Tag: Russia

Russia Laughs: Is He “Their” President Or Ours?

Instead of watching Fox News, which manufactures heroic propaganda about President Donald Trump, Republican voters could learn much more from seeing a few hours of Russian television. It is on shows broadcast from Moscow and St. Petersburg where the truth about the Trump administration can be heard.

The message is emphatically not “Make America Great Again.”

No, the Russian outlook articulated by Russian commentators — who faithfully reflect Kremlin policy — is that Trump’s incompetence and incoherence greatly benefit the motherland by weakening its rival America. This mocking theme has aired consistently on the top Russian TV channels for years now and has only intensified as “their” president is threatened by impeachment and electoral defeat.

View the complete November 7 article by Joe Conason on the National Memo website here.

‘The truth looked bad for Donald Trump’: Here are 5 stunning moments from the first day of Roger Stone’s trial

AlterNet logoRoger Stone, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, finally faced a jury of his peers on Wednesday as the first full day of his trial began.

He stands accused of lying to Congress, obstructing Congress, and witness tampering in the course of the Russia investigation. Stone, who has spent a career billing himself as a political “dirty trickster” and is known for, among other things, proudly showing off a Richard Nixon tattoo on his back, denies the allegations.

But the U.S. Justice Department maintains it has substantial documentary evidence to prove its allegations, and it began to make its case to the jury on Wednesday, some of which had already been laid out in Stone’s indictment.

View the complete November 7 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

Internal Mueller documents show Trump campaign chief pushed unproven theory Ukraine hacked Democrats

Washington Post logoPresident Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, suggested as early as the summer of 2016 that Ukrainians might have been responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee during the presidential campaign rather than Russians, a key witness told federal investigators last year.

Newly released documents show that Manafort’s protege, deputy campaign manager Rick Gates, told the FBI of Manafort’s theory during interviews conducted as part of former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. Gates told the FBI that Manafort had shared his theory of Ukrainian culpability with him and other campaign aides before the election.

The new information shows how early people in Trump’s orbit were pushing the unsubstantiated theory about Ukraine’s role. And it illustrates a link between Mueller’s investigation, which concluded in March, and the current House impeachment investigation of Trump. The president had pushed Ukrainians to open a probe into whether their country interfered in the election — an assertion his allies have made in an effort to discredit Mueller’s findings about Russia’s role.

View the complete November 2 article by Rosalind S. Helderman and Spencer S. Hsu on The Washington Post website here.

Pelosi says Trump notified Russians of Baghdadi raid before telling congressional leaders

Washington Post logoHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday called on the White House to brief lawmakers on the raid that targeted Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, noting that President Trump had informed Russia of the military operation before telling congressional leadership.

The statement from Pelosi (D-Calif.) came after Trump told reporters at a lengthy news conference that he did not inform the House speaker of the raid because he “wanted to make sure this kept secret.”

U.S. presidents typically follow the protocol of contacting congressional leaders, regardless of their political party, when a high-level military operation is conducted.

View the complete October 27 article by Felicia Sonmez on The Washington Post website here.

Fact-checking Trump’s spin about the ‘great outcome’ in Syria

Washington Post logoPresident Trump claimed a diplomatic victory after Russia and Turkey took control of areas in northeastern Syria previously overseen by U.S. forces, even lifting sanctions on Turkey. Here’s a quick guide to some of the key claims he made during his 15-minute address, in the order in which he made them.

“This was an outcome created by us, the United States, and nobody else. No other nation; very simple.”

Trump is claiming credit for ending a problem that he created. After a conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and against the advice of many foreign-policy aides, Trump decided to withdraw U.S. forces from critical positions in northeastern Syria and abandon Kurdish troops that had been U.S. allies. His action was in effect a green light for Turkish-backed troops to invade.

Turkey has long considered elements of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) — who were critical to the defeat of the Islamic State’s caliphate — to be a terrorist threat. To prevent a Turkish invasion, the United States persuaded the SDF to pull back up to nine miles from the Turkish border. In August, the SDF destroyed its own military posts after assurances the United States would not let thousands of Turkish troops invade. But then Trump tossed that aside.

View the complete October 24 article by Glenn Kessler on The Washington Post website here.

Trump created the bloody disaster in northern Syria. Biographer David Cay Johnston explains how we make sure he owns it

AlterNet logoVladimir Putin must be smiling – even laughing out loud — at the bungling Donald Trump’s crazy mess in Syria.

Putin is the clear winner in Trump’s blood-soaked disaster. By tweeting without telling the generals his signal for Turkey to invade Syria, Trump forced American troops to flee half-eaten meals so they could escape alive. His inept (to be kind) actions then required our Air Force to bomb America’s weapons storage base in Northern Syria.

This 100% Trumpian disaster in the Middle East is unfolding so fast it’s easy to get lost in details. So, let’s walk through the significance of Trump’s incompetent actions. They came about for a simple reason. An ignorant, mentally disturbed, play-acting president has no idea what he is doing.

View the complete October 20 article by David Cay Johnson from DC Report on the AlterNet website here.

Trump’s enormous gift to Erdogan

Washington Post logoIt’s a startling turn of events. For years, Turkey watched with frustration as more distant powers — from the United States to Russia to Iran — imposed their will on the bloody Syrian conflict to its south. For years, to no avail, Turkey demanded that the United States end its support of a controversial Syrian Kurdish faction with alleged links to an outlawed separatist group within its borders. For years, Turkey fumed at a hostile Washington, a putative ally whose politicians, for a host of reasons, often cast Ankara as an adversary.

All of that has suddenly changed, largely thanks to President Trump.

It was Trump who, less than two weeks ago, acquiesced to a Turkish invasion of northeastern Syria, abandoning those in the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. It was Trump who, despite a vociferous backlash in Washington, started to echo Turkish talking points about the SDF being “communists” and “terrorists.” And it was Trump who on Thursday hailed a “deal” clinched with Turkey that effectively satisfied most of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s demands while also relieving him of the looming threat of U.S. sanctions on his country’s vulnerable economy.

View the complete October 17 article by Ishaan Tharoor on The Washington Post website here.

Trump’s Retreat

Trump’s actions in Syria mean Russia is in control – and it’s unclear what comes next.

President Donald Trump’s surprise withdrawal from Syria – ordered with no forewarning at a time when he faces ever-intensifying political pressure at home – represents a remarkable American retreat from a relatively stable situation it did not have to abandon. Whatever clout the U.S. may have earned in the region, and subsequent ability to create further stability that would benefit Americans, is now gone.

“The U.S. has blown it. Trump has successfully blown it to the benefit of all the others,” says Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at The Atlantic Council.

The question is what comes next.

Kurdish forces who fought alongside the U.S. against the Islamic State group served as an essential bulwark protecting the Washington’s goal of negotiating a peace that would secure its political interests in Syria’s future and in the wider region. But any sense of cooperation the Kurds felt with the U.S. is now dashed. And questions remain about whether the Trump administration can deliver on the terms of a dubious cease-fire agreement with Turkey that Vice President Mike Pence announced Thursday in Ankara.

View the complete Paul D. Shinkman on The U.S. News and World Report website here.

Trump Followed His Gut on Syria. Calamity Came Fast.

New York Times logoAll the warnings were there. But President Trump’s reliance on his instincts, and his relationships, led him to ignore the consequences of a move that has emboldened Russia, Iran and the Islamic State.

President Trump’s acquiescence to Turkey’s move to send troops deep inside Syrian territory has in only one week’s time turned into a bloody carnage, forced the abandonment of a successful five-year-long American project to keep the peace on a volatile border, and given an unanticipated victory to four American adversaries: Russia, Iran, the Syrian government and the Islamic State.

Rarely has a presidential decision resulted so immediately in what his own party leaders have described as disastrous consequences for American allies and interests. How this decision happened — springing from an “off-script moment” with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, in the generous description of a senior American diplomat — probably will be debated for years by historians, Middle East experts and conspiracy theorists.

But this much already is clear: Mr. Trump ignored months of warnings from his advisers about what calamities likely would ensue if he followed his instincts to pull back from Syria and abandon America’s longtime allies, the Kurds. He had no Plan B, other than to leave. The only surprise is how swiftly it all collapsed around the president and his depleted, inexperienced foreign policy team.

View the complete October 14 article by David E. Sanger on The New York Times website here.

The U.S. Spoiled a Deal That Might Have Saved the Kurds, Former Top Official Says

Forsaken by the U.S. and under attack by Turkish troops, the Kurds are turning to Russia for help. The last time they tried to do so, the Americans worked to talk them out of it.

ABU DHABI—Abandoned by the Americans, their former allies, Syria’s Kurds reportedly are allowing troops from the Assad regime to enter territory they had under their control. The Kurds also are putting out feelers to Russia for support against an onslaught by Turkish troops and Turkish-supported militias.

A return of Bashar al-Assad’s forces to northeastern Syria for the first time in seven years would make visible the end to the bitter, controversial U.S. mission there against the so-called Islamic State. That’s not because of any concerted decision to withdraw by President Trump, whose antiwar rhetoric obscured his vacillation about leaving. It’s because Assad will deny his American adversary the room to operate that the Syrian Kurds had provided their deceitful American partners.

“We know that we would have to make painful compromises with Moscow and Bashar al-Assad if we go down the road of working with them,” the Kurdish commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) wrote in an op-ed published Sunday in Foreign Policy. “But if we have to choose between compromises and the genocide of our people, we will surely choose life for our people.”

View the complete October 13 article by Spencer Ackerman on the Daily Beast website here.