Tag Archives: foreign policy

Yellen’s Foolishness

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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is boycott[ing] some G-20 meetings this week that include Russian officials. This is idiotic and tends to send the signal that she is as afraid of “Russian officials” as her boss President Joe Biden (D) is of Russian President Vladimir Putin (or that Biden has ordered Yellen to hide away from those particular G-20 meetings).

The better signal, the stronger signal, would be for Yellen to attend all the G-20 meetings and simply to refuse to engage with the Russian officials, to turn her back on them and engage with others present instead.

“We’re Not Sending Him”

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President Joe Biden (D) says he’s ready and willing to go to Ukraine and meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

However.

His Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, pooh-poohed the idea.

He’s ready for anything—the man likes fast cars and aviators[.]

Biden’s desire to go is just more thrill-seeking in the eyes of White House staffers.

Psaki went on:

He’s ready to go to Ukraine. We are not sending the president to Ukraine.

We are not sending the president. Think about that. Biden isn’t making the decision to travel to Ukraine and meet with Zelenskyy, or not, on his own initiative.

Many have suggested, over the last year, that Biden is a captive of the Extremist Left of his Leftist Party, but this statement by Psaki makes those suggestions statements of fact. The President of the United States is not his own man. Nor does he seem to be the one in charge in his own job.

Worse, Jill Biden is no Edith Bolling, and she’s not the one standing in for the man.

Russian Territory Is Already Involved

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The Biden-Harris administration has approved an additional $800 million in weapons for Ukraine, the better for that nation to fight against the barbarian’s coming assault on Ukraine’s Donbas region. In conjunction with that, Biden-Harris has moved to increase the level and quality of intelligence shared with Ukraine, the better for the latter to target Russian forces after they’ve broken into Ukraine.

However.

The US, however, will refrain from providing intelligence that would enable the Ukrainians to strike targets on Russian territory under the new policy, a constraint Washington has imposed to reduce the risk of broadening the conflict, US officials added.

This is a continued mischaracterization of the situation, a continued misconstrual that is deadly to Ukrainian civilians, women, children, medical facilities.

The “conflict,” to use Biden-Harris’ carefully vapid term, is already broadened. Russian territory is already a part of the conflict. Aside from the bare fact that Russia is the belligerent in this Putin War, Russian territory is being openly used to assemble, supply, and stage forces that will be used to assault a sovereign nation’s territory.

The Belgorod region just 25 miles from the Ukraine-Russia border north of Kharkhiv, for instance, is a major supply and staging area for Russian units organizing for a spring assault on the Kharkhiv-Izyum region in the northern Donbas. That area, thus, would be a lucrative target that, if struck, would severely disrupt Putin’s planned assault.

Withholding that cross-border intelligence has even worse outcomes. It denies the Ukraine’s ability to know where the Russian units are gathering at their Lines of Departure, so the withholding denies the Ukrainians the ability to anticipate Russian axes of attack, which in turn denies the Ukrainians the ability to prepare their own responses for when those attacks roll. Which, despicably, only runs up friendly force casualty rates and friendly force equipment loss rates.

Denying the Ukrainians knowledge of those gatherings at those Lines of Departure also denies the Ukrainians the ability to launch spoiling attacks–ideally done by air (armed drones, helicopters, the aircraft they have still)–against those Lines to weaken, delay, possibly preempt the attacks before they start.

In no way can any part of Russia be given functional sanctuary status. Except in the fearful imaginations of Biden-Harris and his cronies.

Putin Confirms the Need

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In the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s atrocity-ridden and barbaric invasion of Ukraine, Finland and Sweden announced that they were seriously considering applying for membership in NATO, with applications likely to flow this summer.

Now Putin is making nuclear threats against them, both implied and direct. Putin spoke through his Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev:

There can be no more talk of any nuclear-free status for the Baltic—the balance must be restored. Until today, Russia has not taken such measures and was not going to. If our hand is forced, well…take note it was not us who proposed this[.]

Not at all. It wasn’t Russia who threatened to put nuclear weapons in the Baltic region. Uh, uh.

Putin’s threat is direct: he will put nuclear weapons into the Baltic region if Finland and Sweden go through with their NATO membership application. Putin’s threat is implied: he will use those nuclear weapons against Finland and Sweden, specifically, if he deems them threats.

Putin’s threat also is dishonest. [N]o more talk of any nuclear-free status for the Baltic? Russia has had nuclear weapons in the region for years. Lithuania’s Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas:

The current Russian threats look quite strange when we know that, even without the present security situation, they keep the weapon 100 km from Lithuania’s border. Nuclear weapons have always been kept in Kaliningrad. The international community, the countries in the region, are perfectly aware of this. They use it as a threat.

Putin’s threats are validation of Finland’s and Sweden’s realization of their need of the mutual protections represented by NATO membership.

Sloppy?

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A Wall Street Journal article described the ongoing efforts of Ukrainians to identify the specific Russian barbarians who committed specific acts of atrocity so as to get about bringing the barbarians to justice. This bit, though, jumped out at me.

[Ukrainian prosecutor Ruslan Kravchenko] Kravchenko leafed through a collection of documents.
A Russian paratrooper had left behind a military ID card.
A soldier born in 2002, in Revda, in the Russian region of Sverdlovsk, retreated without his passport.
A 23-year-old officer from Pskov had left a bank card and coronavirus vaccination certificate.

Sloppy, certainly. Who takes out their papers—ID cards, passports, etc—and leaves them out anywhere under any circumstances? But in addition to that, not collecting them back up on the way out the door, leaving them behind, abandoning them? Was there a measure of panic in these barbarians’ withdrawal?

At best, these documents indicate an undisciplined collection or Russian “military” personnel. Appallingly, the undisciplined included at least one individual marked as a Russian officer.