I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a US president utter anything quite so cretinous and subversive as Biden’s statement the other day.
How will America respond to Russia’s impending attack on the Ukraine? That was one of the first questions asked at the press conference, and surely it was entirely predictable.
Biden’s coaches must have drilled the appropriate reply into his mind, but their pedagogic efforts went to waste. For Biden effectively encouraged Putin to invade.
“I think what you’re going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades,” he said. “And it depends on what it does. It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do, et cetera.”
And who will judge whether the incursion is minor or major, Joe? For example, if the Russians annex Kharkov, Ukraine’s second largest city, would that qualify as minor? Compared to Kiev, it doubtless would be.
That sends an unmistakable message to Putin: Go ahead, Vlad. As long as you don’t occupy the whole country and hang President Zelensky off the steeple of Kiev’s Saint Sophia, you’ll get nothing worse than a gentle rap on the wrist.
Biden’s craven idiocy reminds me of the old communist dogma about the historical insignificance of any person running a country. History, you see, unfolds according to its own unbreakable laws, and no one can make it deviate from the course thus charted.
Like all Marxism (and any other secular determinism), this is demonstrable bilge. However, if pressed, I might accept that the personality of a leader doesn’t matter very much during an historical lull.
However, during a storm, especially one of hurricane strength, a strong hand on the tiller can make all the difference. If we fearlessly entered the subjunctive territory, we could perhaps suggest that the French Revolution might not have happened had France been ruled by Louis XIV, not Louis XVI.
Had England, France, Germany and Russia had different personages at the helm in 1914, neither world war might have broken out, and the two most satanic regimes in history might not have crawled out of the swamp. And if Churchill rather Chamberlain had been prime minister in 1938… well, you get the message.
It’s vital that a country, and especially an alliance of several countries, should be led by strong, intelligent, resolute men at critical historical junctures. We are at such a juncture at present, and we have a feeble-minded, weak-kneed leftie as the Leader of the Free World.
I’m surprised that only 47 per cent of Americans think that Biden is mentally unfit for the job. Half as many think he’s fine, with the others unsure one way or the other.
Chaps, even Joe’s mother, God rest her soul, would have told you her boy wasn’t especially bright even when he was still in full command of his faculties, such as they were.
Now he is so obviously demented that one has to hope he’s strictly a figurehead, with somebody more competent pulling the strings. A forlorn hope, I know, but dum spiro spero, as the Romans used to say, and the motto of South Carolina still does.
Those who think the Ukraine has nothing to do with them keep repeating Chamberlain’s philistine mantra about that faraway land that’s none of our concern. They, and also Joe, should remember the lines written by two great poets, one English, the other German:
“No man is an island entire of itself; every man/ is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; /if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe/ is the less…”
And:
“Of freedom and of life he only is deserving/ Who every day must conquer them anew.”
Yes I know, Joe, one is a limey, the other a kraut, and neither nationality is on your list of favourites. But strain what’s left of your brain and try to understand that Putin’s aggression isn’t just the Ukraine’s problem. It’s not just her freedom that’s under threat, but also ours.
Ukraine has been sold out by the Germans – go and complain to them about what happens to the poor Ukrainians. The US gave two warnings to the EU in the 1990s – remember what those warnings were? They said that the construction of the euro was a disaster and shouldn’t be formed as planned, and they said that the ICC was an idiotic decision. President Bush offered asylum to Saddam Hussein and his sons, but Hussein, viewing what had happened to Charles Taylor, declined and instead opened the prisons throughout Iraq. Shall we talk about Nordstream?
You are a student of history, Mr. Boot, so perhaps a closer study of the country that is at the heart of Europe is in order.
If you scan the pieces I’ve written on this subject over the years, you’ll find that Germany is never spared her dose of flak. Under several consecutive chancellors she has been playing poodle to Russia with enviable consistency. (Key Nord Stream or Schroeder into the Search feature, and you’ll get the most recent pieces.)
But it’s not just Germany. It’s also Britain, France — and yes, also the US, one of three signatories to the Budapest Memorandum, whose promise she, along with Britain, broke.
“I’m surprised that only 47 per cent of Americans think that Biden is mentally unfit for the job.”
HEY, the Democrats constantly challenged Trump to take a mental exam to see if he was competent. The Republicans should challenge Biden to do the same.
Personally it DOES seem if something is not right. Without being a medical professional AND able to exam the man close up hard for anyone to say categorically he is senile.
Why do you insert indications of line breaks into Donne’s prose?
And I’d translate Faust’s words
Nur der verdient sich Freiheit wie das Leben,
Der täglich sie erobern muß.
as
Freedom, like life, alone he earns himself
who every day must conquer her .
which is better but still not quite right.
But it’s important to remember that in Goethe’s dramatic conversation Faust is intended to be less wicked than Mephisto but still far from perfect.
“I think what you’re going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades.” Mealy-mouthed mish-mash. He *thinks* I am going to *see* that Russia will be held accountable? He should have said, “Russia will be held accountable.”
For four years we heard constant harping that Trump was not tough enough on Russia. Well, now it is the other party’s turn to show us that toughness. Where is it? This administration has no plans other than allowing men to use women’s bathrooms and outlawing the internal combustion engine.
Where do we look for a strong leader? Biden? Johnson? Scholz? Macron? Perhaps the Church will show us the way? I think my keyboard is broken.