Some inconvenient truths in this post from Yasha Levine, author of Surveillance Valley, a history of Pentagon-Silicon Valley collaboration.
From Paul Manafort, President Trump’s campaign manager, to Tad Devine, Bernie Sanders’s 2016 strategist to Hunter Biden, son of the Democratic candidate, feeding at the Ukraine trough has been the norm.
Levine is not making excuses for Trump’s attempted extortion of Ukraine president, Volodymyr Zelensky, but in the annals of U.S.-Ukraine relations, American heavy-handedness (and greed) has been the norm.
The truth is that America has been meddling and messing with Ukraine so persistently for so many years that no one thinks there’s anything wrong with it. It’s been the normal way of doing things. That’s why Joe Biden sat around yuk-yuking it up at the Council of Foreign Relations, bragging about bossing Ukraine’s former oligarch-president around — as if this elected billionaire leader of a foreign nation was nothing but a busboy working in Joe’s Delaware country club for tips. And why not? That’s how Americ
For years, America and its allies have leveraged and magnified this instability. They’ve worked with oligarchs and backed one clan against another in an attempt to destabilize the country and to peel it away from Russia’s sphere of influence — all while turning Ukraine into fertile source of plunder: contracting opportunities, lobbying gigs, foundation support, non-profit donations, cushy corporate board seats, and all the other perks that America’s political elite get for managing the empire. You can run down the line: the Clinton Foundation, Joe Biden’s son, Paul Manafort, Tony Podesta, and all sorts of other top-flight flunkies like Rudy Giuliani. They’ve been skimming money from this impoverished and plundered country with no remorse or regret.
Source: Ukraine: A Short History of Meddling
