US State Department Declares That the US Will No Longer Recognize Lukashenko as President of Belarus

Everyone probably gets it at this point, but just to reiterate:

• In September of 2020, the United States is the single least free society that has ever existed in human history. There is no comparison that even comes close. No society in history ever banned people from attending church, banned them from moving around and forced them to cover their faces with a piece of cloth.
• Further, no society purposefully destroyed its own economy using a massive hoax as an excuse to force businesses to shut down in order to transfer wealth to the billionaire class.
• Despite the brutality of this situation, the United States government continues to claim to its own people and to the entire world that it is the absolute embodiment of morality.
• The US government asserts a status of a godlike being, where it alone is capable of passing judgement on the morality of others, and if the morality of others is found to be wanting, the US government reserves the right to destroy them for their sins.
• Belarus refused to do a coronavirus lockdown, meaning it is objectively freer than any other Western nation (save Sweden, which it is also freer than for different reasons).
• The president of Belarus declared that the coronavirus was a hoax and a Western plot.
• The president of Belarus held elections and invited international observers to record the fairness of the election.
• The EU’s international observers said that they couldn’t attend the election because of the coronavirus. (Other international observers attended, but they were all from Eastern countries, so apparently they are all in on it.)
• Belarus held the election and President Lukashenko won with 80% of the vote.
• Someone posted photos of ballots on Twitter and said that it proved the election was a fraud.
• Paid protesters, a la the Ukrainian maidan, started gathering in central Minsk to protest.
• The Western media began claiming that it was somehow possible for someone to get 80% of the vote through fraud, without ever attempting to explain how that would be possible.
• NATO began threatening Belarus.
• Europe and America began threatening Belarus.
• Mike Pompeo vowed to “deliver freedom” to Belarus.

Now, Pompeo’s State Department is saying that they no longer recognize Lukashenko as the leader of the country.

This is effectively a declaration of war.

Axios:

The U.S. no longer recognizes Aleksandr Lukashenko as the legitimate president of Belarus, the State Department said in a statement on Wednesday.

Why it matters: Lukashenko has clung to power with the support of Russia amid seven weeks of protests that have followed a blatantly rigged election. Fresh protests broke out Wednesday evening in Minsk after it emerged that Lukashenko had held a secret inauguration ceremony.

What they’re saying:

“The United States cannot consider Aleksandr Lukashenko the legitimately elected leader of Belarus. The path forward should be a national dialogue leading to the Belarusian people enjoying their right to choose their leaders in a free and fair election under independent observation.”

— State Department spokesperson

The U.S. announcement follows similar statements from European officials, including EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

“The situation is clear for us. We consider the elections of August 9 fraudulent. We don’t recognize Lukashenko as the legitimate president of Belarus.”

— Josep Borrell last week to the European Parliament

A German government spokesperson reiterated today that Germany does not view Lukashenko as legitimate, adding of Wednesday’s inauguration:

“The fact that this ceremony was prepared secretly and carried out away from the public eye is very telling.”

— German government spokesman

The big picture: Prior to the election, Lukashenko’s relations with the West had actually been improving, largely because he was growing increasingly adversarial with Moscow.

Times have changed. Now, Lukashenko has been showering praise on Vladimir Putin, and in return, he received pledges that Russia will offer financial support and deploy an auxiliary police force to Belarus if needed.

Lukashenko has faced fierce global condemnation as he’s cracked down on the protests that followed the election, but Putin has stood by him as hundreds have been arbitrarily detained and even tortured.

This is truly amazing, that they’ve decided to up the ante to this degree.

This is now going to become an endless, nagging problem, hanging in the air, until the US and EU are able to overthrow the government of the Ukraine.

This is all happening while Donald Trump is focused on the election, and doesn’t have time to deal with this.

Imagine that with five weeks until the election, Mike Pompeo is doing this.

Just try to imagine it.

It’s all just so exhausting.