Neophyte Trump giving Putin green light for Russian expansion
Republican nominee’s bizarre bromance is threat to world stability, says Marc Chikinda.
Amid all Donald Trump’s strange and often vituperative rants in his Republican primary campaign and now the U.S. presidential race, none stand out more than his expressed views about Russia and a man Trump appears to have a ‘bromance’ with, Vladimir Putin.
Trump has stated he wants to work with Russia, including the fight against ISIS. He says he likes Putin and that America needs Russia as a friend. Concomitant with Trump’s warm regard for Putin is his warning to western allies that the United States will not necessarily stand by NATO members if they are attacked by Russia if he is elected.
Many former Republican and Democratic state department officials assert Trump is showing his new ‘bro’ a green light for more military adventures in Eastern Europe.
Trump has gone even further in his ardent wooing of Putin. He has said he is willing to look at U.S. recognition of Russia’s invasion and subsequent annexation of Crimea, which was part of Ukraine. Here is the potential leader of the free world virtually accepting Russia’s takeover of a sovereign nation’s territory.
Further, Trump told a U.S broadcast journalist recently, if elected, he could “guarantee” Russia would never invade Ukraine. Pathetically missing from Trump’s bold statement was the knowledge that Russia in addition to Crimea, had already sent troops into Eastern Ukraine to occupy cities and villages.
What sparks Trump’s admiration of a man most of the world regards as little more than a KGB thug? Could it be the influence of Trump’s new campaign manager, Paul Manafort?
In previous years, Manafort did PR work for the deposed and discredited former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych who, when he wasn’t ordering Russian mercenaries to fire on demonstrators against his regime in Kiev’s Maidan Square, took millions of Ukrainian Treasury dollars with him as he and his family fled into the welcoming arms of Putin.
Now the Ukrainian anti-corruption agency says it has uncovered ledgers showing Manafort or his company received $12 million, presumably for services rendered to Yanukovych before he fled.
Manafort, while not denying he worked for Yanukovych, has firmly denied he took any payments. However, he also vehemently denied that portions of the speech given by Trump’s wife at the Republican convention had been plagiarized from Michelle Obama.
All this could be dismissed as circumstantial evidence. However, a careful examination of Trump’s own words serves as reason for continuing concern about what Trump intends.
Trump said in a May 2014 interview that he was in both indirect and direct contact with Putin. Yet earlier this year, Trump said he did not believe he was in contact with Putin either now or earlier.
Was he telling a lie in 2014, or is he telling one now?
Finally, Trump’s open invitation to Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s State Department emails is asking a foreign power to spy on an American. He must want or need his pal Putin to come to his aid in the election.
Putting aside Trump’s other views on race, religion, gender and the economy, surely the most dangerous for the free world is his disturbing ignorance of Putin’s real intentions in allowing Trump to cosy up to him.
Putin senses in Trump a neophyte of the first rank in realpolitik. Putin knows he has a real opportunity, if Trump is elected, to reestablish Russian hegemony in Eastern Europe.
No, Trump is not reprising the Lawrence Harvey or Liev Schreiber roles in either the 1962 or 2004 film versions of the Manchurian Candidate. Putin has not brainwashed him. He has no need to do so. Trump will willingly give Putin everything he wants. What will Putin give Trump in return? Perhaps a Trump tower in Moscow and little else.