Ladies And Gentleman, The President Of The United States, Mr Volodymyr Zelensky
The President has entered the Capital and will give his State Of The Union Address. Oh wait, it's not Zelensky; that's right, it's Joe Biden. Is he really President? You would never know it because one person seems to be running the show; President Zelensky of Ukraine. Everything Zelensky wants, Zelensky gets.
Let's face it, Biden and his administration are showing themselves as a clown show on so many levels, except that their actions are no laughing matter. The latest count is that the United States has supplied some $110 billion to Ukraine, and the tally keeps increasing. The money is for both armaments and monetary support, including money towards Ukrainian pensions, which includes a 20% raise. Are Americans getting a 20% raise? Imagine, America is broke, over $31 trillion in debt and is printing money to keep force-feeding Ukraine.
Social Security is Broke, but American Taxpayers Just Gave Ukrainian Pensioners a Double-Digit Raise
Joe Biden and his compatriots, including many Republicans, keep repeating that they will keep supporting Ukraine as long as it takes, no matter how much it takes. Does that mean 5 years, 10, 15 or 20, and at what actual cost? Ukraine's population has diminished by 10 million in the past year, and they are many deaths and injuries. Has America forgotten Afghanistan and the disastrous pullout in which 13 American soldiers died?
What did the Afghan war cost? The cost to date has been 2.5 trillion dollars, but that doesn't include expenses from now on for those with disabilities and the interest on the debt borrowed to finance the war.
It's sad what has happened to the Ukrainian people and perpetuating the war is only causing more loss of life of innocent civilians caught in a stupid "pissing" contest among the world leaders.
Does America really think that Russia will be defeated? Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, and while not an immense economic power, it is a well-armed nation with conventional weapons. In addition, Ukraine and the West are not totally blameless that this war ever got started. Because Donald Trump dared to meet with Vladimir Putin, anti-Russian hysteria has overtaken American policymakers. At the same time, China continues to infiltrate all facets of American society with barely a whimper from this administration. This Russian invasion of Ukraine could have been avoided.
America and its NATO allies kept pushing and pushing for Ukrainian entry into NATO despite previous assurances from Ukraine that they would remain neutral. From the Russian perspective, NATO missiles on its doorstep would not be tolerable, just like the U.S. would not tolerate Chinese missiles just south of its border in Mexico.
Former Obama Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated in his memoir, Duty, back in 2014 that "trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching." He thought the Americans were "recklessly ignoring what the Russians considered their own vital national interests."
The U.S. thinks very short term, while others, like the Chinese, think long term. A result of the U.S. fueling more war is that now China and Russia are allied, perhaps greater than ever. This a major and dangerous geopolitical shift. That is not intelligent thinking at all by the American administration. Richard Nixon, in 1975 had the foresight to see that going to China and opening it up to the world would create a schism between China and the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, future leaders bent over backwards and transferred production to China, all in the name of cheap consumer goods.
Many in the West don't realize that Ukraine has been involved in atrocities in the eastern region. Members of a far-right paramilitary organization ideologically aligned with the ultranationalist Svoboda party, has led mobs on killing sprees of Russian civilians living in the eastern Donbass region of Ukraine. They have been accused of being involved in "neo-fascist" movements.
The Ukrainians were accused of committing atrocities rising to war crimes in 2014. So there has been an ongoing conflict in the Donbass. Ukraine has not been an innocent bystander, and neither has America.
In 2022, the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, along with Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, voted by a large majority to join Russia in a referendum. It's a fact that eastern Ukraine feels more Russian than Ukrainian. The war would likely not have been initiated if there had been more accommodation with neutrality. Based on past performance, if Biden had lost the last election, Trump would have negotiated peace through strength.
It has also been a problem that the Biden family has been heavily involved in the affairs of Ukraine. The U.S. leadership meddled to support the efforts of demonstrators to unseat Ukraine's generally pro-Russia President, Victor Yanukovych, who was democratically elected. This was also confirmed in a leaked conversation between Victoria Nuland, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of state and the Ukrainian counterpart.
The new pro-U.S. leader Petro Poroshenko was himself corrupt. Still, he initiated an investigation into a dishonest gas company, Burisma, which coincidentally had the son of the U.S. Vice President, Hunter Biden, on its Board, earning millions. Joe Biden intervened and threatened to withhold money from Ukraine unless Poroshenko fired the prosecutor or got him to drop the investigation. He even bragged about it.
The question one has to ask is, what is America's obsession with Russia? Why is America throwing so much money without oversight into a country in eastern Europe? There are so many vital problems in the U.S., from a total invasion on its southern border to an environmental disaster in the eastern Ohio town of Palestine, yet the focus is on Ukraine.
When President Zelensky says, "Jump", America says, "How high". This makes Zelensky the de facto U.S. President.
Everything you say is true. The US has its own agenda for this war, and it's all about US posturing, the vicious flailing of a dying empire.
But back closer to home, Australia is doing its bit to escalate the conflict.
Today (from The New Daily):
"Australia has announced high-tech support for Ukraine on the first anniversary of the war...by providing drones to help with intelligence gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.
"The package of “uncrewed aerial systems” is worth $33 million."
And "Australia has already provided $700 million in support including 90 Bushmasters, 28 armoured vehicles, anti-armour weapons and howitzers and ammunition."
They have stopped even talking about humanitarian aid to Ukraine - which I could go along with.
The initial package, back on 1st March 2022, was announced in a government press statement:
"Australia will provide around $70 million in lethal military assistance to support the defence of Ukraine, including missiles and weapons. We will also provide a range of non-lethal military equipment and medical supplies in response to a specific request from the Ukrainian Government.
"Australia will also commit immediate humanitarian assistance of an initial $35 million to help meet the urgent needs of the Ukrainian people. This assistance will deliver lifesaving services and supplies, including the provision of shelter, food, medical care and water."
When Albanese became PM, he was invited to a NATO (!!!) summit in Madrid, along with his counterparts from New Zealand, South Korea and Japan - none of us NATO members, or even vaguely with any justification to get involved with NATO - which is about the US and Europe trying to keep Russia controlled.
And on a surprise visit to ADF troops in Dubai at the end of June last year, Albo announced further military support for Ukraine:
"He increased Australia’s military support with the promise of 14 more armoured personnel carriers and 20 Bushmaster vehicles."
At that time the media reported that:
"Australia has contributed more than $285 million in military aid, including Bushmaster vehicles and armoured personnel carriers to Ukraine.”
Now, 8 months later, we are up to $700 million, not even counting the new offer of drones.
Does that include the cost of our ADF personnel, who have been stationed in Europe to help with training Ukrainian military forces?
Meanwhile, our health care systems are underfunded and failing - but somehow, when it comes to war, there is never any problem about finding the money. (Same as for our covid response: massive testing, lockdown support, vaccines.)
This is all taxpayer money, being diverted from our true national interests.
We have no reason to consider Russia our enemy, and we should be able to declare a neutral stance, or even take a role in peace negotiations.
I am old enough to remember "All the way with LBJ" back when they were setting up the Vietnam war. And Australia still has basically the same defence policy: Hang onto the coat-tails of the US & hope that they will look after us if push comes to shove.
As back then, I feel ashamed to be Australian. We are a country rich in natural resources, and we could (in theory anyway) develop our own independent foreign policy.
But no, we just join in with the rhetoric of the day, unquestioningly, and do our part to escalate towards a nuclear catastrophe (or at best, a humanitarian one).
I think Zelensky will, like Hitler, a 'fake death bunker' disappearance, and shove off to a warm sunny place once everything goes really upside down. When Washington decides he is a too useless, poof.