The Trump/Putin collaboration

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Did Donald Trump collaborate with Vladimir Putin to swing the 2016 election? Perhaps the Robert Mueller “witch-hunt” will tell us.

Meanwhile, so long a Trump is doing everything in his power not to let us know the answer, we are free to draw our own conclusions:

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO LIFT SANCTIONS ON PUTIN-LINKED OLIGARCH’S COMPANIES AND THE BANK LINKED TO TRUMP TOWER MOSCOW PROJECT WILL BENEFIT
BY Cristina Maza, 12/20/18

The Treasury Department notified Congress on Wednesday that it plans to remove three companies belonging to Deripaska, a Russian oligarch with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, from the sanctions list on the condition that Deripaska relinquishes control over his companies.

Some observers have questioned why the ultimate beneficiaries of the deal are entities with legal problems and close ties to the Kremlin: the Swiss commodities firm Glencore, which has done business with Deripaska for years, and the Russian bank VTB (nicknamed “Putin’s piggy bank”), which was allegedly going to finance a Trump Tower in Moscow. 

And:

Vladimir Putin Applauds Donald Trump’s Syria Withdrawal: ‘I Agree With Him’
“Donald’s right” to claim ISIS has been defeated in the war-torn country, the Russian president said. Our allies say otherwise.
By Hayley Miller, 12/20/2018

President Donald Trump sent lawmakers into a tailspin on Wednesday when he announced the sudden withdrawal of American troops in Syria. But at least one world leader thinks it’s a mighty fine idea: Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Putin, speaking at his annual news conference on Thursday, said he agreed with Trump’s claim a day earlier that militant group ISIS had been “defeated” in Syria.

Donald Trump: “After historic victories against ISIS, it’s time to bring our great young people home!”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a onetime Trump critic turned frequent cheerleader, railed against an abrupt pullout of U.S. forces in the region.

“With all due respect, ISIS is not defeated in Syria, Iraq, and after just returning from visiting there ― certainly not Afghanistan,” Graham tweeted.

Graham, along with five other senators, penned a letter to Trump on Wednesday warning him about the dangers of his decision and pleading with him to reverse course.

“We believe that such action at this time is a premature and costly mistake that not only threatens the safety and security of the United States, but also emboldens ISIS, Bashar al Assad, Iran, and Russia,” they wrote. “If you decide to follow through with your decision to pull our troops out of Syria, any remnants of ISIS in Syria will surely renew and embolden their efforts in the region.”

Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria marks a win for Putin

Trump sure looks innocent to me. What do you think?

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Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
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Published by Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

MBA Northwestern, business turnaround expert, economist

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22 thoughts on “The Trump/Putin collaboration”

  1. GUILTY! Trump is clearly Putin’s puppet and is pulling out of Syria for the very basest of motives: to appease Putin and Erdogan, to “wag the dog” and distract from his mounting scandals, and of course to nurture his own fat relentless ego. And he is doing it as abruptly and chaotically as possible, without so much as a heads-up beforehand to our allies, especially the Kurds who he seems to have no qualms about selling down the river to Turkey. Very base and cowardly indeed.

    That said, sometimes even a stopped clock is right twice a day. We need to get the hell out of out of not just Syria, but also the decades-long quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan, the latter of which is longer than Vietnam at this point. ISIL, though still in existence as a terrorist group (kinda like al-Qaeda and the Taliban, etc.) is nonetheless defeated territorially compared to 2014. Time for other countries/actors to step up to the plate and do whatever remains of the the heavy lifting now. And we need to stop suborning Saudi Arabia’s unconscionable mass-murdering proxy war in Yemen as well (though Trump seems cool with that for now).

    Whether a war is a “wham, bam, thank you ma’am” kind of war like Libya or a decade(s)-long quagmire like Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan, the end result is essentially the same. Like the song says, if we go it will be trouble, but if we stay it will be double.

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    1. 2,000 soldiers is not exactly “in” Syria. It is a token force to maintain our presence and influence there. The generals think Trump is wrong. The generals are not always right, but given a choice between the generals’ opinion and Trumps, I’ll take the generals’. Or do you prefer Trump’s leadership?

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      1. I certainly don’t want Trump’s leadership, and his motives are clearly pro-Putin, but 2000 troops (one tenth the size of the “residual” force in South Korea to this day) would really not practically make or break anything at this point. Same goes for the slightly larger residual forces in Iraq and Afghanistan as well. And we still have bases in other countries in the region as well.

        The generals clearly think Trump is wrong, and their fears are not just about job security (though that may be part of it). No one wants it on their conscience if things go horribly wrong after we leave and it can be linked, however tangentially or speciously, to the “premature” (albeit after several years) withdraway. But clearly Trump has no conscience, so this may ironically be a golden window of opportunity to finally extricate ourselves from the quagmire of the Middle East wars for good.

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  2. At last! A sensible operation by Trump. He brags ISIS is defeated but many say not so, However they are a shadow of the past and have no future having burned every possible bridge before them. One less mess for the US to foment. It will take a couple of generations to repair the mischief one can sheet home to US interests. They never win but seem content just to sow chaos.
    Can we spare the resources for permanent war?. I certainly don’t think so.

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          1. A quote from Glenn Greenwald last April,
            “Also, there is a virtually complete blackout in the CNN/MSNBC and bipartisan establishment universe on one rather key point made by @RoKhanna:
            The US military action in Syria is “Illegal” under domestic and international law.
            Watch @KyleKulinski:

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          3. In so far as it matters for at least the appearance of the rules of war being followed, I’m sure the US war machine couldn’t give a stuff about it being legal or not. But what is source for the goose…..

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    2. While I do not approve of Trump’s base and pro-Putin motives, nor the abrupt chaotic way he is doing it, I do believe that sooner or late we need to withdraw troops completely from Syria, Iraq, and especially Afghanistan, and I would prefer sooner. Decades-long quagmires are never good for anyone except the oligarchs and the military-industrial complex. Not good for our troops, not good for average Americans, not good for taxpayers, not good for the people living the such occupied countries, and certainly not good for the Earth. (Ok, maybe Monetary Sovereignty negates somewhat the taxpayer issue, since dollars are infinite, but the significant non-monetary resources of “blood and treasure” clearly are NOT infinite.)

      Endless war is clearly NOT a sustainable strategy, in fact it is not even a strategy, it is a concept, and an absurd one at that.

      What we should be doing instead is a Monetary Sovereignty funded Marshall Plan for the Middle East. That would pay a much greater peace dividend than anything else. And after concluding Operation Tidal Wave II and withdrawing, we should put diplomatic and economic pressure on Turkey and other so-called “allies” in the region. And if we must arm or fund any rebels over there to continue the fight against ISIL, there is no better candidate than the Kurds, rather than questionable “rebels” that turn traitor.

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        1. It is one thing to maintain a strong defense against 9/11 style attacks. But starting preemptive wars of choice with no exit strategy, regime change, kicking the proverbial hornet’s nest, and staying indefinitely is why such wars are endless. And it is is not sustainable in the long run, though it is lucrative to the oligarchs and the military-industrial complex.

          We must remember that ISIL would not have existed had we not invaded Iraq in the first place. And the war in Afghanistan is about as sustainable as Vietnam was, which is to say, not very.

          As for the generals, perhaps we should defer to the wisdom of the late Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, author of “War Is A Racket”.

          https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

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          2. I personally think we should bring the majority of our troops home, albeit with some overseas bases remaining scattered in the most strategic areas that are not currently in shooting wars, and rightsize the military in general. We could cut our military spending in half and still have the strongest fighting force in the world by far. Just my $0.02.

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          3. Cutting military spending in half would be recessionary unless other spending places are substituted. Of course, spending on these “other” places can go forward without cutting military spending.

            The military is a source of jobs. Why do you wish to cut those jobs?

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          4. That is actually a big problem. Every member of Congress since WW2 has wanted the Military to invest in their district and there is something like 4000 [?] military related places across the nation, not to mention 750+ overseas bases. Closing them down is not going to happen voluntarily, but having them open is a prelude to the mischief the DoD gets up to today. A difficult one.

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        2. Actually the Atlantic Ocean is a great “Wall” keeping out the refugees from the Middle East. By rights all the flood of refugees that went to Germany should have been shipped across the Atlantic instead of just the Mediterranean Sea. The US “owns” all this mess but is not facing any music over it, because of the Atlantic Ocean.

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  3. I’m afraid the entire world is stuck in war as a reflection of the now false but long-held-to-be-true Scarcity Model.

    The political abundance model–if it’s ever ushered in–will be that of Monetary Sovereignty; specifically, the guaranteed income/education provisions. IF the USA puts MS to work, others who are Monetarily Sovereign will definitely follow our lead and the USA can rightfully regain its world stature. Actually, Whoever starts the ball rolling will be the new leader.

    But the solution isn’t MS alone; it’s the guts to take the first step and ADMIT that economics and monetary scarcity (With–Holding) no longer apply to -and cannot successfully function in- the 21st Century.

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    1. The Scarcity Model is indeed a self-fulfilling prophecy, just like the idea that war is inevitable is also a self-fulfilling prophecy. The late, great Buckminster Fuller easily debunked both. And he also warned that as long as men, who tend to think both war and scarcity are inevitable, remain in charge, such self-fulfilling prophecies will continue. As a corollary, he also predicted that women would and should take over as well. I’m paraphrasing, of course, but that is basically what he said.

      We certainly need a change in leadership, that’s for sure. And Monetary Sovereignty needs to be the most important tool for our new leaders to use. The failure of the forces of good to use MS for the greater good increases the odds that the forces of evil will use it for their own ends. Look at how Hitler used his own version of MS in the 1930s to consolidate his popularity by rescuing the economy of Germany, inspired by the most famous greenbacker himself, Abraham Lincoln. The average Germans luuurrrved him for it at first, even outdoing FDR in that regard. And when he finally revealed just how evil he really was, it was too late. And the rest is history. If Trump was smart enough to utilize MS, he would be even more dangerous. All the more reason for us to pre-empt the fascists by beating him and his ilk to it.

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