russian threats and incursions into Eastern Ukraine, and recognizing Russia's grab of the Crimea.  In fact, the mutual comments between Trump and Putin have been so complimentary that it has been timed a "bromance" of mutual admiration.

Not only is this a major issue in foreign policy, but in calls into question whether Trump can even negotiate with Putin in America's and our alliies' security interests without giving away the store to Russia.  Negotiation means give and take and the question remains what Trump would give away to make a deal. "

http://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2016/09/trumps-foreign-policy-make-russia-great.html

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/vice-presidential-debate-putin-mike-pence-donald-trump-229147

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/28/politics/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-quotes"

Some background:
 For some time, the question has been why has Donald Trump been so cozy with Russia? There has been a great deal of speculation ranging from Trump's debts to Russia oligarchs to blackmail , the connection with  the Russian Alfa Bank, with embarrassing pictures (a victim of a honey trap).  Fingers have been pointed to influencing Trump's views of Russia was his campaign manager, who departed the campaign mid year, Paul Manafort, who was an advisor to the ousted  president of the Ukraine who sought refuge in Moscow after a coup.  Congressional investigations into Russian influence and hacking  in the US elections are just getting underway.  Ukraine is involved. The Russians have conducted a stealth takeover of the eastern parts of that country and the West punished Russia with economic sanctions.  The Flynn issue involves lies about his pre- January conversations with the Russian ambassador over lifting those sanctions. The question arises was this a thank you for the role Russia played in helping Trump win by planting false news stories and by hacking and revealing damaging information regarding Hillary Clinton.

That there are many concerned about why Donald Trump only ever has kind words for Russia and their president Vladimir Putin, while being critical of even our closest allies and even calling NATO, our mutual defense treaty with Europe, obsolete.  It has set our Eastern Europe members of NATO on edge and one of President Obama's departing actions was to announce the placement of US troops in Poland as a signal to Russia not to mess with our Baltic members.  Trump and others, including libertarians, had already expressed concern about going to war to support the small trio of Baltic nations in spite of their NATO membership. Russians have always seen the Baltics, with their ports to the sea, as part of theirs since there is a large number of Russians living in those areas left over from the old Soviet  military occupations days when the Baltics were their satellites.  Russia has a modus operandi of using "saving discrimination against Russian minorities" as an excuse to grab territory and the Baltics are ripe targets.  Their membership in NATO has made Russia think twice. Ukraine, Crimea, and Georgia, recent targets of Russian grabs, are not part of NATO and are not under NATO's protections.  Flynn was Donald Trump's closest campaign advisor on foreign affairs thorught the campaign.

Why would Russians want to hack into voter date bases?

With evidence Russian hackers have breached or attempted to breach voter data information in two states, the question is:
Now why in the world would the Russians want to do this? It is no secret they favor the election of Donald Trump and it is no secret that Donald Trump's foreign policy as outlined to date is more in the Russian national interest than in America's. Both Trump and Russia want to end NATO as we know it, which would ease any Russian further encroachment into the Baltics, Moldova, and Romania by removing a threat of western military counter action. Trump wants to retreat from alliances, a neo isolationist policy that would weaken the United States from an ability to be a player in world leadership and in forming alliances that would also benefit our national interests. His business interests have looked to Russia and until recently, his campaign manager had also served as an advisor the deposed president of the Ukraine now in exile in Russia.