PUTIN COULD CALL “CROOKED,
VOTE STEALING, REGIME CHANGING” BIDEN ALL TYPES OF NAMES
BIDEN’S NAME CALLING
"Since
calling Putin a killer, Biden has progressed to calling him "a war
criminal," "a murderous dictator," "a pure thug" and
"a butcher." It is difficult to recall an American president
using such a string of epithets about the leader of a nation with which we were
not at war."
Several weeks into the war in Ukraine, ABC's
George Stephanopoulos asked President Joe Biden if he agreed with those who
call Russian President Vladimir Putin "a killer."
"I do," said Biden.
Since calling Putin a killer, Biden has progressed
to calling him "a war criminal," "a murderous dictator,"
"a pure thug" and "a butcher."
It is difficult to recall an American president
using such a string of epithets about the leader of a nation with which we were
not at war.
What is Biden's rationale? What is his purpose
here?
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman, to their
eternal embarrassment, called Joseph Stalin, a far greater monster than Putin,
"good old Joe" and "Uncle Joe" when they sought his
cooperation in World War II and the early postwar era.
Richard Nixon toasted the century's greatest mass
murderer Mao Zedong in the Great Hall of the People during his historic trip to
China in 1972. His purpose: establish relations with America's most hostile
adversary — to help Nixon advance a "generation of peace."
But when it comes to depicting Putin, who launched
this invasion of Ukraine, Biden repeatedly reaches for the nastiest of insults.
But why?
"Putin deserves it," say the champions
of a Cold War II. We need more truth and candor in diplomacy. When Biden
referenced Putin in the closing remarks of his address in Warsaw, Poland —
"For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power" — they were elated.
Biden was calling for regime change in Russia,
calling for the people of Russia to administer to the "killer" and
"butcher" the fate he deserves and remove him from power by any means
necessary.
Within minutes of hearing their president go
off-script with his call for regime change in Russia, White House aides and
Cabinet officers were scrambling to assure reporters that the president of the
United States did not mean what the president of the United States had just
said.
Biden was expressing his "moral outrage"
at the carnage Putin has unleashed on Ukraine, they said — and not making a
change in U.S. policy.
For days, the president and his advisers argued
over whether Biden had meant it literally when he said, "This man cannot
remain in power."
Sunday in Jerusalem, Secretary of State Antony
Blinken sought to shut down the argument:
"As you know, and as you've heard us say
repeatedly, we do not have a strategy of regime change (Watchman comment: except
Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Serbia, etc.) in Russia or
anywhere else, for that matter. In this case, as in any case, it's up to the
people of the country in question. It's up to the Russian people."
One problem with Blinken's statement is that the
U.S. has been deeply involved, both during the Cold War and afterward, in
"color revolutions" to effect the overthrow of autocrats we did not
like.
Indeed, when Biden characterizes America's cause
in the world as leading the global struggle between democracy and autocracy,
what is the desired and predetermined fate of the autocrats we oppose, if not
their forcible ouster?
In 2014, the U.S. helped finance the Maidan
Revolution that ousted a democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovych,
in Kyiv. Sen. John McCain and the State Department's Victoria Nuland had both
been seen in the square cheering on the rebels.
A second problem is that Putin is many things
other than the terms Biden used to describe him.
He commands the largest nuclear arsenal on earth
and 10 times as many battlefield nuclear weapons as the U.S. military. He is
the man we must look to if we hope to end the war in Ukraine. For Putin alone
can order the Russian army to stand down or withdraw, presumably a goal of U.S.
foreign policy.
If the president of the United States is the most
powerful man in the world, Putin is up there alongside him, disposing of an
arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles that could bring an end to
Western civilization.
Without Putin's cooperation, the bloodletting goes
on in Ukraine.
How does it advance the goal of getting his
agreement to end the war in Ukraine for the U.S. president to repeatedly call
him vile names?
Already, we have paid a price.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley are finding their secure phones to
their opposite numbers in the Russian government have gone silent.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the
General Staff of the Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov have not been picking up the
phone.
In Moscow, there is talk of severing diplomatic
relations with the United States because of Biden's name-calling.
None of the aspiring peace-makers seeking to
broker a cease-fire or truce in the Ukraine war are acting like this or using
language like that.
President Emmanuel Macron of France, President
Recep Erdogan of Turkey and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett of Israel have not
used the kind of public language on Putin as has Biden.
We see the cost of what Biden is doing; wherein
lies the benefit?
No comments:
Post a Comment