‘Playground’ Of Ukraine Was Not Of Trump’s Making
As I have written on this blog previously, there is a campaign to blame President Trump for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. One of the most well known ostensibly non partisan members of this campaign is Fiona Hill.
A supposed Russia expert, she has the gravitas the media needs to give their campaign the look of having expert backing. In an interview with CNN a few days before Russia began it’s invasion, she claimed Trump’s foreign emboldened Russia to think it can invade Ukraine.
“Hill recalled Trump’s praise for Russia’s authoritarian leader, Vladimir Putin, as well as his disdain for NATO. She also mentioned his campaign to pressure Ukraine for manufactured dirt about Biden in the run up to the 2020 election. The Ukraine pressure campaign saw Trump threaten to withhold military aid from the nation, which led to his first impeachment. All this did was say to Russia that Ukraine was a playground.”
If Hill was so concerned that Trump would praise Putin she must’ve been outraged when President Obama appeased him. Obama refused to take action when Putin invaded Crimea. He took a missile defense system out of Poland because Russia said it was provocative. Finally he told Putin that he would be able to make a deal with him after his last presidential election because he would have “flexibility”. You only need flexibility that not having an election to worry about if that deal is good for America.
Trump’s disdain for NATO wasn’t for the reason Hill seems to imply. He had disdain for it because they rely almost totally on the US for it’s defense. The NATO treaty requires each member to spend at least 2% of their GDP on national defense. Almost none of them do so. For Trump’s entire term he kept demanding that they do so. For Putin to take this as a sign that NATO would become weaker with Trump as president would have been risky.
Furthermore Trump probably felt contempt for NATO because of their business dealings with their foe. Germany was working with Russia to build a pipeline that would bypass Ukraine. Ukrainian President Zellensky said that Putin would use this pipeline as a weapon against them. They continued on with it up until Russia invaded Ukraine. This despite the fact that Trump had put sanctions on said pipeline.
She also brought up the fact that President Trump asked President Zellensky about Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine. There was the appearance of corruption at the worst and a conflict of interest at the least. As the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, Trump had every right to ask another country’s government for help in investigations. There was no pressure campaign. There was no quid pro quo. There was no delay in military aid, it arrived within the time frame required by law. Finally President Zellensky didn’t think anything wrong had happened.
Perhaps what told Russia that Ukraine was a playground was the fact that President Biden and his son used it as a piggy bank. Hunter made millions of dollars working in Ukraine, in a field he had no experience in, while his father was Vice President. Not only that but he was in charge of the Obama administrations foreign policy for Ukraine.
Seeing this for what it was, Putin must’ve figured that a Biden Administration wouldn't have the moral authority to stand up for Ukraine.
So when Biden was inaugurated and he almost immediately suspends sanctions against Putin’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline, this signaled that with a Biden administration he would have his best opportunity.
Hill doesn’t talk about any of this because she isn't speaking as an expert. She is speaking as a partisan who is working to protect one politician and fix blame to another. CNN and other media don’t present her as such and this is misleading to their viewers.
Originally published at http://conservativecontrarian.wordpress.com on March 2, 2022.
