America has never had a president so subservient to the leader of another nation, particularly one who is viewed as an adversary by most of our citizens. But at every opportunity that has arisen, Trump has sided with Putin and Russia rather than American intelligence agencies. Prior to Trump’s ascension to the presidency, the Republican Party was virulently anti-Russian, seeing Putin and his military as our main enemy. Since Trump has been in the White House, the GOP has turned around completely, perceiving Putin and Russia as good guys who we should try to get on our side.
Trump’s romance with Putin began prior to the 2016 election when he said that being friends with Russia would be good for America. Then, during the election campaign, he asked the Russians to be participants in the election by finding Hillary Clinton’s missing emails and releasing them to the American public. This was quickly done through Wikileaks. After the election, when American intelligence told Trump that the Russians had interfered in the election campaign, he refused to believe it, denigrating the agencies that had come up with the information. When he met with Putin in Helsinki, he announced that Putin had denied any involvement in 2016 election contrary to our intelligence agencies and Trump believed Putin over our government intelligence agencies.
And there was little reaction from Trump when Putin grabbed the Crimea from the Ukraine and instituted a low-level war against Ukraine in its eastern territories, using Russian mercenaries as well as Russian speaking Ukrainians to fight the Ukrainian Army. This war is still continuing with Trump reluctantly giving Ukraine armaments to try and repulse the Russians. (Trump’s withholding of the armaments from the Ukraine until they provided him with information on Joe Biden and his son led to his impeachment.) During the battles between the Ukrainians and Russians, a civilian airliner was shot down by a Russian missile with hundreds of civilians dying. Trump barely reacted.
Putin also sent Russian forces into Syria to keep the brutal dictator Bashar al- Assad in power. We had been fighting Assad’s forces with our Kurdish allies with some success but pulled most of our troops out, leaving the Kurds to fight the Russians, the Syrians and The Turks alone. Trump felt no obligation to our Kurdish allies who had suffered much greater casualties than we had. He took this action against the advice of all of his military staff who believed it betrayed the Kurds and showed great weakness by us. Trump did not want to get into any conflicts with the Russians or Turks.
And now we learn that our intelligence agencies have found evidence that the Russians were paying bounties to the Taliban to kill Americans in Afghanistan. Trump was told about this three months ago or more. But he has taken no action and in fact denied that he saw this intelligence in his daily briefings. Why has Trump been so reluctant to confront Putin throughout his term in office? What information does Putin have on Trump that makes Trump kow-tow to the Russians rather than listen to his own intelligence agencies? How can the Republicans support Trump’s perspective on Putin and the Russians against the intelligence generated by our own government agencies? Will a time come when Republicans put our country first, before the needs of the president? That may take a small amount of courage which seems deficient in Republican officials.
www.robertlevinebooks.com
The Uninformed Voter- available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
https://www.amazon.com/author/robertlevine
Posted at 09:39 AM in 2016 election, 2018 elections, American soldiers, Congress, Corruption, coward, DACA, Donald Trump, Foreign Affairs, misogynist, narcissism, Putin, Republican Party, Robert Mueller, Russia, Trump administration | Permalink
Tags: Afghanistan, American soldiers, bounties, Putin, Russia, Trump
Political junkie, Vietnam vet, neurologist- three books on aging and dementia. Book on health care reform in 2009- Shock Therapy for the American Health Care System. Book on the need for a centrist third party- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party published in 2011. Aging Wisely, published in August 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Latest book- The Uninformed Voter published May 2020