Bloody Western Hypocrisy Once Again [including Uncle Sham]

Wars usually bring out a goodly share of hypocrisy, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine is no exception. Here and now we see tremendous upset and concern in Europe, North America and elsewhere over the horrors and injustice of the war and invasion. But there have been many  other fairly recent cases of invasion, occupation, mass slaughter, population expulsion or displacement that do not seem to get much attention or rouse much concern at all. 

In 2020 we saw the Armenia-Azerbaidjan war/ Thousands were killed and parts of historic Armenia were conquered by the Azeris. Ancient and  medieval Armenian buildings were damaged in the war and afterwards by the Azeri forces.

In 1974, Turkey occupied about 35% if the island of Cyprus. Neither the Europeans --inside and outside of the EU-- nor the Americans make much of a fuss over the continued occupation and the expulsion in that year of an estimated 200,000 ethnic Greek Cypriots from their homes plus the Turkish vandalism to age-old Greek buildings/monuments in the occupation zone in northern Cyprus. 

Then there is the Syrian civil war, going on since 2011. In the course of this civil war, an estimated 600,000 Syrians have been killed [Syrian Observatory for Human Rights]. Moreover, millions of Syrians have fled or been driven from their country by their own government or the jihadi Sunni mlitias, now mainly sponsored by Turkey or by ISIL [DA'ESH] or other forces on the ground. With more than four million Syrian refugees estimated in Turkey plus a million or so in Lebanon and another million in Jordan, the number of refugees is only exceeded by the number from the war in Ukraine. 

Now some may note that a great deal of world attention is focussed on the Palestinian Arabs. This, just parenthetically, reminds us of a rule of the "international community": Arab lives do not matter -- unless somehow the blame for the Arabs' deaths or refugee status or other plight can somehow be attributed to Israel and Jews, with some plausible degree of honesty, however minor, or without any grain of truth at all. Compare the media treatment of the Syrian Arab victims of the Syrian civil war [as well as Palestinian Arabs living in Syria] with media treatment and coverage of the Palestinian Arabs in areas under Israeli jurisdiction -- often fashionably depicted as somehow a separate nation or people but somehow connected to the Arabs in general, and as perennial victims, even as a collective Jesus in much journalistic blather.

Then we have the massacres of Kurds in Syria by Turkish-sponsored Sunni Arab militias and by the Turkish airforce, plus de facto expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Kurds from areas controlled by Turkey and those militias in northern Syria. That Kurdish suffering has not gotten much attention in the media.

All of the above is part of the general hypocrisy.

However, the USA has shown its own unique and special hypocrisy. Back in late 2013-early 2014, the USA encouraged "right-wing" or "neo-nazi" Ukrainian parties --Right Sektor & Svoboda -- to revolt against the pro-Russian Yanukovich government.  Eventually Yanukovich fled and the new rulers, the extreme nationalist parties named above, made declarations that were felt as highly threatening to the ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine, such as honoring Stepan Bandera, who had led a German-sponsored Ukrainian militia during WW2, which slaughtered Jews and ethnic Russians in the Ukraine. These provocative declarations gave Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin, the pretext that he needed for invading eastern Ukraine and annexing the Crimea [which truth be told, had been a part of the Russian republic in the USSR but was transferred to Ukraine by the post-Stalin Khrushchov govt in 1954 although its population was overwhelmingly non-Ukrainian ethnically]. 

Now after the Russian government showed its hand after the overthrow of Yanukovich, the Obama administration refused to sell or give the Ukraine weapons needed for its self-defense against Russia. And this after the State Dept's Victoria Nuland had gone to Kyiw [pronounced Keef]  to  encourage the rebels. Trump and his administration were the first to supply real weapons to the post-Yanukovich govts. 

Then there was Joe Biden's shakedown of the Ukrainian leadership [Poroshenko & Yatseniuk] by threatening to withhold needed loan guarantees if a state prosecutor looking into the Burisma company that had placed Biden's son Hunter on its board, were not dismissed. The prosecutor was fired, as Joe boasted later on.

After Trump, the ill-fated Biden presidency resumed the Obama Ukraine policy. Biden & Co. have been stingy about sending weapons to Ukraine. Maybe if Washington had sent the needed weapons [such as Javelins & Stingers] when Russia began its military build up on the borders of Ukraine in the first half of 2021. Maybe it would thus have dissuaded and deterred a Russian invasion. Even when the invasion began it took some time for Joe B & Co. to decide to send needed weapons.  But then how do we explain that on the third day of the war when the Ukrainian resistance was holding up, the Biden national insecurity crowd [Susie R, Brian D, Tony B, Jake S] offered President Zelensky of Ukraine sanctuary outside of the Ukraine? Did they not understand that if the leader ran away the resistance was likely to collapse? Was this offer of sanctuary not hypocrisy? Was it not an effort to undermine the Ukrainian struggle against Russia?

Indeed we may wonder whether Biden's foreign affairs gang were keeping Ukraine relatively weak and lacking the most important self-defense weapons in order to lure the Russians into invading Ukraine [which Putin had apparently long wanted to do]. Does this sound too bizarre, too far-fetched, too unreasonable? Yes, it would -- if we did not know that a major theoretician of US foreign policy, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's advisor for national insecurity, had not boasted of luring the Soviet Union into making war in Afghanistan around 1978. Now Brzezinski was Barack Obama's mentor in foreign policy matters and Obama was planning to make him his own national insecurity advisor, as Carter had done. Indeed Brzezinski was the favorite foreign policy advisor of the Democratic Party. Now, when a big donor to the Democratic Party, Penny Pritzker, told Obama that she would not donate and  manage fund-raising for his campaign if Zbig were to be made national security advisor [Alan  Dershowitz, then a prominent Democrat, also opposed a role for Zbig in an Obama presidency], Susan Rice was brought in as a replacement. We may assume that Susan Rice's views on foreign policy, on issues of war and peace, etc, were not and are not far from Zbig's views and theories and understandings and desires. Now since Biden's foreign policy team are retreads from Obama's administration, we may assume that they all [Tony, Susie, Jake etc] share Zbig's basic proclivity for warmongering. Hence if the Ukraine were left weak and lacking needed defensive weapons, it may have been by design in order to lure the Russians into an invasion. As Zbig did in Afghanistan.

Is It Legitimate for Biden to Become President?

 

Before examining political, diplomatic and foreign affairs issues affecting Biden's legitimacy, let's deal first with the more personal and moral issues.

The man is now in 2020 a shell of a man, a manikin, an empty suit guided and manipulated by others. His gaffes are the stuff of legend, like: We choose truth over facts; You're a dogfaced pony soldier [said to a young woman who had asked a friendly question that, it seems, did not agree with Biden], etc. For those who thought he would get progressively worse, his stable if uninspiring performance in the first debate indicates that he may be heavily medicated to stop the advance of his dementia or alzheimer's. Earlier in 2020, the eminent, respected American journalist, Britt Hume, had described Biden as "evidently senile." However, in that first debate his acceptable if pedestrian performance was not without another gaffe, perhaps one not as blatant as earlier ones and thus not noticed. He said during that debate: The polls should stay open until all the votes are counted. Now it seems that this gaffe was overlooked. In any case, the votes are supposed to be counted after the polling places are closed. Further, Biden's physical appearance does not look healthy. Hence, on physical and mental grounds he is not fit to be president. 

Of course, the moral reasons why he is unfit to be president are equally compelling. As vice president under Barack Obama, he ran an influence-peddling racket, using principally his son Hunter Biden but in which other family members such as his brother James were involved. The influence-peddling took place in far flung parts of the world where his duties as vice president took him. Indeed, Obama made him his "point man" or liaison for relations with the Ukraine. This particular fact was fateful for Israel since Obama used Biden to "persuade" or "convince" Ukraine not to abstain from the Security Council vote on UN SC resolution 2334, a very hostile anti-Israel resolution which US diplomats were promoting behind the scenes but which the US [= Obama and his team] was itself planning to abstain on. Obama wanted a uniform anti-Israel vote in the Security Council,  with all countries but the USA voting in favor, in order to show Israel that it had no friends but for the USA and that even the USA wanted Israel to capitulate to PLO/PA demands for anti-Jewish apartheid in what diplomats and journalists customarily call The West Bank. Biden was used by Obama to bring the Ukrainians into line, because their original decision on the UN SC vote was to abstain. Obama wanted only the US to abstain.

Besides Ukraine, Biden ran his racket in China, Rumania, Russia, and other countries, customarily traveling on Air Force 2, the official plane designated for the vice president [Hunter Biden traveled to China with Dad on Air Force 2 at least once]. Now, the truth be told, many persons in lands outside the USA were eager to pay money into Biden's racket, thereby purchasing influence. This paid off for Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, which offered Joe's son, Hunter, a seat on its board of directors, at a generous salary for someone who knew little about the energy industry and did not know the languages commonly spoken in the Ukraine, Ukrainian and Russian. When the Ukrainian state prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was going to investigate Burisma, Joe arrived in Kiev [pronounced Keef], the Ukrainian capital, and threatened the top Ukrainian leaders, Poroshenko the president and Yatsenyuk the prime minister, that he would withhold one billion dollars in badly needed US loan guarantees if that prosecutor --a corrupt man according to Biden-- were not dismissed in six hours. Biden told the Ukrainians that Obama supported him in this matter, and  if they thought he was lying then they could call Obama. Biden boasted of this extortion in his talk before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York in January 2018. 

Biden's worldwide influence peddling, also involving his family, led  Rudy Giuliani, former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who had prosecuted Mafia gangs as a senior Federal prosecutor, to speak of "The Biden Crime Family" as one might speak of the Genovese Crime Family. 

At this point, some background about US-Ukraine relations in the Obama and Trump periods might be helpful. After the fall of Communism in 1989-1990, many of the states emerging from the long Soviet and Communist winter found themselves burdened with corrupt governments where the new leaders were out to enrich themselves, as just coincidentally, Joe was too. In 2013-14 US govt officials, such as Victoria Nuland of the State Depatment, encouraged and aided a sometimes violent protest movement led by two neo-fascist parties, Right Sektor and Svoboda. After Washington had secured the fall of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich through these Ukrainian allies, the new government found itself at war with Russian proxy forces in the east of the country, partly due to their own nationalistic arrogance and political ineptitude. Nevertheless, despite these Ukrainian allies having helped the USA achieve the foreign policy goal of eliminating and/or reducing Russian influence in the Ukraine, Obama's administration --which had encouraged them against the pro-Russian Yanukovich-- refused to give them major or lethal weapons in the war which followed Yanukovich's fall. Instead, Obama and his administration were pleased to supply the Ukraine with blankets and such like minor help. It was the Trump administration which first supplied lethal, major weapons to the Ukraine. This meant in particular the Javelin anti-tank missile that the Ukraine had been asking for for several years [Le Monde, 23 December 2017, updated 12-26-2017online]. This fact among others indicates that the widespread claim  by leading Democrats and its media allies that Trump was a cats-paw for Russia, for Putin, was simply vile political slander, a hoax, since Trump was sending weapons to a country with which Russia was at war, the Ukraine. Biden was part of this slander since he took part in a White House strategy meeting in early January 2017 [before Trump's inauguration] at which Biden suggested charging Trump with violating the Logan Act, a law from the late 18th century forbidding private US citizens from negotiating with foreign powers. However, in the much more complicated international politico-military-diplomatic situation of the 20th century, it became customary for foreign policy officials of incoming administrations to meet foreign counterparts and representatives in order to find out what was important and less important to both sides, etc. Yet General Flynn, Trump's candidate for National Security Advisor, was persecuted by the FBI and Federal prosecutors for meeting the Russian ambassador to the US in the interim between the 2016 election and Trump's inauguration.

Another place where Trump acted counter to presumed Russian interests was in Syria where Trump gave orders to bomb Syrian military targets to deter future Syrian gas and chemical weapons attacks on Syrian civilians, as at Douma on 7 April 2018 [Le Monde, 14 April 2018]. Russia objected to this bombing of Syrian targets at the Security Council. Obama broke his own promise, his own "red line" when he decided not to attack Syria after all for a poison gas attack against civilians in Syria several years before. And Biden too promoted this Russia Collusion Hoax.

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QUESTION of the day: Does anybody remember Tara Reade? Is it true that she had a "relationship" with Senator Joseph Biden? And why has she been so soon forgotten?

Biden's Crookedness in the Ukraine Is Also Linked to His Anti-Israel Mission for Obama

 So much new info has lately come out about Joe Biden's corruption, which also involved his son, Hunter, and his brother James, that there is little left to prove directly. Of course the Democratic Party and its media allies claim that everything is Russian disinformation. The New York Times and other major media outlets have totally or almost totally ignored the new revelations about Joe's corrupt doings. Yet the NYT is an old recidivist perpetrator when it comes to overlooking or omitting facts that do not fit the narrative that the NYT wants to support. Hence, you cannot trust the NYT to bring you all of the important and significant news. It might not fit. 

It has been a rival New York newspaper, the New York Post [go into the Post web site for several articles], that has brought to light extensive new information about Biden's corruption, although some of what the NY Post has revealed could have been and should have been inferred years ago. After all, in his speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York in January 2018, he openly boasted about getting the top officials of the Ukrainian govt to fire a prosecutor. He told them, blackmailing them, that he was giving them six hours [at that point in the speech he pointed at his watch] to fire this prosecutor or he would withhold a billion dollars in American loan guarantees that the Ukraine desperately needed.  That sounds like extortion to me. And sounds like something that US judicial authorities ought to be investigating. It sounds like something improper. Why would a US vice president want a prosecutor dismissed in a foreign land? Was Biden using his power and influence as vice president for personal gain? Were Biden and his son Hunter doing influence peddling? The questions seem obvious but Biden's very open and overt and public speech did not lead to any investigation of him. And when President Trump asked President Zelensky of the Ukraine about this matter, Trump was accused of improper activity and eventually impeached whereas it was Biden who was in the wrong!!!

So here is what I wrote a year ago on Biden's pressuring the Ukrainian govt on the matter of the prosecutor --who stated that he was preparing to investigate a Ukrainian company, Burisma, which had invited Hunter Biden to sit on its board of directors for a generous monthly salary. Although Hunter knew little about the company's field of activity, energy and natural gas, and did not know the Russian or Ukrainian languages. See the video of his speech of boastful admission in the speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in January 2018.

So the question remains: Just why did Biden want that particular prosecutor removed? Of course, he is telling the CFR in his talk that the prosecutor [indeed, the prosecutor-general of Ukraine] was corrupt. But most Ukrainian voters apparently thought that Pres. Poroshenko and PM Yatseniuk were corrupt. That is why they elected in 2019 a non-politician, a Jewish actor who had played in a TV drama about corruption in Ukrainian politics to be their next president. So if Biden were truly concerned about corruption in that country, why did he not go after Poroshenko and Yatseniuk who were considered corrupt in their country, instead of the prosecutor-general? So was Joe Biden trying to protect the object of that prosecutor's planned investigation [his name was Viktor Shokin], Burisma, on the board of which sat his own son Hunter Biden? If so, was Biden then using the power and  influence of the USA to benefit his own son's company, Burisma? All in the name of anti-corruption? Biden's display of arrogance towards the officials of another country is shocking as is his boasting about his successful extortion in front of the CFR.

And here is what I wrote about Biden pressuring the Ukraine in December 2016 to vote in favor of the racist anti-Jewish Security Council resolution 2334. Also see this Elder of Ziyyon: here

The Rights of the President: Joe Biden, Trump and the Ukraine

The Rights of the President by Leon Kozak

Mr Trump, as President, has the Constitutional duty to enforce the laws of the land and to lead the way in the conduct of US foreign affairs. Thus, he is entitled to investigate acts that could be illegal under US law including the Foreign  Corrupt Practices Act which addresses certain acts of US persons taking place in foreign countries. Moreover,  a treaty with the Ukraine specifies that the US may ask the Ukraine to assist the US in investigating  potential criminal behavior of US persons under US law and the Ukraine is required to comply.

The President has significant discretion under the Constitution  in his use of foreign aid as a means of conducting foreign affairs and may withhold, delay or make it s release conditional in many circumstances.

In my view, the above Presidential powers are applicable even  if the target of the investigation is a potential political opponent of the President as long as there is at least some colorable claim that illegal activity under US law involving a foreign country or foreign officials  may have taken place. The threat to withhold US aid is a perfectly legitimate means of using these Presidential powers in the international context. Although  President Trump  is adamant that there was in fact no”quid pro quo” (ie, “quid”-investigate Biden in order to “quo”- get military aid from the US), it would not matter if there were  in fact a quid pro quo.

Was there at least a colorable claim that some illegal activity took place involving VP Biden? Here are some facts which make it clear that the colorable claim test has easily been met.

—Mr Shokin was the chief prosecutor in the Ukraine during some of the years of the Obama administration. His office had commenced an investigation of Burisma Holdings a Ukraine-based energy group. The investigation raised questions as to whether Burisma had violated the criminal corruption laws of the Ukraine and other countries. Officials of Burisma were reported to be concerned about the investigation.

—Mr Shokin has indicated in a signed affidavit  and in other documents that he was told to exercise caution in  proceeding with this investigation because of the connection of Burisma to powerful interests in the US government. Mr Shokin has also stated that he believes he was dismissed as prosecutor at the insistence of US government officials because of his office's investigation into Burisma. 

—Hunter Biden (son  of former VP Joe Biden) was given a Board position by Burisma during the years of the Obama administration. He was paid at least $50,000.00 per month as compensation for  serving in this position and much more for undisclosed activities. Prior to taking on this position, Hunter Biden had no experience in the energy sector, in corporate governance or in Eastern Europe. Hunter Biden admitted in a television interview that he likely would not have obtained the position but for his family connection to VP Joe Biden.

—-VP Joe Biden was given primary responsibility for dealing with Ukraine matters by Pres Obama.

—-VP Joe  Biden knew about Hunter s involvement with some company in Ukraine and told him to make sure he knew what he was doing. 

—-The staff of VP Joe Biden was informed by the staff of Pres Obama and by certain State Department officials that Hunter Biden's Ukraine activities represented at least a perception of a conflict of interest (and could be an actual conflict of interest) when considering VP Joe Biden's responsibilities with respect to the Ukraine.

—-At some point, VP Joe Biden flew to the Ukraine on official business. (The VP flew on Air Force #2. Hunter Biden joined him on the flight.) VP Joe Biden informed the government  of the Ukraine that the government needed to dismiss Mr  Shokin immediately. VP Joe Biden later admitted in a public conference (shown on television numerous times) that in the course of that visit to the Ukraine he informed the Ukrainian government officials that if Mr Shokin were not dismissed before VP Biden headed back home (six hours hence), the US would withhold $1 billion in foreign aid intended for the Ukraine.

—-Mr Shokin was dismissed on that day before VP Joe Biden left the country

[Thanks to Leon Kozak, Esq, for allowing circulation of this well-reasoned essay]

[Mr Kozak is an attorney living in northern New Jersey]
See two previous posts on Emet m'Tsiyon [here] and [here] and [here]

The Real Joe Biden; two videos to show his reality

Here are two prize videos showing the real Joe Biden:

1) Biden boasts before an audience at the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations that he had made the two top Ukrainian officials, of several years ago, Pres. Poroshenko and Prime Minister Yatseniuk, bend to his demand to fire an investigating prosecutor. The prosecutor was investigating corruption at the Burisma energy company, on the board of directors of which his son Hunter sat. To be sure, Biden claims that he himself was fighting corruption in Ukraine and that the dismissed prosecutor had not been "solid." Steve Hilton of Foxnews reported that Biden did various favors for Burisma, such as getting a law passed with some of his Democratic friends in the Senate that facilitated the import into the USA of natural gas from Burisma.
The part of the discussion on the Ukraine comes at about 50:30 on the video, if the video does not open up at the desired point. See video here.

2) Joe Biden's hoof in mouth video. It is very short but telling [here]

Also see our two previous posts on Biden exerting improper pressure on Ukraine
1--  Biden pressured Ukraine to vote against Israel. See post here.

2-- This post shows how Biden was used by Obama to force Ukraine to change its vote on UN SC res 2334 in December 2016, after the last presidential election. The resoluton in question was very anti-Israel. Ukraine wanted to abstain but Obama wanted it to vote in favor eventhough the USA was going to abstain itself. I explain why: Obama wanted to protect the sacred anti-Israel narrative [here]

Biden Pressured the Ukraine on Another Matter -- to Vote against Israel

New Material added 10-12-2019
When Biden pressured Ukraine 
to vote against Israel after the 
2016 presidential election [here]

Senator Joe Biden --a Democrat-- is at the center of an energetic effort by his party's members of the House of Representatives to impeach President Trump. The impeachment effort focuses on a phone call between Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, the new president of the Ukraine. Without reviewing the Democrats' charges against Trump, we point out that President Trump and his supporters such as Rudy Giuliani, former US Attorney in New York City and former mayor of New York, have accused Biden of pressuring the previous Ukrainian leadership --before Zelensky's election-- to dismiss a prosecutor who was investigating a Ukrainian company, Burisma, an energy company, in which Biden's son, Hunter Biden, sat on the board of directors. Now just how and why it came to be that Biden Junior was appointed to the Board of a Ukrainian energy concern when he had little or no expertise in the energy field [oil and gas, etc] nor did he know the Ukrainian or Russian languages, is a matter of great and relevant curiosity. Maybe somebody at the company, Burisma, thought that having the younger Biden on the Board would give the company or maybe the government of Ukraine, a certain influence in Washington on policy making in the energy field or in regard to Burisma in particular or in favor of the Ukrainian government of that time, approximately 2014-2016. Young Biden was supposed to be paid $50,000 per month by Burisma for his services on the Board.

An interesting question. And did Joe Biden pressure the Ukrainian govt to dismiss a prosecutor investigating Burisma? Biden did boast about successfully pressuring or intimidating or blackmailing the Ukrainian leadership of the time in a public speech which was delivered, as far as I know, before the Council on Foreign Relations, an influential and prestigious US organization. A video on the internet shows Biden boasting of his successful extortion of the Ukrainian govt: I gave them six hours [to dismiss the offending prosecutor or US loan guarantees in the amount of $1.5 billion would be withheld].

Interesting questions but be they as they may, I intend now to show that Biden applying pressure on the Ukraine was his practice in his capacity as President Obama's designated liaison between his administration and the Ukrainian govt. Hence Biden was in a good position to apply pressure on the Ukraine and indeed he was responsible for dealing with the Ukraine under Obama and thus his relations with the country had a certain official status.

In fact, in the last month of Obama's presidency in 2016 late in December, Biden served his boss, Obama, in threatening the Ukraine on another matter, the UN Security Council res. 2334, which was a very anti-Israel resolution, essentially saying that Jews/Israelis had no right to live across the 1949 Green Line, even in Jerusalem in places, neighborhoods, where Jews had lived before 1947. This episode seems to support the Trump-Giuliani version of events.

My post on Biden and Obama's role in pressuring the Ukraine on UN SC res. 2334 is here.

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What a Ukrainian member of parliament & former Ukrainian security chief, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, said in the WSJ about the Biden-Trump Affair

Serious allegations have been made in the U.S. and Ukraine, including that Ukrainian government officials and organizations assisted Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016 and that Burisma, a major Ukrainian gas company, hired Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, for cynical purposes. Regardless of the implications of these charges within American politics, Ukraine has a responsibility to investigate them completely and transparently.

First, as I have insisted for more than two years, we must resolve the allegation that Ukrainian officials interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. If we find that Ukrainian laws were broken, the perpetrators here must be prosecuted swiftly, to the fullest extent of the law.

Second, Ukraine must resolve the allegations regarding Burisma. As the former head of the Security Service of Ukraine, our version of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, I know there are many accusations of corruption against this company.

It isn’t clear whether Ukrainian officials meddled in the American election, but Parliament must find out. We also do not know if Hunter Biden was complicit in Burisma’s alleged corruption, or why he was appointed to the board of a Ukrainian company. The allegation that Burisma arranged its relationship to the younger Mr. Biden by donating to a U.S. think tank is merely a small part of the larger question about its activities.

[Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, Wall Street Journal, Oct. 10, 2019]

What Did Russia Get in Return for Alleged Support for Trump?

For the past year, the first year of the Trump administration, Washington has been roiled by the quarrel between anti-Trump and pro-Trump factions, roughly speaking Democrats against Republicans although some Republicans also have worked against the president. The anti-Trumpers have tried to delegitimize Trump and his presidency. Allegations have been made by the anti-Trump side --including most of the press & media-- of Trump complicity or collusion with Russia in order to win the election. These charges led Trump to appoint a special investigator to conduct an inquiry. The special investigator was Robert Mueller, former head of the FBI.

The investigation has turned up little so far to support those allegations, as far as the public knows, even according to anti-Trump sources. Be that as it may, one essential question has not been asked, to my knowledge. That is: What did the Russians get for their alleged collusion with Trump? After all, if they colluded with Trump's representatives to support him, if they wanted to put him in the White House, and colluded with Trump or his campaign for that purpose, would they have done it expecting nothing in return?

In fact, if we look at Trump's foreign policy over the past year since the inauguration, we see that he in fact worked against Russian policy in three areas, Syria, the Ukraine, and North Korea. In Syria, Trump had American aircraft attack a Syrian air force base from which planes flew to make a chemical warfare attack on civilians in rebel-held areas. The Syrian regime of Bashar Assad is being protected and aided by Russia. In Ukraine, the Trump administration sold weapons to the Ukrainian government which is engaged in a war, now in a cease fire phase, with Russian-backed, ethnic Russian rebel militias in eastern Ukraine. Perhaps Russian troops too are directly involved in combat on the side of the rebels.

As to North Korea, Trump has several times attacked and threatened the regime and its dictator, Kim Jung Un [Little Rocket Man]. This policy on Trump's part has led to clashes with Russia at the UN Security Council. Further, Trump succeeded in getting Security Council resolutions passed critical of North Korea. Hence, we do not see what Russia got in return for any help to Trump and his campaign.

Next, we have to ask whether Russia or its government did anything that gave or might have given the election to Trump. This question is important because it was being alleged by Democrats that Russia did indeed help Trump against Hillary Clinton. Did the Russkis do anything to swing the election in Trump's favor? And if so, the thinking ran, then Trump's election was illegitimate. This is obviously a partisan claim on behalf of the Democrats and Hillary. But is there any truth to it? Anti-Trumpers have pointed to a massive dump of information by Wikileaks of emails exchanged among active employes of the Democratic National Committee and other Democratic figures, emails which put the Democratic Party and Clinton's campaign in a very bad light. Indeed, these emails were embarassing to Clinton, her party and her campaign organization. One item that emerged was that high officials of the DNC [democratic national committee] had worked against Hillary's rival in the primary elections, one Bernie Sanders --who espoused a political line allegedly to the "Left"  of  Clinton-- whereas the DNC was supposed be impartial.

The Democrats and Hillary did not deny that these embarassing emails were real and truthful. Rather they counter-attacked, after release of the emails, by claiming that Russia had leaked them to Wikileaks, as if only a state or only Russia could have hacked into the computers of the DNC and then supplied the emails to Wikileaks. However, Julian Assange, the head of Wikileaks, specifically denied on TV [I watched the TV program] that his organization had gotten the emails from Russia. You don't have to believe Assange of course. However, did the emails uploaded to the Internet by Wikileaks have to have come from a hacking operation? Besides, there are other hackers and other interested parties. Another possible explanation is that someone in the DNC organization had leaked them to Wikileaks. And here we have the unexplained murder of Seth Rich, an employe of the DNC whose body was found in Washington with valuable personal effects like his watch and wallet still with him. Did Rich have anything to do with supplying the emails to Wikileaks? We can only  speculate.

If anything or any person swung votes from Hillary to Trump, it was FBI director, James Comey's last minute revelation before the election that the investigation into Hillary had to be renewed because additional emails. from and to Hillary had been found on the computer of Anthony Weiner, estranged husband of Hillary's gal Friday, Huma Abedin [before, after and during Hillary's presence at the State Department]. That's why Hillary was so angry at Comey. She wanted him fired from the FBI. She in fact called for him to be fired from the FBI about a week before Trump did in fact fire him in early 2017. At that time, nobody was saying that Hillary was undermining public respect for law and order.

Before concluding, we must say that many countries want to influence elections in other countries. Least of all is the United States ashamed of doing that. During the 2015 election campaign for the Knesset, it was notorious in Israel that the Obama administration, of which a Hillary presidency would have been a continuation, was interfering with money and personnel in Israel's election in favor of the Labor Party, or to be more precise, in favor of the Zionist Union party which brought together Labor with a few members of Tsipi Livni's HaTenu`ah party.

So it would come as no surprise to learn that Russia wanted to influence the 2016 US presidential election. But Russia would hardly be unique in doing that or trying to do that.

Before concluding, one might argue that Obama's administration, of which Hillary was a shameful part, both aided Russia and hurt Russia. Obama helped Russia in Syria among other ways by allowing Assad's regime to get away with using poison gas against his own population through not enforcing Obama's own "red line" against such use and making an agreement that Russia would take Syria's stock of poison gas and chemical weapons away from Syria, as a substitute for US military action against Syria's stock of such weapons. In fact, Syria still has such weapons and they were reportedly used just the other day against the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Ghouta. Moreover, while Hillary was secretary of state, it is credibly alleged, she intervened to facilitate the purchase by a Russian company of part of US uranium production [used in building nuclear weapons]. This facilitating of the Russian purchase took place after the Russian company had made a sizable "charitable" contribution to the Clinton family foundation, widely considered a tax free depository for moneys paid to the Clintons.

But back to the point. While letting Russia's protege, Assad in Syria, get away with murder literally, the Obama administration also worked against Russia in its next door neighbor, the Ukraine. Victoria Nuland of the State Department and other US officials were encouraging neo-fascist parties in the Ukraine --Right Sektor & Svoboda-- to work to overthrow the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovich, who was considered pro-Russian. This overthrow was in fact accomplished. Ms Nuland, by the way, met with leaders of the anti-Yanukovich movement in Kiev, such as Mr Klichko, whom she affectionately called Klich. So the Russians had reason to hate Obama as well as reasons to appreciate his help for them, as in Syria. Furthermore, it is hardly clear that any help or support Russia may have given to Trump's candidacy won or swung the election for him.

Nevertheless, the most important argument against Russian complicity or collusion with Trump to help him win the election is the lack of any sign that Trump has delivered any return or quid pro quo to Russia or Putin personally. Rather, Trump record has been more anti-Russian.