July 24, 2018 - Steve Pieczenik
06:21
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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| Hi, this is Dr. Steve Pachanek, and this is Steve Talks. | |
| Hi, I'm Dr. Pachanek. | |
| Pachenik. | |
| Today I want to talk about several things. | |
| The most important part is understanding that President Trump was not in any way bamboozled or coerced by Putin. | |
| The notion that he conceded to Putin and that Helsinki, Finland was a disaster is absolutely absurd. | |
| What Trump did not mention, although he hinted at it, was the fact that I have said in the past. | |
| Let me repeat it for the third time. | |
| In February of 2018, we, the United States, had 32 Delta forces and 32 Special Operations forces in the north of Syria. | |
| We were warning the Russians Part of the Morgan Corporation, which was considered paramilitary, but really part of the GRU, we warned them not to attack our soldiers in terms of the T-72 tanks and their artillery, the 101s, and everything else that they were throwing against our innocent soldiers who were not fighting them. | |
| In turn, Trump quietly ordered General Mattis, Secretary of Defense Mattis, To obliterate the Russians, within four hours, we had B-52s, we had Apache helicopters, we had Hueys, and we totally devastated 500 soldiers, completely eliminated them, and we kept it quiet. | |
| Now, that's a president who understands military victory and doesn't boast about it. | |
| So let me reiterate again, every president decides how he or she would want to run his or her administration. | |
| Let me talk about Cambodia, for example. | |
| When I was involved in Cambodia, I was sent overseas by the administration. | |
| It was the Bush Senior Administration. | |
| I was Deputy Assistant Secretary of East Asia. | |
| It was the United States that initiated a peace conference in Cambodia, not Paris, not Russia, not any country. | |
| In turn, I, along with the Foreign Service Officer, Charlie Twining, Along with the CIA, along with the DIA, along with Mormons who were operatives, and I can't identify them, but they were extremely good. | |
| We were able to disarm thousands of Khmer Rouge and in turn create a government under the leadership of Hansen that's been there for 20 to 30 years. | |
| Now the irony of the situation is that Despite the fact that I did that under the auspices of Bush Sr., Bush Sr. | |
| and Baker never took credit for that achievement, although that may be the only achievement of their administration. | |
| My point is very simple. | |
| Every president decides what he wants to agree to in terms of an accomplishment. | |
| For Bush, that may not have been an accomplishment. | |
| For me and those who worked with me in the Foreign Service, that was an amazing accomplishment. | |
| Now let's talk about something else. | |
| When you have an ambassador who is appointed ambassador, they are not sacrosanct. | |
| So the Ambassador McFaul, who was our ambassador for two years under President Obama, is not a sacrosanct figure. | |
| He was born in Montana, grew up in an area I knew well, Bozeman, and then went to a university I knew well, Stanford. | |
| He is clearly an intelligent man. | |
| He's a man who understood the Russian language and the Slavic culture. | |
| However, he was appointed for two years as an ambassador to Russia. | |
| That did not make him sacrosanct. | |
| that did not make him the perfect ambassador. | |
| He did not personify what we would consider in the Foreign Service Office the finest and the best of the diplomatic corps. | |
| He was and is part of the 40% of people whom we appoint who are political appointees. | |
| Let me repeat it again. | |
| In every administration, 40% of all the ambassadors are appointed on the basis of politics, money, donation, or insertion in the political party. | |
| So the concept that McFaul was a very honorable man may be somewhat true, but the fact that he was holy and sacrosanct and that he is being sacrificed to Putin is absolutely absurd. | |
| McFaul knows this and I know that. | |
| Now, let me talk about the problem of peace. | |
| When you are in the process of a peace treaty, you have to decide, number one, who are the people that you want to talk to? | |
| What are their profiles? | |
| What is the strategy? | |
| And how are you going to implement it? | |
| There are very few presidents who really understand how to do that. | |
| Jimmy Carter was one of them. | |
| He was the Democratic president who did Camp David Accord. | |
| We did it in Cambodia. | |
| We did it under Nixon in the Soviet Union, under China. | |
| And we were able to do it in Cambodia and elsewhere. | |
| Where we failed was, let's say, an accord with General Noriega when I was sent there to offer him a concession for him to leave the country. | |
| I failed because I didn't get the imprimatur of Bush Sr. | |
| or the Reagan administration. | |
| So, in effect, when you go over and you negotiate against an opponent, what you're doing is offering a peace treaty. | |
| As Marvin Gaye, the great soul singer, said, if you want to turn your enemy into your friend, negotiate. | |
| Or, as Nixon said, we're ending the age of confrontation. | |
| We're entering into the era of negotiation. | |
| And that is true for the Trump era. |
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