It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
...
Welcome to the International Affairs
Vision:
Build long-standing institutional affiliations that promote democracy with nations currently developing democratic civilian and military institutions.
Mission:
The Office of International Affairs provides the Adjutant General and Joint Forces Headquarters staff advice and policy recommendations on international initiatives for the California National Guard. This includes the Security Cooperation components of the National Security Strategy and National Military Strategy aspects of international relations activities conducted by the California National Guard.
The Office of International Affairs manages the State Partnership Program (SPP) with Ukraine. The SPP deploys California National Guard teams to Ukraine and brings Ukrainians to the United States for information sharing to assist Armed Forces of Ukraine in re-structuring, modernizing its forces, and strengthening principles of democracy and free market economies. Exchanges include information about the processes underpinning US military structures that result in subordination to civilian control, consensus building, methodologies for achieving objectives, and interagency coordination of civil/military issues. Future missions for International Relations will include partnerships with other countries to bring the same philosophy to these regions of the world as has been done successfully in the Baltics.
Along with California many other state National Guards are providing bilateral engagement partnerships with their partnered nation. As the program evolves, it is becoming a sophisticated security cooperation tool of US National Security Strategy which brings together civilian expertise, multi-level government agencies, NATO, non-government organizations and commercial interests to address social, economic, military and political issues such as border security, base conversion, emergency response, interagency cooperation, civil-military relations and security cooperation.
...
...
Text
§ 953. Private correspondence with foreign governments.
Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply himself, or his agent, to any foreign government, or the agents thereof, for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.
1 Stat. 613, January 30, 1799, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 953 (2004).
...
Article 1, Section 10.
No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility. No state shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection laws: and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any state on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress. No state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.
...
Financial records showing a Ukrainian natural gas company routed more than $3 million to American accounts tied to Hunter Biden, younger son of then-Vice President Joe Biden, who managed U.S.-Ukraine relations for the Obama administration. Biden’s son served on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma Holdings;
... Disbursements of as much as $7 billion in Ukrainian funds that prosecutors believe may have been misappropriated or taken out of the country, including to the United States.
...
by Alana Goodman
| August 27, 2019 06:30 AM
John Kerry’s stepson rushed to play damage control at the State Department after his business partner Hunter Biden cut a deal with an oligarch-owned Ukrainian gas company in 2014, according to internal State Department correspondence obtained by the Washington Examiner.
The correspondence adds to the questions about Biden's business activities, which have dogged the 2020 Democratic primary campaign of his father Joe. Hunter Biden's long history of drug and alcohol abuse, which contributed to his divorce and his dismissal from the Navy Reserve, has also attracted unwelcome publicity for the Democratic front-runner.
An email released to the Washington Examiner shows that Biden’s decision to join the board of Ukraine’s Burisma Holdings sparked immediate concern within his inner circle about the political optics. Biden’s father Joe — now vying for the 2020 Democratic Party nomination — was then vice president and overseeing the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy.
...
Are the DNC & the Governor of California, among others, Involved in the Corruption in Ukraine?
originally posted by: carewemust
a reply to: ElectricUniverse
Great find! S&F! Does anyone know why a little country like Ukraine is wealthy enough to line the pockets of corrupt politicians and business-people from all over the world?
originally posted by: Lumenari
originally posted by: carewemust
a reply to: ElectricUniverse
Great find! S&F! Does anyone know why a little country like Ukraine is wealthy enough to line the pockets of corrupt politicians and business-people from all over the world?
Because we give them billions of dollars in aid that they in turn launder and send back to the people voting for said aid?
originally posted by: carewemust
a reply to: Lumenari
The Biden/Pelosi/Kerry crime family should have tapped in to Ukraine Mining, Steel, or Coal then. Not OIL. (Burisma)
The worst crooks are dumb crooks, LOL.
The State Partnership Program has been successfully building relationships for 25 years and now includes 75 partnerships with 81 nations around the globe. SPP links a unique component of the Department of Defense - a state's National Guard - with the armed forces or equivalent of a partner country in a cooperative, mutually beneficial relationship.
The SPP evolved from a 1991 U.S. European Command decision to set up the Joint Contact Team Program in the Baltic Region with Reserve component Soldiers and Airmen. A subsequent National Guard Bureau proposal paired U.S. states with three nations emerging from the former Soviet Bloc and the SPP was born, becoming a key U.S. security cooperation tool, facilitating cooperation across all aspects of international civil-military affairs and encouraging people-to-people ties at the state level."
This cost-effective program is administered by the National Guard Bureau, guided by State Department foreign policy goals, and executed by the state adjutants general in support of combatant commander and U.S. Chief of Mission security cooperation objectives and Department of Defense policy goals.
Through SPP, the National Guard conducts military-to-military engagements in support of defense security goals but also leverages whole-of-society relationships and capabilities to facilitate broader interagency and corollary engagements spanning military, government, economic and social spheres.
www.nationalguard.mil...
originally posted by: Ahabstar
a reply to: FredT
Want a God is gonna kick CA out with Earthquakes if Trump doesn’t do it first?
Successful program or not, the Constitution says no entering into pacts with other states of foreign countries. Not supposed to have standing armies in times of peace either. And paying in “kind” at Greatful Dead concerts...for shame.
And paying in “kind” at Greatful Dead concerts...for shame.
originally posted by: visitedbythem
a reply to: FredT
I live here in Cali. This state is a mess ever since liberals took over. Homeless everywhere, crap on the sidewalks, and now in stores.
Proof is in the pudding, and we have silly pudding everywhere now and taxes up the ying. Im seeing my state self destruct
originally posted by: FredT
Whats that got to do with the false claim that the California National Guard went rouge?