Tariffs
The European Union is reinstating tariffs on Ukrainian exports.
They continue to restrict Ukraine’s ability to strike Russian military bases with weapons donated by the European Union.
Espionage
900,000 Russians are working in the European Union. Germany just charged three of them as acting as a backdoor for Russian intelligence. It is unknown how many Russians in Europe are still sending money and information back home.
This is very similar to the Hamburg cell before 9/11, and the way how all of the 9/11 terrorists were granted visas to the United States. None of them came illegally.
Visas
The European Union plans on implementing visas on all foreigners who currently can travel to the Schengen Area visa-free. No one from any of the countries which will fall under the new visa regime has ever committed any terrorist attack in Europe.
Conclusion
When you see these three parts of the story you quickly realize its part of one giant picture. We continuously have elected weak leaders in the US and EU who have undermined our own security. We are hostile towards each other by implementing new visas and keeping up trade barriers, while at the same time we allow hostile foreign actors from Russia and Saudi Arabia to travel to our countries, send money back home, and kill our citizens.
These clowns blabber about national security as we restrict travel between democracies while Russians send our money to Russia which is then used to kill our allies in Ukraine. We granted visas to terrorists prior to 9/11. Saudi Arabia has never been held to account for their utter lack of security in fighting counter-terrorism by at the bare minimum canceling the passports of known terrorists. But don’t worry, that massive attack by Liechtensteiners will be prevented because they are a serious threat to our national security because they sold your grandmother a new set of dentures.
At the same time Europe continues to buy natural gas and oil from Russia which finances their slaughter of Ukrainian civilians.
We need strong progressive leadership which will stop this farce of national security. Every country has a responsibility to prosecute terrorists from their country and ensure they do not have a passport. If a country fails to do this, they should not be allowed entry to our countries. We need leaders who will sanction Russian fossil fuels. We need real actions to protect our national security, by having rigorous background checks from all travelers from state sponsors of terrorism and strong money laundering laws to prevent the financing of international terrorism.
The real sources of money laundering for terrorism are conspicuously missing from Trump’s travel bans.
Despite all the laws passed after 9/11, nothing has been done to stop the flow of money from the Gulf States to terrorism. It’s an absolute scandal. Billions of dollars a year flow from these countries to international terrorism. It needs to stop. They have started to crack down on it but it has been almost a quarter century since New York was bombed by their citizens. They have had plenty of time, they have no excuse.
The Russian Invasion of Ukraine demonstrates how much we need a political awakening. We need to realize that opposing authoritarianism is national security. Allowing our money to freely flow to countries which are committing genocide and financing terrorism undermines our own democracies. It funds global propaganda campaigns which exist for the sole reason of undermining our democracies.
For the last 25 years and longer our governments have not taken these threats seriously. We have cracked down on the liberty of our own citizens while allowing dirty money to flow freely to rogue nations committing acts of international terrorism. This needs to stop.
We need a new political consensus that we are going to protect our national security, not by putting up walls between friends, but by ensuring that it is as hard as possible for dictators to finance their corrupt mafia states as they build outlandish projects as they pretend to be a modern society. We need to elect leaders who will take these threats to our countries seriously instead of through damaging performative nonsense which divides us from other democracies.
Slava Ukraine. Free Afghanistan from Saudi terrorism.