by Oui
Fri Nov 8th, 2019 at 03:58:15 PM EST
Just like his boss, Mike Pompeo is a loyal executioner of extreme rightwing policy. Pompeo has dismantled the art of diplomacy in the State Department and is converting foreign policy to Trump's bullying tactics ..
It was Mr. Pompeo who helped Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani oust the respected American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie L. Yovanovitch, in April. Both Michael McKinley, a senior adviser to Mr. Pompeo and a four-time ambassador, and Philip T. Reeker, the acting assistant secretary for Europe, testified that they asked State Department leadership to defend Ms. Yovanovitch from false accusations, only to be rejected.
h/t Bernard
Macron referred to NATO as experiencing 'brain death' and the Atlanticist world goes apeshit crazy. Not that anyone has declared NATO obsolete before.
More below the fold ...
From my diary ...
President Donald J. Trump Hosts NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg At The White House - May 17, 2018
"In the nearly seven decades since Harry Truman
spoke those words, the NATO Alliance has been
the bulwark of international peace and security"
President Donald J. Trump
A LASTING COMMITMENT: President Trump is continuing the legacy of transatlantic unity and is working with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg toward a successful July 11-12, 2018, NATO Summit.
...
REVITALIZING NATO: NATO countries are undertaking the most significant reinforcement of collective defense since the end of the Cold War to enhance the Alliance's ability to deter Russia, fight terrorism, and defend NATO territory.
In 2017, NATO deployed a new, Enhanced Forward Presence to improve the collective defense of our NATO Allies ...
○ Making An Enemy - Demonizing Putin Endangers America's Security by Oui @BooMan on March 22, 2014
China, Russia concerns top Pompeo agenda in Central Europe | AP News - Feb. 10, 2019 |
U.S. fears about China and Russia's growing influence in Central Europe will top Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's agenda as he heads to the region this week, Trump administration officials say.
Pompeo leaves Sunday on a five-nation tour of Europe that will begin in Hungary and Slovakia where he will raise those concerns and the importance of promoting democracy and the rule of law to counter Beijing and Moscow's efforts to pull the countries away from the West and sow divisions in the European Union and NATO.
The centerpiece of the trip will be a Conference on the Future of the Middle East in Poland that is expected to focus on Iran and will also be attended by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Vice President Mike Pence and President Donald Trump's Mideast peace team of senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy for international negotiations Jason Greenblatt.
○ US to Ask NATO to Pay More to Protect Saudi Arabia From Iran
U.S. under Trump destroyed the Iranian nuclear deal ...
○ Iran's nuclear rollback `legitimate' response to US hypocrisy | PressTV Iran |
Mike Pompeo says U.S. must confront China's Communist Party | JPost - Oct. 31,2019 |
Pompeo said the United States had long cherished its friendship with the Chinese people, adding the Communist government was not the same thing as the people of China.
"They are reaching for and using methods that have created challenges for the United States and for the world and we collectively, all of us, need to confront these challenges ... head on," Pompeo said in an address to a gala dinner in New York of the conservative Hudson Institute think tank. [Introduction by Rupert Murdoch]
"It is no longer realistic to ignore the fundamental differences between our two systems, and the impact that ... the differences in those systems have on American national security."
Last week in a major policy speech, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence attacked China's record on human rights, trade and methods used to expand its global influence.
Nord Stream 2: Go-ahead for Russian gas pipeline angers Ukraine | BBC News |
Denmark's approval for a controversial pipeline to pump more Russian gas into Europe will strengthen Russia's influence in the region, Ukraine warns.
"This is not only a matter of energy security, it is a geopolitical issue," Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said of the Nord Stream 2 gas project.
The Danish permit was the last major hurdle. The pipeline will run under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany.
The Russian-led Nord Stream 2 project has also infuriated the US, which fears the pipeline will tighten Russia's grip over the region's energy supply and reduce its own share of the lucrative European market for American liquefied natural gas.
The US gas journey, from rigs to riches
○ The Future of the Ukrainian Oligarchs - 2018
Pompeo stresses NATO's importance during Germany visit; meets with troops at Grafenwoehr
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his German counterpart stressed the close ties between their two countries Thursday, batting away talk of trans-Atlantic friction and insisting that the NATO alliance that both are part of remains relevant today.
Their strong defense of the alliance -- 30 years after the end of the Cold War -- came after French President Emmanuel Macron claimed in an interview that a lack of U.S. leadership is causing the "brain death" of NATO.
Speaking after visiting the German village of Moedlareuth, which was divided into two during the Cold War, Pompeo told reporters it was the "remarkable work" of democratic nations that "created freedom and brought millions of people out of very, very difficult situations."
"I think NATO remains an important, critical, perhaps historically one of the most critical, strategic partnerships in all of recorded history," Pompeo told reporters in Leipzig.
Leipzig awaits 100,000 PEGIDA and counter movement demonstrators | DW - Jan. 2015 |
Pompeo urges West to unite against 'unfree nations' | DW - 55 min ago |
Since World War II, Germany has previously pursued, and been held to, a policy of military restraint in reaction to the aggressive expansionism of the Nazi era.
Kramp-Karrenbauer has been supportive of US demands for Germany to increase military spending, with US President Donald Trump frequently chastizing Berlin for not doing enough as a NATO member.
Criticism of China, Russia
During a later speech given near Berlin's landmark Brandenburg Gate, Pompeo continued in the vein of his recent criticisms of China, saying the country had suppressed people with tactics that would have been "horrifyingly familiar" to residents of former communist East Germany.
Pompeo also criticized Russia as a country that "invades its neighbors and slays political opponents."
He then called for Western unity in the face of the threat posed by "unfree nations," saying, "Let's stand together as allies."
○ Berlin gets unwanted Ronald Reagan statue
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