US-Russia-EU: How to Connect the Dots Between Trump and Russia - destabelizing the EU

Nicholas Kristof has written a valuable column in The New York Times, “Connecting Trump’s Dots to Russia,” in which he lists 10 “crucial” pieces of information that may indicate that Donald Trump’s inner circle colluded in some way with Moscow’s interference in the U.S. election.

I agree with most of what Kristof writes, with some significant exceptions. I also agree with his bottom line to resolve this morass: “What is desperately needed is an independent inquiry modeled on the 9/11 Commission.” (See Just Security’s Andy Wright’s work for some of the finest analysis of that point.)

1. Kristof writes that Trump has “appointed officials also friendly to Moscow.” That’s true with respect to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn. It may also be true with respect to Steve Bannon in so far as his interests align with Vladimir Putin’s (from stoking the alt-right in America to destabilizing the EU).

But it is not true for a host of other important administration positions, many of which I have tracked, including Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, CIA Director Mike Pompeo and Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland, plus the nominee for director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, and the possible White House senior director for Russia and Europe, Fiona Hill.

Those dots do not neatly align with the others. They require, at least, a more complicated explanation.

2. Kristof wisely cautions Democrats not to descend into unfounded conspiratorial thinking (though I’m not sure why he focuses just on them since leading Republicans, including Senator Lindsey Graham, Senator John McCain and Evan McMullin, are also deeply concerned about the Russia ties).

It’s important to add a similar caution to news media. For example, David Corn, who has written some of the best pieces on the Russian scandal, also published a story on Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s connections to Russians: “Here’s Another Trump Cabinet Pick With Close Financial Ties to Russians—Wilbur Ross joined with a Russian oligarch and a former KGB official to run a troubled bank in Cyprus.”

That article (plus Rachel Maddow’s coverage) now seems in need of significant qualification in light of more recent extraordinary reporting by The New York Times: “New Commerce Secretary Was No Friend to Russians at Cyprus Bank.”

This does not mean that reporters should stop inquiring into what role Wilbur Ross may have played in various aspects of Trump’s finances and connections back through to Russia, but it does mean: Don’t discard information that does not fit into one’s story.

3. It should be acknowledged that former and current U.S. officials have stated that there is not (at least not yet) evidence of collusion between Trump’s circle and Russia.
 

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Meet the Press that by the time he left office, the DNI had “no evidence of such collusion.” The mid-February blockbuster New York Times report of repeated contacts between Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence also had this important caveat:

The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election. The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation.

Sor complete report: : How to Connect the Dots Between Trump and

Turkey-The Netherlands -EU: Diplomatic row as Dutch withdraw landing rights for Turkish minister's plane

The Netherlands says NO

The Netherlands has withdrawn landing rights for a plane carrying a Turkish government minister who wanted to address a rally in support of a controversial referendum giving more power to the president.

Foreign affairs minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu was planning to speak at a meeting in support of the referendum in Rotterdam late on Saturday afternoon. The decision to stop the plane carrying Cavusoglu from landing was taken on public order grounds. The call by the Turkish authorities for a mass demonstration is a threat to public order and safety, the Dutch foreign affairs ministry said in a statement.

‘The Netherlands was in talks with the Turkish authorities about an acceptable solution to the visit,’ the statement said. Talks were ongoing about whether the meeting could take place in a smaller, closed environment such as a Turkish consulate or the embassy. ‘But before those talks could be completed, the Turkish authorities made a public threat about sanctions.

That made the search for a reasonable solution impossible,’ the statement said. The ministry said that many Dutch Turkish have voting rights in Turkey and that the government has no objection to information meetings. ‘But these meetings cannot contribute to the tensions in our society,’ the statement said.

More powers Cavusoglu hopes to win support for a yes vote in the Turkish referendum on amending the constitution to concentrate more power with president Tayyip Erdogan. Prime minister Mark Rutte has said the visit, planned for just four days before the Dutch general election, is ‘undesirable’.

The timing is inopportune, given that much of the election campaign revolves around maintaining the Dutch identity. It would also be playing into the hands of Geert Wilders, who held a short demonstration for the press in front of the Turkish embassy on Wednesday, Dutch commentators said.

Note EU-Digest: Obviously this move by the Dutch PM will score a lot of points for him in the upcoming Dutch elections in 4 days ,


Read more: Diplomatic row as Dutch withdraw landing rights for Turkish minister's plane - DutchNews.nl

Kurds: UN accuses Turkey of 'serious' human rights violations against its Kurdish south-east region

High Time Erdogan Restarts Peace Process

The United Nations has accused Turkey of ‘serious’ human rights violations during operations against Kurdish separatists in the south-east of the country.

The UN says up to half a million people were displaced and at least 2000 people killed from July 2015.
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The town of Cizre is said to have seen destruction on a massive scale.

Numerous disappearances and instances of torture were also documented in a report released by the UN human rights office on Friday.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights spokesman Rupert Colville said:“It appears that not a single suspect was apprehended and not a single individual was prosecuted for violations that occurred during this period. The government of Turkey has repeatedly failed to grant us access but has nevertheless contested the veracity of the very serious allegations made in this report.”

The surge in violence is said to have occured after a ceasefire between Turkey and the PKK fell apart. Ankara did not immediately comment on the UN’s findings.

In early 2016, nearly 200 people were trapped for weeks in basements without food, water or medical help before they were killed in fire by shelling, the report said.

Note EU-Digest: Interesting is that Turkey always is one of the first to complain when Israeli's attack Palestinians in Gaza or on the occupied West-bank. But on the other hand  consider it absolutely normal to do the same against the Kurds, who numbered about 14 million people (or 18% of the Turkish population) who live mainly  in the south-eastern and eastern parts of Anatolia in Turkey

Isn't it high time the Peace Process between the Turks and the Kurds gets a new start?  

EU-Digest

Turkey: Erdogan: Sultan of an Illusionary Ottoman Empire - by Alon Ben-Meir

Recep Tayip Erdogan: Ottoman Empire reincarnated ?

In many conversations and encounters I had over the years with former Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, he emphatically echoed his boss President Erdogan’s grandiose vision.

The vision was that by 2023 — the 100th anniversary of the Turkish Republic — Turkey will become as powerful and influential as the Ottoman Empire was during its heyday.

Under the best of circumstances, Turkey cannot realize Erdogan’s far-fetched dream.

Had he stayed the course, however, with the socio-political and judiciary reforms and economic developments that he put in motion during his first nine years in power, Turkey could have become a major player on the global stage and a regional powerhouse.

Sadly, Erdogan abandoned much of the impressive democratic reforms he championed. Instead, he embarked upon a systematic Islamization of the country while dismantling the pillars of democracy.
In the process, Erdogan amassed unprecedented powers and transformed Turkey from a democratic to an autocratic country. He has ensured that he has the last word on all matters of state.

Read more: Erdogan: Sultan of an Illusionary Ottoman Empire - The Globalist

Germany and the EU: In the Crosshairs of Trump and Putin - by James Laxer

EU: It is time to stop being mouth fed by the US

Links between the Trump administration and the Russians are an explosive political issue.

But what draws U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin together? As it happens they do have one major common target in their sights. Though this may surprise many, that target is the European Union and more narrowly the power of Germany.

The reasons for their enmity toward the EU and Berlin are not obscure. Even after the United Kingdom exits, the European Union will have a population of more than 440 million people spread across 27 member states.

Number one in the EU is Germany, home to just over 80 million people and the continent’s dominant economy.

During the post war decades, a major goal of American foreign and defence policy was to bolster the reconstruction of the West German and European economies and to support the progress toward the creation of today’s European Union. Western Europe was to serve as a bulwark against the Soviet Union.

Much has changed. Germany is united and economically dominates the continent. The Soviet Union and its Eastern European empire have collapsed. Today’s autocratic Russia is capitalist, brimming with nuclear missiles and has a Gross Domestic Product that is smaller than Canada’s.

The Trump administration reckons that the further evolution of the European Union’s political and economic project poses far more of a threat to American power than does Russia.

Today, with the open support of both Trump and Putin, far right populist movements across Europe have launched political assaults against the EU. Last June, the leave forces triumphed in the referendum to pull the U.K. out of the EU.

A crucial presidential election in France will further test the viability of the EU.

Marine Le Pen, who is pro Putin and pro Trump, leads the far right Front National. Polls point to her coming first in the initial round of voting in France’s presidential election in April and going on to lose in the second round to a more moderate candidate. If Le Pen were to win, unlikely but far from impossible, it would constitute a body blow to the EU.

The hostility to the EU among far right parties in Europe, as well as in Trump’s Washington and Putin’s Moscow, is deeply ideological. The EU is the world’s leading experiment in creating a nascent federal state to which countries voluntarily give up some of their sovereignty. If it works, the EU will create a post-nationalist European identity. This is anathema to Trump, Putin and Le Pen.

The EU displays the vulnerabilities of a half-constructed edifice. Most of it has a common currency, the Euro and free movement of citizens. But rates of unemployment vary enormously from Spain and Greece where huge numbers of young adults cannot find jobs to Germany with a current jobless rate of only 5.9 per cent. The generally cautious policies of the German government and the European Central Bank have long been blamed for sluggish growth and high unemployment in many parts of the continent.

As Europe confronts the fraught politics of managing the flight of refugees to the continent from the Syrian war, and from African countries torn by drought and civil conflict, far right parties see this as their great opportunity.

Last month, when I was in Menton on the French Mediterranean border with Italy, I saw French police squads rounding up African migrants who had walked into France along the railway tracks or who had arrived on trains. The migrants were questioned, placed in police vans and driven to the border where they were dropped off to fend for themselves in Italy.

So far, the German political centre is holding under the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel, who heads up a coalition government of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats. But she is under fire from right wing populists for admitting over one million asylum seekers into Germany over the past two years. Her government faces national elections later this year.

Note EU-Digest: The EU can either move forward to more complete economic, social and political union, or it can fragment into its constituent parts. Trump and Putin would welcome the latter, which would enfeeble a potent rival. For Europeans who have enjoyed peace and relative prosperity for decades, rather than the terrible wars that came before, it would be an entirely different matter. 

Europe must wake-up to the fact that the EU-US Atlantic Alliance with the Donald Trump Administration is dead on paper and in reality. 

Consequently the EU must stop crying over spilled milk, refrain from putting any more eggs in the bottomless US Corporate and Military basket. Instead, start to seriously develop an independent foreign policy, including a strong  military defense force.

EU-Digest

European fascists embrace Trump - by John J. Dunphy

European Fascism 2017

Members of what Tom Brokaw calls our nation’s Greatest Generation defeated fascism in World War II. Fresh out of the Great Depression of the 1930s when, as kids, many of them had experienced deprivation firsthand, they fought the combined might of Germany, Italy and Japan on land, on sea and in the air. Many of these young patriots didn’t wait to be drafted. They eagerly enlisted because they knew they were needed to turn back this threat to global civilization.

My late father served in the army and earned a Purple Heart. Dad rarely talked about his wartime experiences. Once in a very great while, however, he let something slip out. I recall when the TV news was broadcasting a story about an aged Nazi war criminal, who had been located living quietly in the United States. “Hang him! I saw what they did!” my father exclaimed. The implication was obvious. At some point while stationed in Europe, Dad had seen some of the horrors of the Holocaust.

Fascists feared and hated the American flag because it represented values such as justice and equality, which they abhorred. Our flag also symbolized military defeat for fascists, since it was carried into areas liberated by our fighting men. It made me sick and angry when I read that the Stars and Stripes, once the bane of fascists, is now carried by them during demonstrations.

The 62 million Americans who voted for Trump betrayed the legacy left to us by the Greatest Generation. Men such as my father fought to save the world from fascism. Trump voters allowed fascism to entethe USA  through the ballot box.

Read more: The Telegraph | Dunphy: European fascists embrace Trump

Intl. Women’s Day: Spanish MEP Iratxe García Pérez speaks out against mysogyny–by A. Welser, M.Sattonnay and O.Billot

Today Wednesday, 8 March, marks International Women’s Day, which celebrates the cultural, economic, social and political achievement of women.

Spanish PSOE lawmaker Iratxe García Péreze (S&D) speaking in the EU Parliament explains that a gender-biased mentality persists.

“We have to improve and we have to recognize that it  is necessary in that moment to work for the equality policy, to work for the same rights and opportunities,” she said.

To view speech Iratxe García Péreze to the EU Parliament click here: Spanish MEP Iratxe García Pérez speaks out against mysogyny – EURACTIV.com