The public impeachment inquiry by the House Intelligence Committee last week gave better exposure to Trump’s questionable actions related to Ukraine – firing Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch without any justification and asking President Zelensky to investigate the Bidens. These two misdeeds are central to the impeachment inquiry into Trump.
One of the take away from the impeachment inquiry was how the Republicans dug in with imbecilic arguments to defend Trump. It does not matter to the Republicans that immediately after Trump was investigated for collusion with the Russians in the 2016 election, he followed up with what has been called his “quid pro quo” with Ukraine. Their irrational defense is certainly a puzzling transformation of a party that strongly advocated the rule of law.
Senators like Lindsey Graham who Trump disparaged by calling him “Little Lindsey Graham,” has turned out to be a surprising Trump convert and defender. Graham is not alone as almost all his Republican colleagues in the Senate and in the House believe that it was Ukraine who meddled in the 2016 election and not Russia.
One Republican talking point that came out of the public impeachment inquiry was that Trump despite trying to manipulate Ukraine to do him a favor was pro-Ukraine. They base this on Trump claiming to help fight corruption in Ukraine and in providing Javelin missiles to help defend against Russian aggression. On the Ari Melber show last night, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Chairman Matt Schlapp, said, “Trump gave them lethal weapons to go after their enemy.” They have also repeatedly pointed out that the Obama Administration did not give Ukraine Javelins.
Because Trump has been accused of being a Russian asset, the Republicans probably wanted to show that if this was true, then why would he provide Javelin missiles to Ukraine to deter Russian aggression. That would seem contrary to the actions of a president who is a Russian asset.
The claims of Trump’s pro-Ukrainian position is disingenuous though. An article by the Business Insider, titled, “There’s a huge loophole in the GOP’s claim that Trump’s sale of Javelin missiles to Ukraine shows his support for the country,” debunks all claims by the Republicans to make Trump seems like he had Ukraine’s best interest at heart. Three points supporting their assertion are:
- President Donald Trump’s GOP allies in Congress have touted his administration's sale of Javelin missiles to Ukraine as evidence he's supported it against Russian aggression.
- But Republicans have left out that the Ukrainians cannot actually use the anti-tank missiles in the conflict against pro-Russian separatists based on the terms of the sale.
- A top staffer in the US embassy in Ukraine on Thursday testified that the Javelins serve as an important deterrent but aren't "actively employed in combat operations right now."
Another argument that can be made to debunk the Republican assertion of Trump caring about Ukraine when he gave them the Javelin missiles is one that is based on understanding what the Javelins are. The Javelin is a shoulder-fired, portable anti-tank missile that can also be mounted on amphibious vehicles. It is an effective weapon in deterring the movement of troops, tanks, and other military vehicles on the ground. They are not used for shooting down military aircraft’s or at least not effective in this area of combat. If this is true, then it means that they are not a significant deterrence in stopping Russian aggression against Ukraine.
If Russia wants to mount a successful attack on Ukraine, they can do so by air alone. They have a formidable Air Force that is capable of doing this as shown in a National Interest website article, titled, Why Russia’s Air Force Is So Dangerous.” The article states,
As such, any serious observer of air power around the world must have an appreciation of Russia’s top military planes.
So, when the Republicans try to make it look like Trump was concerned about Ukraine with respect to their vulnerability to aggression from Russia, they are wrong. Any argument to even counter the notion that Trump is not a Russian asset because he provides javelins to Ukraine is disingenuous and pure propaganda.