After most inappropriately lashing out at universally respected NPR host Mary Louise Kelly (see our post at https://www.apocryphalpress.com/2020/01/25/pompeo-unloads-on-npr-s-mary-louise-kelly/), Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is supposed to be going to Kyiv to repair our increasingly damaged US relationship with Ukraine.
A relationship which Donald Trump — who knows virtually nothing about foreign policy except for his bromances with Vladimir Putin and murderous Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman — is totally responsible for screwing up.
Pompeo yelled at Mary Louise Kelly, saying that Americans don’t care about Ukraine (which is the largest country in Europe, geographically, and a country which Putin is determined to conquer, at least in the Donbas area of Eastern Ukraine, and swiftly moving westward so he can soon conquer both Kyiv and Odessa).
Pompeo, a former Tea Party Congressman from Wichita, has a private dining room at his palatial suite in Foggy Bottom, and he works for a man who’s risked nuclear war with Iran — which reminds us here at AP about the 2003 American documentary film, The Fog of War, which is about the life and times of U S Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara (1916-2009).
In the film, McNamara clearly stated how badly he had misunderstood the nationalistic aspirations of the Vietnamese people.
The Fog of War won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Documentary.
Last year, The Library of Congress selected The Fog of War for preservation in the National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
Trump has never visited The Library of Congress, because he doesn’t read, he only operates based on whatever’s happening with his gonads.
Pompeo is also a fervent evangelical Christian, and he’s cozied up to corrupt Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.
Evangelical Christians have long sought close relationships with Israel, a land which has many sites which are holy to Muslims, Jews, and Christians, but Israel is a country which has marginalized Palestinians since it began its existence in 1948.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Trump have one thing in common: neither of them had been elected to office before they sought the highest offices in their respective countries.
But one of them (Zelensky) has a sense of humor. The other one (Trump) has always been a bully.
During one of his 2016 debates against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Trump menaced and bullied her by walking around behind her when he should have been at his own podium.
Trump bullied Zelensky into agreeing to conduct an investigation into a long since debunked conspiracy theory having to do with the 2016 election.
Impeachment Manager Adam Schiff brilliantly summarized all that in his summation to Mitch McConnell’s Senate, on Friday.
After leaving Kyiv, Pompeo was also supposed to go to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, to meet with President Sharkat Mirziyoyev, Prime Minister Abdulla Oripov, and Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdulaziz Kamilov.
He also scheduled a meeting with our Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Sally Keniston, who recently replaced Daniel Rosenblum.
Keniston is fluent in Russian and Uzbek and many other languages, including French and Spanish.
So we decided to send our Chief International Correspondent, associate solitary reporter Larry Theis, to Pompeo’s “living room” (whatever that is) at his State Department, to explain tactfulness and diplomacy.
Theis was accompanied by associate solitary reporter Lewis Thompson, the most tactful and articulate of all our associate solitary reporters.
By the time their three minutes with Pompeo was up, Pompeo texted Trump’s Acting Chief of Staff, former South Carolina Tea Party Congressman Mick Mulvaney, to say that he’s cancelling his trip to Kyiv and Tashkent, because he knows that when Mitch McConnell’s senators take their vote in a few days on Articles of Impeachment, Trump will be out of a job.
Not only that, but Trump’s former National Security Advisor, John Bolton (the man with the mustache) has written a book conclusively showing that Trump, in his dealings with President Zelensky, broke the oath of office which he took, with his fingers crossed behind him, on January 20, 2017 (https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/26/politics/bolton-book-ukraine-aid-trump/index.html).
Which explains why McConnell is adamant in refusing to allow Bolton and Mulvaney to testify this coming week.