‘Trumpists and Communists’ on Ukrainian NGO list fight back
‘While I am not pro-Russian, I am definitely anti-war’
June 13, 2024 | 3:02 pm
(Getty)
A US government-affiliated Ukrainian NGO, texty.org.ua, published a list
last week of all the Americans “impeding aid to Ukraine.” There are 388
individuals and seventy-six organizations on the list, including
members of the conservative media, Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, members
of Congress and a few Spectator writers.
The piece is titled “Rollercoaster: From Trumpists to Communists. The
forces in the US impeding aid to Ukraine and how they do it.”
“The
title of this article oversells the product: it is a substantively thin
piece, largely an excuse to smear a large group of Americans who have
been skeptical of aid to Ukraine in one form or another,” Senator J.D.
Vance and Representative Matt Gaetz wrote in a letter
to secretary of state Antony Blinken on Tuesday. “But it is being
broadcast as a part of a coordinated media strategy that has all the
hallmarks of a US-targeting influence operation.” The letter calls for
four items of information from Blinken by June 28, including grant
agreements and awards given by the State Department to texty.org.ua.
“The accusations are laughable on their face,” journalist James Carden, who is included on the list, told The Spectator. “And they should be treated with absolute contempt, but it would be a mistake to take it seriously.”
The Spectator
reached out to several people named on Ukraine’s NGO site. “Other than
the fact that they butchered the spelling of several names… all I can
say is that I am proud to be on the list,” Dr. Sumatra Maitra, senior
fellow at the Center for Renewing America, said. “It’s clarifying to see
the State Department-funded Ukrainian NGOs showing their true colors
and creating blacklists, demonstrating how utterly Soviet they still
are.”
Doug
Bandow responded to the claims texty.org.ua made about the Cato
Institute. “I am not an isolationist… Neither Cato nor I endorse Donald
Trump’s foreign policy.” Bandow further commented on what is becoming a
theme: “It is outrageous that the US government funds an organization
that attacks Americans for their policy positions and public
expressions.”
Texty,
however, assures us at the bottom of their article that, “The project
is funded exclusively by the readers of texty.org.ua.”
“This
NGO is ideologically committed to mayhem and destruction, and it only
speaks for itself,” journalist Jordan Schachtel told The Spectator. Christopher Bedford from the Blaze
said: “It’s been like this from the beginning. Anyone who has even cast
a shred of doubt on our latest necessary war is an enemy of the state.
While it’s obviously concerning to see American media outlets and
politicians on an enemies list by a State Department-funded NGO, it’s
not surprising. State hasn’t had American interests at heart for a long,
long time.”
“Sending
weapons and cash to Ukraine without a goal is just another reason
American foreign policy is a sad joke in the 2000s,” Harry J. Kazianis,
senior director of National Security Affairs, said. “And it seems the
American taxpayer always foots the bill — and gets nothing in return.”
The
list has been circulating on X and turned into quite the joke.
texty.org.ua entered some “supplemented data” on June 8 which reads:
“This is a Statement of Facts. Neither ‘a List of Enemies’, nor ‘a
Kill-List.’” They further clarify that the article is not an accusation
but a “study of the political and media context that influences
government decisions.”
And
yet the project consistently implies that everyone on the list is a
propagator of Russian propaganda — and Texty occasionally refutes this
supposed propaganda with cute red drop-down fact-check items. Some of
them read “Why Ukraine’s victory is essential for the democratic world,”
“The Ukrainian government has not banned any churches” (except the
Russian Orthodox Church, which they slyly admit they “severed ties
with”) and “Why is it wrong to recognize the ‘DPR’ and ‘LPR’?”
“Having
members of my family mowed down by Russian tanks in Budapest in 1956 I
am most definitely not pro-Russian,” political lobbyist Roger Stone
said. “After the unification of East and West Germany, the United States
agreed in both the Budapest Memorandum and the Minsk Accords not to
push Ukraine into NATO, which is to say, not to mount offensive NATO
missiles on the ground in Ukraine pointed at Russia. I believe the Biden
administration’s efforts to force Ukraine into NATO is in violation of
both of these agreements.” He concludes with, “While I am not
pro-Russian, I am definitely anti-war.”
This
supposed Russian propaganda that media heads are spreading is more
accurately about being wary of sending $107 billion to prolong the war
and reach elusive ends. “It’s fair to say Defense Priorities has been
skeptical about aid to Ukraine without opposing it; we are especially
concerned by its lack of connection to a realistic and clearly defined
strategy,” Ben Friedman, policy director at Defense Priorities, wrote.
Republican
representative Jim Banks of India sent a letter to his colleagues on
the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday, asking them to end US
support to Texty. The committee on Tuesday passed a resolution
effectively defunding the NGO, according to Fox News.
In
short, the State Department sends money to a Ukrainian NGO so that NGO
can call out conservatives and “communists” for blocking aid to Ukraine
and being “in the pocket of the Kremlin,” as Carden put it. And despite
Texty’s assertion that “this is a statement of facts,” the whole debacle
is a prime example of political duplicity.