PRESS RELEASE
Ret. General Kujat Criticizes German Media, Politicians for Missing Trump’s Reagan Potential
WIESBADEN, Jan. 24, 2017 (EIRNS)—Former NATO Military Committee Chairman (2002-05) and Bundeswehr Chief of Staff (2000-02) Gen. Harald Kujat (ret.) had to repeatedly admonish the German media and politicians not to "speak down to President Trump" "with contempt" and misrepresent what he says in order to satisfy their own prejudices. Speaking on a Phoenix TV talk show, he told them to wait, "judge the team." His inaugural speech might have seemed strange in our ears, he said, but 62 million Americans voted for him. Washington and New York might not have liked it, "but the farmer in Nebraska, the peanut farmer in Ohio" felt it expressed their concerns, "and they are not all right-wing radicals," sexists, racists "as implied in the German media" with comparisons of Trump to the Alternatives for Germany party.
Although defending NATO and saying that Trump’s comments were misreported and misunderstood, General Kujat defended several in Trump’s cabinet, calling Secretary of Defense Gen. James Mattis "brilliant," and saying, "I have known him since 1998." Hr said that Homeland Secretary Gen. John Kelly is thoroughly "honorable."
On the question of U.S.-Russia relations, he said, we have two problems, "the crises on the periphery of Europe," Syria and Ukraine, "and both conflicts can only be solved by both great powers, Russia and the United States." "If Trump is ready to talk with Putin directly about a solution, that can only also be in our interest."
Phoenix’s other TV guest, SPD Bundestag Foreign Affairs spokesman Niels Annen, was critical of Trump in the way Kujat mentioned. He praised the role of German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in preventing an open conflict in Ukraine and the search for a political solution, but raised the alleged danger that President Trump might cut a deal with Putin at the expense of others, and on "Putin’s terms." In that context Annen went after National Security Advisor Gen. Michael Flynn, where General Kujat interceded to "put on the brakes"; admitting he doesn’t always agree with what Flynn says, still, other things are very good.
The moderator raised that General Kujat is on the advisory board of Vladimir Yakunin’s Dialogue of Civilizations, a Berlin-based think tank. Kujat used the opportunity to say cooperation of the U.S. with Russia
"is not only in Russia’s interest, it is in our own interest. If I have been pleading for anybody tonight, then it is for us, for Germany’s security interests. We are dependent on American protection, and we are thus dependent that between the two powers it doesn’t come to a major conflict,"
not necessarily by intention but by miscalculation. "That is in our interest." He then launched into a major counterattack on those who criticize his participation in the Russian Dialogue of Civilizations, especially a "campaign of lies by a major German newspaper," referring to Bild Zeitung, which was carried with vehemence into the social media on a scale "that is a hate campaign."
General Kujat concluded by saying that Reagan was also treated as Trump is now, and hopefully matters will develop similarly. Reagan’s domestic policy wasn’t necessarily successful, but his foreign policy was, he said.
