![]() In the months ahead, he would come to realize that it wasn’t a spoiled sandwich that had mowed him down. It would end a promising career that had just catapulted him into the ranks of senior CIA leadership, and threw him into the middle of a growing international mystery that has puzzled diplomats and scientists, and raised concerns on Capitol Hill. Struggling to regain control over his body, Polymeropoulos couldn’t have imagined that this incident would upend his life. But that night, paralyzed with seasickness in the landlocked Russian capital, Polymeropoulos felt terrified and utterly helpless for the first time. He had been shot at, ducked under rocket fire, and had shrapnel whiz by uncomfortably close to his head. He had hunted terrorists in Pakistan and Yemen. He had spent most of his career in the Middle East, fighting America’s long war on terrorism. Polymeropoulos was a covert CIA operative, a jovial, burly man who likes to refer to himself as “grizzled.” Moscow was not the first time he had been on enemy territory. He felt, he recalled, “like I was going to both throw up and pass out at the same time.” It was the early morning hours of December 5, 2017, and his Moscow hotel room was spinning around him. But when he tried to get out of bed, he fell over. Food poisoning, he thought, and decided to head for the bathroom. led to the rioting on Capitol Hill.” Given how challenging it is to analyze and predict events in Russia, China and other nations, it is to America’s advantage to welcome talented people who want to be Americans and can help us understand international events and prepare for future challenges.Marc Polymeropoulos awoke with a start. It was not an immigrant who, as former Attorney General William Barr wrote in his book, went to “absurd lengths. ![]() Citizenship and Immigration Services to approve their applications to become American citizens. Over 830,000 immigrants are waiting for U.S. They concluded, “Institutions supporting economic freedom improved in response to increased stocks and/or flows of immigrants.” In the book Wretched Refuse?: The Political Economy of Immigration and Institutions, the Cato Institute’s Alex Nowrasteh and Benjamin Powell, director of the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech, demolished the argument that immigrants undermine a receiving country’s institutions, finding no serious evidence of that in the literature or through their analysis. critics, or more recently, the statements of a former Defense official under Trump. Julia Davis and other writers have chronicled the times Russian TV featured clips of Fox News host Tucker Carlson defending Putin or attacking his U.S. you have to give him a lot of credit.” Given Trump’s statements of support for Putin, including after the invasion and annexation of Crimea, it’s not clear why anyone thinks Vladimir Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if Donald Trump had been re-elected president. (See this story in Izvestiya.) Andrew Kaczynski of CNN discovered an interview from 2014 when Trump used almost the same language to praise Russia’s annexation of Crimea, calling Putin “so smart. Watching Russian TV and reading the Russian press over the past week, one finds Russian commentators and journalists several times have cited Donald Trump’s recent statement praising and calling Putin a “genius” for the latest Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is perhaps noteworthy that Russian TV news shows have not featured Russian immigrants in support of Putin and the war in Ukraine but native-born American populists-people who often have cast aspersions on the loyalty of immigrants to America. Many more immigrants whose job is to report or provide analysis have expertise enhanced by knowing the language and culture of a country or region, particularly Russia. ‘He had no interest in the substance at all, just the fact that he had a ‘good’ call with Putin and that Ivanka and Jared had agreed.’” “Hill wanted to interject, but didn't get a chance. I had detected more menace in what Putin had to say,” said Hill, as reported by Business Insider. Putin seemed calm, measured, friendly even. “Trump professed great satisfaction with the call. Although she wrote a book about Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump was not interested in Hill’s analysis after Trump’s first telephone call as president with Putin. She worked under two presidents on the National Security Council and the National Intelligence Council. Fiona Hill, although not born in Russia, immigrated from the United Kingdom and became one of America’s leading experts on Vladimir Putin and Russia.
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