Caroline Glick has written an outstanding essay relating to
former Obama comrades, Dems and the Leftist MSM are losing their minds on who can
accuse President Trump louder of treason. In wondering who was more actually
treasonous, Glick goes on to list Obama actions that actually benefitted
Russian National Interests.
JRH 7/20/18
********************
Who is betraying America?
By Caroline Glick
07/20/2018
Did US President Donald Trump commit treason in Helsinki
when he met Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin? Should he be
impeached?
That is what his opponents claim. Former president Barack
Obama’s CIA director John Brennan accused Trump of treason outright.
Brennan tweeted, “Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki [with Putin] rises to and exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors.’ It was nothing short of treasonous.”
Fellow senior Obama administration officials, including
former FBI director James Comey, former defense secretary Ashton Carter, and
former deputy attorney general Sally Yates parroted Brennan’s accusation.
Almost the entire US media joined them in condemning Trump
for treason.
Democratic leaders have led their own charge. Democratic
Congressman Steve Cohen from Tennessee insinuated the US military should
overthrow the president, tweeting, “Where are our military folks? The
Commander-in-Chief is in the hands of our enemy!”
Senate minority leader Charles Schumer said that Trump is
controlled by Russia. And Trump’s Republican opponents led by senators Jeff
Flake and John McCain attacked him as well.
Trump allegedly committed treason when he refused to reject
Putin’s denial of Russian interference in the US elections in 2016 and was
diffident in relation to the US intelligence community’s determination that
Russia did interfere in the elections.
Trump walked back his statement from Helsinki at a press
appearance at the White House Tuesday. But it is still difficult to understand
what all the hullaballoo about the initial statement was about.
AP reporter John Lemire placed Trump in an impossible
position. Noting that Putin denied meddling in the 2016 elections and the
intelligence community insists that Russia meddled, he asked Trump, “Who do you
believe?”
If Trump had said that he believed his intelligence
community and gave no credence to Putin’s denial, he would have humiliated
Putin and destroyed any prospect of cooperative relations.
Trump tried to strike a balance. He spoke respectfully of
both Putin’s denials and the US intelligence community’s accusation. It wasn’t
a particularly coherent position. It was a clumsy attempt to preserve the
agreements he and Putin reached during their meeting.
And it was blindingly obviously not treason.
In fact, Trump’s response to Lemire, and his overall conduct
at the press conference, did not convey weakness at all. Certainly he was far
more assertive of US interests than Obama was in his dealings with Russia.
In Obama’s first summit with Putin in July 2009, Obama sat
meekly as Putin delivered an hour-long lecture about how US-Russian relations
had gone down the drain.
As Daniel Greenfield noted at Frontpage magazine
Tuesday, in succeeding years, Obama capitulated to Putin on anti-missile
defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, on Ukraine, Georgia and
Crimea. Obama gave Putin free rein in Syria and supported Russia’s alliance
with Iran on its nuclear program and its efforts to save the Assad regime. He
permitted Russian entities linked to the Kremlin to purchase a quarter of
American uranium. And of course, Obama made no effort to end Russian meddling
in the 2016 elections.
TRUMP IN contrast has stiffened US sanctions against Russian
entities. He has withdrawn from Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. He has agreed
to sell Patriot missiles to Poland. And he has placed tariffs on Russian
exports to the US.
So if Trump is Putin’s agent, what was Obama? [Bold text
Blog Editor’s]
Given the nature of Trump’s record, and the context in which
he made his comments about Russian meddling in the 2016 elections, the question
isn’t whether he did anything wrong. The question is why are his opponents
accusing him of treason for behaving as one would expect a president to behave?
What is going on?
The answer to that is clear enough. Brennan signaled it
explicitly when he tweeted that Trump’s statements “exceed the threshold of ‘high
crimes and misdemeanors.’” The unhinged allegations of treason are supposed to
form the basis of impeachment hearings.
The Democrats and their allies in the media use the
accusation that Trump is an agent of Russia as an elections strategy. Midterm elections
are consistently marked with low voter turnout. So both parties devote most of
their energies to rallying their base and motivating their most committed
members to vote.
To objective observers, the allegation that Trump betrayed
the United States by equivocating in response to a rude question about Russian
election interference is ridiculous on its face. But Democratic election
strategists have obviously concluded that it is catnip for the Democratic
faithful. For them it serves as a dog whistle.
The promise of impeachment for votes is too radical to serve
as an official campaign strategy. For the purpose of attracting swing voters
and not scaring moderate Democrats away from the party and the polls,
Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer say they have no interest in
impeaching Trump. Impeachment talk, they insist, is a mere distraction.
But by embracing Brennan’s claim of treason, Pelosi, Hoyer,
Schumer and other top Democrats are winking and nodding to the progressive
radicals now rising in their party. They are telling the Linda Sarsours and
Cynthia Nixons of the party that they will impeach Trump if they win control of
the House of Representatives.
The problem with playing domestic politics on the
international scene is that doing so has real consequences for international
security and for US national interests.
Consider, for instance, Europe’s treatment of Trump.
Europe is economically dependent on trade with the US and
strategically dependent on NATO. So why are the Europeans so open about their
hatred of Trump and their rejection of his trade policies, his policy towards
Iran and his insistence that they pay their fair share for their own defense?
Why did EU Council President Donald Tusk attack Trump with
such contempt and condescension in Brussels? Tusk, who chairs the meetings of
EU leaders, is effectively the EU president. And the day before last week’s
NATO conference he chided Trump for criticizing Europe’s low defense spending.
“America,” he said with a voice dripping with contempt,
“appreciate your allies. After all you don’t have that many.”
That of course, was news to the countries of Asia, Africa,
Latin America, Europe and the Middle East that depend on America and work
diligently to develop and maintain strong ties to Washington.
Leaving aside the ridiculousness of his remarks, where did
Tusk get the idea that it is reasonable to speak so scornfully to an American
president?
Where did EU’s foreign policy commissioner Federica
Mogherini get the idea that it is okay for her to work urgently and openly to
undermine legally constituted US sanctions against Iran for its illicit nuclear
weapons program?
The answer of course is that they got a green light to adopt
openly anti-American policies from the forces in the US that have devoted their
energies since Trump’s election nearly two years ago to delegitimizing his
victory and his presidency. Those calling Trump a traitor empowered the
Europeans to defy the US on every issue.
Trump’s opponents’ unsubstantiated allegation that his
campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 elections has constrained Trump’s
ability to perform his duties.
Consider his relations with Putin.
If there is anything to criticize about Trump’s summit with
Putin it is that it came too late. It should have happened a year ago. That it
happened this week speaks not to Trump’s eagerness to meet Putin but to the
urgency of the hour.
After securing control over the Deraa province along Syria’s
border with Jordan last week, the Assad regime, supported by Iranian regime
forces, Hezbollah forces and Shiite militia forces began its campaign to
restore regime control over the Quneitra province along the Syrian border with
Israel.
As Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and all government and
military officials have stated clearly and consistently for years, Israel
cannot accept Iranian presence in Syria. If Iran does not remove its forces
from Syria generally and from southern Syria specifically, there will be war
imminently between Israel, Iran and its Hezbollah, Shiite militia and Syrian
regime allies.
Israel prefers to fight that war sooner rather than later to
prevent Iran and its allies from entrenching their positions in Syria and make
victory more difficult. So, in the interest of preventing such a war, Trump had
no choice but to bite the political bullet and sit down to discuss Syria face
to face with Putin to try to come up with a deal that would see Russia push
Iran and Hezbollah out of Syria.
From what the two leaders said at their joint press conference
it’s hard to know what was agreed to. But Netanyahu’s jubilant response
indicates that some deal was reached.
Certainly their statements were strong, unequivocal signals
to Iran. When Trump said, “The United States will not allow Iran to benefit
from our successful campaign against ISIS,” he signaled strongly that US forces
in eastern Syria will support Israel in a war against Iran and its allied
forces in Syria just as it fought with the Kurds and its other allies in Syria
against ISIS.
When Putin endorsed Israel’s position that the 1974
Syrian-Israeli disengagement agreement must be implemented along the border, he
told the Iranians that in any Iranian-Israeli war in Syria, Putin will not side
with Iran.
Time will tell if we just averted war. But what we did learn
is that Israel’s position in a war with Iran is stronger than it could have
been if the two leaders hadn’t met in Helsinki.
And this is exceedingly important.
Trump is being condemned for adopting a conciliatory tone
towards Putin while employing a combative tone towards the Europeans and
particularly Germany at the NATO summit. This criticism ignores how Trump
operates in the international arena.
Trump views his exchanges with foreign leaders as separate
engagements. He has goals he wishes to advance with China; with North Korea;
with Russia; with Canada; with Mexico; with Europe; with Britain; with US Arab
allies. In each separate engagement, Trump employs a combination of carrots and
sticks. In each engagement he adopts a distinct manner that he believes
advances his goals.
So far, unlike Obama’s foreign policy by this point in his
presidency, none of Trump’s exchanges have brought disaster on America or its
allies. To the contrary, America and its allies have much greater strategic maneuver
room across a wide spectrum of threats and joint adversaries than they had when
Obama left office.
Trump’s opponents’ obsession with bringing him down has
caused great harm to his presidency and to America’s position worldwide. It is
a testament to Trump’s commitment to the US and its allies that he met with
Putin this week. And the success of their meeting is something that all who
care about global security and preventing a devastating war in the Middle East
should be grateful for.
__________________
John
R. Houk, Blog Editor
About
Caroline B. Glick
Caroline
B. Glick is a senior columnist at Breitbart News and the senior contributing
and chief columnist for The Jerusalem Post. She is also a senior columnist for
Maariv. She is the author of The Israeli Solution: A One State Plan for Peace
in the Middle East, (Crown 2014) and of Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global
Jihad (Gefen 2008). The Israeli Solution was endorsed by leading US
policymakers including Vice President Mike Pence, Senator Ted Cruz and National
Security Advisor John Bolton. Shackled Warrior was endorsed by Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and former CIA director James Woolsey.
Glick
is the adjunct senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Center for
Security Policy in Washington, DC and directs the Israeli Security Project at
the David Horowitz Freedom Center. She travels frequently throughout the world
to brief policymakers on issues related to Israel’s strategic environment and
other related topics. She lectures widely on strategic and political issues
affecting global security, Israel and the Jewish people, US-Israel relations,
Israel-Diaspora affairs and Israel’s changing strategic landscape.
In
2008 Glick founded Latma, the Hebrew language satirical media criticism
website. She served as editor in chief of the site until it ceased operations
in 2015.
Latma
changed the face of Israel’s social media and revolutionized the Israeli
entertainment industry by bringing an alternative voice to the popular culture.
Latma launched “Hakol Shafit,” a primetime, half hour satirical newscast on
Israel television Channel 1. Glick served as the editor in chief of the
program.
Glick
was born in Houston, TX and grew up in Chicago, IL. She moved to Israel in
1991, two weeks after receiving her BA in Political Science from Columbia
University. She joined the Israel Defense Forces that summer and served as an
officer for five and a half years.
From
1994-1996, as an IDF captain, Ms. Glick served in the Defense Ministry as a
core member of Israel’s negotiating team with the Palestinians.
In
1997 and 1998 Ms. Glick served as Assistant Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
From
1998-2000 Ms. Glick studied at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of
Government and received a Master’s in Public Policy in June 2000.
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