“U.S. Senators Dick Lugar (R-IN) and Barack Obama (D-IL) called for the immediate destruction of 15,000 tons of ammunition, 400,000 small arms and light weapons, and 1,000 man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) or shoulder missile launchers that are often sought by terrorists.
So far, theU.S. has contributed $2.1 million to the project,
and Austria, Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway,
Slovakia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom have contributed $1.2
million.
While the destruction is ready to begin, theUkrainian Rada (parliament) first must pass a law exempting the foreign assistance from taxation. Lugar and Obama discussed this issue with Rada Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko and President Viktor Yushchenko in meetings yesterday. All three leaders indicated they would promote action before the March 2006 parliamentary elections.
The visit underscoresthe importance of legislation Lugar and Obama have authored that would commit additional U.S. resources and expand authorities in cooperative threatreduction of conventional weaponsaround the world.The
bill is part of the Foreign Relations Authorization Bill that is
pending in the Senate and will be introduced as a free-standing bill by
the senators this fall.
“We discussed MANPADS, landmines and other very highly dangerous explosives. Ukraine has huge stockpiles leftover from previous timesthat are dangerous to people of this country as well as the possibility for proliferation to other countries,” Lugar said.
“We are working to obtain funds to secure and destroy these weapons in cooperative threat reduction. We are encouraging the U.S. and Ukraine to work together and to obtain more funds. We came here to see the problem and the solution with our own eyes.”
Estimates by the NATOMaintenance and Supply Agency suggest a significant proliferation and public safety threat from the 7 million small arms and light weapons and 2 million tons of conventional ammunitionstored in more than 80 depots across Ukraine.
These depots were never designed to hold such large stockpiles and
remain vulnerable to those seeking such weapons or their components,or to spontaneous detonation in some of the older and larger ammunition stockpiles.
In March, the Foreign Relations Committeeadded the Lugar Disarmament Initiative(LDI) to the Foreign Affairs Authorization Act for Fiscal Years2006 and 2007.The LDI is modeled on the original Nunn-Lugar Act.Its purpose is to provide the Department of State with a focused response to the threat posed by vulnerable stockpiles of conventional weapons around the world, including tactical missiles and MANPADS. Such missile systems could be
used by terrorists to attack commercial airliners, military
installations and government facilities in the U.S. and abroad.Reports suggest that Al Qaeda has attempted to acquire these kinds of weapons. In addition, unsecured conventional weapons stockpiles are a major obstacle to peace, reconstruction and economic development in regions suffering from instability.
The Secretary of State is charged with devising a strategy for prioritizing, on a country-by-country basis,the obligation of funds in aglobal program of conventional armselimination. Lastly, the Secretary is required to unify program planning, coordination and implementation of the strategy into one office at the State Department and to request a budget commensurate with the risk posed by these weapons.
During the trip,the senators have inspected a nuclear warhead storagefacility and missile destruction facility in Russia [while Putin was pres.] and biological laboratories in Russia and Ukraine. On Thursday, they will review sea interdiction exercises on the Caspian Sea in Azerbaijan.
In 1991, Senator Lugar (R-IN) and former Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) authored the Nunn-Lugar Act, which established the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program.This program hasprovided U.S. funding and expertise to help the former Soviet Union safeguard and dismantleits enormous stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, related materials, and delivery systems. In 1997, Lugar and Nunn were joined by Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) in introducing the Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act, which expanded Nunn-Lugar authorities in the former Soviet Union and provided WMD expertise to first responders in American cities. In 2003, Congress adopted the Nunn-Lugar Expansion Act, which authorized the Nunn-Lugar program to operate outside the former Soviet Union to address proliferation threats.In October 2004, Nunn-Lugar funds were used for
the first time outside of the former Soviet Union to secure chemical
weapons in Albania, under a Lugar-led expansion of the program.
The latest Nunn-Lugar Scorecard shows that the program has
deactivated or destroyed: 6,760 nuclear warheads; 587 ICBMs; 483 ICBM
silos; 32 ICBM mobile missile launchers; 150 bombers; 789 nuclear
air-to-surface missiles; 436 submarine missile launchers; 549 submarine
launched missiles; 28 nuclear submarines; and 194 nuclear test tunnels.
Beyond the scorecard’s nuclear elimination, the Nunn-Lugar program secures and destroys chemical weapons,and works to reemploy scientists and facilities related to biological weapons in peaceful research initiatives. The International Science and Technology Centers, of which the United States is the leading sponsor, have engaged 58,000 former weapons scientists in peaceful work. The International Proliferation Prevention Program has funded 750 projects involving 14,000 former weapons scientists and created some 580 new peaceful high-tech jobs. Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan are nuclear weapons freeas a result of cooperative efforts under the Nunn-Lugar program.They otherwise would be the world’s the third, forth and eighth largest nuclear weapons powers, respectively.”
Lugar is Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Obama is a new member of the committee this year.” [Lugar died April 28, 2019] ………………………………………
The basic argument the document makes is that Trump,
by temporarily withholding military aid and diplomatic support from the
right-wing, anti-Russian government in Kiev, in an attempt to bully
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into announcing a corruption
investigation against Hunter Biden, the son of Trump’s potential
opponent in the 2020 elections, had undermined US national security.
It echoes their praise for a[Ukraine] regimethat came into being in the first placein a 2014 coup carried out by US-backed [“Yats is the guy"]and fascist-led militias, which overthrew the elected,pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych in the so-called “Maidan revolution.” Among those hailed by the Democrats’ star witnesses was Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, a sponsor of the fascist Azov Battalion, which glorifies Ukrainians who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II against the Soviet Unionand were complicit in the slaughter of Ukrainian Jews.
Not only is the impeachment inquiry centered on Ukraine, it is largely based on a single incident: the July 25 telephone call between Trump and Zelensky in which Trump demanded as a “favor” a public announcement by the Ukrainian president of an investigation into Hunter Biden’s lucrative position on the board of a Ukrainian gas company that was under investigation for corruption, as well as an investigation of alleged Ukrainian support for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
In his preface to the report, Schiff writes:
“At the center of this investigation is the memorandum prepared following President Trump’s July 25, 2019 phone call with Ukraine’s president, which the White House declassified and released under significant public pressure. The call record alone is stark evidence of misconduct; a demonstration of the president’s prioritization of his personal political benefit over the [alleged] national interest.”
Schiff presentsthe core of the impeachment case as follows:
The president engaged in this course of conduct for the benefit of his own presidential reelection,
to harm the election prospects of a political rival, and to influence
our nation’s upcoming presidential election to his advantage. In doing
so, the president placed his own personal and political interests above the [alleged] national interests of the United States, sought to undermine the integrity of the US presidential election process, andendangered US national security.”
The report implicates other top administration officials as participants in the pressure campaign against Ukraine, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence, Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
It includes a section on Trump’s obstruction of the impeachment inquiry, which documents the White House’s effort to impose a total ban on cooperation
with the congressional investigation. It notes: “The White House,
Department of State, Department of Defense, Office of Management and
Budget, and Department of Energy refused to produce a single document in response to our subpoenas.”
It lists 12 current or former administration officials who refused to testify,
10 of whom defied subpoenas. The list includes Mick Mulvaney, John
Bolton and Rick Perry. The report states, “Indeed, it would be hard to
imagine a stronger or more complete case of obstruction than that demonstrated by the president since the inquiry began,” strongly suggesting that the Judiciary Committee will include in its articles of impeachment a charge of obstruction of Congress.
The Republican minority report rejects all of the Democrats’
allegations, declaring, improbably, that there was no political
motivation behind Trump’s demand that Zelensky announce a probe of the
Bidens. The Republicans’ basic contention, however, that the impeachment
inquiry is a political operation arising from differences over policy
toward Russia, is undoubtedly true.
Their report states: “The fundamental disagreement apparent in the
Democrats’ impeachment inquiry is a difference of world views and a
discomfit with President Trump’s policy decisions.”In their findings, the Republicans reject the general media
presentation of the corruption allegations against the Bidens as
completely unfounded, noting that the “Obama State Department noted concerns about Hunter Biden’s relationship with [the gas company] Burisma in 2015 and 2016.”
They
also cite “indisputable evidence” that “senior Ukrainian government
officials opposed President Trump’s candidacy in the 2016 election and
did so publicly,” as well as media reports that the Democratic National
Committee worked with the Ukrainian Embassy to gather negative
information on then-candidate Trump.
Notwithstanding the bitter differences over policy toward Russia between the Trump administration and the dominant factions of the [so-called] national security apparatus, for whom the Democrats speak,there
is bipartisan support for the anti-Russian regime in Kiev and the [US
taxpayer funded] drive to remove Russia as an obstacle to US hegemony in
the Middle East and Eurasia. [Normal people (such as 63 million 2016 Trump voters)who want to stop endless US foreign aggressionare not needed by either political party. The US is now effectively a monarchy because elections can’t change that the war industry is our master and we’re its slaves. Only
the breakup of the US will do that]. Both factions in the conflict are
right-wing and pro-war, posing the very real danger of a military
conflict between the world’s two biggest nuclear powers.” ………………………………..
Added: In 2014, Donetsk region of Ukraine declared its independence and asked to join Russia.
While respecting the will of Donetsk citizens to declare their
independence, the Russian government didn’t invite Donetsk to join Russia, insteadadvised dialogue with Kiev:
“Instead of previous statements saying it would protect people in the regions with troops if need be, the Kremlin called for dialogue between the government in Kiev and the south-east regions of the country.
Comment: US desperately needs “boots on the ground” as it remakes the
globe. It’s clear they’re trying to sell the hopeless idea that Ukraine
can be its “bulwark,” ie, US boots on the ground in colonizing Russia
and Asia--as Islamic terrorists have been US boots on the ground in Syria for 9 years. “Hopeless” because US gutted Ukraine over the past
two decades. When "US military" is in
Ukraine to “train” Ukraine soldiers, please ask US personnel why anyone
should listen to a word they say since they can’t or won’t protect their
own dangerous 2000 mile southern border.Hopefully
Ukraine citizens will never again make the mistake of believing that
any US politician or government representative cared about them or their
country. “Elections” are to elect the best US puppet.Ukraine’s US led “regime change” in 2014 created even worse misery for Ukraine citizens, causing 629,428 to flee, 2014-2018.
“On September 5, 2018, the New York Times published an op-ed by a “senior official” in the White House, entitled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.”
The anonymous author of the piece revealed that “many of the
senior officials in [Trump’s] own administration are working diligently
from within to frustrate parts of his agenda [for which he was elected by voters] and his worst inclinations.” The “adults in the room,” he claimed, are leading a “two-track presidency.”
In that op-ed, he revealed that “there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president.”
In other words, members of the [US taxpayer funded] executive branch had discussed a coup to remove a sitting president, which they pulled back from only because “no one wanted” a “constitutional crisis.”
One year later,the same unnamed official, whose identity is known to the Times, has published a book elaborating on themes elucidated in the editorial. A Warning is currently #1 on the New York Times ’ nonfiction bestseller list.
The author, “Anonymous,”has been publicly identified as Guy Snodgrass, the US Navy commander who served as the communications secretary for the Department of Defense under Gen. James Mattis. Posting a report of his alleged authorship on Twitter, Snodgrass cryptically mused, “the swirl continues.”
If the allegation is true, it would have ominous implications. It would mean that the New York Times gave the military an opportunity to denounce a president as “amoral,” “impetuous,” “petty” and “ineffective,” and to all but advocate his removal via unconstitutional means.
Notably, Snodgrass claims to be the author of perhaps the most important military document produced under the Trump administration, the unclassified summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which declared that “Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in US national security.”
We do not know whether Snodgrass is the author of A Warning, but the themes of the National Defense Strategy document are consistent with the emphasis of the book.
AWarning makes one thing abundantly clear:the “Resistance” to Trump’s policies within the state, which is the basis of the Democrats’ opposition to him, centers on claims that Trump is insufficiently aggressivein defending andexpanding America’s imperial interestsagainst Russia and China.
A Warning argues that “America’s dominant role on the international stage is at risk today,” but Trump is “not positioning us to strengthen our [US taxpayer funded] “empire of liberty.” It continues: “Instead, he’s left the empire’s flank vulnerable to power-hungry competitors” with his “isolationist, what’s-in-it-for-me attitude toward the world.”
The allegations continue:
“The president lacks a cogent agenda for dealing with these rivals
because he doesn’t recognize them as long-term threats. He only sees
near-term deals. “Russia is a foe in certain respects. China is a
foe economically… But that doesn’t mean they are bad,” the president
said in one interview…
What he doesn’t see, especially with
China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, is that their governments are
programmed to oppose us....The United States is taking its eye off the ball with China, and our
national response has been ad hoc and indecisive under President Trump.
We have no serious plan to safeguard our [US taxpayer funded] “empire of liberty”
against China’s rise. There is only the ever-changing negotiating
positions of a grifter in chief, which will not be enough to win what is fast becoming the next Cold War. President Trump is myopically focused on trade with China, which is only part of the picture…
In a July 2018 interview, the president was asked to name America’s
biggest global adversary. He didn’t lead the list with China, which is
stealing American innovation at a scale never before seen in history, or
Russia, which is working to tear our country apart.”
And on and on.
In response to such concerns, the writer makes clear that sections of this staff were contemplating an extra-constitutional coup to replace Trump by declaring the American president [selected by voters] mad and therefore “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” in
the words of the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution, which outlines
presidential succession in the case of a presidential disability.
“A back-of-the-envelope “whip count” was conducted
of officials who were most concerned about the deteriorating situation.
Names of cabinet-level officials were placed on a mental list. These
were folks who, in the worst case scenario, would be amenable to
huddling discreetly in order to assess how bad the situation was
getting… I froze when I first heard someone suggest that we might be getting into “Twenty-fifth territory.””
The writer describes what the removal of the president via the 25th Amendment would look like:
“Removal of the president by his own cabinet would be perceived as a coup.The
end result would be unrest in the United States the likes of which we
haven’t seen since maybe the Civil War. Millions would not accept the
outcome, perhaps including the president himself, and many would take to
the streets on both sides. Violence would be almost inevitable.”
One does not know whether the author has really had a change of heart about overthrowing the American government in a coup, or, if he is a military person, he fears a court martial for treason. In any event, he concludes, “In a democracy we don’t overthrow our leaders when they’re underperforming. That’s for third-rate banana republics and police states.”
How reassuring…
After only three paragraphs weighing in on the merits of the impeachment proceeding, the author concludes, “One option—and one option only—stands above the rest as the ultimate way to hold Trump accountable”—to unseat him in the 2020 election.
[Image: Aug. 2005, “Then-Senator Barack Obama inspected decommissioned artillery shells in a warehouse in Donetsk, Ukraine, and argued that Congress should allocate money to speed up the destruction of thousands of tons more.” Reuters]
Estimates by the NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency suggest a significant proliferation and public safety threat from the 7 million small arms and light weapons and 2 million tons of conventional ammunition stored in more than 80 depots across Ukraine. 
In 1991, Senator Lugar (R-IN) and former Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) authored the Nunn-Lugar Act, which established the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. This program has provided U.S. funding and expertise to help the former Soviet Union safeguard and dismantle its enormous stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, related materials, and delivery systems. In 1997, Lugar and Nunn were joined by Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) in introducing the Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act, which expanded Nunn-Lugar authorities in the former Soviet Union and provided WMD expertise to first responders in American cities. In 2003, Congress adopted the Nunn-Lugar Expansion Act, which authorized the Nunn-Lugar program to operate outside the former Soviet Union to address proliferation threats. In October 2004, Nunn-Lugar funds were used for
the first time outside of the former Soviet Union to secure chemical
weapons in Albania, under a Lugar-led expansion of the program. 
