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Foundation Ties Bedevil Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Campaign
By AMY CHOZICK and STEVE EDER AUG. 20, 2016
The kingdom of Saudi Arabia donated more than $10 million. Through a foundation, so did the son-in-law of a former Ukrainian president whose government was widely criticized for corruption and the murder of journalists. A Lebanese-Nigerian developer with vast business interests contributed as much as $5 million.
For years the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation thrived largely on the generosity of foreign donors and individuals who gave hundreds of millions of dollars to the global charity. But now, as Mrs. Clinton seeks the White House, the funding of the sprawling philanthropy has become an Achilles’ heel for her campaign and, if she is victorious, potentially her administration as well. With Mrs. Clinton facing accusations of favoritism toward Clinton Foundation donors during her time as secretary of state, former President Bill Clinton told foundation employees on Thursday that the organization would no longer accept foreign or corporate donations should Mrs. Clinton win in November. But while the move could avoid the awkwardness of Mr. Clinton jetting around the world asking for money while his wife is president, it did not resolve a more pressing question: how her administration would handle longtime donors seeking help from the United States, or whose interests might conflict with the country’s own. The Clinton Foundation has accepted tens of millions of dollars from countries that the State Department — before, during and after Mrs. Clinton’s time as secretary — criticized for their records on sex discrimination and other human-rights issues. The countries include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Brunei and Algeria.
Saudi Arabia has been a particularly generous benefactor. The kingdom gave between $10 million and $25 million to the Clinton Foundation. (Donations are typically reported in broad ranges, not specific amounts.) At least $1 million more was donated by Friends of Saudi Arabia, which was co-founded by a Saudi prince.
Saudi Arabia also presents Washington with a complex diplomatic relationship full of strain. The kingdom is viewed as a bulwark to deter Iranian adventurism across the region and has been a partner in the fight against terrorism across the Persian Gulf and wider Middle East. At the same time, though, American officials have long worried about Saudi Arabia’s suspected role in promoting a hard-line strain of Islam, which has some adherents who have been linked to violence. Saudi officials deny any links to terrorism groups, but critics point to Saudi charities that fund organizations suspected of ties to militant cells.
Brian Fallon, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, said the Clintons and the foundation had always been careful about donors. “The policies that governed the foundation’s activities during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state already went far beyond legal requirements,” he said in a statement, “and yet the foundation submitted to even more rigorous standards when Clinton declared her candidacy for president, and is pledging to go even further if she wins.”
Mrs. Clinton’s opponent, Donald J. Trump, could face his own complications if he becomes president, with investments abroad and hundreds of millions of dollars in real estate debt — financial positions that could be affected by moves he makes in the White House. And on Friday, Paul Manafort resigned as chairman of the Trump campaign, in part because of reports about his lucrative consulting work on behalf of pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians. Still, Mr. Trump has seized on emails released over the past several weeks from Mrs. Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, in which a handful of donors are mentioned. He has attacked her over an email chain that showed Douglas J. Band, an adviser to Mr. Clinton, seeking to arrange a meeting between a senior American government official and Gilbert Chagoury, a Lebanese-Nigerian real estate developer who donated between $1 million and $5 million. Mr. Chagoury explained through a spokesman that he had simply wanted to provide insights on elections in Lebanon. Some emails and other records described donors seeking and in some cases obtaining meetings with State Department officials. None showed Mrs. Clinton making decisions in favor of any contributors, but her allies fear that additional emails might come out and provide more fodder for Mr. Trump. Craig Minassian, a spokesman for the foundation, said the decision to forgo corporate and foreign money had nothing to do with the emails. The foundation will continue to raise money from American individuals and charities.
“The only factor is that we remove the perception problems, if she wins the presidency,” he said, “and make sure that programs can continue in some form for people who are being helped.”
But Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, a conservative group that has sued to obtain records from Mrs. Clinton’s time at the State Department, said that “the damage is done.” “The conflicts of interest are cast in stone, and it is something that the Clinton administration is going to have to grapple with,” Mr. Fitton said. “It will cast a shadow over their policies.” And in an election year in which a majority of Americans say they do not trust Mrs. Clinton, even some allies questioned why the foundation had not reined in foreign donations sooner, or ended them immediately. A Bloomberg poll in June showed that 72 percent of voters said it bothered them either a lot or a little that the Clinton Foundation took money from foreign countries while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state. In a CNN/ORC International Poll the same month, 38 percent of voters said Mr. Clinton should completely step down from the foundation, while 60 percent said he should be able to continue working with the foundation if his wife became president. Mr. Clinton said Thursday he would leave the foundation’s board if Mrs. Clinton won. Let's be clear the comparison: Clinton is trying to make the world a better place for others. Trump is trying to make his place in the world... Edward G. Rendell, a former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, said the foundation should be disbanded if Mrs. Clinton wins, and he added that it would make sense for the charity to stop taking foreign donations immediately. Photo Chelsea Clinton and Victor Pinchuk during her visit to Kiev, Ukraine, in 2012. Credit Efram Lukatsky/Associated Press “I think they’ll do the right thing,” Mr. Rendell said, “and the right thing here is, without question, that the first gentleman have nothing to do with raising money for the foundation.” Mr. Minassian said ending foreign fund-raising before other sources of money could be found, and without knowing who will win the election, could needlessly gut programs that help provide, for instance, H.I.V. medication to children in Africa. Begun in 1997, the foundation has raised roughly $2 billion and is overseen by a board that includes Mr. Clinton and the couple’s daughter, Chelsea. Mrs. Clinton joined when she left the State Department and stepped down in 2015 before beginning her campaign. Its work covers 180 countries, helping fund more than 3,500 projects. Having a former president at the helm proved particularly productive, with foreign leaders and business people opening their doors — and their wallets — to the preternaturally sociable Mr. Clinton.
Among the charity’s accomplishments: Its Clinton Health Access Initiative — which is run by Ira C. Magaziner, who was a White House aide involved in Mrs. Clinton’s failed effort to overhaul the health care system in her husband’s first term — renegotiated the cost of H.I.V. drugs to make them accessible to 11.5 million people. The foundation helped bring healthier meals to more than 31,000 schools in the United States, and it has helped 105,000 farmers in East Africa increase their yields, according to the foundation’s tally.
In December 2008, shortly before Mrs. Clinton became secretary of state, Mr. Clinton released a list of more than 200,000 donors to defuse speculation about conflicts. Soon after, Mrs. Clinton agreed to keep foundation matters separate from official business, including a pledge to “not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter that has a direct and predictable effect upon” the foundation without a waiver. The Obama White House had particularly disliked the gatherings of world leaders, academics and business people, called the Clinton Global Initiative, that the foundation was holding overseas. The foundation limited the conferences to domestic locations while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state. on Thursday, Mr. Clinton said the gathering in September in New York would be the foundation’s last.
One of the attendees at these conferences speaks to the stickiness of some donor relationships.
Victor Pinchuk, a steel magnate whose father-in-law, Leonid Kuchma, was president of Ukraine from 1994 to 2005, has directed between $10 million and $25 million to the foundation. He has lent his private plane to the Clintons and traveled to Los Angeles in 2011 to attend Mr. Clinton’s star-studded 65th birthday celebration. Between September 2011 and November 2012, Douglas E. Schoen, a former political consultant for Mr. Clinton, arranged about a dozen meetings with State Department officials on behalf of or with Mr. Pinchuk to discuss the continuing political crisis in Ukraine, according to reports Mr. Schoen filed as a registered lobbyist. “I had breakfast with Pinchuk. He will see you at the Brookings lunch,” Melanne Verveer, a Ukrainian-American then working for the State Department, wrote in a June 2012 email to Mrs. Clinton. A previously undisclosed email obtained by Citizens United, the conservative advocacy group, through public records lawsuits shows the name of Mr. Pinchuk, described as one of Ukraine’s “most successful businessmen,” among those on an eight-page list of influential people invited to a dinner party at the Clintons’ home.
Earlier in 2012, Ambassador John F. Tefft wrote to Mrs. Clinton about a visit to Ukraine by Chelsea Clinton and her husband, Marc Mezvinsky, “at the invitation of oligarch, Victor Pinchuk.” Mrs. Clinton replied, “As you know, hearing nice things about your children is as good as it gets.”
In July 2013, the Commerce Department began investigating complaints that Ukraine — and by extension Mr. Pinchuk’s company, Interpipe — and eight other countries had illegally dumped a type of steel tube on the American market at artificially low prices. A representative for Mr. Pinchuk said the investigation had nothing to do with the State Department, had started after Mrs. Clinton’s tenure and been suspended in July 2014. He added that at least 100 other people had attended the dinner party at Mrs. Clinton’s house and that she and Mr. Pinchuk had spoken briefly about democracy in Ukraine. A deal involving the sale of American uranium holdings to a Russian state-owned enterprise was another example of the foundation intersecting with Mrs. Clinton’s official role in the Obama administration. Her State Department was among the agencies that signed off on the deal, which involved major Clinton charitable backers from Canada.
There was no evidence that Mrs. Clinton had exerted influence over the deal, but the timing of the transaction and the donations raised questions about whether the donors had received favorable handling.
Even if Mr. Clinton steps down, there could be remaining complications about a potential president’s name being affixed to an international foundation. And Chelsea Clinton, who is its vice chairwoman, would continue her leadership role. “It is very difficult to see how the organization called the Clinton Foundation can continue to exist during a Clinton presidency without that posing all sorts of consequences,” said John Wonderlich, the interim executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, a government watchdog group in Washington. “What they announced only addresses the most egregious potential conflicts.” Considering the scale and scope of the foundation, Mr. Wonderlich said it was easy to “name a hundred different types of conflicts.” The reality is, he added, “there are no recusals when you are president.”
Original: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/us/politics/hillary-clinton-presidential-campaign-charity.html
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United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are funding Hillary Clinton as Potential President in 2016
The Clinton Foundation is receiving contributions from foreign governments, as Hillary Clinton gets ready for the 2016 presidential campaign. According to The Wall Street Journal, donors include the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Oman, Australia, Germany, and a Canadian government. Hillary Clinton re-joined the foundation after leaving the State Department in 2013 and has fronted a $250 million endowment campaign, Fox News Reported. The Journal has reported that foreign donors doubled in 2014: -UAE donated between $1 million and $5 million last year.
-Germany gave between $100,000 and $250,000.
-Saudi Arabia, which has contributed at least $10 million since the foundation’s founding in 1999. Does this sound strange to you? Why is Saudi Arabia, Oman, UAE interested in funding Clinton’s possible presidential campaign? H/T: Fox News
Original: http://conservativepost.com/united-arab-emirates-and-saudi-arabia-are-funding-hillary-clinton-as-potential-president-in-2016/
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22 августа 2016 г. Эми Чозик, Стив Идер | The New York Times
Связи фонда омрачают президентскую кампанию Хиллари Клинтон
"Королевство Саудовская Аравия пожертвовало более 10 млн долларов. Через Фонд Клинтонов это же сделал зять бывшего украинского президента, правительство которого широко критиковалось за коррупцию и убийства журналистов. Ливанско-нигерийский застройщик с обширными бизнес-интересами внес целых 5 млн долларов. Годами Фонд Билла, Хиллари и Челси Клинтонов процветал, причем во многом благодаря щедрости зарубежных благотворителей и отдельных лиц, которые жертвовали миллионы долларов на глобальную благотворительность, - пишут в The New York Times журналисты Эми Чозик и Стив Идер. - Но сейчас, когда госпожа Клинтон пробивается в Белый дом, финансирование масштабной благотворительной деятельности стало ахиллесовой пятой для ее штаба, а если она победит - то, возможно, и для ее администрации".
Билл Клинтон заявил, что организация не будет принимать иностранные или корпоративные пожертвования, если госпожа Клинтон победит в ноябре. "Однако, - говорится в публикации, - если такой шаг и поможет избежать неловкости того факта, что господин Клинтон будет разъезжать по всему миру и просить денег, пока его жена находится в должности президента, это не решило более насущного вопроса: как ее администрация разберется с давними благотворителями, которые будут просить помощи США, или с теми, чьи интересы могут вступить в противоречие с интересами страны". "Соперник госпожи Клинтон, Дональд Дж.Трамп, может столкнуться с собственными трудностями, если станет президентом: его инвестиции за рубежом и сотни миллионов долларов в долгах по недвижимости - это финансовое положение, на которое могут повлиять его шаги в Белом доме. А в пятницу с должности главы штаба Трампа ушел Пол Манафорт - отчасти из-за сообщений о его выгодной работе консультанта в интересах пророссийских украинских политиков", - пишут авторы. "По данным июньского опроса Bloomberg, 72% опрошенных заявили, что их волнует - немного или сильно - тот факт, что Фонд Клинтонов получал деньги из-за рубежа в то время, когда госпожа Клинтон была государственным секретарем", - передают журналисты. Они напоминают, что фонд, созданный в 1997 году, собрал около 2 млрд долларов. Его курирует совет директоров, в который входит г-н Клинтон и дочь пары, Челси. "Госпожа Клинтон вошла в его состав, когда покинула Госдепартамент, и вышла в 2015 году, до начала президентской кампании. Работа фонда охватывает 180 стран и помогает финансировать более 3,5 тыс. проектов", - сообщается в публикации. Журналисты отмечают, что особенную антипатию Белого дома при Обаме вызывали собрания мировых лидеров, ученых и предпринимателей под названием "Глобальная инициатива Клинтона", которые Фонд проводил за границей. "Один из присутствовавших на этих конференциях подтверждает щекотливость некоторых отношений с донорами. Виктор Пинчук, стальной магнат, тесть которого Леонид Кучма был президентом Украины с 1994 по 2005 год, передал Фонду от 10 до 25 млн долларов. Он одалживал Клинтонам свой частный самолет, а в 2011 году приехал в Лос-Анжелес на празднование 65-летия Клинтона, где присутствовало множество знаменитостей", - пишут Чозик и Идер. В публикации сообщается, что, согласно отчетам, которые бывший политический консультант Клинтона Дуглас Шоэн подал как зарегистрированный лоббист, с сентября 2011 года до ноября 2012-го он организовал около десятка встреч с представителями Госдепартамента от лица или с участием Пинчука для обсуждения продолжавшегося политического кризиса на Украине. "В июле 2013 года Министерство торговли начало расследовать жалобы на то, что Украина - и, следовательно, компания Пинчука "Интерпайп" - и восемь других стран незаконно выбросили на американский рынок стальные трубы определенного типа по искусственно заниженным ценам, - сообщают журналисты The New York Times. - Другим примером пересечения дел Фонда с официальной ролью госпожи Клинтон в администрации Обамы была сделка, включавшая продажу американских урановых холдингов российскому государственному предприятию". "Очень сложно понять, как организация под названием "Фонд Клинтонов" может продолжать существовать во время президентства Клинтон и не вызвать самых разнообразных последствий", - заявил Джон Вандерлич, временный исполнительный директор Sunlight Foundation, правительственной наблюдательной группы в Вашингтоне. "То, о чем они объявили, касается только самых вопиющих потенциальных конфликтов", - подчеркнул он. Источник: The New York Times
http://inopresa.ru/article/22Aug2016/nytimes/clinton_2.html
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Wikileaks: Hillary Clinton Claims Saudi Arabia is the Largest Donor to “Sunni Terrorists” Worldwide By Leith Fadel - 23/11/2015 Wikileaks has struck again; this time, they have revealed a U.S. government cable sent from the former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to the U.S. Treasury office that specifically alluded to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s substantial financial donations to international terrorist groups fighting the U.S. Armed Forces.
According to an introductory cable that discussed Saudi Arabia’s background:
“Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.” Secretary of State Clinton followed this statement up with the following: “Continued senior level USG engagement is needed to build-on initial efforts and encourage the Saudi government to take more steps to stem the flow of funds from Saudi Arabia-backed sources to terrorists and extremists worldwide.” Saudi officials have constantly insisted that their intelligence agencies are working rigorously to combat terrorism in the country and around the world; however, the recent rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) has led many to question where this terrorist group’s funds are coming from and who is responsible.
Secretary of State Clinton illuminated the importance of Saudi Arabia’s assistance to these terrorist groups, including their monetary reliance on these financial donors:
“Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, LeT, other terrorist groups, including Hamas, which probably raise millions of dollars annually from Saudi sources.” Contradicting what the Saudi officials attest, Secretary of State Clinton stated that the Saudi Government has taken only “limited action” to combat terrorism abroad: “Riyadh has taken only limited action to disrupt fundraising for the UN 1267-listed Taliban and LeT groups that are also aligned with Al-Qaeda and focused on undermining stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” Clinton affirms Saudi Arabia’s reluctance to combat terrorism outside of their country and their deliberate intentions to undermine the U.S.’ attempts to stabilize Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Hillary Clinton has begun her campaign to win the presidential candidate seat for the Democrats – she has not commented on these cables.
Original: http://www.almasdarnews.com/article/wikileaks-hillary-clinton-claims-saudi-arabia-largest-donor-sunni-terrorists-worldwide/
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Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Current Concerns No 19, 14 September 2016, Page 7
zf. In the recent weeks and months the European leading media have strikingly strong voiced their opinion about the US election campaign of the next presidency. The tenor is as forced into line: Donald Trump is the personification of evil, while Hillary Clinton was not an angel, but in any case she was the better choice. And if ever anyone is for Trump and against Clinton, then he must stand on the far right. Interesting to note, that now also voices from the rather left located faction have raised their hand and measure the two presidential candidates on their significance for peace in Europe. These arguments deserve attention. And lead to the question, whose interests and plans those serve who speak out so vociferously against Trump and in favour of Clinton. By the way: Neocon warmongers like former US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz have decided to vote for Hillary Clinton (Spiegel online from 26.08.2016).
Hillary Clinton stands for war by Hannes Hofbauer Whoever reads the new book of Diana Johnstone these days, gets more than just a bad feeling in the stomach. In the US presidential campaign one should not hope on Hillary Clinton, who is politically portrayed in Johnstones work. The former First Lady and former foreign minister is hot striving for power and war, hides this behind vacuous human rights and women’s rights formulas, but would make the ideal front woman for the US military-industrial complex, the author says. “Queen of Chaos” the Paris-based American Diana Johnstone calls her indepth researched biography of the Democratic presidential candidate. For years, the now 82 year old scientist has dealt with the wars operated from Washington, particularly, with the NATO attack against Yugoslavia. For two legislatures Johnstone was spokeswoman of the Greens in the European Parliament before she fell from favor there because of her indomitable anti-NATO stance. With the political biography of the soon presumably most powerful woman in the world she makes the reader look forward to a chaotic future full of lies and wars. Masterfully Johnstone portrays the world of thought of Hillary Clinton, and how she already succeeded as Secretary of State, to collect civil society groups around the globe for US interests. So she recalls the “strategic dialogue with civil society”, initiated by Clinton in early 2011, with which she swore the US ambassadors to the three pillars of her policy: “a responsive government, a powerful private sector and a civil society that stands for everything else that happens in the space between the state and industry.” Johnstone finds the path of liberal democrats “from equity to diversity”, chosen under Clinton’s leadership, ideologically groundbreaking. With that they succeeded also in Europe until deep inside in left circles, to declare the class issue obsolete and replace it with the “right to be different”. The dominant social doctrine is based here on the concepts of multiculturalism, the concern for minorities and antiracism. Therein Johnstone locates a new mantra that Clinton always keeps spelling out when disagreeable governments refuse the economic and/or political obedience to her. While in the case of Saudi Arabia this was (and is) never mentioned, in the case of Yugoslavia or Libya the US under both Clintons pulled the civil society card. The attack on Gaddafi’s Libya was, according to Johnstone, “Hillary’s war”. The Pentagon and military leaders advised against an armed encounter in Libya, but the Secretary of State Clinton boycotted all attempts for a political solution. After the lynching of Muammar Gaddafi she let herself be carried away to the Caesar paraphrasing statement: “We came, we saw, he died.” Such a brutal contempt for a political opponent is rarely heard in the public. If one follows the reasoning of Johnstone, the US-Russian relations are likely to worsen in the likely case of a Clinton presidency. In this regard Johnstone recalls the critique of the “Queen of Chaos” towards George W. Bush in 2008. His then short-term approaching to the Kremlin, which prompted him to the utterance that he had looked Putin in the eyes and had seen his soul, Hillary Clinton acknowledged by saying that a “KGB agent had no soul”. After reading the book anxiety remains, as the author demonstrates how Clinton aggressively enforced her worldview as Foreign Minister, and there is little hope that this could change as president. • Johnstone, Diana: Queen of Chaos. The misadventures of Hillary Clinton. CounterPunch 2015 Source: www.ossietzky.net. (Translation Current Concerns) Trump, candidate for peace? by Rainer Rupp page 8 The Anti-Trump campaign can hardly become still more hysterical. Cartoons bring him close to Hitler, in an ill-concealed way a General is threatening with a coup. Reasonable voices argue against, for example the well-known US-Russia expert Stephen F. Cohen, member of the influential US Council on Foreign Relations, who considers Trump a beacon of hope who wants to end the new Cold War in a highly dangerous situation. At the same time public support for the US wars is crumbling. Donald Trump “is inappropriate for being President”, President Obama declared on Tuesday this week at a press conference in the White House after a meeting with Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. He asked the Republicans in Congress to disavow their presidential candidate: “They [the Republicans] have to ask themselves why they still continue to support him, when they repeatedly must explain in very strong words that, what he [Trump] said, is unacceptable. What does that reveal about your party, when Trump is your standard bearer?” In fact, the malicious campaign against Trump is assuming increasingly hysterical proportions. The Anti-Trump-media campaign has reached a point that even in Cartoon clips like “The Simpsons” propaganda is made for Hillary and Trump is demonised. For example, Trump is shown with a book as bedtime reading entitled “Great speeches by A. Hitler”. Meanwhile the richest man in the world and king of cliquish capitalism promised Hillary to do everything in his power for her by November to drive the voters to the polls. Also stunning is the long list of the warmongers of the Republican Party’s establishment including many leading neoconservatives, who meanwhile are publicly against the candidate of their party, Donald Trump, stating that they prefer to give their voice to Hillary Clinton. At the same time, US Marines’ ex-General John Allen, former top commander in Afghanistan, threatened with catastrophic conditions for the internal US stability in case Trump would be elected for president. General Allen, whose promotion to NATO Europe Commander in Chief (SACEUR), has been spoiled at the last minute only by a scandal, declared last Sunday to the US news channel ABC that Trump’s choice for President would trigger “an unprecedented civil-military crisis for the country”. But what does this warning of passionate Hillary-supporter Allen really mean, when he says that Trump as president would lead to the breakdown in relations between civil and military leadership? Meanwhile, even the US financial portal “Zero Hedge” asked the legitimate question on the Internet, whether the US General did not threaten here with a military coup? Fortunately, there are not only warmongers among the geo-strategic US experts and among Republican Party’s politicians. For example, a former Republican presidential candidate, the libertarian Patrick Buchanan, praised Trump as a candidate of peace in an article released on the internet last Tuesday, because of his fresh approach to the role of NATO, being free from ideological ideas of the Cold War. Also Stephen Cohen, who is highly regarded as an expert on Russia in both the US and internationally, called Trump a guarantor of peace with Russia and in Europe. Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at the NY University and Princeton and a member of the influential US Council on Foreign Relations, last Saturday spoke with Smerconish of CNN about Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the new Cold War. According to Cohen, the media do the American people a vast disservice by simply ignoring the substance of Trump’s arguments about NATO and Russia and instead spread the simplistic Clinton smear campaign that Trump is “a Russian agent”. This would have “absolutely to stop”, says Cohen. “We are approaching a point at all levels comparable to the Cuban missile crisis and its nuclear confrontation with Russia. There is absolutely no discussion, no debate about that in the American media.” “Then unexpectedly Donald Trump shows up”, Cohen continues. “He says he wants to end the new Cold War and cooperate with Russia in various fields and, to the general amazement the media are full of accusations that can still only be described as neo-McCarthyism, that he is a Russian agent, that he is a Manchurian candidate, and that he is a business client of Putin. […] At present we are in a year of presidential election, where a debate has to take place. But the media do not offer us this today.” With regard to the alleged “Russian threat” in Eastern Europe and Russia wanting to end the independence of the Baltic States, Cohen said: “This is without any proof. None, by all means.” He continues: “Let’s go back to what Trump has said about NATO. From the very beginning, he said, he wanted to know what mission NATO still has, over 65 years after its foundation. Hundreds of policy experts have asked the same question in Washington since the end of the Soviet Union 25 years ago. Is NATO an organisation in search of a mission?” “That’s a justified question. However, we do not discuss it. We do not ask. We just say, oh, Trump wants to leave NATO,” according to Professor Cohen. Nevertheless, how have the voters, the so-called “Central America”, reacted to the accusations of the warmongers in both parties that Trump had undermined the security architecture, which had kept peace in the last 65 years? Central America did not react at all. Voters are neither appalled nor shocked. What does this mean? The public support has collapsed, which means the foundation on which Washington gave a war guarantee to dozens of countries in Europe, in the Middle East and in Asia since 1949. •Source: https://deutsch.rt.com/meinung/39836-trump-kandidat-fur-friedenfrom 5 August 2016 (Translation Current Concerns) Current Concerns PO Box CH-8044 Zurich Switzerland Phone: +41 44 350 65 50 E-Mail: CurrentConcerns@zeit-fragen.ch Website: www.currentconcerns.ch --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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