Category Archives: Foreign Policy

Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Vindman’s REAL Concern, In His Own Words

Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Intelligence, Nationhood

“I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a US citizen, and I was worried about the implications for the US government’s support of Ukraine.”

So said Colonel Vindman in his opening statement before impeachment investigators, during testimony given “privately to three House committees—on Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight and Reform.”

The words of Army Lt.-Col. Vindman in the first sentence, “I did not think it was proper,” sound like an afterthought to the second:

“I was worried about the implications for the US government’s support of Ukraine.”

Just saying …

MORE: “The Ukraine affair: A soldier’s word against Donald Trump’s in impeachment inquiry.”

* Image courtesy of MSNBC

UPDATED:

On CNN, former congressman Sean P. Duffy (R-Wis.) suggested that Vindman’s birthplace was important. “It seems very clear that he is incredibly concerned about Ukrainian defense,” Duffy said. “I don’t know that he’s concerned about American policy, but his main mission was to make sure that Ukraine got those weapons.”

Turkey ALREADY Has One Genocide Under Its Belt: The Armenians

Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Individual Rights, Middle East, Nationhood

“Our partner” is how Presided Trump refers to Turkey. “A hell of a leader” is what he calls President Erdogan.

“This is an amazing outcome,” extolled the president. He was praising, what, exactly?:

This is an outcome — regardless of how the press would like to damp it down, this was something that they’ve been trying to get for 10 years. You would have lost millions and millions of lives. They couldn’t get it without a little rough love, as I called it. I just put out — they needed a little bit of that at the beginning. And then everybody said, “Wow, this is tougher than we thought.” When those guns start shooting, they tend to do things.

Does President Trump know the Turks have one genocide under their belt?

Oh, I forgot. In the interest of pacifying its Turkish allies, American officialdom has generally refused to implicate the Ottomans in the mass murder of up to 1.5 million Armenians, 100 years ago.

Armenians who had survived the 1915 Turkish genocide; their children and grandchildren have tacitly supported the Assad regime, as against the Turks.

Turkey is an execrable force in the region.

The images are of Armenians beheaded and burnt alive by Turkish soldiers, circa 1915.

Democrats Too Dumb To Turn The Hunter Biden Issue On Republicans

China, Democrats, Donald Trump, Ethics, Foreign Policy, Republicans

The only way debating Democrats can benefit from the Hunter Biden confession “over his foreign business deals,” in Ukraine and China, is if they hammer home the following fundamental point:

Donald Trump should have gotten those kids of his out of the White House a long time ago!

But Democrats won’t point to a legitimate beef on the Republican side in order to distract from the burden of Hunter Biden, because they are too dumb and don’t have the courage to attack the Kushners.

Were Dems to make the Kushners their example of nepotism, they’d be doing Deplorables a big favor. Going after the Kushners is a win, win situation for all.

“Did I make a mistake? Well, maybe in the grand scheme of things, yeah,” he said, again referring to fallout from his overseas business. “But did I make a mistake based upon some ethical lapse? Absolutely not.”
Biden said, “I take — full responsibility for that. Do I — did I do anything improper? No, and not in any way. Not in any way whatsoever. I joined a board, I served honorably. I did — I focused on corporate governance. I didn’t have any discussions with my father before or after I joined the board as it related to it, other than that brief exchange that we had.”

[abcNews]

UPDATED (1/1/021): Syrians, Kurdish, Turkish Realignment: Regional Conflicts Require Regional Solutions

America, Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Middle East, Military, War

The Syrian, Kurdish, Turkish realignment is not “a moment of geopolitical whiplash.” But rather, a return—we hope—to regional politics in the Middle East.

America thinks that it must and can be a decisive force for good in the Middle East. However, the region’s players march to their own drumbeat. Always have.

in fact, the move had been in the works for more than a year. Fearing U.S. abandonment, the Kurds opened a back channel to the Syrian government and the Russians in 2018, and those talks ramped up significantly in recent weeks, American, Kurdish and Russian officials told The Associated Press.

[Via AP]

In Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East 1789-1923, Efraim and Inari Karsh marshal prodigious scholarship to show that, “Twentieth-century Middle Eastern history is essentially the culmination of long-standing indigenous trends, passions, and patterns of behavior rather than an externally imposed dictate.” The trend continues.

Keep it regional. The Kurds are safest aligning with regional power players against Turkey.

* Image courtesy of VOA.

UPDATED (1/1/021):  Bashar al-Assad is one wise Alawite traditionalist. But America’s foreign policy and Pentagon primitives are forever striving to remove him and install a less traditional, more democratic man of the people (namely an Islamist Jihadi).

Assad on neoliberalism:

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