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Who Is Supposed To Define U.S. Foreign Policy – Hint: It Is Not The Borg
The New York Times continues to lie about Joe Biden's involvement in the Ukraine and about Ukrainian involvement in the U.S. election. Today it also lied about a fact in relation to Lieutenant Colonel Vindman who was yesterday questioned by the Democrats 'impeachment inquiry'. The NYT reported that very fact just a day ago. During the hearing Lt.Col. Vindman expressed a rather preposterous view about who should define U.S. foreign policy.
The NYT claims to debunk falsehoods but spreads more of them:
Debunking 4 Viral Rumors About the Bidens and Ukraine
As lawmakers examine whether President Trump pushed Ukraine to investigate the Biden family, here are some of the most prominent falsehoods that have spread online and an explanation of what really happened.
Why was Ukraine’s top prosecutor fired?
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A year later, Viktor Shokin became Ukraine’s prosecutor general, a job similar to the attorney general in the United States. He vowed to keep investigating Burisma amid an international push to root out corruption in Ukraine.
But the investigation went dormant under Mr. Shokin. In the fall of 2015, Joe Biden joined the chorus of Western officials calling for Mr. Shokin’s ouster. The next March, Mr. Shokin was fired. A subsequent prosecutor cleared Mr. Zlochevsky.
We have shown the time lime of Biden's intervention against Shokin and provided evidence that the investigation into Burisma was very much alive:
Zlochevsky had hired Joe Biden's son Hunter for at least $50,000 per month. In 2015 Shokin started to investigate him in two cases. During the fall of 2015 Joe Biden's team begins to lobby against him. On February 2 Shokin seizes Zlochevsky's houses. Shortly afterwards the Biden camp goes berserk with Biden himself making nearly daily phonecalls. Shokin goes on vacation while Poroshenko (falsely) claims that he resigned. When Shokin comes back into office Biden again takes to the phone. A week later Shokin is out.
Biden got the new prosecutor general he wanted. The new guy made a bit of show and then closed the case against Zlochevsky.
and:
It is quite astonishing that the false claims, that Shokin did not go after Burisma owner Zlochevsky, are repeated again and again despite the fact that the public record, in form of a report by Interfax-Ukraine, contradicts it.
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Back to the NYT 'debunking'. The second part is about Trump allegations connecting the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike to the Ukraine. The NYT is correct to say that Trump's claims in that direction are mostly confused or false. But it also makes this claim:
CrowdStrike, based in California, is not Ukrainian-owned and does not appear to have any Ukrainian connections.
CrowdStrike’s co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch issued a report about a Ukrainian software for artillery targeting. The report falsely claimed that the software was hacked by Russia and that Russia used the coordinates the hacked software allegedly transmitted.
Those CrowdStrike allegations were completely false:
In December, CrowdStrike said it found evidence that Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery app, contributing to heavy losses of howitzers in Ukraine's war with pro-Russian separatists.
VOA reported Tuesday that the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which publishes an annual reference estimating the strength of world armed forces, disavowed the CrowdStrike report and said it had never been contacted by the company.
Ukraine's Ministry of Defense also has stated that the combat losses and hacking never happened.
CrowdStrike was first to link hacks of Democratic Party computers to Russian actors last year, but some cybersecurity experts have questioned its evidence.
The debunked CrowdStrike report about the Ukraine demonstrated that the company can not be trusted when it alleges Russian hacking – be it of an Ukrainian artillery app or of the DNC servers.
The NYT 'debunking' also claims:
Mr. Trump’s own former Homeland Security secretary, Thomas P. Bossert, called the president’s assertion that Ukraine intervened in the 2016 elections on behalf of the Democrats “not only a conspiracy theory” but “completely debunked.”
Mr. Bossert indeed has said such but he is wrong. The Ukrainian actions against the Trump campaign are well documented. The Ukrainians even admitted their intervention:
The prospect of Mr Trump, who has praised Ukraine's arch-enemy Vladimir Putin, becoming leader of the country's biggest ally has spurred not just Mr Leshchenko but Kiev's wider political leadership to do something they would never have attempted before: intervene, however indirectly, in a U.S. election.
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Mr. Leshchenko and other political actors in Kiev say they will continue with their efforts to prevent a candidate – who recently suggested Russia might keep Crimea, which it annexed two years ago – from reaching the summit of American political power.
The third claim which the NYT tries to 'debunk' is that the CIA agent who played the 'whistleblower' against Trump is a political partisan. The debunking fails when the NYT itself notes the source of the claim:
Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the American intelligence community, found unspecified indications of “an arguable political bias,” suggesting the whistle-blower favored a rival political candidate, according to a Justice Department memo.
The fourth 'debunking' is about Hunter Biden's business with China:
Critics of Hunter Biden have sought other areas ripe for sowing disinformation. One they have homed in on is his dealings in China.
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While the amount of money Hunter Biden made from those deals remains unknown, Mr. Trump has said that China handed over $1.5 billion to Mr. Biden in a “sweetheart” business deal meant to win favor with his father.
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The $1.5 billion figure Mr. Trump has referred to appears to be the amount of money a Shanghai private-equity company raised in 2014. Hunter Biden joined the board of the company, BHR Equity Investment Fund Management, in late 2013. In 2017, he bought 10 percent of the firm, investing the equivalent of $420,000.
The NYT conveniently forgets to mention who is behind BHR and how the deal was made:
On one of the first days of December 2013, Hunter Biden was jetting across the Pacific Ocean aboard Air Force Two with his father and daughter Finnegan. … Vice President Biden, Hunter Biden and Finnegan arrived to a red carpet and a delegation of Chinese officials.
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[Hunter Biden's company] Rosemont Seneca Partners had been negotiating an exclusive deal with Chinese officials, which they signed approximately 10 days after Hunter visited China with his father. The most powerful financial institution in China, the government’s Bank of China, was setting up a joint venture with Rosemont Seneca.
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Rosemont Seneca and the Bank of China created a $1 billion investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR), a name that reflected who was involved. Bohai (or Bo Hai), the innermost gulf of the Yellow Sea, was a reference to the Chinese stake in the company. The “RS” referred to Rosemont Seneca. The “T” was Thornton.
Trump claimed that China handed over $1.5 billion to Hunter Biden. But the truth is that the state owned Bank of China handed $1.5 billion (by now $2.1 billion) to a company that was partially owned by Hunter Biden. The timing of the very unusual deal additionally suggests that it was made for political purposes.
The NYT asserts that Trump was "sowing disinformation' about Hunter Biden's China relations. Trump often lies but in this case he just simplified the facts.
The debunking piece fails in all four points it raises. It is itself sowing disinformation about Biden's intervention against Shokin and the Ukrainian meddling in the U.S. election. It fails to mention relevant facts on the two other issues.
In its zeal to propagandize against the Trump administration the NYT is playing loose with the facts and is even disregarding its own reporting. Consider this item from today about media reactions to the Lieutenant Colonel who was yesterday questioned by the Democrats 'impeachment inquiry':
Jack Posobiec, a well-known figure on the far-right internet, tweeted the falsehood that Mr. Vindman had been advising the Ukrainian government on how to counter Mr. Trump’s foreign policy goals. Mr. Posobiec cited The New York Times as his source — in fact, The Times reported no such thing.
In fact, Posobiec quoted this New York Times piece from yesterday which reported:
While Colonel Vindman’s concerns were shared by a number of other officials, some of whom have already testified, he was in a unique position. Because he emigrated from Ukraine along with his family when he was a child and is fluent in Ukrainian and Russian, Ukrainian officials sought advice from him about how to deal with Mr. Giuliani, though they typically communicated in English.
When Rudi Giuliani was trying to get information about Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election he was undoubtly pursuing the president's foreign policy. Posobiec was right and the NYT should correct itself.
Lt.Col. Vindman did not like those policies. He in fact believes that U.S. foreign policy should not be directed by the president.
In his written opening remarks to yesterday's confidential hearing, widely spread to the media, he asserts:
In spite of being under assault from Russia for more than five years, Ukraine has taken major steps towards integrating with the West. The U.S. government policy community's view is that the election of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the promise of reforms to eliminate corruption will lock in Ukraine's Western-leaning trajectory, and allow Ukraine to realize its dream of a vibrant democracy and economic prosperity.
Given this perspective and my commitment to advancing our government's strategic interests, I will now recount several events that occurred.
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When I joined the NSC in July 2018, I began implementing the administration's policy on Ukraine. In the Spring of 2019, I became aware of outside influencers promoting a false narrative of Ukraine inconsistent with the consensus views of the interagency. This narrative was harmful to U.S. government policy. While my interagency colleagues and I were becoming increasingly optimistic on Ukraine's prospects, this alternative narrative undermined U.S. government efforts to expand cooperation with Ukraine.
Who the f**k does this NSC minion thinks he is? The President of the United States?
The U.S. constitution "empowers the President of the United States to propose and chiefly negotiate agreements between the United States and other countries."
The constitution does not empower the "U.S. government policy community", nor "the administration", nor the "consensus view of the interagency" and certainly not one Lt.Col. Vindman to define the strategic interests of the United States and its foreign policy. It is the duly elected president who does that.
President Trump and many other people believe that it would be better for the United States to ally with Russia against an ever growing China than to push Russia and China into an undefeatable alliance against the United States. Trump often alluded to this during his campaign. The voters seem to have liked that view.
The U.S. coup in the Ukraine made that policy more difficult to achieve. But within the big picture the Ukraine is just a bankrupt and corrupt state that has little strategic value and can be ignored.
One can disagree with that view and with other foreign policy priorities Trump set out and pursues. I certainly disagree with most of them. But for those who work "at the pleasure of the President" his views are the guidelines that set the direction of their duties.
The anti-Russian/pro-Ukrainian fanatics in the Borg, to which Lt.Col. Vindman belongs, are trying to prevent Trump from achieving his large picture vision of U.S. strategic interest and from defining U.S. foreign policy goals. They want to implement their own polices independent of what the president thinks or believes.
We have warned that such interference by the Borg, the 'deep state' or 'swamp', is a danger to democracy:
If the deep state is allowed to make its own policies against the will of the elected officials why should we bother with holding elections?
The Democrats are stupid to applaud this and to even further these schemes. They are likely to regain the presidency in 2024. What will they do when all the Civil Service functionaries Trump will have installed by then organize to ruin their policies?
It is unfortunate that the above points have to be repeated again and again. But when powerful media try to sell the lies about the Ukrainian interferences by repeating the same falsehoods over and over again the truth only has a chance to win when it is likewise spread repeatedly.
Vindman is a Jew born in Ukraine and brought up in the Little Odessa neighborhood of Brooklyn. lysias @2 download & read about Ukraine, 1956 Hungarian Revolution” history from 1919 Bolshevik revolution.. Lenin and Stalin vs social democracy and Christianity. The history of Hungary sheds light on Crimea and Ukraine example after example of regime change.
It’s quaint that Trump thinks he can make real policy changes. His failures in medical insurance, controlling the FED, etc. underscore the point that being the leader is useless if underlings don’t obey. The “government policy community” will never follow Trump and it won’t stop until Trump is gone one way or another. Trailer Trash @ 6 <= Underlings are important iff democratic America is not called to help..
I took the following from a few different websites. I do not expect to be taken seriously in what follows, but I present them to demonstrate that no part of the Trump, the Deep State, the Bureaucracy, the military, the medical system, the economic system, the social system. the education system is about the governed Americans.
America is a democracy, the USA is a republic. The following raise that point.
Trump's has refused to ask the governed Americans to help him.. instead of fighting the deep state, the bankers, the insurance companies, the utilities, the commode cleaners, the Russians, the courts, the congress, the animal lovers association, the underwater basket weavers, and anyone else that has a say.. Trump should present a medical plan to the American voters to the effect that the government is going to nationalize and confiscate and take control of all retirement homes, hospitals, and medical teaching facilities and merge them into the VA medical program. After that merger, every kind of medical service in America will be essentially free to every citizen of the USA. The USA will provide all governed American Citizens in domestic America with free full service medicine. $5 per physician visit and $10 per night stay in the hospital..no insurance is needed and Trump might say he will ask the congress to have the USA invest billions to educate anyone that wants to become a physician. no strings attached.
If Trump would create a presidential order to the effect that anyone with a unpaid educational debt can serve 3 months in the military to have the debt and interest and penalties forgiven he would get a lot of votes..
I think Congress would cease to exist if it failed to go along with those kinds of directives. In other words eliminate in one swift move one the biggest of the deep state : the prey on the sick, medical money-making machine (big Pharma, big Insurance and big medicine and closed society medical training and medical schools). Open doors to all medical education, to anyone who can learn the stuff can attend. Forget qualifying admission criteria, just focus on turning out sufficient qualified persons to provide quality, full service medicine to all American citizens. No one can practice medicine or provide a medical service unless that person is a government employee.
If Trump said, anyone that can bring creditable evidence of corruption in any part of government or by any one of its contractors, Trump will personally see to it that the AG promptly prosecutes that person or corporation to the fullest extent of the law.
If Trump were to take steps to order that all secrecy in government were to be eliminated after 90 days. Force all agencies to reveal their all. Documents, information and histories will be open book after 90 days; Trump would be elected king, not president. A presidential order to the effect that: Nothing the government or any of its agencies do will be, or can remain classified after 90 days from the date of the event or the happening. With just a few sentences Trump could make America Truly Great Again..
Issue a presidential proclamation that exempts USA citizens and corporations that do business solely within the domestic boundaries of the USA from all patents, copyrights, government contracts, and any other monopoly power claimed or owned by any person or entity domestic or foreign.
Make it impossible for privately owned Real estate to be transferred to an heir.
Unless and until Trump makes a move to solve some of the big problems that exist at home. he is just one more cold, damp, wet, risky to take-in, mold contaminated bag of air. Turn bombs into free domestic health care services, remove all traffic lights from all towns to save gas and time and build under and over passes in their place, transform military budgets into a source of venture capital to restart the kinds of small businesses that once made America great.
Don't forget the above are just things I have found on other websites. and are presented only to make a point.. I don't expect them to be taken seriously.
Posted by: snake | Oct 31 2019 1:32 utc | 48
Don Bacon @52–
Within The Federalist Papers, Numbers 67-77 deal with the Executive while Number 69 details the President’s foreign policy chores:
“The President is to have power, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the senators present concur. The king of Great Britain is the sole and absolute representative of the nation in all foreign transactions. He can of his own accord make treaties of peace, commerce, alliance, and of every other description. It has been insinuated, that his authority in this respect is not conclusive, and that his conventions with foreign powers are subject to the revision, and stand in need of the ratification, of Parliament. But I believe this doctrine was never heard of, until it was broached upon the present occasion. Every jurist [2] of that kingdom, and every other man acquainted with its Constitution, knows, as an established fact, that the prerogative of making treaties exists in the crown in its utmost plentitude; and that the compacts entered into by the royal authority have the most complete legal validity and perfection, independent of any other sanction. The Parliament, it is true, is sometimes seen employing itself in altering the existing laws to conform them to the stipulations in a new treaty; and this may have possibly given birth to the imagination, that its co-operation was necessary to the obligatory efficacy of the treaty. But this parliamentary interposition proceeds from a different cause: from the necessity of adjusting a most artificial and intricate system of revenue and commercial laws, to the changes made in them by the operation of the treaty; and of adapting new provisions and precautions to the new state of things, to keep the machine from running into disorder. In this respect, therefore, there is no comparison between the intended power of the President and the actual power of the British sovereign. The one can perform alone what the other can do only with the concurrence of a branch of the legislature. It must be admitted, that, in this instance, the power of the federal Executive would exceed that of any State Executive. But this arises naturally from the sovereign power which relates to treaties. If the Confederacy were to be dissolved, it would become a question, whether the Executives of the several States were not solely invested with that delicate and important prerogative.
“The President is also to be authorized to receive ambassadors and other public ministers. This, though it has been a rich theme of declamation, is more a matter of dignity than of authority. It is a circumstance which will be without consequence in the administration of the government; and it was far more convenient that it should be arranged in this manner, than that there should be a necessity of convening the legislature, or one of its branches, upon every arrival of a foreign minister, though it were merely to take the place of a departed predecessor.”
Pretty thin it must be admitted, so much is assumed and taken for granted as the making of treaties in the first place requires the operation of external relations and all its accessories and infrastructure, which also involves the appointing of ambassadors, which is discussed in the next paragraph that deals with all appointments. Coupled with the position of Commander in Chief, it seems obvious given the nature of most known previous governing arrangements that the President is in charge of conducting Foreign Relations and that the Legislative has very little opportunity to guide those relations.
Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 31 2019 5:04 utc | 59
See, this article is a perfect example of why I support Bernie Sanders. Those who support Bernie don’t have to compromise their integrity like YOU just did here to defend the indefensible Donald J. Trump.
First let me say this, I unlike you refuse to play the game of who is more corrupt: Biden or Trump. Why? Because they are both owned by Zionism, therefore neither can be trusted at all, so why bother wasting so much time on either? In your case, WHY INDEED?
However, if it comes down to corruption on all levels, Trump is by far the most corrupt. So let’s leave all that out of the equation and specifically focus on Trump’s political corruption in this matter.
Second you really showed your hand here and it’s not pretty. For this reason now, I am wavering in my perception that you have expressed yourself either as a Russian bot or a Trump bot or a combo of both.
When Rudi Giuliani was trying to get information about Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election he was undoubtly pursuing the president’s foreign policy.
Hello? Giuliani is a greasy sleaze NOT a State Department official pursuing foreign policy! Trump wasn’t using him as a diplomat; and his mandate was not foreign policy! Trump was using him for personal gain exactly like he used Michael Cohen to pay off Stormy and the Playboy bunny to silence tawdry affairs. He’s after the cheat edge NOT foreign policy.
The U.S. constitution “empowers the President of the United States to propose and chiefly negotiate agreements between the United States and other countries.
Sure but it doesn’t empower him to withhold designated tax payer funding to coerce a foreign government to give up dirt on his opponent.
President Trump and many other people believe that it would be better for the United States to ally with Russia against an ever growing China than to push Russia and China into an undefeatable alliances against the United States.
And how pray tell does this have anything to do with the dirt Trump attempted to gain from Ukraine on Biden? In other words you’re telling us that in order for pro-Russia, anti-China policy to take effect Trump should be allowed to sabotage an opponent’s campaign? Sorry, but in the real world sabotaging an opponent’s campaign furthering the interests of a foreign country might be considered, TREASON, and at best a campaign violation, but the way you spell it out, I’d say it’s treason. However, it may be that Trump only meant to further his own interests. If it’s to ensure his policy on Russia survives, he’s sure risking a lot abusing his office to achieve that.
One can disagree with that view and with other foreign policy priorities Trump set out and pursues. I certainly disagree with most of them. But for those who work “at the pleasure of the President” his views are the guidelines that set the direction of their duties.
Okay. If he wants rapprochement with Russia and not China, he can start to push policy in that direction, and he certainly has with China, but trying to extort Ukraine to get dirt on Biden so he can win the election to further a Russia-friendly policy is crazy.
The anti-Russian/pro-Ukrainian fanatics in the Borg…are trying to prevent Trump from achieving his large picture vision of U.S. strategic interest and from defining U.S. foreign policy goals.
First of all, you are probably aware that Iran and Russia are livid with Trump’s latest move to send a heavy weapons battalion into Eastern Syria to control Syrian oil resources? This here is proof that Trump has a higher allegiance to Zionism that might conflict with Russian interests and he would betray Russia in a New York minute for that reason. So in fact, Trump is knee-deep in borg allegiance. Just ask Lindsey Graham.
Secondly, allegiance to Russia is NOT the large picture. Allegiance to Zionist foreign policy IS the large picture foreign policy for Trump.
THAT is what YOU are defending with this waste of words. Trump is the one most preventing a rapprochement with Russia, because has been putting Russia in the line of fire since he first uttered: Russia if you’re listening… Trump using Russia to further his personal ambitions puts a target on Russia! How’s that working out for Russia? Now, why would he create the illusion of a grand conspiracy with Russia putting Russia in a constant negative light? He is either an unwitting idiot blinded by his gigantic ego OR there’s something hidden from view in all this.
Trump will use anyone, anything, any country and even abuse his office to promote, empower and enrich himself. Don’t you get that yet? Isn’t it obvious?
Why is it that you certainly disagree with most of his policies therefore so readily sacrifice your beliefs/values and your integrity to defend this megalomaniac? And I ain’t buying it’s to defend the truth. As I outlined here in my responses to your truth — that’s some half-baked truth you laid out!
No, there’s something else going on here, and it’s not your love of the truth. Care to spell it out once and for all?
I’ll stick to Bernie. He’s a decent man. So unlike you with Trump, I don’t have to write a tome in his defense or compromise my own integrity on his behalf. Pity you and those like you spining and twisting everything over the likes of Trump.
Posted by: Circe | Oct 31 2019 5:35 utc | 62
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