Tag: Ukraine

Rather Warns of Home-Grown Quislings

Buck Banks

“Beware of the armchair generals… it is easier to opine when you are not on the battlefield and the acuity of your predictions will not be measured in lives lost. But there is something else this time around, something new that I have never seen before on the scale we are witnessing. There are many in this nation, cheered on by powerful media voices, who seem more aligned with a dangerous foe to America and a peaceful world order than they are with our own leadership. Our divisions are a weakness that our enemies eagerly exploit. Whether willingly or not, we do their bidding with our bickering. To reduce the world order to shortsighted political calculations is to undermine our own national security.”

— Dan Rather, Steady Blog

Putin Pushes ‘Forever War’

Buck Banks

“Putin has now affirmed that he refuses to accept the outcome of the Cold War and that he will fight to dismantle the European system of peace and security constructed by the international community after its end. This is Vladimir Putin’s forever war, and Russia, cursed as it has been so many times in its history with a terrible leader, will be fighting it for as long as Putin remains the master of the Kremlin.”

— Tom Nichols

Yovanovitch: ‘Our Institutions Need Us’

Buck Banks

“I had always thought that our institutions would forever protect us against individual transgressors. But it turns out that our institutions need us as much as we need them; they need the American people to protect them or they will be hollowed out over time, unable to serve and protect our country.”

— Former Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, writing in the Washington Post.

Taylor Responds to Pompeo on Ukraine

Buck Banks

“To support Ukraine is to support a rules-based international order that avoided war among major powers in Europe for seven decades. It is to support democracy over autocracy. It is to support freedom over unfreedom. Most Americans do.”

— Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor responds in the New York Times to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s sarcastic question in private to an NPR reporter: “Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?”

Recording Found of Trump Ordering Yovanovich’s Firing

Buck Banks

“Get rid of her! Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. Okay? Do it.”

— A recording reviewed by ABC News appears to capture President Trump telling associates he wanted the then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch fired while speaking at a small gathering that included Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman — two former business associates of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani who have since been indicted in New York.