Ukraine Crisis Highlights Concerns About Whether OPCW Still Has Any Global Relevance, Observers Say_我的网站
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GOP front-runner and four times-indicted Donald Trump will not be physically present at Wednesday evening's first 2024 presidential primary debate. But he'll be there anyway as the troubled candidate remains the dominant figure – and issue – of the nominating contest.
Typically, early debates are a chance for poll-laggers to make an impression, either by delivering a well-placed zinger at a top-tier candidate or shining with a smart response to a question. The front-runners tend to have targets on their backs, which could result in a weakened position or a stronger one, if they handle attacks from primary rivals well.
But in the case of the debate in Milwaukee on Wednesday, the participants are in an awkward, perhaps no-win situation: The front-runner won't even be there, and the rest of the field can't attack him without alienating the very voters they'd need to sew up the nomination, should the legally imperiled Trump be forced to suspend his campaign.
Trump is "going to be the huge, spray-tanned elephant in the room. He's going to be what everybody is thinking about, even though he's not there," says Dave Cohen, a political science professor at the University of Akron.
That means the eight candidates who have qualified for the debate – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson – have few choices, and none is terribly appealing.
They can attack Trump, defend him or try to ignore him – which debate moderators are not likely to let pass, Cohen says. None of those approaches helps a candidate emerge as a better choice than Trump without angering Trump's rank-and-file loyalists.
"They're in a difficult spot, strategically," says Stephen Smith, professor at the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University. But "it's one they've earned," he adds.
Only a few have been willing to criticize Trump directly, and it's not appeared to have endeared them to GOP primary voters.
Christie – who worked on Trump's transition team before turning on him – has been the most aggressive in his attacks on Trump, saying the former president lacks the "character" to serve in the Oval Office and needling Trump for skipping the debate, which Christie last week called "completely disrespectful" to GOP voters.
The tactic – essentially making himself the marquee foil of Trump – is based on the gamble that if Trump ends up leaving the race, Christie will emerge as the most prominent truth-teller and default new front-runner.
It's not going so well, so far: National polls have Christie in the low single digits. A recent Des Moines Register/NBC poll in Iowa puts Christie in sixth place with 5% support among GOP caucus-goers.
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson – who arguably on paper has the most complete and traditional resume for a Republican presidential contender – is also polling in the low single digits, his criticism of Trump not moving the needle at all.
Former Vice President Mike Pence has stepped up his criticism of Trump's behavior – saying the former president asked him to put him above the Constitution by asking him to refuse to certify the 2020 election results – but hasn't made it as personal.
Pence recently said he was not aware of any "broad-based effort" to declassify records before Trump left office, undercutting the former president's claim that the classified documents he is accused of taking and improperly keeping at his Mar-a-Lago resort were, in fact, declassified. But Pence has also been reluctant to say Trump should be treated like any other politician who has been convicted of a felony – meaning, ousted from office.
"I think that needs to be left to the American people. Look, let’s let the former president have his day in court. Let’s maintain a presumption of innocence in this matter," Pence told ABC on Sunday.
Former U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley – the only woman who will be onstage Wednesday night – has cautioned that Trump's legal troubles could cost Republicans the general election. She hasn't directly criticized the former president but didn't shy away earlier this month by reminding people of how much worse Trump's situation is getting.
"Like most Americans, I’m tired of commenting on every Trump drama. I’ve lost track of whether this indictment is the third or fourth or the fifth," Haley said during an appearance on “Good Morning New Hampshire” radio show with Jack Heath – before the fourth indictment out of Georgia’s Fulton County.
Others have responded to questions about Trump with attacks on the criminal justice system and its prosecutors themselves.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is running a distant second to Trump in most polls, decried the "weaponization of government" after Trump's third indictment – though he conceded he had not actually read the document. DeSantis also acknowledged recently that the 2020 election was not stolen, telling NBC "of course he lost" when asked about Trump's discredited claims of a fraudulent 2020 contest – a comment not likely to endear him to Trump's most devoted supporters.
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina called the recent indictment of Trump "un-American and unacceptable. We need a better system than that."
Tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who has edged upward in a couple of state polls, has walked a similar line.
"These are politicized persecutions through prosecution,” he said at a town hall meeting last week. “It would be a lot easier for me if Donald Trump were not in this primary, but that is not how I want to win this election," he added.
And North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is just deflecting the matter entirely.
"I do trust the voters. ... They want presidential elections to be about the future, a vision for the future," Burgum told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday after being asked about Trump's troubles.
In reality, it is the candidates not named Trump who will have the most to prove or explain Wednesday night, analysts say. DeSantis, whose campaign has been flailing, might need to explain why he suggested some Republicans backing Trump are "listless vessels" – a cringe-worthy similar remark to 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton reference to the "basket of deplorables" in Trump's base.
As the front-runner among the also-rans, DeSantis will likely take the heaviest rhetorical artillery from the GOP field at the debate. Most of the rest will be struggling to get out of single digits – with the possible exception of Burgum, who is still trying to get the American public to recognize his name.
Trump, meanwhile, said he plans to counter-program with the airing of a taped one-on-one interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Thursday – a day when the political news would typically be dominated by post-debate analysis – Trump will be the star player in an unprecedented legal and political drama, turning himself in for processing at a Fulton County jail.
"He's cutting right into the shadow of the debate" with that timing, Smith says. As he undoubtedly will during the debate itself.
。 The OPCW’s lack of a coherent, objective and fair-minded response to recent crises centered around Syria and Russia demonstrates its politicization and domination by Western interests, and the longer the watchdog stays out of Ukraine, the better, former diplomats, geopolitical observers, and international legal experts have told Sputnik.,“In Ukraine, the OPCW has fortunately not been pressed into action. This, I suspect, is because the US is satisfied with the situation as it is, with no need for the US itself to be drawn in, as would no doubt be the case if a chemical attack was fabricated,” Peter Ford, Britain’s former ambassador to Syria, said.,The veteran diplomat, who warned the British government against the folly of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and stressed that the campaign by Western powers to topple the Syrian government in the 2010s could open a “Pandora’s box” of endless crises, said the Syria case demonstrated clearly that the OPCW is no longer an independent, impartial agency.,“The Syria crisis proved without a shadow of a doubt that the Western powers have bent the OPCW to their own will, destroying in the process the organization’s credibility, probably irretrievably. This is a tragedy for world peace,” Ford stressed, referring to documented OPCW efforts to censor and smear agency whistleblowers who revealed that the watchdog’s report on the April 2018 chemical attack in Douma, Syria, was doctored to implicate the Assad government.,Today is 4 years since Douma massacre. US claimed it was a chemical weapons attack & bombed Syria. OPCW found no evidence of CW, but its findings were doctored & censored. Also confirmed is that a hospital scene was staged. Ongoing OPCW cover-up denies justice to Douma victims.— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) April 7, 2022,In Ukraine, Ford fears, the international community can now only depend on “self-interested restraint on the part of the Pentagon in controlling its proxies rather than the deterrent power of a genuinely impartial international watchdog.”,Chemical Weapons Danger in Ukraine,Since the escalation of the crisis in Ukraine in February, Russia has sent the OPCW and its technical secretariat over two dozen notes warning of possible staged provocations by Ukrainian forces or radical nationalists involving chemical weapons. Last month, the agency assured the international community that it was “closely monitoring the situation in Ukraine” for chemical weapons use.,On Wednesday, the Russian military indicated that it had information regarding Kiev's plans to stage a provocation in the Donetsk People’s Republic using chlorine gas to accuse Moscow of indiscriminate attacks targeting chemically hazardous objects.,Situation in UkraineLIVE UPDATES: Moscow Warns OPCW of Possible Provocations by Kiev With Chemical Weapons in DPRYesterday, 08:12 GMT,Alessandro Bruno, a Toronto-based geopolitical analyst and political observer at Lombardi Letter, says that while the OPCW’s official mission and goals are “certainly worth pursuing,” the problem is the watchdog’s control by Western interests seeking to obfuscate the truth and objectivity in favor of politicized objectives.,“They seem to have targeted only specific sides in specific wars to suit specific aims, which typically are those of Western powers. There have been many efforts to manipulate these organizations by the dominant powers, particularly in the West,” Bruno said.,The scholar recalled instances of claims by the US and its allies about Russia’s use of chemical weapons, from the allegation that Russia poisoned pro-Western Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko in the mid-2000s, to the 2018 Novichok scandal in Britain, which “many thoughtful journalists have debunked,” to the Alexei Navalny “poisoning” saga of 2020, which doctors treating the opposition vlogger have debunked.,Russians Did It! A List of Dastardly Deeds Ridiculously Blamed on the Kremlin22 March 2018, 14:14 GMT,“Yet the accusations of chemical weapons that Russia used have persisted, even though they defied all logic. That's the biggest issue with these organizations. They must be more neutral. Their headquarters must be in more neutral locations because the fact that many of these organizations operate from Western capitals makes them more prone to Western media misinformation,” Bruno said.,The geopolitical analyst still fears that the West could use the pretext of ‘Russian chemical weapons use’ in Ukraine “to get more directly involved in the conflict and potentially trigger a much wider physical war.”,“So far, I think, some of the powers came to understand that making an accusation like that in this conflict would be riskier than the accusations they made in Syria and Iraq, Navalny and Yushchenko and so on, that this would have much bigger implications, that this would blow back against the West,” Bruno stressed.,Tool of US Interests,Christopher C. Black, an international criminal and human rights lawyer with 20 years of experience covering war crimes and international relations, echoed Bruno’s sentiments about the OPCW’s noble stated aims and their stark contrast with the body's actual history, which “shows that [the watchdog] acts to serve the interests of the United States and its NATO and other allies.”,“We saw strong evidence of this when the USA tried to get rid of the Director General Jose Bustani of Brazil in 2002, when the United States was preparing its invasion of Iraq and John Bolton went to The Hague and threatened his family if he did not resign,” Black recalled, pointing to Bustani’s 2018 interview with The Intercept in which the former OPCW chief detailed the threats made against his children living in the United States.,“We Know Where Your Kids Live” John Bolton threatened head of chemical weapons commission as part of effort launch war against Iraq https://t.co/p8uluxbWGH— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 2, 2018,“In August 2020, it was revealed through leaks from Austrian government sources that the OPCW and British claims that Novichok had been found in the blood of the Skripals allegedly poisoned in the UK were false, that in fact no such agent had been found in their blood at all. But the findings were suppressed and a false report issued to back the UK claims,” the lawyer added. “Similar results were seen regarding the alleged poisoning of Mr. Navalny. We can quickly understand what goes on behind the scenes at the OPCW,” Black said.,'Novichok' Would Have Killed Navalny, Developer of Substance Says2 September 2020, 15:26 GMT,Black finds it unlikely that the chemical weapons watchdog will change “without a change in the balance of power in the world,” which is taking place, but whose effects on international organizations will be slow to appear.,In Ukraine, the lawyer fears, “We cannot expect any objective consideration of Kiev regime or NATO claims of Russia using chemical weapons in Ukraine for the reasons stated above, despite the fact that Russia has not used them, does not use them and will not use them. To the contrary, we have a situation in which Kiev and NATO forces keep making false claims while themselves preparing chemical weapons attacks to be staged as false flag attacks to be blamed on Russia and when Russia asks the OPCW to investigate this, Russia is met with silence,” he said.,How OPCW Can Regain Credibility,Dr. Alfred De Zayas, a lawyer, writer and former independent expert on international order with the United Nations, similarly doubts the OPCW’s ability to reform itself under current conditions, saying the agency “has long been instrumentalized to pursue the geopolitical interests of Western powers.”,The international legal expert is confident that agencies like the OPCW, the International Criminal Court and the Human Rights Council can regain their credibility by demonstrating impartiality. “This is possible if the BRICS countries become more vocal and more visible on the international scene. There is no reason why African, Asian and Latin American countries should dance to the tune of the ‘Washington consensus’,” De Zayas stressed.,In Ukraine, the OPCW’s assurance about “monitoring the situation” carries only a “purely propagandistic value,” and is “intended to charge and convict Russia even before there is any evidence of violations of the Chemical Weapons Convention,” the observer believes.,“If the OPCW investigates not only potential Russian war crimes, but also expands its investigation to potential chemical weapons violations and war crimes by Ukrainian forces and by foreign mercenaries, including US, UK, French, Georgian and others, then the OPCW might regain some credibility. That, however, would be ‘out of character’. It is not unlike the ICC, which in the eyes of many observers in the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Switzerland – has lost its little credibility and will have no authority unless and until it indicts Western politicians and bureaucrats including Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Paul Wolfowitz, Victoria Nuland, Barack Obama (the king of the drones), Donald Trump, Nikolas Sarkozy, etc.,” De Zayas concluded.,10yrs On From Iraq War Logs Bush & Blair Should be in Prison Not Assange22 October 2020, 18:29 GMT。
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