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Zelenskyy – A President Who Loves His Country! And Would Die For It.
“It was a privilege to see a leader in whom honor is personified.”
I write to urge every single American who has not seen the indescribably moving speech of President Zelenskyy and the heart-rending video which accompanied it to please, please watch it, as “those who watched Mr. Zelensky’s address to the joint congressional session won’t soon forget it.”, as stated in an op-ed in this morning’s Wall Street Journal. Here is the full video, with apologies for the nanny-warning of our betters, but this was the best one I could find.
It defied belief, living as we do in the cowardly world of pusillanimous Pajama Boys/Girls like Biden, Harris, Blinkin, Milley, Buttigieg, et al., to see such a leader, again as the WSJ piece referred to, “a leader in whom honor is personified.” As the author went on to say, “the least we can do is have his back.”, a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agree, noting that one can agree with that term without beating the drums of war as so many wildly irresponsible “elites” are doing in Washington right now (referring, obviously, to hawks like Lindsey Graham, and others like him who are ready to send others’ sons and daughters into what is likely to become a slaughter, considering the lunatic cruelty being shown by Putin).
While I urge a full reading of Karl Rove’s piece in the WSJ, linked above, probably the best summary I have seen of the current situation after the speech is found in Powerline, by Scott Johnson, and I am taking the liberty of copying it out here for your convenience; I especially note the links in this article to the two pieces by Victor Davis Hanson which are, as usual, some of the best you will find on the subject anywhere. Here is the link. Here is the column:
POSTED ON MARCH 17, 2022 BY SCOTT JOHNSON IN BIDEN FOREIGN POLICY, RUSSIA, UKRAINE
Z
Z was the 1969 political thriller that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Referring to the political assassination with which the film begins, “Z” stood for “he lives.” I hope that when the Russia’s war on Ukraine comes to an end, “Z” can stand for Zelenksy and his survival will be literal rather than metaphorical.
Zelensky’s appearance before Congress yesterday prompts these obvious thoughts.
• Ukraine is an independent and sovereign country. I support its persistence as such.
• Victor Davis Hanson presents the excruciating choices available to it under present circumstances in the American Greatness column “Zelensky’s classical choices.” He sketches four choices: Salamis, Thebes, Thermopylae, or Melos.
• If I were Ukrainian, I don’t know for which I would opt. What about Victor? He suggests it is too soon to tell (“These four choices depend not just on reason, morality, and emotion, but on the pulse of the battlefield in the next few days”).
• I support the choice of Ukrainians as represented by President Zelensky. If he choose to fight, we should support his desire to fight so long as it is consistent with the interests of the United States.
• Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is unprovoked aggression. Putin himself has been unable to state a reason that can be taken at face value.
• David Goldman invokes the specter of World War I in his Asia Times/PJ Media column “Reliving the nightmare of 1914.” Goldman cites Christopher Clark’s 2013 book The Sleepwalkers. I’m sure the thought is on the mind of many others.
• American interests limit what we can prudently do to support Ukraine’s resistance. How far can we go without provoking Russia into expanding the war or going to war with Russia ourselves?
• The Biden administration’s alleged efforts to “deter” Russia’s aggression were a complete and utter failure. The administration’s denial that it intended to “deter” Russia is pitiful.
• VDH’s “classical choices” column is somewhat clinical in nature. His own judgment is explicit here: “So far Zelenskyy has been brilliant as he expresses his appreciation for Western sanctions and arms. His insight seems to balance his otherwise unhinged demand for far more dangerous escalations—specifically to establish a no-fly zone and thus in World War III style confront, in the air above Ukraine, a bellicose Russia with the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.”
• He provides additional observations in today’s column “10 realities of Ukraine.” His tenth “reality” observes:
It is not “un-American” to point out that prior American appeasement under the Obama and the Biden Administrations explains not why Putin wished to go into Ukraine, but why he felt he could. It is not “treasonous” to say Ukraine and the United States previously should have stayed out of each other’s domestic affairs and politics — but still do not excuse Putin’s savage aggression. It is not traitorous to admit that Russia for centuries relied on buffer states between Europe — lost when its Warsaw Pact satellite members joined NATO after its defeat in the Cold War. But that reality also does not justify Putin’s savage attack.
That still leaves us with the question: What is to be done? I.e., what more is to be done, if anything?
It is, most decidedly, not my usual style to push any particular cause, loath as I am to be seen as one of the virtue signalers so thick on the ground these days, but I am making an exception in this case by urging everyone to help, to the extent they are able, by sending contributions to trustworthy charities who will actually use the money to help the pathetically besieged people of Ukraine survive. Our choice has been Franklin Graham’s Samaritan Purse which has set up a temporary hospital in Lviv, as shown on Tucker Carlson last night. The link for donations is here.
May God please deliver the people of Ukraine from their current nightmare of cruelty and May He punish mightily the savage Butcher of the Kremlin for his war crimes.
Published in General
Hollywood propaganda, as in this case, has always been more effective. Maybe they’ll have him play the saxophone on Jimmy Kimmel next. The sheep will eat it up.
I think it’s interesting that people are afraid to talk to Putin and want Ukraine to surrender or just continue to let him destroy the country and everyone in it–and God knows what Putin will do to any survivors–so he will calm down. I’ve heard many people express your opinion, that the no-fly zone is too provocative to Putin. The no-fly zone will enrage him.
For me, I am far more afraid of the future with a madman’s hand on the infamous red nuclear war button.
My grandson is eleven. I hope we figure out the nuclear war issue soon. And especially how to deal with a superpower that is out of control.
As John O’Sullivan said in the Ricochet podcast, Putin has changed everything we’ve been assuming about nuclear war deterrence.
Every single presently unarmed country bordering a nuclear power has a stake in what the world’s leaders do about this crisis.
Are people afraid to talk to Putin, or are they just too eager to let the missiles fly?
The things you mention are not mutually exclusive. You can talk to Putin, try to reach a deal that doesn’t include surrender and still avoid the escalation a no-fly zone would bring.
I want more jaw-jaw and less war-war.
Anyone still talking about building that golden bridge?
That is quite a gamble. Just giving him Ukraine for slaughter and hoping he will calm down and not take anyone else.
I’m not arguing with you personally. Most of the world seems to think that is the wisest course of action. It’s certainly a respectable position.
And I know the people–Russians and Ukrainians–who die may be better off dead anyway if what I am afraid of actually happens.
It’s all a gamble on what’s going on in Putin’s mind.
And whatever decision we make will affect everything for years to come. If we hand Ukraine to Putin, which is what not creating the no-fly zone does, everything changes.
If Russia is doing as badly as the reports (or were they propaganda?) say, then he’s going to be looking for an exit strategy. They have been working toward some agreement. But I fear the West wants Putin gone so badly that they won’t allow Ukraine to reach any settlement and will keep blowing sunshine up Zelenskyy’s butt. It may be that the West wants both of them gone, and getting them to fight is a way of eliminating both.
I have no idea.
There are so many ways this could go.
I’m thinking that a lot of smaller nations are watching this and feeling threatened. I can see all kinds of new alliances taking shape because being bigger, when you are dealing with the superpowers, is better.
Let’s face it, Putin did not go after a country with nuclear weapons. He went after a country that he thinks he can take in a fight.
I think this war escalates whether we impose the no-fly zone or not.
The world took modern policing gun-control theory as the way to prevent nuclear war. You have to have some sort of license to own a nuclear weapon. Certainly that has worked until now. The State assumed monopoly power over meting out justice.
Every issue we discuss in relation to gun control in this country is an issue with international nuclear arms control.
I was looking at photographs of the bombing damage in Ukraine yesterday, and it looked like Syria.
I am convinced that Putin’s experiences in Syria somehow shaped his warmaking in relation to Ukraine. He said to himself, “I can see how this would work. I could do this.”
That’s how ideas spread anyway. Everyone is looking at what he’s doing and thinking, “Hmmm, I could do this.”
I can’t help seeing a similarity between the current Republican leadership and the world’s leaders. The current Republicans are afraid of Biden, and that’s why they have let him have his way with the January 6 protesters. They know he is in the wrong. But they are afraid of him. So the Republicans hand Biden the prey he wants in hopes he’ll eat the Republican leaders last. Which just emboldens Biden.
It’s exactly what we’re doing with Putin right now.
Isn’t it more that the current Republicans are basically Globalists and Democrats, and the whole notion of America First repels them?
Not in my opinion. They are afraid of him.
I’m way more afraid of Westerners cheerleading the elimination of financial freedom, they do far greater damage, and by design.
Is mutually assured destruction no longer a thing? Seems like us placing missiles in Ukraine would have made that less of a thing but that hasn’t happened yet. Or maybe it has, it wouldn’t be the first time the Pentagon has lied to us.
This has always been the case. It’s also why one third of the planet is calling for an investigation into what’s been going on in Ukraine that the U.S. and EU is so adamantly opposed to allowing. Why?
I would be grateful if you would kindly point out where these “fawnings” appeared-thanks, Jim
I would say it has changed.
The nuclear-weapons-holding powers are now stuck. Because of MAD, they can’t move. The weapons they thought of as preventing war are actually causing it because no one can move. They are afraid of Russia and of each other.
The war over Ukraine has made that truth something that has to be faced squarely. That’s what John O’Sullivan said that really jumped out at me. His suggestion is that NATO become stronger and that countries build up their conventional forces because that’s how war and conflict will change going forward now.
Until now, the big superpowers, he said, have always stopped short when it came to openly antagonizing one of the other powers. I’m sure it’s my age, but I couldn’t agree more with what he said. It’s exactly how I would paraphrase the last fifty years of war and peace. Putin has changed this. The United States and the United Kingdom and the other members of the UN Security Council have backed away and let Russia do what it wants to do in Ukraine without interfering. What Putin has, inadvertently perhaps, stumbled into is that as long as he doesn’t launch a first strike, he can do whatever he wants. And maybe even then they wouldn’t retaliate if he launched a first strike at Ukraine or someone else.
This is the most serious moment of crisis the world has faced since World War II. Nuclear weapons cease to be a deterrent and become only another weapon in a country’s arsenal.
I don’t know how this story will end, but Putin has changed everything.
I would give anything to have Trump in the White House right now. Biden is making everything worse. He is stupid, unwise, immoral, and I’ve run out of pejoratives.
Note added after I original posted this comment: John O’Sullivan feels quite strongly that Putin is not going to launch attack on Ukraine much less anyone else. I don’t want to leave the impression that John thinks Putin is interested in using nuclear weapons. That was, in fact, the context in which John mentioned the Budapest Agreement. Whether people think it’s serious or not, it’s on the record, and who knows what the United States and United Kingdom would take from the agreement’s existence. Putin can’t be sure either. John doesn’t think Putin is suicidal for himself or for Russia.
Point taken, although I in no way considered my comments to be of the “fawning” type as it is, decidedly, not my nature to “fawn” over anyone; however, you are entirely correct that I did quote some of the comments Rove made approvingly, no question about that.
Like you, I am certainly open to learning more about his corruption but the fact of the matter is that I just do not know very much about his background and have not spent the time necessary digging into his history. Maybe I should have, but other priorities kept getting in the way and I reiterate my previous statements that, in my view at least, his past corruption has exactly zero to do with whether Putin is savagely and cruelly slaughtering women and children and babies and the elderly (for whom I have a special affinity) and further that I see it as nothing short of a minor miracle that the younger people of a nation we are told over and over and over again is rotten to the core with corruption are fighting for their homeland so ferociously. More fiercely, one must add, than 52% of Democrats would do for America in the event of an attack, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll. Again, I am sure open to any information anyone might be able to offer on all this corruption I keep hearing about–seems to me that the Biden Crime Family Syndicate is where most of it has originated, but that’s just me.
You’re just jealous there isn’t a single American politician fit to carry his enormous jock.
Agree 100%.
Utter nonsense. did he have to play nice with our thoroughly corrupt government to get aid and weapons to try and head off this event. Of course. Look in the mirror when you wave your finger about corruption. We in the United States have had far more experience with it.
It seems inevitable to me and there are plenty of lunatics around the world who are watching this theater of horror play out in order to decide whether they will follow suit. The flip side is if Russia continues to be bogged down, as it appears from the best information we have at the time, for which see my # 26, some of them, especially Xi, may start having second thoughts about where they may go.
Straight out of the horse’s A##….
“The Russian people will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and simply spit them out like a fly that accidentally flew into their mouths,” Putin snarled. “I am convinced that such a natural and necessary self-purification of society will only strengthen our country, our solidarity, cohesion and readiness to respond to any challenges.”
“The West will try to rely on the so-called fifth column, on national traitors, on those who earn money here with us but live there. And I mean ‘live there’ not even in the geographical sense of the word, but according to their thoughts, their slavish consciousness,” Putin said. “Such people, who by their very nature are mentally located there and not here, are not with our people, not with Russia.”
Your guy. Putin, threatening to “cleanse Russia” of “traitors. ” Which is anyone who calls his invasion what it is.
That any “conservatives” support this is disgusting. They need to take a long look into what passes for their soul.
Thank you, Jim, for this statement, which captures exactly the way I feel; it is literally painful to watch the videos of the human carnage which this monster has inflicted with his, in my opinion, totally unjustified slaughter of innocent people. He is a war criminal, pure and simple, and should be summarily executed –after receiving the due process of law he has denied the Ukrainian people.
Which conservatives support Putin?
If you understand this, how can you possibly think Zelensky isn’t up to his neck in it? Or is it just a coincidence that so many American swap creatures have children getting rich in and off of Ukraine. Does 10% for The Big Guy no longer matter? How about the Clinton Foundation’s money laundering enterprise in Ukraine. Zelensky was captured by the Clinton orbit way back in 2012.
Are you talking about Zelenskyy?
If so, I disagree strongly. Putin will be brutal to Ukraine if he wins. Zelenskyy is saving his people from living under a Putin regime as second-class citizens. Better they flee to other countries than be subjects of Putin.
Marci, I’m with Drew on this one as (1) the first NATO-affiliated plane which engages the first Russian plane will be seen by Putin as an act of war which could trigger – especially given the madman he has proven to be in the last three weeks– WWIII (Nuclear) and (2) I see no evidence whatsoever that Putin respects anything or anyone and is driven by his dream for a reconstitution of the USSR while he still has some time left.
Marci, I see not a single scintilla of evidence that he is anything close to what most of us would be an honorable person.
I consider myself civilized and I definitely consider Putin to be a madman.
About the most promising thing I’ve read so far it that Putin has begun arresting his advisors. That’s usually a sign of a failing dictator, but who knows how much an improvement his successor would be. In any case, such a development would surely take some time. Meantime, my prayers are with the innocent victims of this senseless war.
Then you take him to court. You don’t destroy his country.
*Yawn*
Zelensky purged Ukraine of political opposition. He’s disappeared whistleblowers just like Putin and the FBI has. He’s no different than the rest of the globalist censor class who lock up or cancel those who question them. Consider who’s feeding you the pudding you’re eating.
As for soul searching: There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Find those who are seeking discernment from the Holy Spirit and listen to what they’re saying these days. Those who don’t are easily dissuaded by false teaching and a savvy enemy who knows how to manipulate them better than they know themselves.