“If you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas,” according to a famous English expression.
The well-known proverb, thought to go back to the 16th century, is understood as an aphorism about the importance of the company one keeps. Associating with people of poor reputation, it is warned, presents the danger of picking up their poor habits, assumptions and behavior.
The United States’ foreign policy prerogatives have resulted in the country being allied with a number of questionable political figures, perhaps most notably Zelensky.
Whistleblower and former Ukrainian diplomat Andrii Telizhenko joined Sputnik’s Fault Lines program Tuesday to discuss the Biden administration’s partnership with such figures, responding to the news of former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and Sputnik contributor Scott Ritter being prevented from traveling to Russia, reportedly on orders from the US State Department.
“I experienced it myself almost a couple of years ago,” said Telizhenko in response to the apparent act of political persecution, which resulted in Ritter’s passport being confiscated without due process. “I had a 24-hour notice before boarding the plane. I got an email from the US embassy in Kiev stating that my visa got pulled and that I'm under investigation and sanctions without any other information.”
“So I understand how they feel and I wish them well,” said the ex-diplomat. “The US is showing its real democracy face today [with] the trial against President Trump, the political trial, the political situation, basically, of trying to get a candidate off the ballot by putting him in prison even though that's going to be impossible to do.”
The former president’s recent prosecution by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has raised eyebrows given that the charges brought against him are typically defined as misdemeanors rather than felonies, for which the statute of limitations had already elapsed. Officials had previously declined to pursue the charges given the presumed weakness of the case.
Critics allege the trial suggests a pattern of political persecution against Trump, who has upset establishment figures in both major political parties. Earlier this year it was revealed that former President Barack Obama’s Central Intelligence Agency had illegally spied on Trump during his run for president in 2016. The real estate magnate was hounded during his time in the White House with claims of alleged collusion with Russian officials during the election, claims which were eventually found to be baseless.
“We have US citizens who are boarding a flight to go to Russia [and] maybe they are one of the only few chances that the US has to maintain a type of contact and have peace with Russia,” said Telizhenko of figures like Ritter, who has vocally opposed US support for Ukraine in its conflict with Moscow. “These guys are being pulled off the plane and [having] their passports taken away without any reason.”
“This is what's happening today in America… That's why everybody's fed up with this American democracy around the globe, they don't want it anymore.”
“They had a secret warrant on [Journalist Julian] Assange, too,” noted host Jamarl Thomas. “Assange kept saying ‘there's a warrant, there's a warrant.’ And they were like, ‘oh, he's just making it up.’ No. He was right. There was a secret warrant.”
It eventually emerged that former CIA director and ex-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had drawn up plans to kidnap and kill the transparency activist, who has been effectively imprisoned for more than a decade fearing US reprisal for publishing leaked government documents.
The Ukrainian government has similarly been criticized for its human rights record in recent years, with host Melik Abdul noting viral videos of Ukrainian citizens being forcefully apprehended by conscription officers. Recent polling reveals only a minority of fighting-age Ukrainians are willing to join the country’s armed forces, with increasing numbers of citizens favoring a negotiated settlement to the country’s conflict with Russia.
“There's thousands of videos out there,” said Telizhenko. “Some of these family members are fighting, there's women on the streets, fighting off these military police officers [that] were dragging men off the street and just regular people are helping them because they understand that this is chaos what’s happened.”
“Because the people didn't want war, people wanted peace – people wanted Zelensky to bring peace and he promised that,” said the whistleblower, who claimed Zelensky was “bought off” by Western interests who favored military conflict with Russia. Observers have also noted Ukraine’s “neo-Nazi problem,” suggesting Zelensky may feel pressured against pursuing talks with Russia by extremist paramilitaries who forced former President Viktor Yanukovych out of power.
Such groups have vocally opposed negotiations with Moscow even though Zelensky won the presidency on a promise to diffuse tensions by implementing the so-called Minsk agreements.
Zelensky has been condemned for shuttering independent media and banning opposition parties in Ukraine, even as the Biden administration frequently casts the country’s war with Russia as a battle of “democracy versus authoritarianism.” As critics allege the US government is taking an increasingly authoritarian turn, observers may wonder whether the US is replicating the tactics of countries such as Ukraine, or if the measures it imposes on others in its imperial conquests are simply finding their way home.