Biden stops playing Mr. Nice Guy

Yesterday, Biden stopped playing Mr. Nice Guy by calling putin’s actions in Ukraine genocidal. I think we should prepare ourselves for the US to get involved in this war in a major way. Probably not sending troops into the Donbas but helping to create a “No Fly Zone” in Ukraine is more like it. We appear to be waiting for confirmation of chemical weapons but that’s probably convenience at this point. The jets, drones and anti-aircraft equipment are probably already on their way.

And why now? It’s because putin is declaring himself King of the World:

That’s right, his whole plan all along was to create hardship and pain and to export tyranny. He really is like Morgoth deliberately smashing stability and infrastructure just to make sure that no one can have nice things anywhere.

This is not a case of “it’s a dog eat dog world” and everyone is just out for themselves and that’s the way it always is and there’s nothing you can do about it. We know that’s not true because up until putin invaded Ukraine, there were plenty of countries in the world where the standard of living is high and fruits of democratic freedoms are the norm. There are free and fair elections and if you don’t like your leaders or how the government is misusing your trust, you can vote them and it out of office. Ordinary Russians can only dream about those places. There’s no reason to destroy Europe or starve the countries in the Middle East or Africa just so putin’s campaign of learned helplessness of his subjects is secure forever and Russians never feel bad about being in servitude to his kleptocratic state that ignores their needs. It’s a choice.

That leaves the rest of us with choices too. We can continue to play like smart power and sanctions and diplomacy are going to work. They will, eventually, but not in time to save our asses at the polls from voters who are looking for short term relief by electing long term authoritarians to office.

I don’t think MAGA people really want what that. I don’t think regular working class people who are paying more for everything really want that. They just want it to stop and they’re going to take it out on whoever is in office until they figure out, probably decades from now, that they exchanged high gas prices for Trumpian presidents and governors forever. For some reason, it seems to be impossible to craft a simple elegant message to get passed the Fox filter. I’m beginning to think this is a biological problem. If you are susceptible to Fox messaging, there’s little anyone can do to knock it out of you short of a cast iron pan to the side of the head or decades of increasingly restrictive government imposition on your life while your actual quality of life declines.

In short, we will need to live like Russians before anyone actually gets it and by that time, our MAGA nuts will all be too scared to speak up.

So, we have to take on putin in his own backyard. We don’t have a choice. If anyone has taken my suggestions seriously and listened to the myriad podcasts of all of the putin scholars and Ukraine historians or Russian cultural commentators or political scientists saying over and over again, “Ukraine HAS to win. It’s just that important”, then they would know that this day would come. The decisions are being made behind closed doors. The equipment is on its way. putin thinks the west is weak and won’t take him on. He’s counting on it. He thinks he’s frightened NATO into doing nothing. He may have miscalculated. The west may now becoming around to the idea that their own survival depends on crushing putin into a pulp.

In other news, Kyiv is not accepting visits from German politicians:

That may be surprising but it shouldn’t be. Germany has been a beneficiary of the EU and NATO golden years. It protected its own economy at the expense of other EU countries like Greece and Spain while its bankers took unbelievable risks that contributed to the financial collapse of 2008. In the past 20 years, it has been busily decommissioning it’s nuclear power plants and relying heavily on Russian fossil fuels. Oh sure, solar installations on residential buildings is cheap compared to the US, even when Germany has a lower solar index. But Germany lived for today in the last twenty years and didn’t seem to think too far outside its own bubble. Now, it’s expected to make sacrifices by joining sanctions and a possible oil embargo, and it really can’t at the moment because it failed to plan. Not sure how Germans didn’t see it coming. They have a high standard of living and seem to have an abundance of common sense in other areas. But they don’t seem to have a strategic oil reserve of their own and they can’t withstand loss of Russian oil or LNG. So they are continuing the funding of putin’s war by buying Russian oil.

Not only that but they’ve only offered Kyiv some broken Soviet era tanks and those can’t even be delivered at the moment. Then there is the issue of secrecy surrounding Germany’s partnership with private companies that are manufacturers of heavy weapons of the type Kyiv is asking for. Even members of parliament have no access to the procurement process and no idea as to what’s holding things up. It doesn’t smell good.

So, Kyiv is giving the Germans the cold middle finger.

Not surprised. This war has exposed a lot of weak spots in the world and Germany coasting seems to be one of them. Actually, TFG’s administration with the helpful advice of Russia pointed it out but instead of demanding that Germany pay attention to its vulnerability to Russia, the TFG wanted to exploit the weaknesses and eliminate NATO altogether. Now, putin has finally gotten Germany’s attention.

Well, he should enjoy it while it lasts. His lovely wickedness will be of short duration. Let’s hope the rest of us recover in time for the next election.

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