Trump, Obama, and Russia: A litany of hypocrisies
Isn't it time the media reported the truth about who has been tougher on Russia among Obama, Europe, Hillary, Kerry, and Trump instead of continually regurgitating talking points that Trump is soft on Russia?
In the first year of Obama's presidency, he reneged on a commitment to put missile shields in Poland and the Czech Republic, all to appease Russia. He actually said he did it because Iran was dangerous. Here is what the press was reporting then:
Barack Obama has abandoned the controversial Pentagon plan to build a missile defence system in Europe that had long soured relations with Russia.
In the first year of Trump's presidency, on the other hand, Trump agreed to put up the missile defense to counter Russia. Take a look:
In a move set to counter Russia's reinforcement on NATO's borders, Poland and the U.S. have agreed that Warsaw will purchase the American-made Patriot air defense missile, the Polish government announced Thursday.
Obama essentially didn't lift a finger when Putin attacked Ukraine.
Trump is providing weapons in defiance of Putin and Russia.
The Trump administration has approved a plan to provide lethal weapons to Ukraine, a long-awaited move that deepens America's involvement in the military conflict and may further strain relations with Russia. Moscow responded angrily on Saturday.
President Obama and the European Union worked out a deal with Iran to give the country hundreds of billions of dollars, fortifying that regime. There was actually no written agreement approved by Congress or Iran, and Obama's deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, admitted that the Obama administration repeatedly lied through the media to get the deal done. Now Iran is using a significant amount of money to buy weapons, including from Russia.
Trump is cutting off the spigot from the Iranian tyrants and therefore the cash flow to Russia.
The Islamic Republic of Iran and Russia used a smuggling route to transport offensive weapons, allegedly in violation of UN Resolution 2231, Germany's Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported on Sunday.
The broadsheet paper cited "Western intelligence services" saying Iran delivered "offensive weapons systems" to Russia via a military air base in Syria.
Here's another one:
Russia is in talks with Iran over a $10 billion arms deal in which Moscow would provide advanced tanks, artillery systems, planes and helicopters to the Islamic republic[.]
Obama drew a red line in Syria about chemical weapons. Then Obama did nothing about chemical attacks. Then Obama, Kerry, and the Putin regime brokered a deal to pretend that that Syrian dictator and Putin ally Bashar al-Assad got rid of the chemical weapons. Worse still, they trusted Putin to monitor the deal.
Trump actually bombed Syria in defiance of Russia when Assad subsequently used the weapons that Kerry said were gone.
The outcry leads us to revisit a 2014 claim from former Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry said in a television interview that in Syria, "we got 100 percent of the chemical weapons out."
Syria had agreed in 2013 to an ambitious program to destroy its chemical stockpiles under international supervision, as part of a deal brokered by Russia.
Germany made a private deal to take billions of dollars of natural gas through a pipeline, thereby funding Putin some more. Trump properly called that purported ally out for being dependent on Russia while claiming to be tough on Russia. Putin can't appreciate Trump pressuring Europe to stop buying oil and natural gas from Russia.
In 2012, it was Obama, Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and others who made fun of 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney for saying Russia was dangerous. That wasn't Trump. The media supported Obama on Russia.
Putin invaded two countries during Obama's eight years, and none so far during Trump's administration. Maybe Putin understands that Trump is not as flexible and forgiving as Obama, Hillary, and Kerry.
Trump has put tremendous muscle on NATO to spend much more money on defense, which has to tick off Putin. Obama said he wanted NATO to pay more but never exerted that pressure.
In the summer of 2016, supposedly when the intelligence community, the FBI, the State Department, and the Justice Department were worrying about Russian collusion and meddling, and when they were monitoring Trump and his aides along with inserting informants into the Trump campaign, President Obama's cyber-warfare chief was ordered to stand down. Here was the news back then:
The Obama White House's chief cyber official testified Wednesday that proposals he was developing to counter Russia's attack on the U.S. presidential election were put on a "back burner" after he was ordered to stand down his efforts in the summer of 2016.
They came during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing into how the Obama administration dealt with Russian cyber and information warfare attacks in 2016, an issue that has become one of the more politically sensitive subjects in the panel's ongoing investigation into Russia's interference in the U.S. election and any links to the Trump campaign.
Why did that happen? Don't the media and other Democrats care?
Now, what from the above examples indicates that Trump is caving to Putin and that Obama, Europe, Hillary, Kerry, and other Democrats were strong?
In the news conference with Putin and Trump, Putin mentioned that leftist billionaire George Soros meddles in elections. Why isn't that being reported today? Is it because Soros is a major benefactor of Democrats and that the media like his meddling? We also know that the Obama State Department meddled in the Israeli election, so why doesn't the press care about that?
I can't understand how the intelligence agencies, the FBI and Justice Department, can say definitively that Russia hacked the DNC computers when they didn't actually examine the computers. It is easy to charge people with multiple crimes when they know they aren't going to show up. I thought our Constitution allows that people are essentially innocent until proven guilty, yet the Democrats (including the media) along with many Republicans have declared the Russians responsible. This, even though the DNC won't give access to the evidence.
In the future, are we going to charge people with a bank robbery without going to the bank and looking at the tapes? Are we going to charge executives with embezzlement without actually examining the company's books or the individuals' records based on some third-party report?
If the media want to see collusion, they should look in the mirror. It has been clear for at least two years that Obama, his administration, the FBI, the Justice Department, the State Department, the DNC, the Hillary campaign, and almost 100% of the media colluded to get Hillary elected and destroy Trump. To this day, the collusion continues as they act like the fictitious Russian collusion with Trump story is true with zero evidence.
If the media and other Democrats actually were worried about election integrity, they would support photo IDs to vote, as Mexico does, and as almost all countries in the world require. The fact that politicians from around the United States require photo IDs for so many things in daily life yet pretend that somehow people aren't able to get them to vote shows they don't actually care about election integrity.