I’ve been trying to keep my focus on North Carolina politics but Trump’s meeting with Putin and his response is truly astounding. The President of the United States just blamed America for the poor relations with one of the most devious regimes in the world. In a tweet early this morning, he said, “Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!” Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs retweeted it with the comment, “We agree.”
Let’s put this in perspective. Putin has been murdering his political enemies inside and out of Russia for decades. He’s killed journalists who cover corruption in his regime and he’s poisoned whistleblowers living abroad. He’s been a steadfast supporter of Syria’s Assad, one of the Middle East’s most brutal dictators, and he’s invaded and annexed property from sovereign states on Russia’s borders. In Ukraine, Putin’s forces shot down a civilian airliner, killing everybody on board.
That’s not even mentioning Russia’s meddling in our elections. The only people who doubt Russia’s interference are Trump and his most loyal supporters and they only deny it because of the implications for Trump. U. S. Intelligence agencies say Putin personally oversaw the disruption.
Before the meeting, Trump called the European Union our “foes.” He’s upending foreign policy that has supported democracies and stood up for human rights since the end of World War II. He’s apparently casting our lot with brutal, authoritarian regimes and for what? He certainly looks like a man beholden to a foreign power instead of loyal to the country he’s supposed to lead.
What’s more disturbing and shocking is the speed with which Republican leaders in Congress have abandoned their disdain for the Russian dictator. They now sit quietly while Trump runs roughshod over everything they supposedly represented. Will they follow suit and blast our allies in western Europe to embrace the Russians, too?
Donald Trump is testing the mettle of our country. He’s attacking the free press and the rule of law. He’s praising authoritarian bullies and criticizing liberal democracies. Where are the American leaders who can reel in the president? Have they decided tax cuts and deregulation are more important than American values or have they decided that tax cuts and deregulation ARE American values?
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
I’m not sure I understand the gist of this article.
The US has always allied itself with brutal dictatorial regimes to further “national interests”. We even violate the Constitution to protect “friendly” regimes from being overthrown by their own people (see Iran-Contra, Allende in Chile, Vietnam, Saddam Hussein, etc, etc , etc) We honestly don’t care about atrocities, or ideology, as long as “American interests” are served -at least if we use history as any guide.
So why would it be any different with Russia?
The first difference that comes to mind is that none of countries you names (nor most others) seek to destroy not just American democracy, but all western democracies. Russia does. The second difference is that none of them had the ability to do so. Russia has the nuclear weapons to do so, and now apparently an arsenal of cyber and social media weaponized to attack in new ways. The third difference is that while “allying” ourselves with other dictatorial regimes, the US President did not praise those countries leaders while discrediting US institutions and leaders as President Trump has done.
I doubt any sane person would prefer that we go to war with Russian, North Korea or Iraq rather than talk to them. That is why diplomacy is usually a serious undertaking — unlike what Trump does. However, talking to a country’s leaders is not the same as kissing their ass as Trump just did. (Sorry for the vulgarity, but nothing else seems quite adequate.)
I’m sorry, but when was it established that Russia “seeks to destroy not just American democracy, but all western democracies”? Russia makes no such claims and seems to seek the opposite – normalized relations.
Russia only has the ability to destroy western democracy if you mean that they have the ability to destroy the world with nuclear weapons – just as we do. Of course, that would mean their own destruction as well, but hey, why split hairs when you’re terrorizing the American People for political gain?
Yes, the US most certainly HAS praised vicious dictatorial regimes and discredited US institutions and leaders as Trump has done. Frickin Ollie North has a damn TV show, when he should be in prison for high treason – selling drugs in LA for HW Bush and weapons to the Iranians to prop up the murderously fascist Contras.
So my question, in light of ample precedent, is why would any sane person object to talking with the Russians, even in a kiss-ass manner? The only losers are the guys that routinely terrorize civilians into funding their war projects – in the US and in Russia.
Have Democrats become Dick-Cheney-style Imperial Cold Warriors?
When was it established? November 1956.
Who established it? Nikita Khrushchev.
How did he establish it? “We do not have to invade the United States. We will destroy you from within.”
Of course, between then and now it has certainly helped to have a mole in place to do your bidding and run interference for you.
Then of course you have Felix Dzerzhinksy. What did he say in regard to this? Nothing that I know of. Iron Felix was head of the Soviet ‘Cheka’. When the Soviet Union collapsed a statue of dear Felix disappeared in 1991 from Lubyanca Square just across from KGB headquarters after a failed coup attempt. That statue has now been returned to that square to occupy it’s most treasured place. So what does that mean? If you know nothing of Russia, it doesn’t mean a great deal. If you know about Russian history then being put back marks a turning point back toward the old ways (Soviet) of thinking and State action.
If can believe or not as you please. Rest assured however that monument was meant to send a message as it is certainly not remarkable in any other aspect.
So you draw no distinction whatsoever between the Communist USSR and Orthodox Russia? Is Italy the same as the Roman Empire in your mind?
Interesting the parallels between Soviet statues in Russia and Confederate ones in the US, isn’t it?
The distinction between the Orthodox and the Soviet States was the reason I included dear Felix. In the early 1990’s, there was a pause, a breath of fresh air. The Iron Curtain had rusted and fell. But the old Bolsheviks, of which Vladimir Putin is one, have figured out how to seize power and wealth in their own name, not in the name of the people or the state. That piece represents the idea of the old State renewing itself once again. Why else would someone so obscure a character as he who died in 1926 be resurrected in the 21st century? Warm and fuzzy he wasn’t.
I thought of that parallel; I figured a corollary would be made for whatever reason. I made no such distinction however. Felix returning is nuanced. I can’t say nor do I think that about the ones in the Southern US.
With regard to the Rome/Italy comparison. I suppose if Italy were on the path back to City states and assembling legions for empire and conquest, then yes I’d argue that. That analysis however isn’t even close to being illustrative of Russia today and the churning of Soviet ideology. Not to mention the annexations of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.
Besides, I don’t think Rome has had a run-in with a Visigoth in quite some time. We saw our ideological rival pandered to just yesterday.
Please note: I did not write the US. I wrote ” US Presidents. ” Ollie North is not, and hopefully, never will be a US President. As for the rest of your response, I think it has been answered already by other comments.
Nobody has actually responded to my comments at all.
Based on history, the US has no problem working with “evil dictators” to further national interests – and no matter what right-wing propaganda would have you believe, Russia is not the Soviet Union.
So why are Democrats going all “Dick Cheney” and getting upset that a US President is trying to put an end to the Cold War?
Answer: TRUUUMMMPPP!!! AAAAAARRRRGGH!!!!!
It’s irrational.
Today’s “news conference” in Helsinki, run by Putin with his craven puppet, Trump, exhibited for the whole world the Judas kisses planted by Trump on various parts of Putin’s anatomy. Putin, of course, has the goods on Trump (sex and money), but it makes you wonder what else he has that results in such treasonous behavior by Trump. Stand by, as the Special Prosecutor, I am sure, already knows. What a sad day for the American presidency.
Maꓘe AmeЯiꓘa GЯeat Again
There was a hammer and sickle replacing the ‘G’, but I can’t paste pictures. You will just have to visualize it.
Never in my 74 years, most of the years spent writing about politics, have I said this about another person. But I say it today: Donald J. Trump is a traitor.
He needs to be removed from office by the Republican Party because it was the Republican Party that sowed the ground for this tinhorn crook and traitor.
Any meeting of two or more Republicans should be, after today, referred to a Traitors’ Caucus.
These are not close questions of loyalty to American values. There is no nuance here. Trump stands with Russia against our intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and the Republicans stand with Trump – or remain silent in the face of traitorous actions.
From the close of World War II in 1945 until 1992, Russia, as the Soviet Union, annexed the Baltic States, nations in Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and Transcaucasia. The Communist Party took control of these nations, dominated the people, took monopoly control of their domestic economies, and Communism took away the human and political rights away from the hostage states.
Any form of resistance was met with violence and repression. A democratic revolt against the Marxist-Leninist government in Hungary in 1956 was crushed, and rebels were slaughtered. Russian tanks rolled into Prague in the summer of 1968 quashing flickering democracy movement in Czechoslovakia. There were no other opinions – only the Communist party line.
Some form of the Communist party was active politically in every, single nation on Earth before the collapse of Soviet communism. They devoted most of their economy to warfare and weaponry to enforce their worldview, but they left their citizens in bread lines.
Soviet nuclear weapons were deployed in Cuba 90 miles from the United States, and in October of 1962, and the Russians brought the world to the brink of World War III after U. S. warships surrounded Cuba. The Kennedy Administration demanded the removal of nuclear weapons from Cuba.
Florida would have been obliterated in 1962 along with large sections of the southeastern area of the United States. When Russia bombs a locale, it stays bombed for a 1,000 years. If Russia had unleashed its weapons in 1962, visits to Disneyworld would necessarily have been postponed until at least the year 2962. Trip insurance would have come in handy.
When the Soviet Union collapsed into chaos and disarray in 1992 due to utter the failure of Communism to deliver even the most basic needs of the people – food, shelter, transportation, wages, and safety, Russia possessed thousands of the nuclear weapons – most of them aimed at the United States or free nations under American military protection.
An organized Soviet Union was a threat to the world, but a disorganized Russia that had become a yard sale of industries, resources, weapons, oil, diamonds, utilities and nuclear power plants was an even greater concern. Where were the nukes? Who had them? Who bought them? Intelligence services earned their keep tracking down nukes and other weapons of mass destruction during this fraught period of international disquiet.
Out of the chaos, a new Russian government emerged as the largest multinational criminal organization ever established in the world headed by insiders from the Soviet intelligence services. Intelligence officers knew what was coming and they grabbed what they could get before and as it happened.
Former spies and Communist operatives took control of large swaths of the Russia economy. Then they fought each other gangland style for control of it. You did not want to visit Moscow during this period without a battalion of armed mercenaries. And you needed to bring your own snacks.
Today, Vladimir Putin former head of the KGB may be the world’s richest human being. There will never be an accurate accounting of the vast wealth he has stolen from the Russian people, but it is estimated that he is worth in the neighborhood of $200 billion. On a salary of only $145,000 per year, he is a good little saver.
Putin is a murderer. He murders his opposition. He bombs Syrian children in schools and hospitals. He kills journalists who report the truth. He kills people in other countries. He is Al Capone with a million-man Army and nuclear weapons. He dresses his own soldiers in fake uniforms and sends them into Ukraine where they murder civilians and dissenters. And he lies about what he is doing.
But our intelligence services know what he wants. Putin would like to retake the Baltic States, to control of Georgia and to expand Russian borders to more closely resemble the former Soviet Union.
Putin is a mastermind, a spymaster and a monster with an insatiable ambition for more territory, more wealth, more prestige. Since 1992, he has expanded his own influence and the influence of Russia beyond the disability of Russian being a third-world economy.
Putin hacked into our elections in 2016 and provided the United States a fool for a president. Putin promoted Brexit, hacked into elections in European nations where he sought to get extremists elected. He seeks to eliminate NATO, the G7, the European Union and the State Department of the United States of America. By any measure, Putin is winning bigly.
His influence in 2016 cannot be denied, except by those who feel that Russian interference gave them an advantage. Operating out of a troll farm in St. Petersburg, hundreds of hackers under the auspices of Russian military intelligence, created 350 million impressions on our social media posing as American citizens.
Trump’s margin of victory in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, added together, amounted to about 70,000 votes. If you believe that 350,000,000 impressions on social media had zero effect on the American election, you should not be allowed to cross busy streets except with a Boy Scout holding your hand. If you dismiss all those intrusions as a “nothing burger,” you do not understand why MacDonald’s spends nearly $1 billion per year in advertising. You will never have a career in marketing, and you will never live in a nice house.
In order to give Trump the White House, Putin’s trolls needed to change only 2 votes in 10,000. The anti-Hillary propaganda produced in St. Petersburg was on the lips of millions of Americans duped by the Russian social network blitz. Much of that misinformation continues to be firmly-held beliefs of the hard-core right. Putin got Trump elected. His subordinates took credit for it, bragged about and celebrated it.
And the Republican Party knows that Trump was elected because of Russian attacks on our system. The intelligence tells them that. Logic and mathematics tell them that. It is a fact.
Donald Trump loves him. He loves him so much; he shows his love by being a traitor to the United States every minute he is in office. There is no one in the world safe from Trump’s vulgar, nasty tongue. He berates war heroes, saints, priests, virgins, sports icons, little children, victims of Nazi violence, Muslims, Mexicans, black people and parents of victims of violence. The short-fingered vulgarian has nothing good to say about journalists, Democrats, victims of sexual assault, Macy’s, Amazon, the New York Times, Steve Bannon, every Bush (George H. W., George W and Jeb), John McCain, Little Marco, Pocahontas, Virginia, Facebook, the FBI, CIA, Forbes, Fortune and Fox News. Trump has scorched the earth with his indiscriminate disdain, except one person on planet Earth, and one person alone.
He loves him some Vladimir Putin. But why on God’s green earth do the Republicans follow
Trump down the road to treason?
Your history lesson left out four very important points.
The US and western European Allies have invaded the Soviet Union twice – 1918 and again in 1922. Russia knows from experience that we have no respect for anything but strength.
Reagan made a deal with Gorbachev – the dissolution of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact in exchange for the dissolution of NATO and an end to the Cold War. Once we got what we wanted, we immediately broke the deal and have been pushing US influence into former areas of the USSR ever since. “Defensive” NATO continues to expand, even though its reason for being no longer exists. Russia knows from experience that we have no respect for anything but strength.
The US backed Yeltsin, who was the one who allowed the Oligarchs to run amok so he could consolidate his grip on power. The shift back to the Security State and Putin is the direct result of our aggressive interference in Russian politics during the Yeltsin years. Because Russia knows from experience that we have no respect for anything but strength.
It was not Russian trolls that established our easily manipulated and impossible-to-audit voting systems. That was done via HAVA for very specific reasons by the regime that seized power in the US in the 2000 coup d’etat. If you actually want to know who fixed the election, as opposed to playing silly wag-the-dog style distraction politics, you need to start your investigation there. After all, we never fixed anything, and nobody was held accountable, because it would “damage faith in our democracy”.
Not really.
Strong argument. I am in awe.
(See cognitive dissonance)
You want to pony up a link for that little tidbit, “…dissolution of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact in exchange for the dissolution of NATO and an end to the Cold War.” There was a promise, such as it was, that NATO wouldn’t expand or accept former USSR companion nations or Warsaw Pact countries as members. That was broken. But no one seems to know anything about a quid pro quo for dissolution.
So if you’d be so kind…
The reforms that Reagan was encouraging = the end of the Soviet Union and the end of the Warsaw Pact.
Does it only count if Gorbachev said “Simon Says”, or do you accept the semantic equivalent??
I’ll accept a link to where you sourced your comment because I want to see it in writing by someone with the knowledge to assert its veracity.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/reagan-and-gorbachev-shutting-the-cold-war-down/
Thank ye kindly Lizak. I read it the first time you posted it however. I read it twice and then again thrice just in case I blew over that part about the dissolution of NATO in exchange for dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. No such sentence exists in that book review. There’s not even a slight implication of that probability. No, I don’t think you’re trying to pull a Trump. I think I understand your passion for things Russian. I personally don’t think the Russian people, much like Americans are bad at all.
Americans can be arrogant and Russians seem to have this huge inferiority complex when it comes to foreign relations. Makes for a strained understanding at times.
However, that doesn’t excuse our President from cowtowing to Putin. Maybe Donald Trump doesn’t know any better. Maybe Donald Trump just isn’t the dealmaker he thinks he is. He has all the tact of a bull in a china shop. Some people think that’s cute or desirable.
This has strayed so far from the original topic that I’m not going to comment further. Perhaps we’ll have another opportunity to discuss this at length later.
You left out an amusing little tidbit in your historical retort Lisak; 1940. Stalin screaming for the US to enter the war; screaming for help because the Wehrmacht was rolling east.
If we are such a bad nation that understands absolutely nothing but force, then in that understanding, perhaps we should have left Stalin for Hitler since Hitler had already rolled over most of Continental Western Europe. But no, we proved ourselves terrible by providing aid and war material so the Communists could fight the Fascists.
Vile nasty Americans are we…
We intervened in favor of the USSR in 1940 once it was clear that Hitler was going to win if things continued as they were, and that would not have been good for American interests. Our policy was essentially to get Russians and Germans to kill each other for as long as possible. Surely you don’t believe we initiated Lend-Lease because we were concerned about the well-being of Godless Commies – whom we had tried to overthow in the 1920’s?
And we also delayed D-Day until it had become obvious that the USSR was going to defeat Germany if things continued as they were later in the war.
These decisions were made to minimize American casualties and maximize American business interests.
Did that make us a “bad” nation? No, just another typical nation engaging in Realpolitik to further its own self-interest, not much different from the others.
Power corrupts, and we have become massively more powerful since then.
Indeed it does; power corrupting that is. And while ours is an imperfect system, it certainly beats the totalitarianistic Soviet regime that Putin is trying to pigeon-hole Russia back in to.
Of course, Trump is trying his best to roll us into the same paradigm. That might be to your liking Lisak, but I’d rather argue with Republicans. Of course, today it’s getting harder and harder to tell a Republican from a Russian Oligarch. They seem to move in the same circles.
One of the things that I learned in Soviet Studies is that the American and Soviet methods of operation were remarkably similar, because the US had “turned to the dark side”, as they say, and we have yet to “turn back”.
Putin is giving Russians what they want – security and protection from the predatory capitalism they were subjected to under US-backed Yeltsin and the Oligarchs who were draining resources out of Russia.
It’s getting really annoying to be called a Trump supporter just for pointing out that people’s reactions are irrational and nonsensical, and reflect poor understanding of history and geopolitics.
Trump may be a buffoon, but even a broke clock is right twice a day.
Interesting commentary throughout. Re the “broke clock being right twice a day. ” Not necessarily. Unless the clock hands are there to be seen, no one has any knowledge, just an assumption. Also, our meaning of “the right time” relates to the actual time the clock is supposed to be providing based on its locale. If a clock hands always show 6 and it is 8 PM or 8 AM in that locale, the clock is not right and never will be as long as it maintains that two hour interval between itself and an accurate time.
Of course, one can assume the clock is wherever one wishes in order to be “right” twice a day, but then again, assumptions about the reliability of our knowledge can, and does, lead one astray. Sort of like referring to treaties in one part of a discussion and then switching the commentary to “agreements.’
Please provide a source for the portion of your comment that says “the secret memo allowing the execution of American Citizens without trial” so I can read it. Which president did this? And when? .
Obama:
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/secret-memo-making-case-kill-us-citizen-released
And how would you notice “formal training in Russian matters”?
Your comments so far reflect a very, very poor understanding of the history of US-Soviet relations – a subject rife with hysterical propaganda and outright disinformation.
I had a friend from OH visit this weekend. I credited her with helping elect Trump. She said “no-no, I didn’t vote because I couldn’t stand Hillary. ” My response was “yes, and because many like you who couldn’t stand Hillary didn’t vote, Trump won” Do you think the Russians helped with pro Trump propaganda or with anti-Hillary propaganda?
Everyone, if you do nothing else in this round of elections and 2020, get your friends to vote, even if it has to be for someone they don’t like, for example a ni##er or a woman, or worst of all a n!##er woman, or even worser, a scumbag like Bernie (yes he is a sumbag!)
“But why on God’s green earth do the Republicans follow
Trump down the road to treason?”
Now that seens to me to be a stupid question> Do you expect thwm to admit their political win wasn’t legitimate?
So, how would you deal with Russia? Was there meddling in our 2014 and 2012 elections?
If your great leader President Obama would have done something in 2015 and 2016 about what was going on with the elections and Hillary’s computer maybe there would be a different out come.
How long has countries been meddling in our elections, I do not think 2016 was the first time.
Unbelievable! No matter what Trump does in the future or has done in the past, it seems that some people can only scream “Look! Obama! Hillary!!” Just incredible and incredibly SAD.
Thank you. Could not agree more.
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
feedupvoter You need to improve your english. The word is “fed” not “feed”. Is your problem with not-gramatical english because your name is Ivan and your native language is russian or is it because you are one of the IQ 85 Trump supporters? or does it matter?
I was asking some friends whether it really mattered if Russia took over the U.S. We already have to be very careful what we say in public down here in NC. I don’t see a substantial difference between the republicans a Putin’s crowd, altho maybe Putin’s crowd is less hypocritical?
The day that the evil buffoon drumpt can be referred to in the past tense will be a joyous one indeed. Can’t happen soon enough for me!