Column: Politics
Region: USA in the World
As his impeachment moved
forward, in a morning press conference in London this week, Donald Trump
mentioned casually that he and Vladimir Putin are discussing the elimination of
nuclear weapons. Although this should put a major crimp in the foreign policy
establishment’s all-pervading Russophobia, the US media (including Fox News)
went deaf at that moment.
Trump was holding a news
conference at the NATO summit, rebutting French President Macron’s accusation
that, having failed to respond to Turkey’s assault on its Kurdish allies
against ISIS, the alliance is ‘brain dead’. Focusing on that story, the US
media ignored Trump’s latest ‘sin’: negotiating with the ‘enemy’ to
eliminate weapons that would send the planet back to the stone
age. Single-mindedly, it continued to cover in excruciating detail the
latest installment in the impeach-ment inquiry, failing to mention Trump’s
briefly genteel tone at NATO that momentarily made him look presidential. (More
importantly, it overlooked the fact that Ukraine might well have weighed in on
Hillary’s side in the 2016 election, since she repeatedly declared her
intention of taking down its antagonist, Russia.)
After three years of
behaviors that didn’t quite make the cut, Congress has now settled on Trump’s
attempt to enroll Ukraine in the 2020 presidential campaign to move forward
with impeachment hearings. Failing to explain how this attempt would have
affected America’s ‘security’, it opened formal hearings that sent the White
House into a tailspin. And yet, Trump turned what should have been an
embarrassing moment on the world stage into a plus, at times even looking
presidential as he reviewed Europe’s monetary commitments to the alliance. (At
one point, a group of leaders were shown in what looked like a mocking gaggle,
but their voices were inaudible.)
Not only did the American
media fail to acknowledge Trump’s ability to appear statesmanlike in front
of an international audience even as constitutional scholars were testifying
that his behavior met the Founders’ criteria for impeachment, it failed to
mention Macron’s call for Europe to adopt a new attitude toward Russia. We can
expect that the more Trump tries to cooperate with the Russian President to
reduce nuclear weapons, the more the deep state is likely to double down on
plans to take on Russia — and eventually China.
Regrettably, the media
barely mentioned the fact that Nancy Pelosi took time off from the impeachment
process to lead a brief appearance of a congressional delegation at the
NATO conference, announcing that Congress will not ratify Trump’s
desertion of the Paris Accords, while former Secretary of State and
presidential contender John Kerry kicked off a campaign to combat climate
change in tandem with American youth movements. But although they can ‘walk and
chew gum at the same time’, unless the Democrats can get behind a presidential
candidate brave enough to also reject Russophobia, feeling isolated rather
than protected by its two oceans, the US will continue as the world’s biggest
threat.
Deena Stryker is
a US-born international expert, author and journalist that lived in
Eastern and Western Europe and has been writing about the big picture for 50
years. Over the years she penned a number of books, including Russia’s Americans. Her essays can also be
found at Otherjones.
Especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
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