What did Biden do wrong? You got anything specific What about 42 million people wanting to have self determination in all things Democratic and not be sabotaged by an all powerful neighbor that wants to subvert any democracy next to its boarders out of jealousy and ideological opposition to the type of values democracy professes? - something Russia does across Europe and here in US Do you know what happened to Europe when they appeased Nazis in 1939
Three things: Turkey controls the straits and Turkey is a NATO country. If they close the straits to Russian ships, Putin will feel he has to respond in some way. I suspect if this happens, it's where the cyber war will really kick in. Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan is looking smarter by the minute. Being bogged down in Afghanistan while Russia and China are free to act is no place we want to be. It sucks for the Afghan people, but in the steely-eyed consideration of US national interest, Afghanistan is not close to Europe and our allies in the Pacific. The amount of intelligence the US has released has several strategic purposes, but one that I think is underappreciated is that those releases are Biden saying to Putin, "Hey, the US still has good intel and sources in Russia that you aren't aware of even if you thought your boy Trump told you stuff."
I'm still responding about the difference between Poland and the Ukraine in terms of who cares which the missiles come from. I said in the same post that it wasn't the reason Russia invaded Ukraine.
The problem is that is what is always said, and therefore Putin may attack a NATO nation, and we are BOUND by treaty to support that - and away it goes. WW1 and WW2 all over again - we honestly should have offered NATO inclusion to Putin 20 years ago when they asked to join the EU - having them closer would have been a smarter move. No American's should have died in Iraq or Afghanistan either fighting over Oil rights for the billionaires...and pretending it was about freedom. DD
Too numerous things to mention what he’s doing wrong, so I will state the obvious one that comes to mind, Brandon thinks he is going up against Cornpop instead of the KGB Putin.
so gas prices were high during rino bush, super liberal obama, down during trump, and up 60% in just over a year with biden its not making sense
BTW - if you have ever been to the Ukraine and met it's people or seen it's beauty this would be even sadder. It is a glorious country with awesome folks. This is sad....... DD
I know events are moving fast and you may in fact be referring to additional statements Trump has made since the 22nd, but here is a closer look at Trump's actual words of "praise" and an alternative interpretation of what Trump was saying. N.B., the simple mentioning of this does NOT imply endorsement of Trump, by me or Althouse: https://althouse.blogspot.com/2022/02/did-trump-side-with-putin-when-he-said.html February 23, 2022 Did Trump side with Putin when he said "This is genius.... How smart is that?... Here’s a guy who’s very savvy... You gotta say that’s pretty savvy"? On yesterday's Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show — audio and transcript, here — here's the part where Trump credits Putin with genius (which his antagonists predictably take to mean that he's siding with Putin!): That's criticizing Putin, but you've got to understand that it's sarcasm when he says, "They’re gonna keep peace all right." It's not siding with the enemy to say the enemy is very smart. And it's so obvious that Trump's enemies would fault him for recognizing Putin's brilliance that I'm tempted to credit Trump with intending to trigger that faultfinding. I can already hear Trump in my head taking advantage of their criticism of him: Biden's people don't want to say Putin is a genius because Biden is no genius. Everybody knows that. Biden against Putin. Well, fortunately for us, Putin is an idiot, so Putin against Biden, no problem. That'll work. Brilliant. But here’s a guy that says, you know, “I’m gonna declare a big portion of Ukraine independent,” he used the word “independent,” “and we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.” You gotta say that’s pretty savvy. And you know what the response was from Biden? Biden, whose supporters think it's wrong to consider Putin a genius.... Trump's point isn't that he likes Putin, but that Biden cannot handle the job, and that's sad. Clay Travis observes that Putin invaded Ukraine when Obama was President, and now he's doing it again with Biden, but he did not invade when Trump was President. How does that square with Trump's antagonists' idea that Trump sides with Putin? Trump notes that Chuck Todd asked the same question on "Meet the Press" this week: The conversation turns to China, how Trump knows Xi very well too, and Trump predicts that China will take Taiwan. They were only waiting for the Olympics to end, so "look at your stopwatch." Trump sums up with the assertion that if he were still President "Putin would have never done it" and — speaking of taking over Taiwan in the past tense — "Xi would have never done it." Much later, the discussion comes around to the Russian pipeline: He catches himself on that "we" and restarts with "they": So: is "getting along with Russia... a great thing"? That is, at least, the ideal, but wanting to get along can lead you into getting tricked by the genius player on the other side. And yet, perhaps Trump is/was/could be the genius player on our side, and then who knows what he means by "We could have done tremendous..." — tremendous what? Posted by Ann Althouse at 8:22 AM
Biden not calling for SWIFT sanctions and avoiding questions about why he won't sanction Putin's personal interests are interesting. At the very least, it calls into question the so called "unity" of the west on the response to this.
Thank you for this excellent post, but I’m pretty damn sure it just goes straight over the heads of many libs in here.
Well said. Not that those enveloped by trump's "aura" will care in the least what he says, what he does, what his good friend Vladimir does, is doing right now to a modern democratic Ukraine. Bringing war in all it's horror to an innocent country the size of Texas filled with tens of millions who want to live in peace as a part of democratic Europe.
Biden is simply not up to the task here. The man sounds incoherent and way way way past his prime mentally. His decision making cannot be sound with such a weak and frail mind. This is not good for our nation.
The issue was the 2019 election. Zelensky was a largely unknown figure who didn't have any defined political views. I think there was hope in the Kremlin that he could be molded into some sort of Russian aligned leader. Remember Ukraine had a Russian aligned president until 2014. Putin is very focused on gaining some sort of influence or direct control over historically Russian speaking areas. In the case of Ukraine, he simply wants the level of influence and control he had before the 2014 revolution. And Putin wants to steer Ukrainian policy towards Russia. Today, Putin sees present circumstances as the point of no return. Ukraine has already signed the association deal with the EU which outlines a process of integration with the EU including adopting EU laws and regulations tied to the single market as well as eventually moving towards a customs union with the EU. That effectively binds Ukraine to the EU and western economies and over time would sever major economic ties with Russia. Keep in mind that this is all in contrast to Russia's proposal for a Russia-Belarus-Kazakh-Ukraine customs union that the previous Russian aligned president wanted to pursue. And on top of all of this, Zelensky and the Ukrainian government is clearly ready to join NATO. The combination of Ukraine binding itself to the EU and joining NATO means that Ukraine would functionally join the rest of the former Soviet Union in Europe (outside of Belarus) as Western allies.
