Saturday, March 12, 2022

Where Would You Place President Biden on This List of Titanic Historical Failures

President Putin may be crazy, and a narcissist, but he is definitely a bully. The proper response to a bully is not appeasement, os which President Biden is an abject success. This list is not based on mass murderers, evil dictators, disastrous generals and admirals. The entries are those who failed their countries and peoples, through actions and inactions, having run a successful people into the ground, or lost empires. The list is alphabetical, but if you ranked them, where would you place President Obama after only 14 months in office? Prime Minister Anthony Eden President James Buchanan President Jimmy Carter Neville Chamberlain Commodus Lord Mayor of London During the Great London Fire Robert Mugabe Nero Santa Ana Tsar Nicholas II Lord North Kaiser Wilhelm II Mehmet Talaat, Ismail Enver and Ahmed Cemal, The Three Pashas

Tuesday, March 8, 2022

President Putin is Not Worried

President Putin is not worried. He may have underestimated the Ukrainian resistance, but Russia’s numbers will prevail. Soon they will cut off the escape and reinforcement routes to the west of Ukraine. He may have a pyrrhic victory, but not in his eyes. He is sending a message to Moldova, the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and even Poland. They will be obliterated if they resist when he comes calling for them to rejoin Mother Russia. Poland would resist even harder than Ukraine. The Poles hate the Russians. The Warsaw Museum of the Polish Uprising damns the Russians as much as the Nazis. Putin could leave the Poles to last. President Putin is not fazed by NATO, which is sworn under Article V to protect its members. He views NATO as a paper tiger, with its mainstay the United States led by a diffident, ineffectual old man. He’s seen that before with Konstantin Chernenko and Leonid Brezhnev. He knows President Biden leads from the rear – far to the rear. He’s not worried. He knows Secretary of State Antony Blinken was the deputy secretary who advised President Obama not to send arms to the Ukrainians during the Russian seizure of Crimea. He’s not worried. He has the EU and NATO members over a barrel – barrrels of oil and gas. They don’t have a choice in his eyes. He’s not worried. President Biden is owned by the green faction of the ruling party. He won’t increase U.S. production. President Putin is waging war on Ukraine, but President Biden is waging war on America’s domestic fossil fuel industry. President Putin is waging war on Ukraine, but President Biden is waging economic war on his own people. He’s not worried about NATO. He knows the once formidable German Wehrmacht is but a shadow of its former self. The German Army is down to 62,766 soldiers. President Biden will go to Iran, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, begging for oil. That’s the President of the United States! Begging! The EU and NATO have a second option; it’s called coal. Power plants can easily convert from gas to coal, or vice versa. The United States has the coal. He knows President Biden doesn’t have the will. President Putin’s not worried. He knows democracies lack patience and staying power. The initial blitzkrieg and ground attack in Ukraine may have stalled, but he has a backup. Ask Grozny or Aleppo. Kyiv has a choice: submission or bombing into oblivion. It’s their choice – not his. He may be destroying the great cities of Ukraine, but that’s their decision. He may be killing tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children, but that’s the price to pay for restoring a great Russia. He’s willing to not only crush Ukraine, but break it into pieces. He’s killing young Russian conscripts in Ukraine, but Russia will never know the extent of the casualties. The Russian Army can easily replace the casualties. The Ukrainian Army cannot. The Russian Army is recruiting Syrians and Chechens for the fight. His top brass may have underperformed in Ukraine. No problem; he will purge them when it’s over. He’s raining bombs and rockets on Ukraine, but the West is seizing the yachts of his loyal oligarchs; they can afford the loss. He’s not scared of sanctions. He planned for it. Economic war against Russia? No problem; China is Russia’s next door neighbor. They won’t touch his hidden wealth buried behind multiple tranches (President Biden’s word). His people have suffered economic privations before. They can handle it. He’s now inviting Ukrainian refugees to come to Russia. They love him. He’s delusional or duplicitous. The peoples, especially Poles and Ukrainians, previously brutalized by the tsars and commissars have no love for Mother Russia. Delusional or not, President Putin is not worried, perhaps frustrated, but not worried.

Tuesday, March 1, 2022

Thoughts on Ukraine, Putin, Biden,and Russia

Kyiv may fall while President Biden helicopters to Delaware to vacation for the weekend. Kyiv may be too close to the Russian borders to successfully resist a massive attack. President Biden has well learned the lesson from President Obama of leading from behind. However, President Biden claims to have supplied Ukraine with some defensive weapons, which is more than President Obama’s giving the Ukrainians MREs (Meals Rady to Eat). President Obama wasn’t concerned by Russia’s seizure of Crimea because Russia was simply a “regional power.” How ironic the Ukrainians are using Molotov Cocktails against the Russians! An overconfident Stalin invaded Finland in November 1939. The Finns whipped the Red Army. The Russians finally forced Finland to the negotiating table months later. A replay may be happening in Ukraine. Theories abound to explain President Putin’s seizure of land from Georgia and Ukraine: Restore Russia’s (USSR) glory and empire Embarrassment on the fall of the Soviet Union when he was a lowly KGB agent in East Germany President Putin is crazy History (Conquerors and attackers) shows the need to secure Russia’s borders. How about the Napoleonic Complex? No one should be surprised by President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Putin and Hitler both told the world what they wanted to do, but the world was not listening, not believing, or not caring. John Fitzgerald Kennedy published his senior thesis at Harvard in 1940, “Why England Slept.” Why the E.U. slept while Russia built? President Putin also told the world his desire to rebuild the security zone around Russia and eliminate NATO as a threat. President Biden strongly affirmed Article V and the commitment to the defense of every NATO member. Does President Putin believe President Biden or the rest of NATO? Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s two major priorities for the United States military are 1) wokeness, and 2) climate change. Where does NATO fit into his priorities? Sanctions, sanctions, sanctions, but no restriction on Russia’s export of oil and gas. Western Europe is dependent on Russia for energy. 41% of the European Union’s gas supply comes from Russia as does the largest amount of its coal and gas. Russia is a low-cost supplier of these fuels. The Russian oil and gas, as well as coal, continue to flow. David used a slingshot against Goliath. Brandon is using sanctions against tanks. Candidate Biden tweeted two years ago “I’m going to stand up to him, he’s a bully.” He also said “Imagine what can happen to Ukraine” if President Trump is reelected. Just imagine! The media portrayed the summit between Presidents Biden and Putin last June as a meeting of adults. President Trump warned Western Europe against buying Russian oil and gas. The best way to destroy Russia’s energy club over Western Europe and crash its rubble is to open America’s energy tap, to return America to the energy independence of 14 months ago. President Biden had America pay Russia $4.7 billion last year for 69,800,000 barrels of oil. Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh said earlier in the week that the sanction levied against Russia are not intended to disrupt the Russian energy imports: “Our sanctions are not designed to disrupt in any way in the current flow of energy from Russia to the world.” Weak sanctions against a “bully’ invading a neighboring country by a befuddled Administration. President was asked about the effectiveness of his new sanctions. He snarky replied: “Let’s see in a month.” Ukraine may be history in one month. President Putin is waging war against Ukraine. President Biden is waging war against American fossil fuels, but supports Russia’s fossil fuel production. President Biden said: “I will do everything in my power to limit the pain the American people are feeling at the gas pump.” Everything except increase American production The United States offered to Fly Ukraine President Zelensky and others out of Ukraine after the second day of the Russian invasion. President Zelensky replied “I need ammunition, not a ride.” President Zelensky, a lapsed comedian, is showing leadership to the Ukrainian people and the world. President Biden, the “adult” in the room, is reaffirming his ineffectual leadership. Why does President Putin sit at the end of a long table with the others 30-40’ at the other end? Is he paranoid? John Kerry’s worried the war will set back his campaign against climate change: “I hope President Putin will help us to stay on track with respect to what we need to do for the climate.” Secretary of State John Kerry did great damage to America. He periodically proves the wisdom of the American people in not electing him President. He would probably have been worse than Brandon. The reputation of President Garter rises every day of the Trump Presidency. The media never misses a chance to slam President Trump or quote him out of context. He said of President Putin’s recognition of the two eastern provinces and moving troops into them “This is genius.” He also said Putin made “a genius move” by moving troops into them. Note carefully that he also emphasized more than once that Putin never would have attacked Ukraine if he were still President. Vladimir Putin only acted against Ukraine under Presidents Obama and Biden. President Biden threatened Russia with crippling sanctions before the invasion to deter the invasion. He repeatedly told the American people and the world that the sanctions would deter Putin from invasion. He said Thursday: “No-one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening.” The President warned Saturday that “no sanction that is immediate.” Vice President Harris is not communicating with President Biden. She said Sunday “The purpose of these sanctions has always been and continues to be deterrence.”