Dear Editor:
We have to recognize that global trends are transpiring in the Western world that are beyond our control.
The globalists and Leftist socialists have bitten off more than they could chew in building their multicultural utopias, inviting excessive amounts of hostile migrants who have disrupted peaceful and successful societies by introducing criminal behaviors, and financial burdens, that have become unbearable.
Conspiracy theories about Russian FSB officers shipping these migrants to Europe aside, Western nations are coming to the conclusion that combatting Islamist terrorism and restricting Muslim immigration is a bigger priority than combatting Russian aggression.
In light of these alarming trends, we must recognize that Donald Trump has a very strong chance to become the next U.S. president. He has the momentum of the anti-globalist movements that have swept Europe in recent months, including the Brexit.
Mr. Trump has the upper hand on all the key election issues this season: confronting the dangers of Islamist terrorism globally (which Hillary Clinton refuses to acknowledge), restricting immigration, supporting our besieged police officers and rejecting Orwellian political correctness in order to make the nation secure.
Mr. Trump has the moral high ground after the FBI and the Justice Department refused to file numerous criminal charges against Ms. Clinton, leaving the responsibility to prevent a likely felon from becoming president to the public after the failure of the U.S. government to enforce the law equally on all its citizens. (And we’re worried about rule of law in Ukraine?)
Let’s not forget that Ms. Clinton was responsible for large transfers of nuclear fuel and secret military technology, blatantly stating that her goal was to strengthen Russia (and make money in the process, something she omitted). Her scandals and foreign policy disasters could fill encyclopedias.
Mr. Trump has concrete measures that will lead to economic growth, in the form of reduced taxes and regulations. Ms. Clinton wants to raise taxes on the middle class even further.
Mr. Trump has the support of working-class America, which has been betrayed by the free-trade agreements advocated by both the Republican and Democratic parties for the last two decades, as recent as this year’s Trans-Pacific Partnership.
So everything is working in Mr. Trump’s favor, and it would make sense that the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America and other diaspora leaders intensify their efforts to lobby and influence his campaign.
What should be advocated for? Not lethal, defensive weapons. Amid all his many foreign policy disasters, this is one of the few areas in which U.S. President Barack Obama has proven correct.
A real threat of the Donbas war dangerously escalating emerged in January 2015, when residential areas of Mariupol were bombarded by Russian-backed terrorists, killing 29 and injuring 97.
Fortunately, John Kerry was the top U.S. diplomat at the time (and not Ms. Clinton) and he worked feverishly behind the scenes to secure a diplomatic solution and prevent any escalation. As evidence of his success, no attack of the same scale of horror and civilian casualties has occurred since.
Given Vladimir Putin’s unpredictability, introducing American arms would have caused the conflict to spiral out of control, with much more loss of life, and there still is that potential. Military assistance has to be soberly negotiated.
Instead, the following four non-military options are most adequate in keeping pressure on Russia to withdraw and deter its forces from advancing further into Ukraine and inflicting more casualties.
1. Enforcing and intensifying sanctions against all state and private officials involved in the Crimean annexation and Donbas military aggression, including all Russian Duma members.
2. Keeping their assets abroad frozen and widening the scope of the freeze.
3. Expelling them from the SWIFT system of international currency exchange.
4. Denying landing rights for Russian aircraft in Western airports.
It’s clear at this point that the Russian lobby has infiltrated the Trump campaign after lethal, defensive weapons were dropped from the Republican Party’s foreign policy platform. That’s to their credit, because the main goal should be to stop the killing immediately.
Ukrainian farmboys who can’t evade the draft shouldn’t be pawns on the grand chessboard. That’s particularly the case when the Ukrainian president continues to operate one of his biggest candy factories in Russia, all the while thwarting Western efforts to fight systemic corruption, which remains at the same level as under Viktor Yanukovych, as Freedom House reported last month.
At the same time, the Russians shouldn’t be allowed to go any further, and Trump has already indicated that he won’t let them. He has also demonstrated that he doesn’t have a strong position on Ukraine and that’s an opportunity to convince him of the need to maintain certain measures, like economic sanctions, rather than reconsider them, as he indicated in late July.
The New York Times reported last month (not that it’s an objective source of information) that Mr. Trump was even on the verge of ceding his entire domestic and foreign policy to John Kasich in exchange for him running as his vice-president.
As far-fetched as that claim sounds, it indicates that the political field is ripe for planting and that there’s plenty of work ahead that could prove fruitful. As another vector of lobbying to consider: Mr. Trump still says he’ll consider as his secretary of state John Bolton, a well-known Ukraine hawk.
It’s worth considering that, following World War I, the Polish government organized an effective “charm offensive” at Versailles involving Polish composer Ignacy Paderewski and Pola Negri, a Hollywood starlet of Polish descent.
They gained a Poland resurrected after five generations of struggle that even included chunks of Germany and eastern Halychyna. The Ukrainians sat out the talks, hoping for the best, and were left with nothing, leading to disastrous consequences.
Let’s not be left out in the cold again. Like him or not, we need to lobby Trump.
Zenon Zawada
Kyiv
Darian Diavhok
Alexandria, Va.
Bohdan Knianicky
San Diego