Ukraine: Stop the Killing

                                           

 

Even the most inveterate Trump hater should at least be able to give the President some credit for wanting to stop the killing in Ukraine. I know they distrust anything he says, and fear that he will strike a bad deal with Russia, but the older I get, the more I think that putting an end to the killing and ravages of war transcends all other considerations. 

As the saying goes, “War is Hell” but many commentators on both sides seem to regard it as a game that can be won or lost. However, would any of these pundits be willing to participate on an actual battlefield? It is always the young men on both sides who will bear the burden and face the horror.

A couple of years ago I read and posted on Lawrence Kirby’s Stories from the Pacific, a book about his experience as a young Marine in World War II. I was told about this book by my brother-in-law Richard Gardella who knew Larry Kirby briefly before the former Marine died at the age of 99 in a Senior residence. The stories in Kirby’s book are a real eye opener and at times extremely heart rending. 

In one especially moving chapter he describes one incident that took place while fighting in the jungle of the island of Guam. He was on a scouting mission when suddenly he came upon a young Japanese soldier about 20 feet away. Their eyes met in stunned silence but after a brief pause the Japanese hurled a grenade and Kirby rushed him and opened fire. Kirby was wounded by the grenade shrapnel, but the Japanese soldier was dead. Kirby never forgot that tragic experience. Years later he wrote this poem.

I met a youthful enemy 

My fear reflected in his eye

I loathed him not, nor did he me

But we must fight and one must die.

No longer boys but not yet men

Just sad young soldiers sick with fright

Flag and face our difference then

One’s timeless sleep would come that night

Panic grew with every breath

I had to kill, I had to try.

Why do I seek a stranger’s death?

With vain despair I wondered why?

I could be his friend, not foe

Such wish was true, not foolish whim.

The brave, young lad will never know.

With tragic skill I murdered him.

Long years have passed since when he fell

My heart still aches, no sense of pride.

Though I seem here I live in hell.

On that cruel day I also died. *

Lawrence Kirby believed that soldiers did not like to talk about their experiences mainly because no one would believe how horrible war could be for the young men who actually fought. He wrote, 

"The ultimate desecration of the human spirit is the conscious activity of cruel inhumanity, predicated and justified—at least in the minds of those who sent us—as noble and patriotic duty, a privilege and responsibility accepted willingly by only the brave, offering their lives in this crusade and, further, willing to kill other equally brave and misguided young men in the cause of patriotism and in the name of duty…. (53)

My war ended with Iwo Jima. I was one of the very lucky few to survive the terrible bloodshed. It was my last campaign, thank God. The killing, the screaming, the torn bodies, the shattered limbs the suffering—it had become too much to handle! There were times when I thought I would welcome death. Ending the terror seemed more important than living." (56)

It seems to me that all Americans should unite behind the President in his efforts to stop the killing. I don't believe it will be as easy as the President initially thought, but it would certainly help if, on this one issue, he had the support of a united America.   

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*Lawrence F. Kirby: Stories from the Pacific. P. 102

Ukraine Settlement

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stated this week that the way to a settlement of the war in Ukraine would be to give up the idea of Ukraine ever entering the NATO alliance. In other words, Ukraine would be independent of both East and West with no foreign troops on its soil. There is no doubt in my mind that when former President Biden opened the door to NATO membership for Ukraine, Vladimir Putin regarded it as a provocation. A few months later Russian troops invaded Ukraine. 

I have put up a number of posts on Ukraine in the past and readers who think I am too old or ill-informed, might be surprised to find that I anticipated the Trump administration position ten years ago. See the following post that originally appeared on February 13, 2015, seven years before the war began.

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In an interview in last Saturday's Wall Street Journal, General Frederick B. Hodges, commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe, made the case for military aid to the Ukraine and for an increased NATO involvement. Nevertheless, the General made some admissions that make one wonder if there might be another alternative. 

The General argued that Russia is preparing for war some five or six years in the future with some unspecified enemy. He believed that the Russians regard China as their greatest threat but that at the same time noted that they were conducting simulations of a nuclear attack on the United States. He did not mention that they might be concerned with the threat of Islamic fundamentalism all along their southern borderlands.

To counter the Russian threat the General pointed out that our own resources are stretched thin. Nine out of ten of our divisions are currently engaged in missions all over the world. The General insisted that we cannot act on our own anymore and must rely increasingly on our allies. However, our NATO allies have not and will not live up to their treaty commitments. Only four of them dedicate more than the required 2% of GDP to defense spending.

Finally, the General admitted that we need a strategy, and that military aid to the Ukraine or any other country does not by itself constitute a strategy. He asks that we consider the outcome we want to achieve in the Ukraine.  Do we really want the Ukraine to become a battlefield where millions might die? Do we want a city like Mariupol on the Black Sea to become a desert like Mosul?

Why can't we consider Russia as an ally and not an enemy? Instead of confronting Russia with NATO, why not guarantee that an independent Ukraine will never be part of NATO. The Ukraine provides Russia with millions of customers for its vast energy reserves. After all, both the US and Russia will more and more have to deal with the growing power of China, as well as with radical Islam. 

The Journal has launched a barrage of editorial comment against Russia in the past week. One op-ed suggested that a military buildup is not necessary because we could crush the Russians economically with increased sanctions and low oil and gas prices. This is another dangerous suggestion since if we drive the Russians to the wall, they might become desperate. Why isn't a strong Russia to our advantage? If we think economic sanctions hurt the Russian oligarchs, what do we think they will do to the ordinary Russian citizen.

Journal columnist Bret Stephens, a longtime proponent of arming the Ukrainians, even quoted and praised a practically insane statement by U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham who claimed that he did not know what the outcome of military intervention would be, and did not care how many Ukrainians or Russians might die, or even if we lost. All that mattered was that the US not back down and appease Putin.

It would be so much less costly in terms of men and money to bring the Russians into NATO than to confront them with a flaming sword on their historical Western front. It would be better to have a strong, economically viable Russia as an ally rather than an enemy in the ongoing war against radical Islam.

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Note: The flaming sword is the insignia of the U.S. Army in Europe.

Tucker Carlsen Interviews Vladimir Putin

Last week my wife and I watched Tucker Carlsen’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The interview lasted a little over two hours, and it took us two nights to get through it, but it was well worth the effort. So far, the interview has received over 18 million hits on YouTube although the American media seems reluctant to mention it.

Credit must go to Tucker Carlsen not only for scooping the rest of the journalistic world, but also for allowing us to see Putin unfiltered by media bias. Carlsen limited himself to a few questions and then just let Putin respond with hardly any interruption. It was a breath of fresh air. In the beginning Putin asked if it was going to be an interview or a talk show, and for the most part Carlsen was content to hear him out, and not engage in incessant back and forth.

I did not take notes but here is my recollection of some of the insights provided by the Russian leader. Putin came across as extremely articulate, experienced, and levelheaded with a deep grounding in Russian history, as well as in current world affairs. Indeed, he prefaced his response to Carlsen’s first question on the Ukraine war with an almost 30-minute disquisition on the history of Russia in which he went all the way back to its ninth century origins. In that discussion he included an historical analysis of the origins of what is now known as Ukraine, a word that means fringes or borderlands in Russian. Indeed, he believes that Ukraine has always been a part of Russia, and that the Ukrainians are Russian, and not a separate ethnic group. 

To Putin the war in Ukraine is a Civil War and not an invasion of a foreign country. He traced the current conflict in Ukraine back to 1991 with the demise of the Soviet Union. In the West, we call it the collapse of the Soviet Union, but he regards it as an attempt by the then Soviet leaders to normalize relations with the West and usher in an era of mutual security and prosperity. He even stated that he had asked President Clinton if Russia could join NATO. Initially, Clinton seemed agreeable but after consulting with his security advisors, the offer was rejected. Instead of a partner, the US would continue to regard Russia as an adversary.

Moreover, he claims that after 1991 Russia received assurances that the NATO alliance would not extend any further east, but that the promise was subsequently broken, especially during the Obama administration when the door seemed to be opened to Ukrainian membership in NATO.  Putin traced the start of the war in Ukraine to 2014 when a coup in Kiev overthrew the then pro-Russian government. He believes that the coup was engineered by Western security services, and that the new government in Ukraine then began to seek close ties with NATO. He also believes that the new Ukrainian leadership contains many who had fought with the Nazis against Russia during WWII.

Nevertheless, he insisted that he is open to a negotiated settlement of the war and argued that he had agreed to one only months after the fighting started. At a meeting in Istanbul both sides had agreed to a settlement but at the last minute, Boris Johnson, the then British Prime Minister, had stepped in to quash the deal, obviously with the backing of his NATO and US allies. 

Johnson has retired but the war goes on. Putin claims to be still open to a negotiated settlement. He also believes that the war is hurting the West more than Russia. Western sanctions have not hurt Russia whose economy is now the largest in Europe, but they have forced Europe to pay exorbitant prices for imports of liquified natural gas. Speaking of that, Putin did not claim to know who blew up the Nordstream gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea, but pointed out that the culprit would have to have had both a motive and the capability to pull it off.

These are just a couple of the issues that Putin discussed with ease and calmness, but I would like to end with Carlsen’s last question concerning a reporter from the Wall Street Journal who has been imprisoned by the Russians for espionage. Actually, Carlsen asked if Putin, as a goodwill gesture, would release the jailed reporter to him for return to the USA claiming that everyone knew that the reporter was not a spy. Putin responded that the man had been caught red-handed with classified documents but that he would prefer to leave his fate to the negotiations currently going on between the security agencies of both countries. 

In this interview Putin did not appear as a madman or a Hitler out to dominate the world. As mentioned above, he spoke with calm, self-assurance. He knows his geo-politics. He is aware that China has overtaken the US economy, and that India is in third place. It is a new world, and the West must learn to live with it. Tucker Carlsen has been criticized for even conducting this interview. Some have even called him a traitor, but we are not at war with Russia, and Carlsen deserves great credit for letting us see the Russian leader with our own two eyes.

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Note: By now it is difficult to find the whole interview on YouTube but it is well worth viewing in its entirety. Here is a link.

Republican Debate Issue: Ukraine

At one point in the recent Republican debate one of the moderators asked the eight participants to raise their hands if they favored sending $77 Million dollars of military aid to Ukraine. Except for outsider Vivek Ramaswamy, they all raised their hands in favor. In effect, they were in favor of escalating the conflict which after 18 months seems mired down in a kind of stand off. 

Not one of these politicians spoke of working for peace in the war torn area. Ramaswamy primarily objected because he thought the money would be better used to ward off the invasion of our own southern border. In this respect they are supporting the Biden administration's failure to use the office of the Presidency to take the lead and work for peace.

Both Ukraine and Russia are members of the United Nations, but so far President Biden has failed to address that body and make an impassioned plea for peace. As far as I know, only Pope Francis has been trying to bring the parties together and negotiate an end to the bloodshed although his efforts have gone largely unnoticed in American media. 

A year and a half ago I put up a post on this blog most of which I believe is still relevant. 

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I do not know what the outcome of the Russian invasion of Ukraine will be, but I do believe that the war and its terrible consequences could have been avoided. Faced with Russian warnings over the past few years, the government of the Ukraine only had to pledge that it would never join NATO or the European Union, or allow foreign troops on its soil.

In other words, while affirming its independence of both Russia and the West, Ukraine would have opted for neutrality in the same way that Switzerland has done for hundreds of years. This pledge would have retained Ukraine’s independence as well as its ability to deal politically and financially with both Russia and the West. A pledge of neutrality would not have been appeasement. It would have allowed the people of Ukraine to live in peace and shape their own destiny. It was worth a try especially now that we see the mounting devastation and loss of life on both sides.

 

The war in Ukraine is a tragic failure of diplomacy on all sides. It is easy to blame President Putin of Russia and call him insane as our media likes to do, but leaders in the West are also to blame for the diplomatic failure.

 

On 3/22/22, the Wall Street Journal, always hawkish on Ukraine, published an interview with Robert Service, a respected historian and analyst of Russian affairs. In the interview he pointed out that in November of last year, President Biden dismissed Russian objections to NATO expansion. Here is an excerpt from the interview:

 

The Russian invasion of Ukraine resulted from two immense strategic blunders; Robert Service says. The first came on Nov. 10, when the U.S. and Ukraine signed a Charter of Strategic Partnership, which asserted America’s support for Kyiv’s right to pursue membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The pact made it likelier than ever the Ukraine would eventually join NATO—an intolerable prospect for Vladimir Putin. “It was the last straw,” Mr. Service says. Preparations Immediately began for Russia’s so-called special military operations in Ukraine.

 

People will remember President Biden’s history of meddling in Ukrainian affairs as Vice President during the administration of President Obama. He even bragged about bullying the government of Ukraine by threatening to cut off U.S. aid unless it agreed to dismiss a prosecutor investigating corruption in the Ukrainian energy company whose board of directors included his own son, Hunter, who somehow got the high paying post with no experience or qualifications. Ironically, President Trump was impeached by Democrats because of a phone call to Ukrainian President Zelensky asking him to investigate corruption.

 

The Biden administration can now add the war in Ukraine to its growing list of failures which are too numerous to recount here. Any policy that results in war with its attendant destruction, loss of life, and displacement of millions of people must be regarded as a failure despite the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian people.

 

I also blame Democratic politicians in this country for spending the four years of the Trump administration constantly harassing the President over a Russia collusion hoax that effectively hindered the President of the USA from coming to any kind of peaceful arrangement with Russia over the status of Ukraine. ***

Remember that President Trump was a critic of NATO and its expansion. He even went so far as to question its existence especially since the European partners seemed unwilling to bear the financial burden. Nevertheless, NATO went so far as to include tiny countries on Russia’s border like Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania as members. Does anyone seriously believe that the USA will go to war if those countries are invaded?

 

Of course, Vladimir Putin of Russia must bear the lion’s share of the blame for the tragedy in Ukraine no matter how the war turns out. It seems to me that he could have used Russia’s vast energy reserves as a much more potent weapon than his military. Ukraine and Europe are dependent on Russia for energy. Despite the long-standing animosity between Russia and Ukraine, they still could have worked together for each other’s benefit.

 

Despite his heroism in the current crises, President Zelensky could have and should have found a peaceful resolution to allay Putin’s fears. Looking at things now, what did he gain by signing the Strategic Partnership Pact with the USA last November?

 

 

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***Note. The publication of the Mueller and Durham reports have demonstrated that not only was the charge of Russian collusion on the part of Donald Trump a hoax, but also it was a charge fabricated by his Democratic opponents.

Armageddon: the Big, Big Issue

  

                                

Recently, at a political fundraiser, President Biden warned that the war in Ukraine has brought us closer to nuclear Armageddon than we have been since the Cuban Missile crisis of over 60 years ago. Younger readers may not know that shortly after the Communist revolution in Cuba, the then Soviet Union placed nuclear weapons in Cuba during the administration of President Kennedy. Although young and inexperienced, Kennedy was vigorous and surrounded by capable advisors. Fortunately, both sides stepped back and a nuclear Armageddon was avoided.

Now, President Biden claims that Armageddon again threatens because of the war in Ukraine. We have reached this situation under his watch. He has been President for almost two years and can no longer blame ex-President Trump. Neither can he blame the Republican party since they control neither House of Congress. He does blame President Putin of Russia, but Biden is leader of the free world. Any war represents a failure of diplomacy. Even without a nuclear exchange, the death and destruction on both sides in Ukraine is a colossal diplomatic failure on the part of the Biden administration.

No matter what you think about Donald Trump, we did have four years of peace during his term. It is true that we had the pandemic but we had peace. It is a disgrace that he did not get the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the Abraham accords in the Middle East. Although the claims of Democrats that Trump colluded with Russia have now been proven to be a hoax, what President Trump actually did seemed to do the job. During his administration there was no Russian invasion of Ukraine.

You may remember that during the previous Obama/ Biden administration, Russia invaded and took over part of Ukraine with virtually no opposition. During that administration Vice-President Biden had been put in charge of Ukrainian affairs.  Among other things he threatened to withhold all aid to Ukraine unless the government dismissed an official investigating corruption. At the same time, his son, Hunter Biden, got a very lucrative sinecure with a Ukrainian energy firm.

Now fast-forward to today’s Biden administration. I still believe that the Biden administration must bear much of the blame for the war in Ukraine. About this time last year President Biden publicly announced that he saw no reason why Ukraine should not be considered for membership in NATO. These words were a provocation to Russia. We were threatening to place NATO forces and weapons smack up against the Russian border. Moreover, the entrance of Ukraine into NATO would have committed US forces to the defense of that country.

Just months after President Biden’s announcement, President Putin responded with a massive invasion of Ukraine, something that he had declined to do during the four years of the Trump administration. If you think that peace was maintained during the Trump era by collusion with Russia, then let’s have more collusion. 

Since the inception of the bloody conflict that now even threatens a catastrophic nuclear exchange, what has the Biden administration done? Has the President emerged as a passionate voice for peace? Has he called for negotiations to end the conflict? No, he has taken sides and step by step has participated in the escalation of the conflict to the point where he now raises the specter of Armageddon. 

During the Cuban Missile Crisis we were on the brink of nuclear war when Russian nuclear missiles were placed in Cuba 90 miles away from our border. Now, we are shipping potent missiles to Ukraine right on the Russian border. Back then, a young President Kennedy negotiated a settlement to bring us back from the brink. Now that our aged President has raised the specter of Armageddon, it is time for him to also step back from the brink, and stop escalating the conflict. 

The conflict in Ukraine is the big, big issue facing us today. It is such more serious than climate change, crime, inflation, the border, or abortion. A recent alarming news item indicated that we have just sent almost 5000 American soldiers to the Ukrainian border. What's next?

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Ukraine: a Civil War?

My guess is that Russia’s Vladimir Putin regards the conflict in Ukraine as a Civil war, and not as an invasion of a neighboring country. Unlike others who guess at his motives, I don’t think he is a madman, or a Hitler out to conquer the world. In other words, I believe that for Putin Ukraine has been an integral part of Russia for over 500 years, and that the separation after the recent collapse of the Soviet empire was a dangerous mistake, politically, economically, and militarily.

Looking through an atlas of European history, I noticed that only about the time that Christopher Columbus discovered a New World does the name  Russia appear on the map. Before that it was called Muscovy since in the later Middle Ages, a people from the area of what is now Moscow began to travel, explore, and trade down the great Russian rivers that emanated from the nearby Valdai hills, and that eventually brought them to the Baltic, the Black, and Caspian seas.

The history of Russia under the Czars (Emperors) is a history of conflict with the tribes and peoples they encountered along these rivers, all of whom they eventually brought under subjugation. Eventually, they came up against more powerful opponents like the vast Kingdoms of Lithuania and Poland, as well as the mighty Ottoman or Turkish empire. Thumbing through the atlas I could see that by the nineteenth century  Lithuania and Poland had largely been absorbed by the Russian empire, and that the Ottoman empire was shrinking. 

On none of these maps does the word Ukraine appear. It and its people were always considered a part of the Russian empire. Although the Communist revolution of 1917 did not alter the imperial policy of the Czars, the Soviet leaders did create the fiction of an independent collection of popular republics, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Only then does Ukraine, the land of the Ukrainian people, appear on the map. Nevertheless, like all these Soviet republics, it was ruled with an iron hand by the Communist party leadership in Moscow.  The despotism of Joseph Stalin led to the starvation of millions of Ukrainians before WWII. After the war,  Ukraine became a member of the UN but still remained subject to Russian laws and control.

In 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Empire, Ukraine shook off its legal ties with Russia, but its government still had close ties with Russia. It agreed, to return the nuclear missiles placed there by the Soviet Union back to Russia in exchange for guarantees of its security. It established close economic ties with Russia and became a major importer of Russian oil and natural gas. 

I am not able to describe what happened in Ukraine after 1991 that led to the present conflict. I do know that there was graft and corruption as wealthy oligarchs profited from the breakup of Communist industries in both Russia and Ukraine. I also know that during the Obama administration, Vice-President Joe Biden was put in charge of US relations with Ukraine. Not only did his son land a lucrative position with a Ukrainian energy company, but also, Biden bragged about holding up a huge aid package to Ukraine until its government removed a prosecutor investigating corruption, an interference in another country’s affairs that seems far more impeachable than President Trump’s famous call to President Zelensky. *

In any event, during the Obama administration Vladimir Putin took the opportunity to reclaim some territory given up in the 1991 agreement. He was quiet during the Trump administration but shortly after President Biden declared last November that he would welcome Ukraine’s admission in NATO, he launched the current military invasion. It seems obvious today that Ukrainian independence had become a more and more bitter pill for Putin to swallow. 

As noted above I believe that Putin regards the current conflict as a Civil war, and , as such, it is no one else’s business. I am reminded of our own Civil War. In 1860 the election of Abraham Lincoln led the Southern states to secede from the Union almost immediately upon his inauguration. Lincoln raised a large army, not to abolish slavery, but to quell a rebellion and bring the seceding states back into the Union. He and his advisors must have thought it would be a brief conflict, but the war turned out to be a long, drawn out affair with over 650000  casualties. 

I wonder whether Lincoln, if he  could have foreseen the death and destruction, might have allowed The South to secede. Looking back, we can see that time and technology would have put an end to slavery in a few years. Rather than creating a more perfect union, the war only inflamed and prolonged sectional animosities.

I believe that Vladimir Putin has made a great mistake in attempting to regain the Ukraine for Russia. Even if he wins the war, the death and devastation will be enormous. He may conquer the country, but he will never gain the friendship and loyalty of the conquered people.  Time and technology could eventually have created a working relationship between Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine was Russia’s best customer. Why bomb your best customer?

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* I am still waiting for the book that will examine the role of Vice-President Biden in the affairs of Ukraine during the administration of President Obama. 

Russia, the USA, and Ukraine

In going through the archives of The Weekly Bystander today, I came across this strangely prophetic post, dated 2/13/2015 during the last year of the Obama administration, about the war in Ukraine. Today, I underline some especially prescient remarks. 

In an interview in last Saturday's Wall Street Journal General Frederick B. Hodges, commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe, made the case for military aid to the Ukraine and for an increased NATO involvement. Nevertheless, the General made some admissions that make one wonder if there might be another alternative. 

The General argued that Russia is preparing for war some five or six years in the future with some unspecified enemy. He believed that the Russians regard China as their greatest threat but that at the same time noted that they were conducting simulations of a nuclear attack on the United States. He did not mention that they might be concerned with the threat of Islamic fundamentalism all along their southern borderlands. *

To counter the Russian threat the General pointed out that our own resources are stretched thin. Nine out of ten of our divisions are currently engaged in missions all over the world. The General insisted that we cannot act on our own anymore and must rely increasingly on our allies. However, our NATO allies have not and will not live up to their treaty commitments. Only four of them dedicate more than the required 2% of GDP to defense spending. **

Finally, the General admitted that we need a strategy and that military aid to the Ukraine or any other country does not by itself constitute a strategy. He asks that we consider the outcome we want to achieve in the Ukraine.  Do we really want the Ukraine to become a battlefield where millions might die? Do we want a city like Mariupol on the Black Sea to become a desert like Mosul?

Why can't we consider Russia as an ally and not an enemy? Instead of confronting Russia with NATO, why not guarantee that an independent Ukraine will never be part of NATO. The Ukraine provides Russia with millions of customers for its vast energy reserves. After all, both the US and Russia will more and more have to deal with the growing power of China, as well as with radical Islam. 

The Journal has launched a barrage of editorial comment against Russia in the past week. One op-ed suggested that a military buildup is not necessary because we could crush the Russians economically with increased sanctions and low oil and gas prices. This is another dangerous suggestion since if we drive the Russians to the wall, they might become desperate. Why isn't a strong Russia to our advantage? If we think economic sanctions hurt the Russian oligarchs, what do we think they will do to the ordinary Russian citizen.

Journal columnist Bret Stephens, a longtime proponent of arming the Ukrainians, even quoted and praised a practically insane statement by U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham who claimed that he did not know what the outcome of military intervention would be, and did not care how many Ukrainians or Russians might die, or even if we lost. All that mattered was that the US not back down and appease Putin. ***

It would be so much less costly in terms of men and money to bring the Russians into NATO than to confront them with a flaming sword on their historical Western front. It would be better to have a strong, economically viable Russia as an ally rather than an enemy in the ongoing war against radical Islam.

Notes:

*Before the recent invasion, Russia apparently made a deal with China.

** Readers will remember that not only did President Trump try to make NATO live up to its treaty obligations, but also, that his efforts to strike a deal with Russia were hampered by incessant partisan attacks claiming that the 2016 election was stolen by the Trump campaign's collusion with Russia.

*** Lindsay Graham is still a senator from South Carolina.

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Ukraine: Who's to Blame?

I do not know what the outcome of the Russian invasion of Ukraine will be, but I do believe that the war and its terrible consequences could have been avoided. Faced with Russian warnings over the past few years, the government of the Ukraine only had to pledge that it would never join NATO or the European Union, or allow foreign troops on its soil.

 

In other words, while affirming its independence of both Russia and the West, Ukraine would have opted for neutrality in the same way that Switzerland has done for hundreds of years. This pledge would have retained Ukraine’s independence as well as its ability to deal politically and financially with both Russia and the West.  A pledge of neutrality would not have been appeasement. It would allow the people of Ukraine to live in peace and shape their own destiny. It was worth a try especially now that we see the mounting devastation and loss of life on both sides.

 

The war in Ukraine is a tragic failure of diplomacy on all sides. It is easy to blame President Putin of Russia and call him insane as our media likes to do, but leaders in the West are also to blame for the diplomatic failure.

 

On March 22, the Wall Street Journal, always hawkish on Ukraine, published an interview with Robert Service, a respected historian and analyst of Russian affairs. In the interview he pointed out that in November of last year, President Biden dismissed Russian objections to NATO expansion. Here is an excerpt from the interview:

 

The Russian invasion of Ukraine resulted from two immense strategic blunders; Robert Service says. The first came on Nov. 10, when the U.S. and Ukraine signed a Charter of Strategic Partnership, which asserted America’s support for Kyiv’s right to pursue membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The pact made it likelier than ever the Ukraine would eventually join NATO—an intolerable prospect for Vladimir Putin. “It was the last straw,” Mr. Service says. Preparations Immediately began for Russia’s so-called special military operations in Ukraine.

 

People will remember President Biden’s history of meddling in Ukrainian affairs as Vice President during the administration of President Obama. He even bragged about bullying the government of Ukraine by threatening to cut off U.S. aid unless it agreed to dismiss a prosecutor investigating corruption in the Ukrainian energy company whose board of directors included his own son, Hunter, who somehow got the high paying post with no experience or qualifications. Ironically, President Trump was impeached by Democrats because of a phone call to Ukrainian President Zelensky asking him to investigate corruption.

 

The Biden administration can now add the war in Ukraine to its growing list of failures which are too numerous to recount here. Any policy that results in war with its attendant destruction, loss of life, and displacement of millions of people must be regarded as a failure despite the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian people.

 

I also blame Democratic politicians in this country for spending the four years of the Trump administration constantly harassing the President over a Russia collusion hoax that effectively hindered the President of the USA from coming to any kind of peaceful arrangement with Russia over the status of Ukraine. Remember that President Trump was a critic of NATO and its expansion. He even went so far as to question its existence especially since the European partners seemed unwilling to bear the financial burden. Nevertheless, NATO went so far as to include tiny countries on Russia’s border like Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania as members. Does anyone seriously believe that the USA will go to war if those countries are invaded?

 

Of course, Vladimir Putin of Russia must bear the lion’s share of the blame for the tragedy in Ukraine no matter how the war turns out. It seems to me that he could have used Russia’s vast energy reserves as a much more potent weapon than his military. Ukraine and Europe are dependent on Russia for energy. Despite the long-standing animosity between Russia and Ukraine, they still could have worked together for each other’s benefit.

 

Despite his heroism in the current crises, President Zelensky could have and should have found a peaceful resolution to allay Putin’s fears. Looking at things now, what did he gain by signing the Strategic Partnership Pact with the USA last November?

 

 

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Ukraine Again

 

                                             

In March 2014 during the Administration of President Obama I wrote the following post on the Ukraine. Of course, I did not know how deeply then Vice-President Biden and his son were involved in the Ukraine. Nor could I have imagined how two years later a "Russian Collusion Hoax" that originated in the Presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, would dominate the news throughout the term of President Trump, and prevent him from making any progress with Russia. Nevertheless, much of what I wrote is still relevant in the current crisis in the Ukraine. 

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I still remember playing the game of “Risk” as a child more than 60 years ago. It was, and still is, a popular board game where the object was to conquer the world. It could be played by two or more combatants who initially drew cards containing the names of different countries or regions. Players would plant one of their armies on each country they had picked and then would proceed to attack neighboring countries by rolling dice.

Success with the dice was important but it was still a game of strategy. You could be cautious or daring and each strategy had its risks. It seemed to me at the time that it was better to control small areas, protect your home base, and marshal your forces together rather than spreading yourself too thin over the whole board.

Russia, for example, was so large that it was divided up into a number of regions with strange sounding names. Controlling that vast area was virtually impossible until you had gained an overwhelming superiority over your opponent. I distinctly remember that one of those regions was called Ukraine. It was completely land-locked and surrounded by a host of countries from which it could be easily attacked.

Today, I find it hard to believe that the Wall Street Journal, my favorite newspaper, is beating the drums for a very aggressive US posture on the Ukraine. It seems that not a day goes by without an editorial or an op-ed calling for the US to get involved in the Ukraine.  What kind of madness is this? The Ukraine is a next-door neighbor to Russia and we are about 6000 miles away. The Ukraine became an independent country with the break up of the Soviet Union only a short time ago.  Historically, it has always been dominated by its powerful neighbor to the East. 

Nevertheless, ever since it became an independent republic NATO and the European Union have been trying to incorporate the Ukraine into their orbit for what reason I cannot say. Both we and the Europeans have been thumbing their noses at the Russians and literally forcing them to take action. The Wall Street Journal always applauds when two companies bid against each other to acquire another company. Yet, when Russia outbid the Europeans for the Ukraine and its assets, the Journal cried foul. 

Now, the Journal and others demonize Vladimir Putin and call him a dictator. Yet since when have we opposed dictators, even those near our doorstep? We have allowed a brutal dictatorship in Cuba for over 60 years, and we will do nothing to topple the one that has ruled and ruined Venezuela for over a decade. We support practically every dictator on the continent of Africa.

Despite media attacks on Putin it would appear that both Russians and Ukrainians today enjoy a greater degree of freedom than at any time over the past 100 years. Recently former chess champion and political commentator Gary Kasparov wrote that the way to punish Putin was to threaten the investments of Russian millionaires in the West. Wealthy Russians did not buy luxury homes in New York and San Francisco during the Stalinist era. 

In another recent Journal op-ed Matthew Kaminski argued that the recent revolution in the Ukraine created an environment that was an embarrassment to the Russian dictator. He mentioned new Ukrainian leaders who wait on line like everyone else at airports, who take the subway to work, or who stand in line in the government cafeteria. Kaminski contrasted such leaders with those in repressive Russia, but when he returns home from Kiev, he will be hard pressed to find any American politicians flying economy or taking the subway to work. Is President Obama a dictator because he flies in luxury aboard Air Force One? I doubt if ultra liberal mayor Di Blasio takes the subway to work each day.

At about the same time I was playing “Risk” as a boy President Eisenhower warned against the military industrial complex in this Nation and also argued that this country should never get involved in a land war on the continent of Asia. We have repeatedly ignored this advice to our great harm. Now we are sending planes and war ships into Lithuania and the Baltic Sea right into Russia’s front yard.  This could be far more serious than the mess we have created in Afghanistan where all we had to deal with was neighboring Pakistan.

We cannot and should not be the world’s policeman. When we have tried we have often done more harm than good. We deposed a dictator in Iraq but does anyone know how many Iraqi lives were lost in the process? You could even argue that despite their obvious political differences, our last two Presidents have de-stabilized the entire Middle East. Do we want to do the same in the great borderland between Europe and Asia?  After all, what is NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, doing in the Ukraine? Any child looking at a “Risk” board would see that the Ukraine is far from the North Atlantic.

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Trump, Biden, and Ukraine

Ukraine is Weak

After two and a half years of relentlessly calling for the impeachment of President Trump, the Democrats have finally found an offense that might come under the heading of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” In a July 25 phone conversation with recently elected Ukrainian President Zelensky, President Trump asked his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. In addition, he asked him to look into the activities of former Vice-President Joe Biden and his son involving corruption in the Ukraine itself.

As everyone must know by now, President Trump’s conversation was leaked to a House committee chaired by Democrat Adam Schiff. The outcry prompted the White House to release a transcript of the conversation. Here is what President Trump said in paragraph 7 of the transcript. 

I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike… I guess you have one of your wealthy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you’ve surrounded yourself with some of the same people.

President Trump’s request “to do us a favor” came only after effusive personal and political compliments from the Ukrainian President who repeatedly expressed his willingness to cooperate with the United States in many matters.

I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.

Apparently, President Trump took these remarks about cooperation as an invitation to bring up the question of Ukrainian influence in the 2016 election that, of course, had occurred before Zelensky was elected.

The Ukrainian President responded that he was more than willing to look into the matter. 

Yes it is very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President, it is very important and we are open for any future cooperation. We are ready to open a new page on cooperation in relations between the United States and Ukraine. … I also plan to surround myself with great people and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly. That I can assure you.

Apparently pleased with these remarks, President Trump then raised a related issue about past Ukrainian corruption. 

Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. …The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me.

These are the two statements that have led House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to open the doors into a formal impeachment inquiry. The first charge can be dismissed out of hand. For two and a half years the Democrats have been clamoring for an investigation of foreign influence in the 2016 election. How can President Trump be blamed for now asking the recently elected Ukrainian President to investigate his country’s involvement? 

The second statement is more serious. Can the President of the United States ask a foreign government to investigate charges of political corruption in its country that might involve an American political opponent? Does that constitute a “high crime and misdemeanor?”

It is hard to doubt that President Trump had a political motive for seeking information on the activities of Vice-President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, in the Ukraine during the administration of President Obama. Nevertheless, why shouldn’t a President be able to seek information on what happened to more than a billion dollars of aid that the United States gave to Ukraine during the previous administration? 

Commentators have been complaining that President Trump has sat on almost a half billion dollars of aid to Ukraine for months but it is undeniable that during the Obama administration, Vice-President Joe Biden bragged about withholding a billion dollars of aid to Ukraine until that country dismissed a prosecutor investigating a company that employed Biden’s son as a director with a $600000 annual salary.

President Zelensky openly admitted that Ukraine’s prior government had been full of corruption. Why would it be wrong for President Trump to ask for an investigation to see if prior aid to Ukraine had been misused before releasing any more funds?

Although the Democrats in the House of Representatives will proceed with impeachment of President Trump, it would appear that the political damage to Joe Biden will be much greater. He was already losing ground in the polls and this latest revelation will be hard to deal with in upcoming debates. How will he explain that while he was in charge of investigating corruption in Ukraine, his own son received an annual salary of $600000 from the very company that was under investigation?

Ukrainian Scorecard

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Trump Impeachment Joke

Presidents Zelensky and Trump

At the end of my last post I engaged in a little conspiracy theorizing of my own. I admitted that I had been naive in hoping, after President Trump's inauguration over two and a half years ago, that people would look at the deeds of his administration and "not his words, or past behavior." Although opposition politicians and liberal commentators were claiming that the Trump Presidency would not last more than a few weeks, or that the country would go down the drain, I thought it best to wait and see. But now, 

  I have come to believe that the whole Russia collusion issue was just a smoke screen designed by the President’s opponents to drive any Trump achievements off the headlines. Now that the Mueller investigation has turned up nothing, the opposition has come up with other headline grabbing issues like Insanity, White Supremacy, and even Impeachment.

Sure enough, Impeachment has reared its head as a result of the leaking of a document from a whistleblower in the intelligence community about President Trump's conversation with the President of the Ukraine, himself a former popular comedian. Even though Progressives in the Democratic party have been clamoring for President Trump's impeachment from day one, Nancy Pelosi, their leader in the House of Representatives, had held out against impeachment. 

Apparently, she finally had to bow to the pressure. Immediately, the media had to jump on board. My local newspaper threw all caution to the winds with a long lead editorial supporting impeachment. I read the editorial and could not find among the verbiage any real grounds for impeachment. I wrote the following to the newspaper.

In a lengthy editorial the CT Post strongly supported the impeachment of President Trump. It claimed that since his inauguration the President has engaged in self-enrichment and obstruction of justice. I am a longtime subscriber but do not recall reading anything in the past two and a half years in the paper that details these charges.

Please provide the evidence for self-aggrandizement and obstruction of justice that amount to “high crimes and misdemeanors” especially since the exhaustive Mueller report found none. 

The paper printed the letter today under another lengthy editorial that included some of the President’s misdeeds. Although the paper did not mention “high crimes and misdemeanors,” it did claim “there is already a mountain of evidence implicating President Donald Trump with conduct far outside the accepted norms of a democratic leader.”

Here is the mountain of evidence. 

For instance, the U.S. Constitution forbids federal officeholders from receiving any gifts or payments from foreign entities, but in the same phone call with the Ukrainian President we see evidence that Trump is in violation. “I stayed in the Trump Tower,” President Volodyrmyr Zelensky says of his last trip to the U.S. Since Trump never divested himself from his business and continues to profit from it, he is in violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, according to many legal scholars, and it’s just one of countless examples on that score.”

Of course, not one of the countless examples is listed. Next, the editorial states that the Mueller report found “multiple occasions when the President apparently obstructed justice” but also fails to point out any of the occasions.

The mountain of evidence seems more like the proverbial molehill. A visiting dignitary checks into the Trump Tower and that represents a violation of the Constitution. I wonder if any foreign dignitaries put Heinz Ketchup on their hamburgers when visiting the country when John Kerry was Secretary of State. Would it have been a violation of the Constitution if President Trump had accepted an invitation from President Zelensky to watch him perform at a comedy club in Kiev?  

If the Democrats want to find self-aggrandizement in office holders, they just have to look in the mirror.  How did ex-President Obama, a former community organizer, manage to buy a $14 Million vacation home in trendy Martha’s Vineyard? How did former Vice-President Biden’s son manage to get a $50000 monthly salary from a Ukrainian gas company with no qualifications whatsoever? If President Zelensky ever returns to comedy, he probably has found plenty of material in American politics.

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Russia: Friend or Foe

Flaming Sword Insignia
U.S. Army Europe

In an interview in last Saturday's Wall Street Journal General Frederick B. Hodges, commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe, made the case for military aid to the Ukraine and for an increased NATO involvement. Nevertheless, the General made some admissions that make one wonder if there might be another alternative.

The General argued that Russia is preparing for war some five or six years in the future with some unspecified enemy. He believed that the Russians regard China as their greatest threat but that at the same time noted that they were conducting simulations of a nuclear attack on the United States. He did not mention that they might be concerned with the threat of Islamic fundamentalism all along their southern borderlands.

To counter the Russian threat the General pointed out that our own resources are stretched thin. Nine out of ten of our divisions are currently engaged in missions all over the world. The General insisted that we cannot act on our own anymore and must rely increasingly on our allies. However, our NATO allies have not and will not live up to their treaty commitments. Only four of them dedicate more than the required 2% of GDP to defense spending.

Finally, the General admitted that we need a strategy and that military aid to the Ukraine or any other country does not by itself constitute a strategy. He asks that we consider the outcome we want to achieve in the Ukraine.  Do we really want the Ukraine to become a battlefield where millions might die? Do we want a city like Mariupol on the Black Sea to become a desert like Mosul?

Why can't we consider Russia as an ally and not an enemy? Instead of confronting Russia with NATO, why not guarantee that an independent Ukraine will never be part of NATO. The Ukraine provides Russia with millions of customers for its vast energy reserves. After all, both the US and Russia will more and more have to deal with the growing power of China, as well as with radical Islam.

The Journal has launched a barrage of editorial comment against Russia in the past week. One op-ed suggested that a military buildup is not necessary because we could crush the Russians economically with increased sanctions and low oil and gas prices. This is another dangerous suggestion since if we drive the Russians to the wall, they might become desperate. Why isn't a strong Russia to our advantage? If we think economic sanctions hurt the Russian oligarchs, what do we think they will do to the ordinary Russian citizen.

Journal columnist Bret Stephens, a longtime proponent of arming the Ukrainians, even quoted and praised a practically insane statement by U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham who claimed that he did not know what the outcome of military intervention would be, and did not care how many Ukrainians or Russians might die, or even if we lost. All that mattered was that the US not back down and appease Putin.

It would be so much less costly in terms of men and money to bring the Russians into NATO than to confront them with a flaming sword on their historical Western front. It would be better to have a strong, economically viable Russia as an ally rather than an enemy in the ongoing war against radical Islam.

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Ukraine and U.S. Foreign Policy

                                            

In March of this year I wrote the following about the situation in the Ukraine.

"We cannot and should not be the world’s policeman. When we have tried we have often done more harm than good. We deposed a dictator in Iraq but does anyone know how many Iraqi lives were lost in the process of liberating them? You could even argue that despite their obvious political differences, our last two Presidents have de-stabilized the entire Middle East. Do we want to do the same in the great borderland between Europe and Asia?" 

Subsequent events, even last week’s tragic downing of a Malaysian airliner, have only reinforced my opinion that the United States should not get involved in the current conflict. When I refer to recent events, I am not just thinking of the Ukraine.

Consider the new developments in Iraq where we fought for ten years to remove a brutal dictator, and then establish a new government based on democratic principles. It turns out that a Shiite minority dominated the new government and excluded important elements in the population from participation. We even trained and armed an Iraqi army of over 200000 men that seems to have just withered away in the past few weeks in the face of a heavily armed Sunni insurgency.

In Afghanistan I fear the same result and the inevitable return of the Taliban. A recent election drew immediate cries of fraud. At the same time our involvement in Afghanistan has de-stabilized neighboring Pakistan. What would it take for insurgents in Pakistan to gain control of that country’s nuclear arsenal?

The Ukraine has the potential to be even more serious than Iraq or Afghanistan. But do we really know what is going on there? A year ago the Ukraine was in a bidding war between the European Union and Russia, its major supplier of oil and gas. Only a decade before the Ukraine had been separated from Russia after the downfall of the Soviet Empire. Although initially leaning toward the EU, the Ukrainian President eventually took the Russian offer of billions in aid and a renewed energy promise. His decision sparked a revolution that forced him to flee the country. He was replaced by a new government that renewed the overtures to the West. Russian President Putin reacted by occupying the Crimea and now supporting a separatist movement in the eastern Ukraine.

After the downing of the Malaysian airliner Western politicians and influential news organs like the Wall St, Journal have renewed calls for even harsher economic sanctions against Russia. At the same time as they insist on calling President Putin a dictator, they believe that he will succumb to the pleas of Russian plutocrats, the “new nobility”,  when the sanctions hit them in their pocketbooks. Thankfully, no one seems to be calling for an escalation of the arms race in the Ukraine.

I believe that there is a much larger issue involved in the conflict in the Ukraine. American foreign policy must ultimately be based on what is in the best interests of the United States. In both the short and the long run, the real question is whether it is in the best interest of the United States to have a strong or a weak Russia. I would argue that since we cannot police the world by ourselves, a strong Russia is better for us than a weak, strife torn, economically depressed, and fragmented Russia.

The Russian economy today is primarily based on its huge reserves of oil and gas. Energy exports have created the Russian plutocracy who have been forced to send their fortunes out of the country for want of a safe place to keep them in Russia. They are buying Western real estate, sports teams, and masterworks of art. Just the other day Russians were among the major players at Sotheby’s record-breaking sale of Old Master paintings. Russia is one of the leading suppliers of energy to Western Europe including neighboring Ukraine, which has been notoriously bad at paying.

Politically, practically all of Russia’s southern frontier is threatened by Moslem extremists. If we have a problem with terrorism, the threat faced by Russia is much greater. In the east Russia faces the growing economic and military power of China with which it has just concluded a huge energy deal. Is it any wonder that President Putin might be alarmed at the thought of the Ukraine being part of the European Union and even allied with NATO? How far does a country have to be from the North Atlantic not to be part of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance?

For centuries the Ukraine has been within the Russian sphere of influence. The break up of the Soviet Union created a new state where none had ever existed before. Just look at a map of Europe in 1914 on the eve of the First World War and see if you can find the Ukraine. Why should we be surprised if President Putin objects to the presence of NATO forces as close to Russia as Canada is to the USA? If the new Ukrainian revolutionary government has any sense, they will cut a deal with Russia whose energy assistance they so desperately need.

One hundred years ago, in August 1914, a great World War erupted over an assassination in Serbia in central Europe. Over four years millions and millions of combatants and non-combatants lost their lives. The social and economic disorder that followed was even more devastating. If anyone of the leaders who made the decision to go to war in 1914 could have seen the catastrophe that ensued, I’m sure they would not have been so rash. In a modern nuclear war as many millions could be lost in four hours.

A strong Russia would be in the best interests of the United States. Even if there is no war, do we want economic sanctions to collapse the fragile Russian economy and create the kind of political disorder we now witness in the Middle East?  The break up of the Turkish Empire after 1914 has led to a century of chaos and devastation that just goes on and on.

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