Who Is A Russian Agent? Biden (Reversing Trump), Permits a Key Putin Goal: a New Russian Natural Gas Pipeline to Europe
Posted by freedomforall 2 years, 11 months ago to Politics
Excerpt:
"That the Kremlin had taken over American political institutions through its blackmail control of former President Donald Trump was a media conspiracy theory as pervasive as it was deranged. This once-exciting script was excavated from the CIA’s Cold War basement, dusted off by their operatives, and then kicked off by the intelligence community’s purposeful dissemination of the now-debunked Steele Dossier. And once this fairy tale was launched, there were seemingly no limits on the depths to which media figures would sink to promote it.
In the world of reality, the exact opposite was happening. When it came to actual vital Russian interests — as opposed to the symbolic gestures hyped by the liberal cable and op-ed page circus — Trump and his administration were confronting and undermining the Kremlin in ways Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, had, to his credit, steadfastly refused to do.
Indeed, the foreign policy trait relentlessly attributed to Trump in support of the media’s Cold War conspiracy theory — namely, an aversion to confronting Putin — was, in reality, an overarching and explicit belief of President Obama’s foreign policy, not President Trump’s. During the 2012 presidential election, Obama and the Democratic Party famously and repeatedly mocked GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s warnings about the threat posed by Russia as a “relic of the Cold War.”
Consistent with that view, Obama rejected bipartisan demands to send lethal weapons to Ukraine throughout 2015 and into 2016. Even when Russia reasserted control over Crimea in 2014 after citizens overwhelmingly approved it in a referendum, Obama did little more than impose some toothless sanctions .
Meanwhile, Trump — even as media figures gorged themselves on the conspiracy theory that he was a Kremlin agent — reversed virtually all of those Obama-era accommodations to Putin. Again and again, Trump acted contrary to the Kremlin’s core interests. After publicly threatening Russia over Syria, Trump twice bombed Putin’s key Middle Eastern ally — something Obama refused to do — prompting applause from the always-hawkish Hillary Clinton and even from former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (who had starred in a 2012 DNC video mocking Romney for viewing Russia as a serious threat). Trump withdrew from the Iran Deal over the Kremlin’s vocal objections.
Over and over, Trump undermined, not advanced, core Russian objectives.
All of this became even clearer on Tuesday when President Biden reversed Trump’s blockage of the Russian natural gas pipeline. Axios' Jonathan Swan reported that “the Biden administration will waive sanctions on the corporate entity and CEO overseeing the construction of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline into Germany,” which “indicates the Biden administration is not willing to compromise its relationship with Germany over this pipeline.” Swan wrote what is clearly true: “the completion of Nord Stream 2 would be a huge geopolitical win for Putin and give him substantial new leverage in Europe.”
This “huge geopolitical win for Putin” is exactly what the Kremlin’s alleged asset in the White House spent years preventing and which Biden is now handing over. "
"That the Kremlin had taken over American political institutions through its blackmail control of former President Donald Trump was a media conspiracy theory as pervasive as it was deranged. This once-exciting script was excavated from the CIA’s Cold War basement, dusted off by their operatives, and then kicked off by the intelligence community’s purposeful dissemination of the now-debunked Steele Dossier. And once this fairy tale was launched, there were seemingly no limits on the depths to which media figures would sink to promote it.
In the world of reality, the exact opposite was happening. When it came to actual vital Russian interests — as opposed to the symbolic gestures hyped by the liberal cable and op-ed page circus — Trump and his administration were confronting and undermining the Kremlin in ways Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, had, to his credit, steadfastly refused to do.
Indeed, the foreign policy trait relentlessly attributed to Trump in support of the media’s Cold War conspiracy theory — namely, an aversion to confronting Putin — was, in reality, an overarching and explicit belief of President Obama’s foreign policy, not President Trump’s. During the 2012 presidential election, Obama and the Democratic Party famously and repeatedly mocked GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s warnings about the threat posed by Russia as a “relic of the Cold War.”
Consistent with that view, Obama rejected bipartisan demands to send lethal weapons to Ukraine throughout 2015 and into 2016. Even when Russia reasserted control over Crimea in 2014 after citizens overwhelmingly approved it in a referendum, Obama did little more than impose some toothless sanctions .
Meanwhile, Trump — even as media figures gorged themselves on the conspiracy theory that he was a Kremlin agent — reversed virtually all of those Obama-era accommodations to Putin. Again and again, Trump acted contrary to the Kremlin’s core interests. After publicly threatening Russia over Syria, Trump twice bombed Putin’s key Middle Eastern ally — something Obama refused to do — prompting applause from the always-hawkish Hillary Clinton and even from former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (who had starred in a 2012 DNC video mocking Romney for viewing Russia as a serious threat). Trump withdrew from the Iran Deal over the Kremlin’s vocal objections.
Over and over, Trump undermined, not advanced, core Russian objectives.
All of this became even clearer on Tuesday when President Biden reversed Trump’s blockage of the Russian natural gas pipeline. Axios' Jonathan Swan reported that “the Biden administration will waive sanctions on the corporate entity and CEO overseeing the construction of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline into Germany,” which “indicates the Biden administration is not willing to compromise its relationship with Germany over this pipeline.” Swan wrote what is clearly true: “the completion of Nord Stream 2 would be a huge geopolitical win for Putin and give him substantial new leverage in Europe.”
This “huge geopolitical win for Putin” is exactly what the Kremlin’s alleged asset in the White House spent years preventing and which Biden is now handing over. "
1. Keystone XL, would convey fuel from Canada to US. quite large flow, there are currently big amounts carried by tankers on rail owned by Buffett. The pipeline has met all environmental law requirements but still cancelled by Obama (green politics or Buffett contributions?). Re-approved by Trump. Re-cancelled by Joe on his day 1.
2. This is the subject of the article.
The Nord Stream 2. A very large natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany on the Baltic Sea bed avoiding other nations. Increases German dependence on Russian energy. An example of crackpot green politics after Germany runs down its nuclear power stations and its coal stations. Germany has very large coal deposits, centuries worth remain, used for many years in power stations, much of the coal is low quality but the latest power stations are very efficient and produce very low emissions - probably better than the latest Chinese designs.
Germany has spent massively on un-reliables, even solar, mainly wind turbines, neither give much actual electrical power despite cost, ugliness, bird killing, erratic output, feel goodism..
Using natural gas gives lower emissions than coal, costs more, the German gov think it is a smaller target for green complaints, an utterly irrational decision for Germany.
In my opinion-
Not a big deal for the US politically or economically. It is the hypocrisy that is on a grand scale.
Germany has the loss in buying energy from Russia when they have plenty of their own sitting in the ground.
Russia, gets a net gain of course, they have plenty of gas.
None of that, needless to say, will happen now. Indeed, just hours after Swan reported this sanctions waiver, reporters giggled and swooned after Biden joked about running them all over in his car as a condition to answering their questions about the war in Gaza, then giggled and swooned even more when he floored the car and drove away from them.
For five years, the bulk of the U.S. media pushed and endorsed a demented, dangerous conspiracy theory about the world’s second-largest nuclear power that not only lacked evidence but was negated by every relevant event. As I documented in late 2016 and then again in 2018, there is a stronger basis for claiming that Obama was significantly more accommodating of Putin than Trump ever was. And after just four months in office, the same is true of Biden. But for a media devoted to an agenda rather than truth, the inexorable destruction of their conspiracy theory does not matter."