Posted on 12/27/2015 1:29:43 PM PST by Yashcheritsiy
The phrase "follow the money" is supposed to help explain human behavior, especially in politics. So why has Donald Trump embraced Russian President Vladimir Putin? Why has he denied the evidence of Putin's killing of Russian journalists and dissidents? A savvy businessman, Trump is certainly not dumb. There must be something else to it.
Reports dating back to 1987, during the time of the old Soviet Union, reveal that Trump has been seeking business in Russia and attempting to build a "Russian Trump Tower" in Moscow and perhaps other Russian cities.
At this particular time in history, with Putin's cronies under financial sanctions because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Putin's praise for Trump may signal another attempt to get the capitalists and their money back into Russia. Such a ploy depends on Trump and others rehabilitating Putin by claiming that he is fighting terrorism in Syria, not bolstering a long-time Soviet/Russian client state. Thanks to the effectiveness of the Russia Today (RT) channel, which saturates the U.S. media market, especially cable television, Putin is indeed looking like a statesman on the world stage.
Trump's relationship with Russia goes far back. In 1987, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, he was meeting with Soviet officials and negotiating the building of "luxury hotels" in Moscow and Leningrad. A story at the time said Trump had met Soviet Ambassador Yuri Dubinin, who mentioned how much his daughter had admired the "opulent" Trump Tower in New York City. This led to an invitation to Trump to visit the USSR. The story said Dubinin wrote a letter to Trump, who hosted a meeting with Soviet officials in New York.
The invitation to Moscow was issued by Intourist, the giant Soviet in-country travel organization which operated all the hotels for foreigners in the Soviet Union. Intourist was created in 1929 by Joseph Stalin and run by KGB officials. Intourist hotels were designed for wealthy foreigners, and virtually all the Intourist guides were KGB informers. In fact, one aspect of their jobs was the recruitment of foreigners.
However, Trump expressed concern about "Soviet regulations on joint ventures, which require that the Soviets hold a controlling 51 percent interest" in such projects. Trump wanted majority control.
The book The Global Emerging Market: Strategic Management and Economics, by Vladimir Kvint, said that as far back as 2008, the Trump Organization had registered its trademarks in Russia in the areas of real estate development and construction. Trump's son, Donald Jr., said in an interview at the time that his father was looking at investing in Russia and China. These were considered top A-list countries. Donald Jr. is the executive vice president of Development & Acquisitions at the Trump Organization.
Trump wasn't the only businessman who thought the new Russia would prove hospitable to foreign investment. American businessman Bill Browder ran an investment fund in Russia called Hermitage Capital. Once a Putin fan, he thought private property rights were going to be protected. However, he was deported in 2005, his assets stolen, and his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was tortured and killed. Browder now says, "The Russian regime is a criminal regime. We're dealing with a nuclear country run by a bunch of Mafia crooks. And we have to know that."
Cases like that didn't stop Congress in 2012 from voting for Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) for Russia. It passed the Senate by 92-4 and the House by 365-43. Despite the ominous trends, including Putin's invasion of the former Soviet Republic of Georgia in 2008, big business thought a lot of money could still be made in Russia. In 2013, Trump was himself back in Russia holding his "Miss Universe" pageant. "I have plans to start business in Russia," Trump told the Russian media. "I am currently in talks with several Russian companies to build a skyscraper on the model of Trump Tower in New York."
One of Trump's contacts was Russian billionaire Araz Agalarov and his company Crocus Group. He owned Crocus City Hall, where the Miss Universe finals were being held. He confirmed that his company, Crocus Group, had been participating in real estate talks with Trump. Later that year Agalarov was given an outstanding citizen award by Vladimir Putin at a ceremony held in the Kremlin. He has been called "The Donald Trump of Russia."
Rather than treat China and Russia as business opportunities, Trump said in his 2011 book Time To Get Tough that China is "not our friend" and is stealing our jobs, technology, and military capabilities. It appears that a business relationship with China had soured since the time Donald Jr. was considering investing there. Trump's attacks on China have been a big hit on the campaign trail.
Analyst Nevin Gussack says of Trump, "While his trade and immigration policies would strengthen our strategic and economic posture, his naiveté and ignorance of Russia and even Cuba is very disconcerting." It appears that Trump has flip-flopped on the question of whether he would invest in communist Cuba.
As far as Russia is concerned, there's no talk in the 2011 book of doing business with Putin. But Trump said that he "often speaks highly" of Putin because of his "intelligence and no-nonsense way." An intelligence operative, Putin was in the KGB and ran one of the KGB's successor agencies, the FSB.
Putin certainly has a "no-nonsense" approach to his perceived political enemies. Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was poisoned, miraculously survived, but was then later shot dead on October 7, 2006, which happened to be Putin's birthday. She had been warning about the KGB's return to power and was investigating the circumstances surrounding the kidnapping and murder of hundreds in the Beslan school massacre in southern Russia in 2004. This event, like the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings, was blamed on Islamists and gave Putin the opportunity, or pretext, to further consolidate his power over the military, the intelligence agencies, and the economy. He assumed virtual dictatorial powers.
The poisoning of Politkovskaya was a hallmark of the KGB's "no-nonsense" way of doing business. Later that same year, dissident former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko was murdered by poisoning in London, to which he had fled. He wrote the book Blowing Up Moscow: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB Terror, about the FSB's role in those 1999 Moscow apartment bombings. He had also named al-Qaeda's number two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, as having been trained by the KGB.
While Trump's 2011 book denounced "Obama's pandering to the Russians" in areas like sabotaging missile defense for our allies, he said Putin had a "grand vision," the creation of a "Eurasian Union" to replace the USSR. He said Putin wanted to control oil supplies to all of Europe. This was an important insight into how Putin's regime is not defensive, nor reacting to the U.S. and NATO, but is instead aggressive in foreign affairs and trying to dominate its neighbors. However, rather than explain what the Russians were up to with this "grand vision," Trump went on to say "Hats off to the Russians" in getting their way with Obama.
One can fully understand taking Obama to task for giving in to the Russians. But praising the Russians for taking advantage of Obama reflects a trait that is all too common with many conservatives. Their disgust with Obama has blinded them to the nature of our enemies, who exploit his foreign policy to their advantage. They somehow think Putin is acting in America's interests when Obama is not. That's ludicrous.
In his latest book, Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again, Trump notes that Putin is "outmaneuvering" Obama in the Middle East. Trump calls Putin a leader, in contrast to Obama. But what is Putin leading? Trump refers to Iran as "Russia's best friend," without explaining the significance of its alliance with Russia. Trump also says in his book that he doesn't understand "why Germany and other countries watched impassively as Putin marched into Ukraine."
After the invasion of Ukraine and the shoot-down of the Malaysian plane by Russian-backed terrorists, Trump claimed, "I think I became much richer because I can understand people and read people and Putin is not finished. Putin has got a long way to go."
Again, we are left thinking that Trump understands the aggressive intentions of Vladimir Putin.
Yet, when Trump was asked about the nuclear balance with Russia during the most recent Republican presidential debate, he displayed ignorance of the decaying nature of the U.S. nuclear triad, which constitutes our ability to deter and survive a Russian nuclear first strike.
Meanwhile, Putin has just presided over a ceremony honoring the KGB's successor agencies, and the Russia Today (RT) propaganda channel has announced the grand opening of a "cultural center" dedicated to mass murderer Joseph Stalin.
It looks like Putin has outmaneuvered Obama and Trump. It is an opening for Trump's opponents, especially Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Marco Rubio (R-FL). But do they have the courage to "follow the money" and hold Trump accountable for doing business with a criminal regime that threatens the survival of the United States? At the end of this money trail, they may find an explanation of why Trump is so reluctant to hold Putin responsible for his crimes.
I have never, and will never, complain to the moderators because I believe that this is supposed to be a place for grown ups and that we don’t need a “safe space” to deal with each other. I know I can be a rat-bast@rd, and I know everyone else can be one too under the correct circumstances, and I plan accordingly.
So now it’s Trump who killed those Russian journalists? But who killed Kenny? Putin?
I think you are overstating and even misstating the comment. Because of Hitler’s book, people should have known what they were buying. That does not mean they did. I haven’t read any of the candidates books. I have heard a lot about Trump’s books, especially “The Art of the Deal,” so I know some things there. What I know bothers me in that I think you cannot be sure of his true goals. There is nothing ideologically the same as Hitler. The similarity is in the fact that a lot of people are getting very enthusiastic when they do not really know what they are signing up for. The similarity ends there. Trump is no Hitler.
As I stated in subsequent posts, she/he is nothing more than a troll. And in my case, she implied that I was threatening her with violence..............See her post #124.....
She's trolling for bannings........
Another similarity:
People are so fed up with the way things are, they will overlook a lot of things that would otherwise bother them in order to gain a few issues. Germans did that with Hitler. It is a point of how people tend to act like herds of sheep rather than individual, principled thinkers. That is not a statement for Trump people only. It is people in general. When the crowd gets frustrated, people turn into, well, herds, or mobs, or whatever similar word you choose.
It really isn’t about Trump more than it is about the turncoat politicians who have been promising solutions only to do the opposite once in office. They created the mob. Trump is the guy who happens to be there, is not “one of them” and is a forceful leader — so the herd follows. I am not sure we can blame anyone but the GOPe. Human nature is what it is.
Yes they did indeed. You have to understand that language is a tool, and if you are careless, ignorant, or plain didn't pay attention in school, and mis-use it, it reflects poorly upon you and makes one wonder what else did you get wrong. There is no picture of you, nor your resume, alongside your post, so all readers have to go on is content and how it is presented.
An analogy is you take your car for a tuneup and it comes back driving funny because the tire pressures are incorrect. Hmmm, you wonder, did they even bother to check the fan belt. Little things add up to big things, because of a nail the battle was lost, etc. Tense is a simple thing, no tricky punctuation, and you got it wrong. I'm sure you won't be so careless next time.
/snicker
People often forget who the enemy is.
That’s because it’s an Ocean of Rubio.
PHHHTTTT.
that’s good.
But this election has nothing to do with Hitler, mass murder or his Nazi supporters. Zip. Comparing them to Trump and his supporters like the one individual did here, is ludicrous and really offensive to most folks.
It’s not complex and most fully understand what his comment was all about.
It is the situation that was compared, not the ideology.
You are right that it is not complex. I have, however, run out of ways to explain it. The situation is similar, not the ideology.
What a condescending statement you make, trying to mask the obvious, that someone broke the law. You cannot explain that away, not change the law, so you resort to ridicule, the primary tool of the Left. You can make a better argument if you try... You will still be on the losing side, but at least you would have tried in an honest fashion.
Apparently this poster has been given a pass. That’s OK. At least he ID’d himself.
This individual is attempting to bait people with really reckless nasty comments. Just a heads up.
I didn’t mask it in the least, and that makes you, Mr. know-it-all, a liar, plain and simple.
That is a good observation and would like to expand upon it; I opine that Americans love Trump, that is Americans who are proud to be American and who are proud of their country. There is a considerable number of Americans in name only who think they are somehow elite and better than the real Americans, the ones who make the country run. These faux Americans look down on the real Americans for no apparent reason other than, I sincerely believe, jealousy. They know their useless degrees prepare them for nothing useful in our society; The can''t drive an 18 wheeler, run a backhoe, or even dig a ditch by hand. But somehow their useless degrees give them a sense that they are better that the real Americans.
These over-educated idiots would be useful people if they had a trade and could feel pride in what they do. But they don't, and this just grinds them. And they, with very few exceptions, have not worn their countries uniform. They always will wonder if they could have done it, and wish they had not been talked out of joining by their guidance counselor. These and some other cause them to act out and despise what they are not and probably never will be, useful citizens who take pride in their family, friends, neighborhood, state and country. Trump is just the latest outlet for assuaging their jealousy.
One can understand why some Trump supporters feel sensitive. No one likes to be looked down upon, especially from those who couldn't fix a leaky toilet with both hands and a flashlight.
TOUGH CRAP.
If OBAMA tells me to HATE Russia, and Trump tells me to love Russia.
...I will love Russia.
(how about trying something else)
Yes, I see now, thanks. I won’t waste my time.
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