Vladimir Putin continues his relentless, brutal, illegal attack on Ukraine, including the murder of civilians. The Ukrainians have been heroic in the defense of their country, but the Russians are slowly but surely grinding them down.
The Biden administration’s fecklessness was best illustrated by their climate change leader, John Kerry. This simpleton recently said that his principal concern about Russia’s attack on Ukraine is that it “could have a profound negative impact on the climate…” Tell that to the mother who’s just seen her child killed by a Russian missile, John.
But what should we expect from this man, John Kerry, who was Secretary of State under President Obama, when Russia took Crimea by force from Ukraine back in 2014. John Kerry’s equally feckless comment back then was “you just don’t in the 21st century, behave in 19th century fashion, by invading another country on a completely trumped-up pretext…” Well that statement really had Putin quaking in his boots! He took Crimea, and has held it ever since.
Look, I was in the room at the State of the Union address last week. Biden SAID the right things about Russia and Ukraine, but his actions have fallen short from the start of the crisis through today.
He’s imposed sanctions against Russia – fine. But at least up to this point, he’s refused to cut off Russian oil to the United States. Why? Because we now import over 600,000 barrels of Russian oil into the United States – every day. This could have been more than offset by the 800,000 barrels of oil we’d have been getting from the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada – except for the fact that Biden killed that pipeline in the first days of his administration. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Biden needs to immediately reverse his self-imposed restrictions on American energy production. His war on oil, gas, coal, and nuclear, has got to stop. He needs to stop listening to Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, AOC, and the other left-wing energy zealots whose policies have taken us from being energy independent (low gas prices at the pump), to energy-dependent (rapidly approaching five dollars per gallon, or more, at the pump.)
And we need to give the freedom-loving Ukrainians the weapons they need to have at least a fighting chance of holding off Putin‘s hordes. President Obama, and now President Biden, had been extremely reluctant to adequately arm the Ukrainians, because they were afraid of upsetting Putin. Well, Putin attacked anyway, and now the Ukrainians are far more vulnerable than they should’ve been, and we and our NATO allies are trying to play catch-up.
Despite far superior Russian firepower, Ukrainians have fought valiantly on the ground, and slowed the Russians down. It’s in the air that Ukraine is getting killed, literally. Stinger missiles are effective against Russian helicopters, but not against high flying Russian planes, which are being used to rain death down on the civilian population.
A pair of Polish MiG-29 Fulcrums.
The Ukrainians need air power. We need to cut through NATO and EU bureaucratic roadblocks, and get them dozens of MIGS sitting in Poland, that Ukrainian pilots have been trained to fly, ASAP. No excuses, no delays, before it’s too late.
Some have suggested that a NATO imposed no-fly zone over Ukraine is the answer. The problem with that, of course, is that enforcing such a zone would likely lead to NATO/US aircraft militarily engaging with Russian aircraft, and widening the war. Putin has already threatened to use nuclear weapons, and that must be avoided at all costs.
The bottom line is, this administration’s fecklessness, and lack of leadership, has predictably resulted in aggression by the world’s worst bullies. Just the opposite of what Ronald Reagan said we should strive for – peace through strength.