Tag: Russia
Hope is lost
There is no more Hope. Hicks, ultimate loyalist, is the latest announced departure, but dozens have already left, some voluntarily, others under pressure, and still others fired. Most notorious are the wife abusers, but there was also the head of the Centers for Disease Control who traded in cigarette stocks, the National Security Adviser who was in the Russians’ pocket, the head of the FBI fired for refusing to pledge personal loyalty to the Don, the Secretary of Health and Human Services who racked up a million dollar travel bill, and the Communications Director who never actually got a US government paycheck before getting himself cashiered for an interview he gave to The New Yorker. Rachel Maddow offered this version of the story in today:
She updates that from time to time.
Churn is pretty common in US administrations, but this one is setting records. On top of the political appointees, there is a massive exodus of Civil Service and Foreign Service officers, many of whom can’t stomach the President and some of whom figure their prospects will improve if they get out before the wheels come off.
This is happening in a moment where presidential leadership, both domestically on guns and internationally, is wanted and needed. The President is so erratic and nonsensical on guns that no one can follow him–yesterday he suggested just confiscating them from people deemed dangerous and worrying about due process thereafter. How well is that going to work?
The international scene is crying out for America to make itself clear. In Syria the military commander has said we plan to keep the troops on the ground to prevent the return of ISIS but not counter Iran or President Assad, even though that is what the Secretary of State says our objective is. In Israel/Palestine, everyone is expected to believe that son-in-law Jared Kushner has a magic plan he is about to reveal, but he no longer can even read classified material. I’d bet he’ll be going back to New York soon, without revealing his brilliant scheme. The North Koreans are ready to talk, but the President has said that is pointless, even while his Secretary of State signals that is what we want to do.
But the worst is Russia. President Putin spent a good part of his state of the Russian Federation speech today making it clear that Russia sees itself as a rival to the United States, which it is targeting with every weapon in its arsenal. But Russia is no superpower. It is a declining regional petropower suffering a demographic implosion even as its economy fails to keep up with the rest of the world’s growth. That is not to say it isn’t dangerous: it has invaded Ukraine, pulverized the relatively moderate Syrian opposition in order to support a war criminal president, and is trying to expand its footprint in the Middle East wherever would-be autocrats rule (for the moment that’s Egypt, Turkey, Libya, and Syria).
Trump’s people will claim he has done a great deal to counter Russia. What it amounts to is some limited lethal weapons for Ukraine’s army, some expansion of sanctions, and shutting down some “diplomatic” facilities. But President Trump has conspicuously avoided criticizing President Putin and has failed to speak up against, or even acknowledge, Russia’s blatant meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. While we can suppose that some of the massive increase in America’s military budget is aimed to counter Russia, the President has nowhere said so. Leadership is silent on Putin and Russia, except to occasionally come to their defense.
It is all too clear why: Trump’s personal real estate empire depends on Russian money, much of it likely headed to the laundry. Today’s news that Kushner has been gaining massive financing for his personal real estate ventures from people who meet with him suggests he has jacked up “pay to play” to a whole new level: hundreds of millions of dollars for his personal pockets. Remember when Trump complained loudly that someone might have benefited from contributions to the Clinton Foundation, an allegation never proven? In my mind, there no doubt Trump is benefiting, invisibly but massively, from his reluctance to criticize Russia or to move more aggressively against interference in the US election.
Hope Hicks was wise to announce she is leaving this sinking ship. It may still take a long time, but it is going down.
PS: For a well-done but ultimately flawed argument that Russia is stronger than its statistics suggest and Trump less a patsy than he appears, see Benjamin Haddad’s piece.
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Patriotic Americans shouldn’t tolerate it
Jared Kushner can’t get a top secret security clearance? That was obvious long ago. His real estate empire leaves him open to undue influence, especially by China and Russia. He apparently compounded the problem by discussing his personal business during official government contacts with foreigners and by failing to report at least some of those his high-level contacts. No one should be surprised: Kushner has made it clear from the first that he believes the normal rules don’t apply to him, hence his failure to fill out his security forms fully and accurately.
But the same is true for his father-in-law. Donald Trump never had to fill out the security forms, but that doesn’t change the obvious: his far-flung business empire leaves him open to undue influence as well, not just by China and Russia. Witness the tug-of-war his minions are involved with in Panama. He, too, believes the normal rules don’t apply, hence his failure to separate himself from his businesses and his use of his family in official roles that don’t require Senate confirmation.
We can’t expect National Security Adviser McMaster and White House Chief of Staff Kelly to take on the President the way they did Kushner, but they need to try to mitigate Trump’s serious exposure to foreign leverage over his decisions.
McMaster is trying to do this by installing an orderly decision-making process, one that has been so successful it has opened wide gaps between what the US government is actually doing and what the President is saying and tweeting. Hence the effort in eastern Syria to stabilize the region US troops and their allies control, despite the President’s explicit disavowal of nationbuilding. Likewise the mixed signals on North Korea: while the President threatens fire and fury, the State Department is pursuing negotiations. Or the decision to send lethal, albeit defensive, arms to Ukraine, despite Russian objections and Trump’s own disinclination.
Kelly is also trying to install a more orderly process and has succeeded in ousting some of the worst of Trump’s staff. But his own views are so dramatically right-wing that he at the same time encourages the worst of Trump’s instincts on limiting immigration, reducing refugee resettlement, and minimizing the response to a groundswell of popular sentiment in favor of gun safety measures.
Nothing can save Trump from himself. He has still not criticized Russia for interfering in the 2016 election or ordered the US government to respond with either defensive or offensive measures. He is trying to channel the gun debate into a ridiculous discussion of arming teachers, a proposition that at best will be adopted in a few more communities and at worst will lead to more deaths in school gun battles. Trump is trying to dismantle Obamacare piece by piece, rather than in one fell swoop, an effort that will hurt more people in the states he won than elsewhere. His one clear victory in Congress is a tax cut bill that benefits the rich far more than anyone else and a bipartisan spending compromise that ends any Republican claim to fiscal restraint.
Special Counsel Mueller has now indicted and even gotten guilty pleas from people only one degree of separation from the President. Several of these people were deeply enmeshed in Russian money, as is the President himself. No, nothing has been proven yet against him personally, but it defies logic to imagine that he has also not been subjected to Russian influence. He publicly welcomed Russian help during the campaign (in obtaining Hillary Clinton’s emails), as his son did in private. Seeking or receiving such help is illegal. I’ve said it before: he is either a dupe or an agent. It is hard for me to understand how any patriotic American would tolerate it.
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The risks of something nutty
I’ve been trying to follow my own good advice: Donald Trump is a distraction from the real things going on in this troubling and troubled world. Best to ignore his inanity and focus on what matters.
It isn’t easy. President Trump spent much of the week flogging the idea that we should arm school teachers to prevent mass shootings. This is a patently bad idea for many reasons:
- The perpetrators are always armed with greater fire power than a teacher could conceal;
- An armed teacher who survives confrontation with a perpetrator would face serious risks once the SWAT team arrives;
- The risk of harm to innocent bystanders from a teacher with a handgun would be far greater than the risk from the SWAT team;
- Few teachers would take up this privilege;
- The environment in schools would however become far more antagonistic between teachers and students than it already is, since the idea is to keep secret which teachers are armed;
- There would be a risk of students getting hold of a teacher’s gun;
- Administration of such a program, including training and storage of weapons and ammunition, would be burdensome, not to mention the costs of insurance and legal settlements.
Even the stationing of trained and armed uniformed guards in schools has not demonstrably helped.
Trump’s advocacy of this bad idea, which pleases his National Rifle Association donors, distracts from other things going on, most notably the indictments of his senior campaign officials (Paul Manafort and Rick Gates) on top of the indictments of more than a dozen Russians who hacked the 2016 election.
There can no longer be any doubt that Russia conspired to discredit the electoral process and support Trump’s candidacy. Nor can there be any doubt that President Putin blessed, if he didn’t actually order, the effort. The Russians also appear to have relieved Manafort and Gates of debt obligations while they were serving the campaign, in return for something still unknown. Both are likely headed for lengthy prison terms for “conspiracy against the United States” and other crimes, even as Trump’s supporters at a conservative political conference this week chanted “lock her up!”
That is not the whole story of this week’s real news. Washington has let it be known it has intercepts of the the Kremlin approving if not ordering an attack by Russian mercenaries on US soldiers and their allies in eastern Syria a couple of weeks ago. Moscow is also participating with the Syrian government in a ferocious bombardment of civilian targets in East Ghouta, outside Damascus, killing hundreds. A UN Security Council resolution intended to initiate a ceasefire is still held up, by guess who? Moscow is trying to eke out at least of few more days of air raids on East Ghouta, in hopes that is will surrender to Damascus after almost seven years of siege.
Trump continues his refusal to criticize Moscow, even if much of his Administration is trying to find ways to bite back. That in the end may be this week’s real news: what the President says is increasingly disconnected from reality and aimed mainly to protect himself from the Special Counsel’s investigation. The more he hears Mueller’s footsteps, the crazier Trump gets. He is becoming a kind of pugnacious and erratic figurehead presiding over an Administration that is far more in touch with reality and trying to prevent him from doing what his predecessor called “stupid shit.” I hope the saner folks succeed, but the risks of Trump doing something nutty are increasing.
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Dupe or agent
Special Counsel Mueller’s indictment of 13 Russians for their concerted program of interference in the 2016 US presidential elections leaves us with only two choices: candidate Trump was either an unwitting dupe or a witting agent of Moscow’s concerted efforts to get him elected.
It is still arguable that he knew nothing of their enterprise at the time. Mueller has not yet demonstrated a clear high-level link to the campaign, though he has suggested that at a lower level campaign workers, perhaps unwittingly, collaborated with Russian agents. The President is still denying collusion and any impact on the election:
Russia started their anti-US campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for President. The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong – no collusion!
But the fact that the Russians started their efforts before he announced his candidacy means nothing: the Mueller indictment makes clear that Moscow later in the campaign preferred Trump and did everything it could to smear Hillary Clinton.
…by early to mid-2016, Defendants operations included supporting the presidential campaign of the candidate Donald J. Trump (“Trump Campaign”) and disparaging Hillary Clinton.
That makes Trump at least a dupe.
It is also clear that campaign staffers and Trump family members sought assistance from the Russians during the campaign. What we don’t know is whether the candidate authorized those initiatives. It would be sensible to assume he did, as he prides himself on his attention to detail, but we can’t yet be sure. He might still be a dupe, not an agent.
The argument for agent is nevertheless strong. The Trump real estate empire depends on Russian money, much of it likely recycled from illegal activity. Trump is fond of reiterating that he has no business in Russia. That is not the issue. The Russians do a lot of business with him in the US and elsewhere. There is no way that Trump would not know this. It is more than likely he fears they might pull their financial assets out, or just reduce their flow in. If the motive for his praise of Putin and his refusal to implement sanctions against Russia stems from concern about Russian financial flows into his real estate ventures, that would make him an agent, not a dupe.
Mueller is already following the money. We know this, despite the Special Counsel’s admirably leak-proof operation, because he has hired lawyers with expertise in money laundering and financial crimes. We also know that Trump neglected due diligence in at least some of his businesses. What are the odds that a thorough vetting of his empire will reveal “high crimes and misdemeanors” as well as financial motives for Trump’s going easy on Putin and the Russians? I would say very close to 100%.
In my opinion, America has elected a Russian-compromised agent as president. He is also a philanderer who pays hush money, a self-avowed abuser of women, a blatant liar, a would-be autocrat, and a money launderer. The only real question is when we will find the means to get rid of him.
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Completing sovereignty
Kosovo is ten years independent Saturday. It has a lot to be proud of: a functional, more or less democratic state built in less than twenty years, despite determined opposition from Serbia and Russia. Most people in Kosovo live the normal lives they were denied for 20 years prior to independence. They earn significantly higher wages than in the past, they are safe and secure in their homes and on the street, they enjoy at least rudimentary educational opportunities and health care, and they get to vote every few years for whomever they prefer. That’s the good news.
There is bad news too. While most of its citizens are pleased with independence, some are not. There are Serbs who prefer to be citizens only of Serbia and Albanians who would prefer to be citizens of a “greater” Albania rather than Kosovo. Kosovo’s political leadership too often enjoys a standard of living its salaries alone cannot support. While all vow to make Kosovo a European Union member, few are prepared to make the difficult choices required to hasten the day. Cronyism and nepotism too often determine who gets hired and contracted. Unemployment is the fate of far too many, even if some of them work in the informal sector.
The statebuilding project is still incomplete. Despite widespread bilateral recognition, Kosovo is not yet a member of the United Nations or its specialized agencies. NATO-led forces guarantee Kosovo’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The four Serb-majority northern municipalities are not yet fully integrated with the rest of the country. International prosecutors and judges still ensure equity in Kosovo’s courts, including the special tribunal convened in The Hague to consider “crimes against humanity, war crimes and other crimes under Kosovo law which allegedly occurred between 1 January 1998 and 31 December 2000.” Pristina has so far failed to demarcate its border with Montenegro and to agree or demarcate formally its border with Serbia. Perceived official corruption is at regionally high levels.
Independence, sovereignty and statebuilding are too often confused, not just in the case of Kosovo. It is entirely possible to be independent but not fully sovereign. That is also Taiwan’s fate, since it does not even claim sovereignty but is an independent state. You can also have a state but not be independent or sovereign: witness Iraqi Kurdistan. You can also be sovereign and independent but lack a state: I’d say that is Somalia’s current fate, more or less. You can even be sovereign but not fully independent. I’d say EU members are in that category, since they adhere to a set of rules (the acquis communautaire) over which none of them have complete authority, having delegated sovereignty to the European Commission.
For Kosovo, the challenge of the next ten years is to complete its sovereignty in a way that enables the country to apply for NATO and EU membership. Anything that detracts from this goal threatens the welfare and safety of its citizens as well as regional peace and stability. In practice, this means building credible security forces that can take over the immediate defense of its territory, improving Kosovo’s judicial system so that it can equitably decide cases involving Serbs and other non-Albanian citizens, agreeing and demarcating borders, integrating the four northern municipalities, and ending impunity for corrupt and violent behavior.
I am reasonably confident all this can be done, but it will require serious commitment on the part of Kosovo’s citizens to ensure that the leadership moves in the right direction. Despite the current gloom and doom about the Balkans, Kosovo remains a singular and extraordinary achievement of international intervention combined with indigenous determination. It is hard to sustain such determination over decades, especially when Belgrade and Moscow are doing everything they can to complicate matters. But there is no substitute for citizens: they shape the state, determine what independence can achieve, and make completing sovereignty possible.
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Eyes on the prize
Republika Srpska (RS)–the Serb-controlled 49% of Bosnia and Herzegovina–is equipping its police with automatic rifles as well as reportedly initiating counter-terrorism training with Russia. Does this matter? Is it a threat to a cold Balkans peace that has lasted more than 22 years?
This news certainly illustrates the timidity of both the European Union and the United States. Brussels and Washington would not have allowed such things to happen for many of the years since the Dayton peace accords brought an end to the Bosnian war in 1995. Now they shrug it off, knowing that neither has the political will to confront RS President Dodik and hoping that it won’t really matter anyway. Some think the weapons more targeted against Dodik’s opposition in the RS, rather than posing a threat the Brcko District or the Bosnian Federation. The RS interior minister denies the Russians will provide training.
Were I a Bosniak or a Croat I would not be a happy camper. I might want to see the Federation police match the RS arms and up the ante a bit to ensure that nothing untoward occurs. In other words, what the RS has done could initiate an escalatory spiral, one that will certainly increase the likelihood of armed clashes sooner or later.
What should be done to stop this? The most important thing is to ensure that the Brcko District remains outside RS and Federation control. Without the Brcko District, the RS is split into two pieces. That’s why it was so ferociously fought over during the war and its disposition could not be decided at Dayton. Instead, an American arbitrator decided it belonged to both the RS and the Federation, which meant in essence it belonged to neither. Reintegration there has been more successful than in most of the rest of the country. That makes it the keystone that prevents Dayton Bosnia from collapsing.
The US no longer has deployed troops in Bosnia and it is doubtful Washington could be convinced to send them back. The EU does, but they are currently scattered around the country in militarily insignificant numbers, constituting a security presence (not a serious deterrent force). But if a war starts again in Bosnia, it won’t start all over the country, not least because of the ethnic separation the previous war caused. Brcko will be the center of gravity of the next war. The EU should move all of its six hundred or so troops there, making clear that neither the Federation nor RS will be permitted to take it and cause the Dayton edifice to collapse.
It’s not that I treasure that edifice. There are good arguments against the rigid ethnic power-sharing arrangements created at Dayton. But a violent collapse of Bosnia and Herzegovina would be catastrophic. What is needed is a peaceful renegotiation, one that enables the country to qualify as a candidate for EU membership.
As luck would have it, Sarajevo is planning to submit its replies to the initial Brussels questionnaire concerning Bosnia’s EU candidacy within the next few weeks. That is the right direction: the EU’s new Balkans strategy has opened the possibility of new accessions by 2025. Bosnia and Herzegovina is unlikely to qualify in time for that date, because it has been slow to adopt and implement the acquis communautaire (the EU’s accumulated legislation and regulations). But it should do everything it can to move as quickly as possible, before the window closes unpredictably.
Dodik’s automatic rifles are bad. But far worse would be failure of Bosnians to keep their eyes on the prize of EU membership.
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