Tag Archives: foreign policy

Did Biden Refuse the Invitation or the Challenge?

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President Joe Biden (D) and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a phone call Saturday. Over the course of the call, Zelenskyy invited Biden to travel to Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, according to the Ukrainian description of the call. Zelenskyy

invited him [Biden] to visit Ukraine: “I am convinced that your arrival in Kyiv in the coming days, which are crucial for stabilizing the situation, will be a powerful signal and contribute to de-escalation.”

It’s telling that

[t]he White House statement on the call with Zelenskyy does not mention the invitation to Kyiv.

Why is Biden so reluctant to accept the invitation? Or is he ducking away from the challenge?

A Putin Supposed Draw-Down

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Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to be withdrawing some of his troops from the “exercise” he’s been holding along the Belarus-Ukraine border.

Russia announced Tuesday that a select number of units participating in military exercises will return to their bases, sparking hope the Kremlin may not invade Ukraine in the coming days.

I have some possibilities for the claimed withdrawal.

Maybe the “select number of units” are being withdrawn because they performed poorly in these invasion rehearsals.

Maybe the “select number of units” are being held back to act as exploitation reserves in the coming invasion.

Maybe the “select number of units” are being withdrawn as a stage show to get the West to let our guard down even further.

Putin’s, Lavrov’s claimed willingness to negotiate further could well be nothing more than a repeat of the 1941 Japanese government “negotiations” with the US, differing only by Putin’s firmer control of his military than the then-Japanese government had.

Bureaucrats Exercising Personal Power Because They Can

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The Biden-Harris administration is urging Americans in Ukraine to get out of that nation as fast as they can go. Biden-Harris even trotted out his National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, to issue a panicky plea for our citizens to get out—because Biden-Harris intends to strand those who don’t make it out just as thoroughly as he did in Afghanistan.

Enter Biden-Harris’ State Department bureaucrats.

The US State Department is requiring American citizens fleeing Ukraine into Poland to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination, according to a press release issued Saturday.
US citizens are allowed to enter Poland through its land border with Ukraine, but the State Department says those evacuating “must present a valid US passport and proof of COVID-19 vaccination.”

On top of this [aside: this seems a tacit Biden-Harris administration admission that vaccines against the Wuhan Virus don’t proof folks against subsequent infection as Biden-Harris had originally touted.]

Travelers are also encouraged to present a negative test result from a PCR or antigen COVID-19 test, which will facilitate entry into Poland[.]

This is just Biden-Harris’ bureaucrats exercising power for the sake of the exercise.

Even stipulating, arguendo, that the threat of the unvaccinated spreading the Wuhan Virus is real or has serious consequences, there are just too many ways for State to handle American “travelers'” who lack vaccination/negative test proof after their entry into Poland from Ukraine for this demand to be anything other than the ego trip of power.

State’s statement containing these barriers requirements can be read here.

Toward an Iranian Nuclear Weapons Deal

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There is debate brewing in DC regarding the value of a deal with Iran vs the risks of such a deal, or its lack.

There should be no debate; its outcome is clear.

Some former officials say a restored deal could keep the Iranians a safe distance from having sufficient weapons-grade uranium for a bomb for another eight years or so, but that without a deal they could soon be weeks or even days away.

That, to coin a phrase, is a distinction without a difference. Either way, Iran gets nuclear weapons. The difference between weeks and a few years matters only to those hiding under their beds avoiding uncomfortable facts and to some in the Iranian government who are being—or pretending to be—impatient.

That clarity should drive our response, the responses of the nations of Europe who are second in line for Iran’s weapons, and the responses of Israel, which is first on Iran’s list. So far, Israel is the only one who’s clear on what it must do. We, on the other hand, cannot afford to wait on some sort of consensus with a timid Europe; we need overtly to support Israel in its response—support by being alongside them, not sitting on the sidelines shouting, “Rah, rah.”

If an effective effort to put an end to Iran’s nuclear weapons drive requires cyber and kinetic moves, then so be it.

Invasion

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In Monday’s joint press conference that President Joe Biden (D) and Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) following their meeting, a German journalist asked Biden, point blank (because no one in the American press has the courage or the integrity to ask such questions), to say specifically what would constitute a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Biden said without hesitation, “tanks or troops crossing the—the border of Ukraine again” crossing the border into Ukraine.

Because it’s not actually an invasion if Russia penetrates with its “green men” forces. It’s not actually an invasion if Russia shuts down Ukraine’s energy and water distribution networks with cyber attacks. It’s not actually an invasion if Russia wipes away Ukraine’s financial underpinnings with cyber attacks against its financial networks or corruption of its financial databases or both.

Biden keeps making it easier for Russia to invade.

On top of that, as late as today, Biden’s donation to Putin remains unremarked by the American press. Shameful.