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bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

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Impeachment Testimony: Read a Statement from the White House Ukraine Expert

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/29/us/politics/vindman-statement-impeachment.html

Read Alexander Vindman’s Statement on Trump and Ukraine

BY The New York Times | Published October 29, 2019 | New York Times | Posted October 29, 2019 |

Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman of the Army, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, plans to tell impeachment investigators that he twice reported concerns about President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, according to a draft statement obtained by The New York Times.

Opening Statement of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander S. Vindman

Before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform

October 29, 2019

Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, thank you for the opportunity to address the Committees concerning the activities relating to Ukraine and my role in the events under investigation.

BACKGROUND

I have dedicated my entire professional life to the United States of America. For more than two decades, it has been my honor to serve as an officer in the United States Army. As an infantry officer, I served multiple overseas tours, including South Korea and Germany, and a deployment to Iraq for combat operations. In Iraq, I was wounded in an IED attack and awarded a Purple Heart.

Since 2008, I have been a Foreign Area Officer specializing in Eurasia. In this role, I have served in the United States' embassies in Kiev, Ukraine and Moscow, Russia. In Washington, D.C., I was a politico-military affairs officer for Russia for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs where I authored the principle strategy for managing competition with Russia. In July 2018, I was asked to serve at the National Security Council.

The privilege of serving my country is not only rooted in my military service, but also in my personal history. I sit here, as a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army, an immigrant. My family fled the Soviet Union when I was three and a half years old. Upon arriving in New York City in 1979, my father worked multiple jobs to support us, all the while learning English at night. He stressed to us the importance of fully integrating into our adopted country. For many years, life was quite difficult. In spite of our challenging beginnings, my family worked to build its own American dream. I have a deep appreciation for American values and ideals and the power of freedom. I am a patriot, and it is my sacred duty and honor to advance and defend OUR country, irrespective of party or politics.

For over twenty years as an active duty United States military officer and diplomat, I have served this country in a nonpartisan manner, and have done so with the utmost respect and professionalism for both Republican and Democratic administrations.

INTRODUCTION

I want the Committees to know I am not the whistleblower who brought this issue to the CIA and the Committees’ attention. I do not know who the whistleblower is and I would not feel comfortable to speculate as to the identity of the whistleblower.

Also, as I will detail herein, I did convey certain concerns internally to National Security officials in accordance with my decades of experience and training, sense of duty, and obligation to operate within the chain of command. As an active duty military officer, the command structure is extremely important to me. On many occasions I have been told I should express my views and share my concerns with my chain of command and proper authorities. I believe that any good military officer should and would do the same, thus providing his or her best advice to leadership.

Furthermore, in performing my coordination role as a Director on the National Security Council, I provided readouts of relevant meetings and communications to a very small group of properly cleared national security counterparts with a relevant need-to-know.

MY SERVICE ON THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL

economic national security issues for the countries in my portfolio, which includes Ukraine.

In my position, I coordinate with a superb cohort of inter-agency partners. I regularly prepare internal memoranda, talking points, and other materials for the National Security Advisor and senior staff.

Most of my interactions relate to national security issues and are therefore especially sensitive. I would urge the Committees to carefully balance the need for information against the impact that disclosure would have on our foreign policy and national security.

I have never had direct contact or communications with the President.

THE GEOPOLITICAL IMPORTANCE OF UKRAINE

In spite of being under assault from Russia for more than five years, Ukraine has taken major steps towards integrating with the West. The U.S. government policy community’s view is that the election of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the promise of reforms to eliminate corruption will lock in Ukraine’s Western-leaning trajectory, and allow Ukraine to realize its dream of a vibrant democracy and economic prosperity.

Given this perspective and my commitment to advancing our government's strategic interests, I will now recount several events that occurred.

RELEVANT EVENTS

When I joined the NSC in July 2018, I began implementing the administration’s policy on Ukraine. In the Spring of 2019, I became aware of outside influencers promoting a false narrative of Ukraine inconsistent with the consensus views of the interagency. This narrative was harmful to U.S. government policy. While my interagency colleagues and I were becoming increasingly optimistic on Ukraine’s prospects, this alternative narrative undermined U.S. government efforts to expand cooperation with Ukraine.

April 21, 2019: PRESIDENT TRUMP CALLS UKRAINE PRESIDENT ZELENSKYY

In support of U.S. policy objectives to support Ukrainian sovereignty, President Trump called President Zelenskyy on April 21, 2019. I was one of several staff and officers who listened to the call. The call was positive and President Trump expressed his desire to work with President Zelenskyy and extended an invitation to visit the White House.

May 21, 2019: INAUGURATION DELEGATION GOES TO UKRAINE

On May 21, 2019 I was directed by Ambassador Bolton and Dr. Hill to join the delegation attending President Zelenkskyy’s inauguration. When the delegation returned, they provided a debriefing to President Trump and explained their positive assessment of President Zelenskyy and his team. I did not participate in the debriefing.

OLEKSANDR DANYLYUK VISIT - July 10, 2019

On July 10, 2019, Oleksandr Danylyuk, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council for Ukraine, visited Washington, D.C. for a meeting with National Security Advisor Bolton. Ambassadors Volker and Sondland also attended along with Energy Secretary Rick Perry.

The meeting proceeded well until the Ukrainians broached the subject of a meeting between the two presidents. The Ukrainians saw this meeting as critically important in order to solidify the support of their most important international partner. Amb. Sondland started to speak about delivering the specific investigations in order to secure the meeting with the President, at which time Ambassador Bolton cut the meeting short.

Following this meeting, there was a scheduled debriefing during which Amb. Sondland emphasized the importance that Ukraine deliver the investigations into the 2016 election, the Bidens, and Burisma. I stated to Amb. Sondland that his statements were inappropriate, that the request to investigate Biden and his son had nothing to do with national security, and that such investigations were not something the NSC was going to get involved in or push. Dr. Hill then entered the room and asserted to Amb. Sondland that his statements were inappropriate.

Following the debriefing meeting, I reported my concerns to the NSCs lead counsel. Dr. Hill also reported the incident to the NSC’s lead counsel.

ELECTION CALL – July 25, 2019

On July 21, 2019 President Zelenskyy’s party won Parliamentary elections in a landslide victory. The NSC proposed that President Trump call President Zelenskyy to congratulate him.

On July 25, 2019, the call occurred. I listened in on the call in the Situation Room with colleagues from the NSC and the office of the Vice President. As the transcript is in the public record, we are all aware of what was said.

I was concerned by the call. I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen, and I was worried about the implications for...

.... the U.S. government’s support of Ukraine. I realized that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the Bidens and Burisma, it would likely be interpreted as a partisan play which would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing the bipartisan support it has thus far maintained. This would all undermine U.S. national security. Following the call, I again reported my concerns to NSC’s lead counsel.

CONCLUSION

It has been a great honor to serve the American people and a privilege to work in the White House and on the National Security Council. I hope to continue to serve and advance America’s national security interests.

Thank you again for your consideration, and now I would be happy to answer your questions.

Produced by Josh Williams and Tiff Fehr.

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praetor-canis · 6 years ago

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But can Yoda, Kenobi and the good senators prove that Palpatine was corrupt. If we’re talking about a return to the light after Order 66, after the slaughter of the Separatist leadership? Where would the evidence be? Who would stand witness to the plots? Gunray, who knows the most, would be dead, wouldn’t he? Of course, there’s still Tarkin, Sate Pestage, but would they be able to prove anything beyond the fact that Palpatine is a plotting bearucrat? Would the Jedi even be able to catch these people? Even if the separatist senators rejoin the rotunda, any sort of reformation would still need to go through a vote, no? And the ‘good’ senators would still be a minority in this. We’re talking about a lot of senators that will need to admit to their own corruption, to accept responsibility for their bad decisions.

And there’s the messiness of the sector governors that’s already been installed into each system and has already been given a lot of local power and military might. How are they going to react after Palpatine’s death? Are they just going to hand over their military power without a fight? Hell, if we factor these people into the mess, Vaderkin may be the only person to clean things up and maintain order while the senate deliberates. If Anakin dies while fighting Palpy, how are the senators going to take care of these governors? Since he’ll be the only Jedi that can still command the clones without being shot on sight. A small form of atonement for his betrayal?

Yeah, I have a whole lot more pessimistic view about politics........borders on Skywalker’s. Sorry about the salt. Too much? I apologize for that.

(Long rant ahead, don’t read if you don’t want to talk about real life politics)

To be honest, it does happen in our world. But very rarely does the corrupt system give birth to a better system without a lot of bloodshed in between. Even then, a better system is not guaranteed. I mean, look at China’s 50 years of governmental collapse in the early 20th century:

Corrupt old Empire of Qing Dynasty falls, giving birth to the Republic of China (ROC) under the leadership of the KMT party. (Sound good, right?) Barely gets the first couple of senate sessions in, barely even finished drafting the constitution, before the Grand Marshall revolts and demands to be the Head of State. Senate votes for the Grand Marshall to be made Emperor (Yeah, that happened in real life too, although less applause and more threats, it’s said that Marshall Yuan sent a couple hundred thugs to the senate and wouldn’t let them leave until the motion was passed), but nobody was happy.

Former president/founding father Sun Yet-San is the most vocal of the opposition, and quickly builds an Alliance to restore the Republic.

The ‘Emperor’ dies of a stroke as the entire country rises to resist him. Victory? Nay. The officers under the Grand Marshall break the army up and establish their own local garrisons, becoming warlords. The senate raises a substantial army to clean up these warlords. At the same time, senate splits into two camps, the left-wing leaning towards Communism and the right-wing leaning towards stronger military. Both sides have supportive figures in the army. Short version: assassination, betrayal, slaughter. And we found ourselves a military dictatorship under Jiang Kai-Shek and the right-wing KMT party. So, resistance and civil war ensues (Mao Tze-Tung and his single spark lights up a fire in this period). Unfortunately, the weakened state of the country brings about an invasion, WW2 occurs. Finally, after winning WW2, we go back to our civil war and the CCP emerges as the victor, while Jiang and the KMT retreats to Taiwan. Now, we find ourselves right back where we started.

You see where my pessimism and salt comes from? The knowledge of a very sad reality, where the good politicians got played like puppets on a string, who despite their good intentions just can’t hold this huge territory together, and we pretty much had a civil war between a pair of Sith Lords. This is the short version, leaving out a lot of juicy details.

Ok, I’m heavily colored and biased when it comes to politics, I’m sorry for this rant. I’m sorry for bringing up a historical mess. It’s just that I see problems in both systems, and I can’t help with the saltiness.

Let's say (this probably wouldn't happen) but Obi-Wan somehow manages to turn Anakin back to the light during their fight in ROTS. What would happen next?

I don’t think it would happen either (notwithout Padmé’s help). Obi-wan never tried to save Obi-wan, he went there tokill him (he didn’t *want* to, but that’s what he was going to do anywaybecause he was good jedi and a good jedi knows Yoda is never wrong :/). But,for argument’s sake, let’s say Padmé convinces Anakin to come back to the lightbefore Anakin and Obi-wan start fighting. They would still have Sidious problemin their hands.

If they don’t manage to kill Palpatine, theydie (or spend the rest of their lives running). If they do manage to kill himand prove Palpatine was a Sith Lord, Anakin is still screwed. Anakin comingback to the light doesn’t automatically erased all the terrible things he didin his short time as Vader. He killed A LOT of kids, the CIS learders, hehelped Palpatine to proclaim his Empire, he used the clones to execute Order 66and he was Palpatine’s accomplice and second in command. Realistically, theGFFA was so corrupt that Anakin getting away with it is a possibility, but evenif he does, the Jedi (and the public) would never forget or forgive him.

Obi-wan would spend the rest of his life tryingto figure out where he went wrong with Anakin, probably blaming himself and strugglingto deal with the trauma of losing the Jedi order and all his friends.

Anakin would be consumed by guilty. Here’s thething, Anakin shouldn’t get a happy ending because he is capable of “putting everythingbehind him” and just go live his life happy with his new family, he is aterrible person. if Anakin is a good person he will have to struggle with whathe did. He shouldn’t be able to just “let it go” and move on with this life. Heshould spend the rest of his life trying to atone, facing what he did andtrying to be better.

#AU #gffa politics #politics #padawanlost #sw meta #star wars #sorry about the salt #sorry about the history rant #ignore my ramblings #replies #focus on the first 2 paragraphs

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diarrheaworldstarhiphop · 8 years ago

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WASHINGTON — President Trump loves to set the day’s narrative at dawn, but the deeper story of his White House is best told at night.

Aides confer in the dark because they cannot figure out how to operate the light switches in the cabinet room. Visitors conclude their meetings and then wander around, testing doorknobs until finding one that leads to an exit. In a darkened, mostly empty West Wing, Mr. Trump’s provocative chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, finishes another 16-hour day planning new lines of attack.

Usually around 6:30 p.m., or sometimes later, Mr. Trump retires upstairs to the residence to recharge, vent and intermittently use Twitter. With his wife, Melania, and young son, Barron, staying in New York, he is almost always by himself, sometimes in the protective presence of his imposing longtime aide and former security chief, Keith Schiller. When Mr. Trump is not watching television in his bathrobe or on his phone reaching out to old campaign hands and advisers, he will sometimes set off to explore the unfamiliar surroundings of his new home.

During his first two dizzying weeks in office, Mr. Trump, an outsider president working with a surprisingly small crew of no more than a half-dozen empowered aides with virtually no familiarity with the workings of the White House or federal government, sent shock waves at home and overseas with a succession of executive orders designed to fulfill campaign promises and taunt foreign leaders.

“We are moving big and we are moving fast,” Mr. Bannon said, when asked about the upheaval of the first two weeks. “We didn’t come here to do small things.”

But one thing has become apparent to both his allies and his opponents: When it comes to governing, speed does not always guarantee success.

The bungled rollout of his executive order barring immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries, a flurry of other miscues and embarrassments, and an approval rating lower than that of any comparable first-term president in the history of polling have Mr. Trump and his top staff rethinking an improvisational approach to governing that mirrors his chaotic presidential campaign, administration officials and Trump insiders said.

This account of the early days of the Trump White House is based on interviews with dozens of government officials, congressional aides, former staff members and other observers of the new administration, many of whom requested anonymity. At the center of the story, according to these sources, is a president determined to go big but increasingly frustrated by the efforts of his small team to contain the backlash.

“What are we going to do about this?” Mr. Trump pointedly asked an aide last week, a period of turmoil briefly interrupted by the successful rollout of his Supreme Court selection, Judge Neil M. Gorsuch.

Chris Ruddy, the chief executive of Newsmax Media and an old friend of the president’s, said: “I think, in his mind, the success of this is going to be the poll numbers. If they continue to be weak or go lower, then somebody’s going to have to bear some responsibility for that.”

“I personally think that they’re missing the big picture here,” Mr. Ruddy said of Mr. Trump’s staff. “Now he’s so caught up, the administration is so caught up in turmoil, perceived chaos, that the Democrats smell blood, the protesters, the media smell blood.”

One former staff member likened the aggressive approach of the first two weeks to D-Day, but said the president’s team had stormed the beaches without any plan for a longer war.

Clashes among staff are common in the opening days of every administration, but they have seldom been so public and so pronounced this early. “This is a president who came to Washington vowing to shake up the establishment, and this is what it looks like. It’s going to be a little sloppy, there are going to be conflicts,” said Ari Fleischer, President George W. Bush’s first press secretary.

All this is happening as Mr. Trump, a man of flexible ideology but fixed habits, adjusts to a new job, life and city.

Cloistered in the White House, he now has little access to his fans and supporters — an important source of feedback and validation — and feels increasingly pinched by the pressures of the job and the constant presence of protests, one of the reasons he was forced to scrap a planned trip to Milwaukee last week. For a sense of what is happening outside, he watches cable, both at night and during the day — too much in the eyes of some aides — often offering a bitter play-by-play of critics like CNN’s Don Lemon.

Until the past few days, Mr. Trump was telling his friends and advisers that he believed the opening stages of his presidency were going well. “Did you hear that, this guy thinks it’s been terrible!” Mr. Trump said mockingly to other aides when one dissenting view was voiced last week during a West Wing meeting.

But his opinion has begun to change with a relentless parade of bad headlines.

Mr. Trump got away from the White House this weekend for the first time since his inauguration, spending it in Palm Beach, Fla., at his private club, Mar-a-Lago, posting Twitter messages angrily — and in personal terms — about the federal judge who put a nationwide halt on the travel ban. Mr. Bannon and Reince Priebus, the two clashing power centers, traveled with him.

By then, the president, for whom chains of command and policy minutiae rarely meant much, was demanding that Mr. Priebus begin to put in effect a much more conventional White House protocol that had been taken for granted in previous administrations: From now on, Mr. Trump would be looped in on the drafting of executive orders much earlier in the process.

Another change will be a new set of checks on the previously unfettered power enjoyed by Mr. Bannon and the White House policy director, Stephen Miller, who oversees the implementation of the orders and who received the brunt of the internal and public criticism for the rollout of the travel ban.

Mr. Priebus has told Mr. Trump and Mr. Bannon that the administration needs to rethink its policy and communications operation in the wake of embarrassing revelations that key details of the orders were withheld from agencies, White House staff and Republican congressional leaders like Speaker Paul D. Ryan.

Mr. Priebus has also created a 10-point checklist for the release of any new initiatives that includes signoff from the communications department and the White House staff secretary, Robert Porter, according to several aides familiar with the process.

Mr. Priebus bristles at the perception that he occupies a diminished perch in the West Wing pecking order compared with previous chiefs. But for the moment, Mr. Bannon remains the president’s dominant adviser, despite Mr. Trump’s anger that he was not fully briefed on details of the executive order he signed giving his chief strategist a seat on the National Security Council, a greater source of frustration to the president than the fallout from the travel ban.

It is partly because he is seen as having a clear vision on policy. But it is also because others who had been expected to fill major roles have been less confident in asserting their power.

Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, occupies a central role in the administration and has been present at most major decisions and photo ops, but he is a father of young children who has taken to life in Washington, and, along with his wife, Ivanka Trump, has already been spotted at events around town.

Mr. Bannon has rushed into the vacuum, telling allies that he and Mr. Miller have a brief window in which to push through their vision of Mr. Trump’s economic nationalism.

Mr. Bannon, whose website, Breitbart, was a magnet for white nationalists and xenophobic speech, has also tried to reassure official Washington. He has been careful to build bridges with the Republican establishment, especially Mr. Ryan — whom he once described as “the enemy” and vowed to force out. He now talks regularly with Mr. Ryan to coordinate strategy or plot their planned overhaul of the tax code.

Before he was ousted in November as transition chief, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, the Trump adviser with the most government experience, helped prepare a detailed staffing and implementation plan in line with the kickoff strategies of previous Republican presidents.

It was discarded — a senior Trump aide made a show of tossing it into a garbage can — for a strategy that prioritized the daily release of dramatic executive orders to put opponents on the defensive.

Mr. Christie, who agrees in principle with the broad strokes of Mr. Trump’s immigration policy, says the president has been let down by his staff.

“The president deserves better than the rollout he got on the immigration executive order,” Mr. Christie said. “The fact is that he’s put forward a policy that, in my opinion, is significantly more effective than what he had proposed during the campaign, yet because of the botched implementation, they allowed his opponents to attack him by calling it a Muslim ban.”

In the past few days, Mr. Trump’s team has stressed its cohesion and the challenges of jump-starting an administration that few outside its group ever thought would exist.

“This team spent months in the foxhole together during the campaign,” said Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary. “We moved into the White House as a unified team committed to enacting the president’s agenda.”

As part of Mr. Trump’s Oval Office renovation, he ordered that four hardback chairs be placed in a semicircle around his Resolute Desk now heaped, in Trump Tower fashion, with memos and newspapers. They are an emblem of Mr. Trump’s in-your-face management style, but also a reminder that in the White House, the seats always outlast the people seated in them.

But finding enough skilled players to fill key slots has not been easy: Mr. Spicer is serving double duty as communications director, a key planning position, in addition to engaging in day-to-day combat with the news media. Mr. Trump, several aides said, is used to quarterbacking his own media strategy, and did not see the value of hiring an outsider.

An early plan was to give the communications job to Kellyanne Conway, his former campaign manager and top TV surrogate, but the demands of the job would have conflicted with Ms. Conway’s other duties as a free-range adviser to Mr. Trump with Oval Office walk-in privileges, according to one aide.

Mr. Trump remains intensely focused on his brand, but the demands of the job mean he spends less time monitoring the news media — although he recently upgraded the flat-screen TV in his private dining room so he can watch the news while eating lunch.

He often has to wait until the end of the workday before grinding through news clips with Mr. Spicer, marking the ones he does not like with a big arrow in black Sharpie — though he almost always makes time to monitor Mr. Spicer’s performance at the daily briefings, summoning him to offer praise or criticism, a West Wing aide said.

Visitors to the Oval Office say Mr. Trump is obsessed with the décor — it is both a totem of a victory that validates him as a serious person and an image-burnishing backdrop — so he has told his staff to schedule as many televised events in the room as possible.

To pass the time between meetings, Mr. Trump gives quick tours to visitors, highlighting little tweaks he has made after initially expecting he would have to pay for them himself.

Flanking his desk are portraits of Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. He will linger on the opulence of the newly hung golden drapes, which he told a recent visitor were once used by Franklin D. Roosevelt but in fact were patterned for Bill Clinton. For a man who sometimes has trouble concentrating on policy memos, Mr. Trump was delighted to page through a book that offered him 17 window covering options.

Ultimately, this is very much the White House that Mr. Trump wanted to build. But while the world reckons with the effect he is having on the presidency, he is adjusting to the effect of the presidency on him. He is now a public employee. And the only boss Mr. Trump ever had in his life was his father, a hard-driving developer the president still treats with deep reverence.

With most of his belongings in New York, the only family picture on the shelf behind Mr. Trump’s desk is a small black-and-white photograph of that boss, Frederick Christ Trump.

#donald trump #United States

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itsfinancethings · 5 years ago

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October 29, 2019 at 12:00AM

A White House national security official who listened to President Donald Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is prepared to tell Congressional investigators he was so concerned after the exchange that he notified his organization’s attorney.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the top Ukraine expert at the National Security Council, plans to tell investigators that he twice reported objections to Trump’s Ukraine policy, according to a copy of his opening remarks obtained by TIME.

Vindman will be the first White House official who listened to the July 25 call to testify when he appears before the three House committees conducting the impeachment inquiry Tuesday.

According to his draft statement, Vindman will tell investigators and lawmakers that he brought concerns about Trump’s interactions with Ukraine to the National Security Council’s attorney, John Eisenberg. The first time Vindman says he reported his concerns was after a debriefing following a meeting with Ukrainian official Oleksandr Danylyuk, when E.U. Ambassador Gordon Sondland stressed the need for Ukraine to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden, Burisma—the gas company where Joe Biden’s son Hunter previously sat on the board—and the 2016 election. He felt compelled to report concerns again after Trump’s phone call with Zelensky.

“I am a patriot,” Vindman’s statement says, “and it is my sacred duty and honor to advance and defend our country, irrespective of party or politics.”

The first instance in which Vindman notified the National Security Council’s attorney will raise questions about Ambassador Gordon Sondland’s testimony. Sondland told the committees earlier this month that when he brought up Ukraine with Trump, the President urged him to talk to his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani. Sondland said Giuliani mentioned extracting a commitment from Ukraine to investigate Burisma and the 2016 election. But Sondland added that he did not piece together that Hunter Biden was on the board of Burisma and that the request could be construed as intervening in the 2020 election. Vindman’s testimony contradicts that statement. According to Vindman’s opening remarks, at a debriefing following the Danylyuk meeting in July, Sondland “specifically emphasized the importance that Ukraine deliver the investigations into the 2016 election, the Bidens, and Burisma.”

An attorney for Sondland did not immediately respond to request for comment.

While Vindman listened to the July 25 call, he emphasized in his opening remarks that he never had any direct contact with the President and he is not the whistleblower who revealed Trump’s Ukraine campaign. Vindman’s remarks will likely provide investigators with a fuller picture of the way policy toward Ukraine was continually wrested away from career diplomats and given to political appointees.

Vindman’s statement were first reported by the New York Times. Read the full remarks here:

Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, thank you for the opportunity to address the Committees concerning the activities relating to Ukraine and my role in the events under investigation.

Background

Since 2008, I have been a Foreign Area Officer specializing in Eurasia. In this role, I have served in the United States’ embassies in Kiev, Ukraine and Moscow, Russia. In Washington, D.C., I was a politico-military affairs officer for Russia for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs where I authored the principle strategy for managing competition with Russia. In July 2018, I was asked to serve at the National Security Council. The privilege of serving my country is not only rooted in my military service, but also in my personal history. I sit here, as a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army, an immigrant. My family fled the Soviet Union when I was three and a half years old. Upon arriving in New York City in 1979, my father worked multiple jobs to support us, all the while learning English at night. He stressed to us the importance of fully integrating into our adopted country. For many years, life was quite difficult. In spite of our challenging beginnings, my family worked to build its own American dream. I have a deep appreciation for American values and ideals and the power of freedom. I am a patriot, and it is my sacred duty and honor to advance and defend OUR country, irrespective of party or politics. For over twenty years as an active duty United States military officer and diplomat, I have served this country in a nonpartisan manner, and have done so with the utmost respect and professionalism for both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Introduction

Before recounting my recollection of various events under investigation, I want to clarify a few issues. I am appearing today voluntarily pursuant to a subpoena and will answer all questions to the best of my recollection. I want the Committees to know I am not the whistleblower who brought this issue to the CIA and the Committees’ attention. I do not know who the whistleblower is and I would not feel comfortable to speculate as to the identity of the whistleblower. Also, as I will detail herein, I did convey certain concerns internally to National Security officials in accordance with my decades of experience and training, sense of duty, and obligation to operate within the chain of command. As an active duty military officer, the command structure is extremely important to me. On many occasions I have been told I should express my views and share my concerns with my chain of command and proper authorities. I believe that any good military officer should and would do the same, thus providing his or her best advice to leadership. Furthermore, in performing my coordination role as a Director on the National Security Council, I provided readouts of relevant meetings and communications to a very small group of properly cleared national security counterparts with a relevant need-to-know.

My Service on the National Security Council

When I joined the White House’s National Security Council (“NSC”), I reported to Dr. Fiona Hill, who in turn reported to John Bolton, the National Security Advisor. My role at the NSC includes developing, coordinating, and executing plans and policies to manage the full range of diplomatic, informational, military, and 3 economic national security issues for the countries in my portfolio, which includes Ukraine. In my position, I coordinate with a superb cohort of inter-agency partners. I regularly prepare internal memoranda, talking points, and other materials for the National Security Advisor and senior staff. Most of my interactions relate to national security issues and are therefore especially sensitive. I would urge the Committees to carefully balance the need for information against the impact that disclosure would have on our foreign policy and national security.

I have never had direct contact or communications with the President.

The Geopolitical Importance of Ukraine

Since 2008, Russia has manifested an overtly aggressive foreign policy, leveraging military power and employing hybrid warfare to achieve its objectives of regional hegemony and global influence. Absent a deterrent to dissuade Russia from such aggression, there is an increased risk of further confrontations with the West. In this situation, a strong and independent Ukraine is critical to U.S. national security interests because Ukraine is a frontline state and a bulwark against Russian aggression. In spite of being under assault from Russia for more than five years, Ukraine has taken major steps towards integrating with the West. The U.S. government policy community’s view is that the election of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the promise of reforms to eliminate corruption will lock in Ukraine’s Western-leaning trajectory, and allow Ukraine to realize its dream of a vibrant democracy and economic prosperity. Given this perspective and my commitment to advancing our government’s strategic interests, I will now recount several events that occurred.

Relevent events

April 21, 2019: President Trump Calls Ukraine President Zelensky

On April 21, 2019, Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected President of Ukraine in a landslide victory. President Zelenskyy was seen as a unifying figure within the country. He was the first candidate to win a majority in every region of the country, breaking the claims that Ukraine would be subject to a perpetual divide between the Ukrainian- and Russian-speaking populations. President Zelenskyy ran on a platform of unity, reform, and anti-corruption, which resonated with the entire country. In support of U.S. policy objectives to support Ukrainian sovereignty, President Trump called President Zelenskyy on April 21, 2019. I was one of several staff and officers who listened to the call. The call was positive, and President Trump expressed his desire to work with President Zelenskyy and extended an invitation to visit the White House.

May 21, 2019: Inauguration Delegation Goes to Ukraine

On May 21, 2019, I was directed by Ambassador Bolton and Dr. Hill to join the delegation attending President Zelenkskyy’s inauguration. When the delegation returned, they provided a debriefing to President Trump and explained their positive assessment of President Zelenskyy and his team. I did not participate in the debriefing.

Oleksandr Danylyuk Visit – July 10, 2019

Oleksandr Danylyuk, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council for Ukraine, visited Washington, D.C. for a meeting with National Security Advisor Bolton. Ambassadors Volker and Sondland also attended, along with Energy Secretary Rick Perry. The meeting proceeded well until the Ukrainians broached the subject of a meeting between the two presidents. The Ukrainians saw this meeting as critically important in order to solidify the support of their most important international partner. Amb. Sondland started to speak about Ukraine delivering specific investigations in order to secure the meeting with the President, at which time Ambassador Bolton cut the meeting short. Following this meeting, there was a scheduled debriefing during which Amb. Sondland emphasized the importance that Ukraine deliver the investigations into the 2016 election, the Bidens, and Burisma. I stated to Amb. Sondland that his statements were inappropriate, that the request to investigate Biden and his son had nothing to do with national security, and that such investigations were not something the NSC was going to get involved in or push. Dr. Hill then entered the room and asserted to Amb. Sondland that his statements were inappropriate. Following the debriefing meeting, I reported my concerns to the NSC’s lead counsel. Dr. Hill also reported the incident to the NSC’s lead counsel.

Election Call – July 25, 2019

On July 21, 2019, President Zelenskyy’s party won Parliamentary elections in a landslide victory. The NSC proposed that President Trump call President Zelenskyy to congratulate him. On July 25, 2019, the call occurred. I listened in on the call in the Situation Room with colleagues from the NSC and the office of the Vice President. As the transcript is in the public record, we are all aware of what was said. I was concerned by the call. I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen, and I was worried about the implications for 6 the U.S. government’s support of Ukraine. I realized that if Ukraine pursued an investigation into the Bidens and Burisma, it would likely be interpreted as a partisan play which would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing the bipartisan support it has thus far maintained. This would all undermine U.S. national security. Following the call, I again reported my concerns to NSC’s lead counsel.

Conclusion

The United States and Ukraine are and must remain strategic partners, working together to realize the shared vision of a stable, prosperous, and democratic Ukraine that is integrated into the Euro-Atlantic community. Our partnership is rooted in the idea that free citizens should be able to exercise their democratic rights, choose their own destiny, and live in peace. It has been a great honor to serve the American people and a privilege to work in the White House and on the National Security Council. I hope to continue to serve and advance America’s national security interests. Thank you again for your consideration, and now I would be happy to answer your questions.

#IFTTT #Blogger

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newstechreviews · 5 years ago

Link

Vindman will be the first White House official who listened to the July 25 call to testify when he appears before the three House committees conducting the impeachment inquiry Tuesday.

“I am a patriot,” Vindman’s statement says, “and it is my sacred duty and honor to advance and defend our country, irrespective of party or politics.”

An attorney for Sondland did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Vindman’s statement were first reported by the New York Times. Read the full remarks here:

Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, thank you for the opportunity to address the Committees concerning the activities relating to Ukraine and my role in the events under investigation.

Background

Introduction

My Service on the National Security Council

I have never had direct contact or communications with the President.

The Geopolitical Importance of Ukraine

Relevent events

April 21, 2019: President Trump Calls Ukraine President Zelensky

May 21, 2019: Inauguration Delegation Goes to Ukraine

Oleksandr Danylyuk Visit – July 10, 2019

Election Call – July 25, 2019

Conclusion

#Blogger

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ratherhavetheblues · 7 years ago

Text

RUBEN OSTLUND’S THE SQUARE “Is your heart pounding?”

Seeing Ruben Ostlund’s film, Force Majeure (2014), where a husband and father runs away from his family when faced with an avalanche about to hit (which in fact doesn’t), we were clearly in the hands of an artist who had much to say about the indispensability of courage. His recent film, The Square (2017), finds him elaborating upon the earlier film’s domestic crisis coming to bear when being safely on the sidelines (like Ostlund’s Sweden in being “neutral” in face of a violent Germany amidst World War II) sows a deadly nightmare.

Let me inject some local color perhaps necessary when the locale is a backwater clouded in a distant and precious past. (Force Majeure, on the other hand, takes place in the well-known cosmopolitan French Alpine playground.) For the purpose of being on the same (target) page as Ostlund, we must know that the Swedish populace has for centuries been rigidly homogeneous as to race and culture, and overseen by the Evangelical Lutheran Church and its ardent and benevolent social priorities as to the vulnerable and incompetent. In the years immediately after World War II, the owner/ manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team (and a military zealot), namely, Conn Smythe, molded the team’s culture as opposed to appeasement, a priority one of his more virulent successors, Harold Ballard, honed into hatred of Swedish players, assumed to be cowards. One of my school chums, Don Baizley, was to go on to work as a lawyer/ hockey agent, with a special mission to introduce Swedish skills to the National Hockey League. I think. on the basis of The Square, there is little doubt that Ostlund follows Smythe and Ballard’s, not Baizley’s point of view. However, this film’s imbroglio is far more a search into difficult skills few have ever mustered, than simply kicking ass.

If, however, you were to be gullible enough to take at face value Ostlund’s prefatory “heart-to-heart” meet-the-people—about his dear old dad when a tiny lad having his father placing a name-tag and address around his neck and allowing him to prowl the City in the certainty that, were the boy to be lost, a God-fearing adult would see that he comes home, right-as-rain—you might imagine that you are about to absorb a filmic sermon for the sake of bringing back ��the good old days.” “Adults are threatening; young boys rob young boys,” Ostlund complains. We should, he goes on to orate, expect everywhere to be like a pedestrian crossing where safety can be taken for granted, “a super strong agreement.” “We should be careful with each other,” adopting, as before, “humanistic values.”

Soon after that visit from energies behind the camera, we have the protagonist, Christian, the director of the premier contemporary art repository of the land, enthusing, to affluent patrons, about the latest acquisition, which amounts to the theme we heard from the auteur. Neat as a pin, right? And oh, so wrong! After a late night, at the gallery, convening a dance party to prove, to everyone on hand, they have what it takes, Christian, sleeping on a sofa in his office, is roused by his meetings staffer, by the remarkably comprehensive question, “Are you awake?” Judging from the early reviews I’ve seen, the answer is a resounding no! Our protagonist, a soft, good-looking, congenial fund-raiser, seems, at the outset, destined to become a permanent fixture within a catchment rock-solid about humanistic values and gratified that, as far as they can see, the numbers will hold. Were you to wonder where amidst this winning piety the first principles of art come in, you would be part of a tiny minority the world of Sweden and the world of elsewhere have decided to ignore. That appointment he had to keep involved an American journalist, Anne (played by actress, Elizabeth Moss, who, as Peggy, in the television series, Mad Men, was prone to ask tough questions to a good-looking schmoozer boss/ slacker). With Anne that day we get barely discernible skepticism in the form of her difficulty to fathom (in one of his publications) the infrastructures of intent pertaining to mundane objects placed in an art gallery. His half-awake response reveals that he’s never done anything but winging the subject, no problem for his career amidst appeasers. The interview finds him at his confident best in response to her wondering what his biggest problem around there is. “Money, absolutely!” He goes on to bad mouth rich collectors with much more money for “cutting edge” work than he can command.

Maybe the numbers do look good for him, as far as he can see; and, to insinuate that he’s on the right track, there is a cut to that very night where one supposed gem of the new didn’t get away. In the courtyard of the contemporary gallery (occupying—as if not to go too far with innovation—a former royal palace) we find a power saw slicing ancient stones to an upshot of a square into which the grooves will accommodate a neon format. We are soon brought up to speed with the nature of this expenditure, in an event to thank those lavishing significant numbers of money to bring it into town (at which a major exhibition as to its merits would be staged). Christian rehearses his address, first of all, with a view to granting the phenomenon some revelatory heft; but, that going nowhere, he frames it in the moralistic slant which is all he knows and will ever know. “The square is a sanctuary of trust and caring. Those entering the square have equal rights and obligations.” No wonder, then, that the construction is accompanied by the Ave Maria! (Many Ave Marias punctuate this desperate affair!) Something a bit offbeat, however—and right to the point—is the parallel endeavor on that dark square, namely, the crane removing from its plinth the statue of a warrior in armor. The lift fails and the figure of dealing justice crashes to the cobblestones.

On the heels of that slippage, we see in action a constituency of hard drugs and hard hearts, displaying opposition to pious order far less benign than the old-timey blonde-on-blonde Kindergarten known as “free love.” As with pretty much everywhere, this is cutting edge with a vengeance which places and heritages like Stockholm cannot begin to sustain. A clique of welfare-state sacred cows amuse themselves by a time-on-their-hands, razor-sharp, circus-clown routine whereby one of the female children of the old free-love blonde “rebels” cries out on a busy square (far from a sanctuary of trust and caring where everyone has equal rights and obligations) that she is being assaulted; and then the “assailant” arrives to create a flurry of distraction for the would-be rescuer--Christian being the most recent sucker—while the “vulnerable victim” pick-pockets his wallet, phone and cufflinks. “He’s going to kill me!” was her line, followed by a professional scream. After the revolutionaries have left, Christian asks the other man who came to the rescue, “Is your heart pounding?” Then the born executive bubbles, “I just reacted!” How he reacted to being robbed proves to be a walk on a wild side he and his compatriots know nothing about, being, as they are, totally incredulous about the malignancy of the newcomers in their midst.

Our protagonist regroups, along with a techie colleague, Michael, by way of an app pinpointing the location of the stolen phone in a social housing complex. They draft and print en masse a threatening letter (which Christian describes as “a bit over the top”) which one unit will comprehend, with the other tenants being bemused or annoyed. The little rep theatre promptly coughs up, to nail others, tomorrow and beyond, without the tracking apparatus or eschewing phones altogether. But one of the other tenants—new to Sweden but no stranger to assaulting Swedes and the entire Western world (in thought but perhaps never yet in deed)—chooses to mount a little jihad against those who have given him an excuse. Christian’s tone-deaf bravado in the first flush of “rescuing” the woman is all of a piece with his absence of discerning avant-garde matters during the interview with Anne. Similarly, he and Michael, on their mission of stealth to deliver the broadside, treat the matter more of a lark than a necessity. (Everything about Christian signals that the loss is easy to recoup. He’d probably get a staffer to unravel identity-theft issues. He refers to the theft of his grandfather’s cufflinks as a pretext for a joke. Though we see he’s modern to the hilt, we also see he’s lost there.) Driving to the wrong side of the tracks, they’re in accord that they should play something raunchy. A band called Justice comes over the state-of-the art sound system. “We’re going to get Justice!” Christian shouts with droll amusement. “We’re coming! We’re coming in a Tesla!” They both laugh at their supposed cleverness. The setting of that car interior, fraught with overstatement and, as ground zero is reached, self-embarrassing turmoil (Michael refusing to do the door-to-door delivery and Christian diplomatically alluding to career consequences for recalcitrance), reminds us of another driver who, from the driver’s seat, conducts a mature and fascinating investigation of passengers living in her city, namely, the nameless protagonist in Abbas Kiarostami’s Ten (2002). A significant amount of the dialogue shown while moving along the streets of Tehran pertains to her son, of about 10 or 11 years old, discharging a stream of arrogant, vicious invective about her modern, Western instincts, in strong contrast to his revered father, a dysfunctional imam separated and with no inclination or skill to contribute to the boy’s material needs (though he has much to say about his religious obligations). That vile little beast is a precursor of the venomous enemy Christian’s unfocused push-back [a poor second to the lady driver’s push-back] has unwittingly unleashed.

On arranging, at the 7-Eleven near the thieves’ abode (remarkably spiffy), for the return of the property, he encounters (at the grocery’s coffee bar) a swarthy woman nursing a coffee, resembling a couch potato without a living room. She orders him to buy her a lunch; and, as if affected by an uncontrollable tic, he does. As he proceeds, her glare never varying, she yells the command, “Hey, no onions!” That same site of blessedness hails Christian back to receive a slightly scrambled death threat. “You have insulted my family. My father thinks I’m a thief. He won’t allow me to go out to play. You will apologize to me and my family, or I will make chaos!” The executor of pinpointing the cutting edge sends Michael (a black) to the store touting luck to settle the so-called misunderstanding, in the guise of a disarming Christian. (He also deploys another quota-staff-assistant, Nicky, of some Arabic persuasion, to drive the car.) The pint-sized poison knows immediately that a ruse is underway. (By contrast, the great seer never notices the ruse about a imprisoned child, while, in a while, he’ll be howling threats at 2 in the morning in the archaic and tony stairwells of Christian’s condo.) ‘Don’t make me angry!” the beheading-besotted little creep demands. “Where’s the son-of-a-bitch? I want his phone number! Look what he did to me!” Sanguine Michael pleads for the child-soldier to calm down. But the entitlement junky replies, “I don’t have the right to be angry?” (Much later on, after Christian has been fired for not carefully attending to a PR drive on Facebook on behalf of that precious square, where a blonde homeless child explodes like a jihadist on the peace hub, the softy, along with his two young daughters, stage a pilgrimage to the supposed insulted family. A man answers the door and claims to know nothing about the incendiary letter. What he does, mysteriously, know is that the boy and is family have moved—strange, since such people don’t hop around. The man at the door is gentleness itself, and the delegation swallows everything he says. (How many viewers will have swallowed what low-key Ostlund had to say at the outset, assuring us that he’s all about “humanistic values” and nothing more?) As with that conjecture operative in the films of Kelly Reichardt, we see that the salt of the earth in that doorway has finessed a widespread family secret, to proceed with problematic equivocation. (I find it very absorbing that none of the reviewers of the film will touch this matter. Self-censorship being very Swedish. But here, to our delight, a Swede being a true artist of dramatic mood.)

Over and above the satirical shocks provided by The Square, there is its unspoken illumination of the lacuna of heeding intuitive demands which contradict conventional wisdom. Hence the main focus comes down to studying whether the pratfalls allow of rallies—a reflection in the moment of the action and also long after we have left the theatre. An early awakening to the hardballs coming our way in a context of easy-does-it occurs during a luncheon where Christian previews the conceptual show for those who contributed to outspending some investment banker and are subtly expected to mow down other rivals in the future. The celebrity chef bringing off the sumptuous meal to an audience perhaps feeling a bit blasé, begins to tell them something remarkable about the sauce; but the gathering—perhaps fortified by those periodic parties letting them believe they’re wild and crazy—noisily (like their grandchildren) head for the tables. The slighted artiste ushers forth an assassin’s war cry which gives us all something to think about. Chastening, yes, for a few resented seconds; but “wild and crazy” forever! Another troubling misfire occurs during the little opportunist’s nearly hysterical ruckus in Christian’s stairwell. Hearing the trespasser’s howl once too often, he charges past his precision-perfect Josef Albers painting (“Homage to the Square”) in his hallway, out to the noisy spleen and shoves the rude invader down a flight of stairs. The rest of the night the sounds of “Help!” deck the halls and keep the whole building awake. The counter-attack had stifled the trash-talk; but Christian had nowhere to go from there. Near dawn he wades into the building’s garbage bin to find the letter he had decided not to reply to, with the complaint and the email address, in order to discharge what he concludes to be the necessity to apologize, in a YouTube. The most egregious of the shortfalls occurs at the premiere dinner party celebrating what has been tricked out as “cutting edge.” After treading a red carpet amidst much press and television photography, the donors are seated for a cordon bleu experience to be prefaced by something marvellous in the way of performance art, commensurate to ease the pretenders to youthfulness into young-at-heart crazy spending. Since, with the exception of cardiac-risk Saturday Night Fevers, nothing moves amidst the collection and, as the PR team puts it, “the culture vultures,” you can see the point of this choice of entertainment as indeed looking ahead to more splash on the horizon from the patrons; but also being a bracer for the limp staff. “Seventy being the new Forty,” the gallery MC intones, when all are seated. “A wild beast can readily detect fear in its midst. Staying calm, you stand a better chance of living to see another day…” That sounding even easier than dancing, the recent bohemians can’t wait for the game. We had been treated, within the goings-on of the museum, to quick cuts to a muscular dude in a video, panting like a lion and for all the world resembling a Li’l Abner with underdeveloped legs and surly disposition. He makes his entrance on all-fours, shirtless and with arm-crutches by which he proceeds like a gorilla. The crutches garner a warm Pavlovian applause. But the performer, as with all the schemes in this ferocious movie ironically prating about gentleness, has not been energetically vetted, and the avoidance experts come in for an unbecoming exposure. By degrees the entertainer becomes less entertaining. After seeming simply goofy in making the rounds of the seating, he confronts an American artist we’ve seen in earlier moments, who is currently showing an installation of checkerboard, pyramidal sand piles. musses his hair and pops a serviette over it. Perhaps lost in translation (but more likely just not a fan of silence) the artist protests, first in a friendly and then in an unfriendly way, eliciting from the fountain of good cheer a pummelling and being chased out of the room. (This would not be the first intrusion into that artist’s enjoying his visit; but it was the first intrusion he resented. A few days before, we saw him at a public interview at the gallery, trying to explain that his usage of minerals diverges from that of the long-gone Robert Smithson’s insofar as he eschews the harshness of the older artist’s outlook. The [doubtfully] exciting and demanding issues there, however, do not happen, because one of the precious culture vultures is in the throes of Tourette’s syndrome. He yells at the blonde moderator, “Show us your breasts!” The first tack from the podium is unflappable serenity. On with the show, she asks how he would define his tangent. Before he can speak, the outspoken spectator cries out, “Garbage!” At this point, his wife blithely explains his craziness and a typical Swede adds, “This man is suffering…” [putting himself self-servingly opposed to hard Smithson]. The softie on the stage quickly extends a special welcome to the heckler, being, in fact, like the mealy-mouth just heard-from, a subscriber to a gauzy blur of infantile sufficiency on the order of sand-piles versus rock. The excuse for coherent discourse slides along with punctuations like, “Fuck off! Show us your tits!” Before that communal commitment to letting everything slide, we had the president of the PR firm at the beginning of the treacherous trek, holding a howling infant and supposedly thinking straight about what he was paid to do. In subsequent meetings two clueless millennial underlings take over, hot to trot for social media fame. A measure of Ostlund’s resolve and screenwriting wit can be engaged by noticing that the term, Tourette’s, closely shares with turrets [those castle heights our complement here insists on investing to ridiculous lengths].) On enjoying seeing the effete gathering now petrified that real assault is in the air, the non-suicide-bomber begins to run his hands through the lovely hair of one of the few young women (perhaps a family stand-in; perhaps a trophy-wife). She looks away from her molester and in a terrified voice calls on her consort. He doesn’t respond. The whole room resembles Sleeping Beauty after a blood-thirsty shock. He drags her across the floor and begins to rape her; and only then do we see one octogenarian intercede, followed by the whole male assembly stomping and smashing the law of the jungle. One of the other abortive bids for vitality consists of Anne and her pet gorilla, somehow tranquillized; and her critique—after a night of Christian with her in her bed capped by a tug-of-war with his condom, brimming with paternity law suspicions— as to exploiting his princely social status to make “conquests” (a charge he is proud to admit). (When all is said and done, she counts herself as “fascinated” by this element of character.) But the crowning episode of this stuttering in the throes of a consummation painfully out of reach occurs after the protagonist’s relegation to unemployed single dad. He is, one night, a spectator in temporary stands at the neon square having been transformed from divinity school to the site of a schoolgirls’ (his elder daughter involved) cheerleading contest. The girls display a rousing instance of daring, coordination and cooperation, only to have its tinctures of disinterestedness dribble away in the night. (At the museum’s office a week or so before, Michael reads to staffers that the mighty mouse plans to smash Christian’s nose when he catches up with him. A young, long-term Swedish woman blurts out, “They should be dead!” A cheerleader looking for a winner.) The quota-paved coach of Christian’s daughter’s squad counsels using the lousy first-stage score to put forward a great result drenched in resentment. (That swings us back to the little home-invader, comforted by an adversary who is not without a whack of resentment himself, accommodating [appeasing] on the order of, “Apologize to me, and I’ll go.”) At his press-conference to formalize his departure, a resentment expert takes the mike and tells him he should pledge solidarity with those without a voice. Then we see a tabloid where the kid and an imam have a ball. The sand installation—by the facile desert accommodator who flinched—becomes a victim of a careless janitor, but of minor concern to Christian who orders an underling to patch it up. This coincides with one of the frequent passages of “Ave Maria,” to add to the incursions and impertinences somebody ought to wake up about; but won’t.

#ruben ostlund

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