Additional Thoughts on the Ukraine

As I predicted some weeks ago in an article on this site, Russia has invaded the Ukraine. Also, as I predicted, the European nations have provided about as much help to the Ukraine as they provided to Poland in 1939 — practically none.  A friend in Australia recently wrote, “I don’t know about you, but sitting here watching Putin’s Army do the things it is doing in the Ukraine is making my blood boil.  I understand that the Ukraine is not without sin, but God almighty, it reminds me of how the world sat back and watched Adolf Hitler’s Germany rise to power without stepping in.”

That shouldn’t be any news to anyone. I was recently contacted by a friend in Europe who asked how this might affect my son, serving in the US Army. The bottom line, however, is that this was a crisis that Biden (the pathological liar) could and should have averted, but he was too busy portraying weakness to our adversaries and working diligently to destroy the US.

Russia has demanded Ukraine cease military action, change its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, and recognize the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states. From Russia’s perspective this makes sense. NATO has been pushing closer and closer to Russia despite agreements not to do so. Our feckless policies have threatened “Mad Vlad” Putin and pushed him into the arms of our other great adversary, China, for the first time since Nixon’s visit.

NATO and the US bear significant blame for the current situation. Biden’s violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and pressing harder for Ukraine into NATO membership incited the humanitarian catastrophe. As Glen Kenreck wrote on Facistbook,

Biden rebuked Putin over his objection to NATO violation of the Warsaw Pact prohibiting eastward movement by NATO. Biden has pressed Ukraine for 25 years to join NATO and in 2014 US intervention by Obama/Biden overturned a Ukraine election to install Zelensky and a West-leaning government to force Ukraine into NATO membership. For 8 years Ukraine has shelled Donbas region provoking Putin. Biden owns this catastrophe, and the world pays the price.

But to brainwashed leftists and Soros-backed politicians, media, and teachers’ unions, Biden is more “presidential” than the bad orange man with the mean tweets. I guess “presidential” is defined as acting on your hatred America, our institutions, and more than half our citizens but pandering to those who seek to destroy us — foreign and domestic.

Western intelligence believes Putin is terminally ill and ready to do anything. There is good analysis to show Biden’s America-damaging energy policies have knowingly helped Putin to build the war machine he launched into the Ukraine without provocation. This is just the most recent in a long string of Biden-created crises. Lest we forget: destroying our energy independence; opening our borders to illegal invasion (while declaring the sanctity of Ukraine’s border); runaway spending on woke crap; record inflation; record energy prices; lies about creating new jobs; perpetuating racist lies against state governments; woke-ifying the military; weaponizing the government against the people; illegal, unconstitutional, and ineffective mask and vaccine mandates instead of focusing on proliferating better treatment options; and supporting ideologies that have raised lawlessness to record levels. In this case, while Biden could have avoided this situation by taking decisive actions a year ago and keeping up the pressure on Putin, Biden didn’t do that. Despite that, I think this is a crisis that Europeans and an emasculated NATO need to solve for themselves now. I don’t think they can count on any credible aid from the US. And that’s the summary of the Biden junta: being a weak adversary and a poor friend.

A friend recently sent me this anonymous note:

In a review of the current situation in Ukraine, General Jack Keane agreed strongly with the discussion sentiment that the time to push back hard against Putin was last March, when he began to marshal forces on the Ukrainian border. As a wise 4-star boss of mine once said, “When the enemy first sticks his head above the trench, you’d better knock it off then. Otherwise, you’ll pay a much bigger price later.”

But, as I have said repeatedly, the real power of a President’s leadership is his power to persuade: the Congress, the people and our allies. Remember that the period of March and forward was the period of our disastrous Afghan withdrawal. President Biden squandered all his persuasive power in that operation, leaving our allies hanging and on their own to cope. Even if Biden had wanted to pre-empt Putin from his obvious intentions, most of our European allied leaders wouldn’t have followed Biden to the water fountain.

Leadership matters, but so do timing, focus, strategy and will. Biden failed on all these counts, and while I give him credit, tactically, for opening US intelligence findings on Putin’s devious preparations, even that was too late to matter.

Putin will undoubtedly incur anger and ire from the world community for his aggressive actions, but that is unlikely to be of comfort to the families of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians might die in the coming days. And the fallout from a rapid Russian takeover of an independent nation can only serve as a temptation for China, North Korea, and Iran to leverage perceived American weakness.

What we must hope now is that we’re not on an escalator to ever increasing tit-for-tat moves and countermoves, many of which could be in the cyber domain. Anyone who has studied WW I knows that moves like this begin to have a momentum of their own. Both logic and caution can be thrown out the window as emotions, miscalculations and egos begin to dominate.  

I fully agree.

Biden could have avoided this crisis and deterred Russia, but he didn’t, and now the people of the Ukraine and our beleaguered middle class will pay the price, while members of Biden’s junta tell us to stoically endure higher prices for fuel that wouldn’t be necessary if we were energy independent. Elitists like Steven Colbert are saying stupid things like “Today, the average gas price in America hit an all-time record high of over $4/gallon. OK, that stings, but a clean conscience is worth a buck or two. It’s important. I’m willing to pay $4/gallon. Hell, I’ll pay $15 a gallon b/c I drive a Tesla.” Here is a good analysis of why gas prices are so high. The facts are that Teslas are out of reach for most Americans, the lithium for those batteries comes from China, and those batteries are hazardous waste that pollutes more than fossil fuels. If everyone bought electric cars, our power grid would collapse, but if you are an America-hating Democrat, that’s okay. That helps with the Great Reset. Even Elon Musk said that more electric cars aren’t a solution to soaring gas prices but that increased domestic oil production is.

Of course, there is an alternative that would reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. The cleanest and safest power source on the planet is nuclear power. While Sweden and France have been building nuclear power, our government has hamstrung, obstructed, and delayed. Guess how many people died on Three Mile Island, the US’ “worst nuclear disaster.” None. But since it takes thirty years to get approval to build a nuclear plant, nuclear power is not an immediate solution. We could let Premier Biden and his green thugs shut down a major industry in the US. We could wish that winds blew 24/7 and that it is daylight all the time. We could wish our power transmission infrastructure could meet the demands (there’s some infrastructure not addressed in the “infrastructure” bill!). We can wish to never run out of key raw materials like copper (from the Congo) and Lithium (from China) needed to make all those batteries that become hazardous waste in a few years. That is apparently Biden’s strategy to mitigate destroying our energy independence on the first day of his administration: wishing.

The Biden junta’s tepid response to Ukraine has been to invoke economic sanctions on Russia that are ineffective and too late. While Biden was publicly announcing that the Russian invasion had already been decided and that in response, we would impose harsh sanctions (like mean tweets, I guess) after the fact, Zelensky was begging for the sanctions to begin before the invasion — as a deterrent. No joy in Mudville for Zelensky. See how well the promise of sanctions from a weak enemy deterred Putin?

Biden’s feckless Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken has said that the sanctions are damaging Russia, and Blinken, like Brutus, is an honorable man(?!?!?). Like most pronouncements from the White House, there is no evidence, data, or analysis to back up these observably false claims. Does it appear that Russia has been damaged?

By the way, sanctions like freezing bank accounts can be used also against our citizens by our overreaching and tyrannical government. They were already used against the Canadian people by fascist Trudeau (let’s remember that socialism and fascism go hand in hand.)

It was only after almost two weeks into the invasion and after significant pressure at home that Biden decided to stop importing Russian oil (which we wouldn’t have to do at all if Biden hadn’t cancelled the XL pipeline on his first day in office). Industry analysts believe Russia won’t feel the impact of this for months — long after Ukraine has been defeated. It is unclear that the US and the UK not importing Russian oil will damage Russia, since Russia has many other customers (including Germany), and Biden did not want to cut Russia off from the SWIFT banking system. With record high gas prices in the US, Biden’s asinine policies are damaging the only people all his policies damage: the American middle class. Star Parker wrote:

Russian President Vladimir Putin is an evil man. A murderer and a thief. He chose to advance his outrageous and murderous agenda because he understood that opposite him in the world stood weakness and moral relativism, not strength and moral clarity.

While Putin utilizes Russia’s prodigious production of oil and gas as a major weapon in his war of aggression, the Biden administration is fighting its own war against America’s oil and gas industry.

So what damage, Mr. Blinken, is this actually doing to Russia? Just because you or Jenn Psaki say it, doesn’t make it so — except to the dishonest mainstream legacy media. Saying we are doing damage to Russia allows Biden to continue to fund both sides of the war, the Ukrainians and the Russians.

Blinken says that shutting down the Nord Stream 2 pipeline will hurt Russia’s economy, but apparently shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline won’t hurt the US economy. The logic of the left is often like a passage from Lewis Carroll. The good news: now that Biden killed it, the Keystone XL pipeline cannot be restarted even if he suddenly had an attack of cogent thought.

Meanwhile, Germany said that they will continue to buy oil from Russia while shipping helmets and a handful of field hospitals to the Ukraine. The only president I ever voted for, instead of against the other person, was Ronald Reagan. He asked Europe not to build the first Russian oil pipeline, warning about security risks. They did it anyway, and they bought the equipment from Japan. Thanks, Europe. Trump the Vilified asked Europe not to build the Nord Steam 2 pipeline for security reasons. They did it anyway. We are now in a situation in which NATO is worse than useless. European countries won’t openly oppose Russia because they are dependent on Russian oil — exactly what Reagan predicted. Hmmm. Who could have envisioned that? Anyone with four brain cells to rub together!

According to Newsmax, as part of the fruitless cease-fire talks between the Ukraine and Russian, “Russia has raised fresh demands for written U.S. guarantees that sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine would not harm Russian cooperation with Iran. China has also raised new demands, according to sources.” Somehow it makes sense to re-energize the Iranian deal and allow them to build nuclear weapons and provide a path for Russia to bypass Western sanctions? Sure, that makes sense — to no one with a brain. Remember, Trump the Vilified pulled out of that agreement because there was no way to verify Iranian compliance — not that those trustworthy folks would ever renege on an agreement. At the same time our Injustice Department refuses to indict Iranian assassins, despite credible evidence the Iranians are plotting to assasinate former US government officials, because Biden does not want to upset the Iranian nuclear deal. You can’t make this stuff up.

Putin has threatened to drive oil to $300 a barrel if anyone intervenes in the Ukraine. When asked about oil prices, Biden responded, “I can’t do much right now. Russia’s responsible.” This sums up Biden’s whole presidency: create a problem, deny there’s a problem, and then blame someone else. As Ben Shapiro wrote:

Biden’s plan to lower gas prices:

1. Blame Putin

2. Solicit from Putin’s allied dictator in Venezuela

3. Do nothing to increase domestic production

4. Blame oil companies

5. Blather about windmills and solar panels

6. Ask the Saudis to help while fluffing Iran

7. …

8. VICTORY!

In the vein of blaming someone else, the Biden junta first blamed Russia and is now blaming oil companies. Remember that he declared war on the domestic fuel industry his first day in office with a number of stupid executive orders. Note in this graphic from RedState that prices for fuel started going up as soon as Biden was sworn in, because he and his cabal declared war on the whole industry. Americans have the attention span of that blue fish, but let’s not forget gas prices have been going up all year, and they have gone up more since Biden was sworn in than since Russia invaded.

The pathological liar in chief also claims that oil production is higher than during the tenure of Trump the Vilified. In fact, according to the US Energy Information Administration, US oil production was:

• 2019 (the last year before pandemic madness): 4,485,653
• 2020: 4,129,563
• 2021 (the first year of the Biden junta): 4,082,479

As RedState opined, “So even in the last full year of President Mean Tweets and the most atrocious forced shutdown of our economy that began with the nonsensical ask of ’15 days to slow the spread,’ we still produced 47,085 more barrels than in Joe’s first year.“

ZeroHedge reported,

The U.S. State Department’s senior energy security adviser Amos Hochstein – seeing the freefall in White House approval ratings – turned the tables hoping that most Americans are idiots instead of only half, and said that shale companies choosing not to reinvest massive profits into higher production growth at a time of war is “appalling.”

Yep, after intentionally crippling domestic oil, the Biden Junta is calling the industry they have publicly said they want to destroy as “appalling.” The article went on to say,

Hammered by policies that discourage evil investments boosting “fossil fuel” output, and under pressure from activist investors to boost cash flows after a decade of weak returns, many publicly traded explorers are limiting production growth to no more than 5%. But that is suddenly at odds with the Biden administration’s efforts to curb soaring inflation and energy prices at home.

So after a year of trying to defang domestic energy companies, the White House – whose Fed Vice Chair candidate Sarah Bloom Raskin even went so far as suggesting to starve energy companies of capital – is now asking producers to raise oil supply to replace Russian crude flows after Biden banned oil imports from the country.

In other words, while yesterday it was Putin’s fault, now it is the fault of shale companies according to an administration that will always find blame anywhere it looks except its own devastating policies. [My emphasis]

Create the problem, deny the problem, blame someone else.

Our “friends” in OPEC have said they won’t increase oil exports to help the rest of the world. In fact the Wall Street Journal reported, “The White House unsuccessfully tried to arrange calls between President Biden and the de facto leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as the U.S. was working to build international support for Ukraine and contain a surge in oil prices, said Middle East and U.S. officials.” Biden was predicting (and doing nothing to forestall) the Russian invasion of the Ukraine for months. Like his COVID mandates for which he didn’t prepare test kits and masks in advance, Biden did nothing to arrange to mitigate the effects of cutting off Russian oil before doing so. The only word that describes the corrupt and America-hating Biden administration is “idiots.”

Biden is begging repressive regimes like Venezuela to help provide oil. I guess Leftists think that begging makes Biden look more presidential. (But I guess that is okay, because Bernie Sanders says that Venezuelan socialism is good and American capitalism is bad.) All the while, we have enough oil to be self-sufficient, except our president thinks that anything good for the American middle class must be crushed. In fact, the 2,700-page, $1.5T resurrection of Build Back Better includes tens of billions of dollars for “democracy programs” in Venezuela and Russia. Really? We are going to forcibly extract hard earned cash from American citizens to send to Venezuela and Russia? Is Hunter on the board of a Venezuelan oil company?

Perhaps we are on the verge of a nuclear war. (Hmmm. The last time we were on the brink a nuclear war another Democrat was in power.) Daily Wire reported that Maria Baronova, “the head of a top Russian state-run news organization has resigned from her position after Russia invaded Ukraine late last month and warned in a new interview this week that the world is on the brink of nuclear war.” We are likely closer than we have been since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Putin has increased the alert level of his nuclear arsenal, while Biden focuses on lies about Georgia voting laws and our defense establishment focuses on white rage, critical race theory indoctrination, and keeping National Guardsmen on station to protect the capital from peacefully protesting truckers. On 9 March Putin bombed a maternity hospital. While the US military is drooling on itself, the UK has confirmed that the Russians have used thermobaric weapons against the Ukrainians, even though they are not allowed by the Geneva Convention. The Russians are moving more thermobaric weapons into the Ukraine, possibly to incite NATO intervention and escalate the war.

Maybe Soros and the other globalist elitists think the Great Reset will be easier if we are all dead from a nuclear war.

Hawks are calling for a no-fly zone that will put us in direct contact with the Russians. Apparently, most Americans are in favor of a no-fly zone but opposed to direct US involvement. I guess we’ll just ask Putin not to fly over Ukraine, pretty please. We’ll just contract the Hogwarts quidditch team to implement that no-fly zone as long as we’re living in fantasy land. Does anyone think NATO has the will to do this without being backstopped by the US, and does anyone think the US has the stomach for this when Secretary Austin and GEN Milley are preoccupied with baseless racist lies?

Disgustingly, a majority of democrats say they would flee the country if we were invaded like the Ukraine. That is the result of the concerted efforts of teachers’ unions, school boards, college education programs, and many teachers to fill the heads of our students with America-hating indoctrination. At least most independents and Republicans say they would stay and fight. While I find Republican politicians only slightly less heinous than Democrats, to call Leftists repugnant is an understatement of Biblical proportions. As John Stuart Mill, the most influential English language philosopher of the nineteenth century, said,

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse… A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

Trying to enforce a no-fly zone over the Ukraine is stupid (unless we are prepared for rapid escalation) and would give ‘Mad Vlad’ Putin what I fear he wants: a pretext to launch tactical nukes at NATO or the US. I am not sure why Putin thinks he needs a NATO pretext to start tossing tactical nuclear weapons, but he seems to want one to protect his “innocent” legacy. If NATO really wanted to do anything useful, they would be mobilizing like crazy and sending troops into the NATO countries that border the Ukraine and Russia as a show of force. You must have a spine to stand up to an aggressor. If there is anything that the twentieth century showed us it is that European governments are good at appeasing aggressors with delusions of grandeur and drawing the US into their wars. Here we go again, folks!

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