I know, I know. Monday is foreign relations day. I’m getting there, you’ll see.
There are a lot of conservatives that are not happy about the US’ support of Ukraine. This is not because they support Putin or that they wish ill towards the Ukrainian people. In my opinion, it’s largely related to the corruption links between Hunter Biden and Ukraine.
Ukraine is not an innocent baby nor is it a little devil. Ukraine has a major problem with corruption, one that they’ve acknowledged to their credit but have a long way to go to eliminate. How they got in this state is a whole paper in and of itself. Let’s just say being under Soviet rule for more than forty years did not help.
So, if they are so corrupt why waste the money sending aid? It’s a valid question but the assumption is off. I said they have a big problem with corruption, not that they were rotten to the core. The truth is, Ukraine has made major strides since 2014. War efforts quickly become failures if corruption runs rampant. Ukraine learned that the hard way in 2014 and they have been working to improve ever since..
The question is have they? The answer is yes. Russia may be running this war like a drunk in a Tilt-A-Whirl but Russian incompetence alone cannot account for Ukraine’s successes on the battlefield. No, that takes a military capable of capitalizing on the enemy’s mistakes. Militaries rife with corruption don’t have that kind of competence.
More to the point, Russia showed up with far more stuff than Ukraine even thought about having. Six tank drivers are more dangerous than two infantrymen with a drone. It takes real skill, intent and determination to take on a superiorly armed and armored force. A bunch of yahoos selling off their rifles can’t do that.
Fact is, we’re seeing everything pushed into Ukraine being utilized for the intended purpose. I’m sure some jerk sold a grenade or his body armor – every military has a few such losers. The point is that if Ukraine’s military and government were rife with corruption, we’d be seeing terrorists in the Middle East with HIMARS and Russia would be taking over Kiev. That we’re seeing the opposite points to a nation-state that has gotten its backside in gear.
But that’s only half the story for conservatives. Ukraine was used as an excuse for a sham impeachment. MS-NBC may not play the clip of Biden telling how he literally blackmailed the Ukrainian government into firing the prosecutor that was looking into the scandal at Burisma but I assure you, every conservative, Trump supporter or not, has seen it many times.
Ukraine is inexorably linked to a scandal that infuriates conservatives to this day.
Everyone has their blind spots. I have mine, it just doesn’t happen to be this. Ukraine spent two decades being used as a pawn between Russia and the US. To their credit, they gave up their nuclear arsenal. That doesn’t mean Ukraine was a little angel. You can argue that they didn’t honor the Minsk accords and I think there’s merit to that argument. I also think agreements made under duress shouldn’t be considered binding.
Ukraine isn’t in any position to tell both the US and Russia to get lost. Without US support, maintaining their independence from Russia is problematic at best. Angering the Russians that are right across the border is also a bad plan. Rock, meet hard place.
That Ukraine complied when it had a choice between getting one billion in aid or firing a prosecutor tells us more about the US than Ukraine. That should never have happened. But that’s not what ticks off American conservatives.
The phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is the real problem. This call was used in the first impeachment of President Trump. It’s been dissected to death but the upshot is that this whole affair still angers conservatives and Trump supporters. That Ukraine was indirectly involved does not sit well.
And it shouldn’t. The whole thing stunk and conservatives are right to be indignant. The problem is that it wasn’t Ukraine’s fault or even Zelensky’s. Blaming the pawns when the queen is moving is just dumb. Not saying Ukraine is the lily white innocent but the real villain was elsewhere.
Biden and Ukraine are joined at the hip as far as many conservatives and most strong Trump supporters are concerned. To them, both Biden and Ukraine are peas in the corruption pod. There’s little wonder that many conservatives want nothing to do with Ukraine.
That’s perfectly understandable. But it is not in the best interest of the United States of America.
Biden, absentee as he may be, did not get Putin to invade Ukraine. There is no master puppeteer pulling Russia’s strings – Putin just screwed up. He saw the West as declining – we’re arguing over the definition of ‘woman’ so he has a point – and weak, thanks in large part to the disastrous pullout from Afghanistan. Putin thought he had a golden opportunity and he took it. He was very wrong. Oops.
I’m not going to bother shooting down the inane idea that Biden manipulated anything more complex than an ice cream cone, let alone the Russian Federation. Sure, the Russians are being idiots at the moment but they aren’t that stupid.
If the Republicans know what’s good for them, we’re going to have a couple of years of House investigations into Biden and his son. The war in Ukraine can’t save him from that. That the Democrats only squeaked by in the Senate and lost the House means they no longer have the power to protect the Bidens. They probably lack a lot of the will as well. No war is going to fix that now if it didn’t before the midterms.
No, the Ukrainian War is about Russia trying to maintain its influence and power. It’s now an international war being contained in one nation-state. You’re kidding yourself if you believe that this war isn’t important to US interests both economic and military. It very much is and will be well after it is over.
Biden simply doesn’t matter. He can just eat his ice cream while the House finally investigates that laptop.
