Biden Wants the War in Ukraine. Convince Me Otherwise.

 

There’s an interesting piece on National Review today. I have repeatedly argued on Ricochet that Mr. Biden is responsible for, and set up, the Ukraine war.

  1. Mr. Putin invaded former Soviet Socialist Republics under Mssrs. Clinton, W., and Obama, but not during Mr. Trump’s term.
  2. Mr. Biden’s destruction of American energy production enriched Mr. Putin and improved his international leverage.
  3. Mr. Biden’s fecklessness in Afghanistan proved us a paper tiger.
  4. Mr. Biden said out loud to an international audience that we would not respond to “a limited incursion” in Ukraine. I heard it myself.

Mr. Zubrin takes my analysis further and shows how post-invasion US policy has benefited Russia while giving Mr. Biden cover.

So, I say it again.  Mr. Biden wanted this war, likely to cover up his crimes in Ukraine, and he has taken every possible action to allow it to happen and to prevent a Ukrainian victory. Every drop of blood shed in Ukraine is on his hands.

Talk me out of it.

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  1. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Doctor Robert: Talk me out of it.

    Nope. I’m with you. There’s too much there there.

    • #1
  2. cdor Member
    cdor
    @cdor

    I agree. Biden enabled Russia by closing down USA oil production visa vie pipeline shutdowns and lease terminations in the U.S. while simultaneously removing barriers to Russian pipelines to Europe. This weekened the USA and strengthened Russia. Biden did this intentionally. Oil is priced in the futures markets. Biden’s actions immediately affected the price of oil negatively to buyers and positively to sellers as the price per barrel has doubled since he took office. Russia would have tremendous difficulty waging a long-term invasion of Ukraine without the additional revenues created by the bulging price of oil.

    • #2
  3. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    I have two points that go beyond what you are saying but they do not change the basic premise:

    The first, the CCP is just as connected to all the anti-American actions coming from the Biden Administration as the Russians and the dangers are greater.

    The second, not convinced these are all Biden’s decisions notwithstanding the fact that they help provide cover for him and Hunter.

    But this war was a deliberate construction. 

    • #3
  4. cdor Member
    cdor
    @cdor

    The article cited is by Robert Zubrin. I believe he is the same man who had a short stint here at Ricochet. Nearly everything he wrote here was excoriating trash talk against President Trump. I have to say this (I wish Mr. Zubrin were here to read it) but Russia has attacked its former satellite “colonies” under 3 of the last 4  U.S. Presidents.  Trump is the only one of the last 4 Presidents under whose term Russia behaved passively. I wonder why. 

    • #4
  5. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    cdor (View Comment):

    The article cited is by Robert Zubrin. I believe he is the same man who had a short stint here at Ricochet. Nearly everything he wrote here was excoriating trash talk against President Trump. I have to say this (I wish Mr. Zubrin were here to read it) but Russia has attacked its former satellite “colonies” under 3 of the last 4 U.S. Presidents. Trump is the only one of the last 4 Presidents under whose term Russia behaved passively. I wonder why.

    I remember him.

    • #5
  6. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    cdor (View Comment):
    The article cited is by Robert Zubrin. I believe he is the same man who had a short stint here at Ricochet.

    https://ricochet.com/members/robertzubrin/profile/

    • #6
  7. Quietpi Member
    Quietpi
    @Quietpi

    Doctor Robert: So I say it again.   Mr Biden wanted this war, likely to cover up his crimes in Ukraine, and he has taken every possible action to allow it to happen and to prevent a Ukrainian victory.  Every drop of blood shed in Ukraine is on his hands.

    This is my theory, too.  I think LGB and Putin are in lockstep with regard to Ukraine.  I’m not suggesting, today anyway, that they talked it over before the invasion began, but they just as well could have.  It was supposed to be over in a couple days, before anybody, let alone the Ukrainians, had time to put up a defense.  And the U.S. could have done so much to strengthen Ukraine, and make it less attractive to Putin, before the invasion started – and didn’t.  That the Ukrainians put up a fight is problematic, and what aid the U.S. is providing is too late and a dollar short, intentionally.  What there is, is driven by political expediency and nothing more.  

    • #7
  8. Hang On Member
    Hang On
    @HangOn

    I think we’ve been on a war vector with Russia since 2008 under Bush II and have been on overdrive since 2014, long predating Biden. Ukraine is a bipartisan screw-up. 

    • #8
  9. DrewInWisconsin, Unapologetic Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Unapologetic Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Quietpi (View Comment):

    Doctor Robert: So I say it again. Mr Biden wanted this war, likely to cover up his crimes in Ukraine, and he has taken every possible action to allow it to happen and to prevent a Ukrainian victory. Every drop of blood shed in Ukraine is on his hands.

    This is my theory, too. I think LGB and Putin are in lockstep with regard to Ukraine. I’m not suggesting, today anyway, that they talked it over before the invasion began, but they just as well could have. It was supposed to be over in a couple days, before anybody, let alone the Ukrainians, had time to put up a defense. And the U.S. could have done so much to strengthen Ukraine, and make it less attractive to Putin, before the invasion started – and didn’t. That the Ukrainians put up a fight is problematic, and what aid the U.S. is providing is too late and a dollar short, intentionally. What there is, is driven by political expediency and nothing more.

    Well, and money. Lots and lots of money. Zelenskyy is demanding a LOT of money from the West. And given Ukraine’s position as the world’s money laundromat, you can see why the oligarchs of the west are eager to comply.

    Nobody knows what’s happening to the weaponry being sent there, and the people who dare to ask quickly become persona non grata. I’m certain much of it is being sold on Europe’s black markets.

    Even NPR has started asking uncomfortable questions.

    • #9
  10. DonG (CAGW is a Hoax) Coolidge
    DonG (CAGW is a Hoax)
    @DonG

    Doctor Robert: Mr Biden is responsible for, and set up, the Ukraine war

    Hillary (with Biden) toppled the government of Libya for fun and profit.   Throwing $100Billion in (partly) untraceable money at a cause can buy a lots. 

    • #10
  11. DonG (CAGW is a Hoax) Coolidge
    DonG (CAGW is a Hoax)
    @DonG

    Doctor Robert: There’s an interesting piece on National Review today: https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/07/the-gop-is-awol-on-ukraine/

    Reading the article at the link it is just a sales pitch for a particular weapons system.   It is amazing and the US taxpayers should buy lots and ship to Ukraine.   I have seen timeshare advertisements that didn’t sell that hard.   It is hard to take NR seriously, when they are in the business of placing native ads.  

    • #11
  12. Sandy Member
    Sandy
    @Sandy

    I don’t know if this interview is available to non-subscribers to The  Epoch Times, but in May, former Putin Chief Economic Adviser, Andrei Illarionov, argued that Biden could easily have stopped the war and that in fact he signalled that he would not do so.  “Without Biden in the White House, Putin would never invade Ukraine.”  Prior to the outbreak, the administration demonstrated in meetings in Geneva and in conversations in Moscow between Putin and the head of the CIA, that we were ready to cooperate on issues of security, the Navy was removed from the Black Sea, and all this while there were Russian troops massing on the border.   “That can be understood only in one way.”  There is much more from this fascinating man.

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/former-putin-adviser-andrei-illarionov-inside-the-mind-of-vladimir-putin_4448118.html

     

    • #12
  13. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot) Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot)
    @ArizonaPatriot

    cdor (View Comment):

    The article cited is by Robert Zubrin. I believe he is the same man who had a short stint here at Ricochet. Nearly everything he wrote here was excoriating trash talk against President Trump. I have to say this (I wish Mr. Zubrin were here to read it) but Russia has attacked its former satellite “colonies” under 3 of the last 4 U.S. Presidents. Trump is the only one of the last 4 Presidents under whose term Russia behaved passively. I wonder why.

    Trump is the only one who didn’t try to extend NATO and the EU into Ukraine.  Is that what you meant?

    • #13
  14. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    It’s amazing that the ridiculous impeachment proceedings against Trump based on his phone call with Zelenskyy, as insane as those proceedings were, didn’t create inadvertently a rich source of information as to what the heck happened between Putin and Joe and Hunter.

     

    • #14
  15. Unsk Member
    Unsk
    @Unsk

    Damn Straight.  Great Post.

    But it gets worse and is getting worse.

    We are talking now about sending Jets to the Ukraine again and have okey’d Ukraine shelling Crimea with the latest missiles we have given them, a territory which Russia has held for 8 eight years and which considers now  their territory, because of the many Russian Etnics there, a bit I will address down below. We are pushing for a nuclear WWIII, but why? Why are Biden and his puppet masters so hell bent on destroying us all. 

     Spengler has a must read post at PJMedia : “Russia plays the Iran card in response to US Blunders. Some excerpts:

    Russia’s S-400 and S-500 air defense systems are still the best in the world. Russia has sold it to China, India, and Turkey. If it gives Iran its most advanced air defense technology, Israel’s ability to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons capability will be reduced—by a margin that no one knows for sure. 

    Now Putin is turning the screws, shutting off gas deliveries to Western Europe, leaving the Germans to shut down major industries and freeze this coming winter.

    Putin’s visit to Iran was more about show than substance—this time. Everything is negotiable. We have chosen to reinforce Ukraine as a prospective NATO member on Russia’s border with the goal of disabling Russia as a military power, and Russia has responded with its characteristic brutality. For Putin, this is an existential issue for the Russian state.

    An unleashed Iran is a far greater danger to the United States than a neutral buffer zone on Russia’s border. As a nuclear power, Iran will be incalculable. 

    The Russian Federation’s scarcest resource is people. It cannot ignore the 22 million Russians stranded outside its borders after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, nor, for that matter, small but loyal ethnicities such as the Ossetians. Strategic encirclement, in Russian eyes, prefigures the ethnic disintegration of Russia, which was a political and cultural entity, not an ethnic state, from its first origins.

    . If the UN demographers are correct, Russia’s adult population will fall from about 90 million today to only 20 million by the end of the century.

    Under Putin, the Russian government introduced an ambitious natalist program to encourage Russian women to have children. As he warned in his 2006 state of the union address, “You know that our country’s population is declining by an average of almost 700,000 people a year. 

    Russia’s birth rate has risen slightly during the past several years, perhaps in response to Putin’s natalism, but demographers observe that the number of Russian women of childbearing age is about to fall off a cliff.. UN forecasts show the number of Russians aged 20-29 falling from 25 million today to only 10 million by 2040.

    Putin needs those ethnic Russians, that is why Putin will never give up the Donbas.

    •  
    • #15
  16. MDHahn Coolidge
    MDHahn
    @MDHahn

    I really just don’t understand this type of thinking. So Joe Biden convinced Putin to destroy his military in a long slog of a war?

    I’m with you on Biden’s incompetence and his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. That made the world less safe and certainly gave the impression that the West would not stand up to Putin’s aggression. 

    But what should Biden have done? What weapons systems and material should the US provide? Or do you want the Ukrainians to simply surrender and cede a fifth of its land to Russia? 

    Again, I have lots of criticisms of Biden’s foreign policy and think that we should have given more aid to Ukraine earlier and imposed sanctions on Russia earlier. But I think it’s ridiculous to say that he wants the war. To what end? How does Biden benefit from this war?

    • #16
  17. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    Emblematic of the corruption in Washington is the way Rep. Victoria Spartz (R – IN05) is being treated. A native of Ukraine she was the first to call for military help. The establishment immediately saw her as useful. But the minute she called for oversight on the $Bs we’re shipping there the GOP establishment started a whisper campaign against her. Suddenly questioning the integrity of the Ukrainian Government became high treason and she was painted as Putin’s lapdog. And the Dems and their stenographers stepped up to help. 

    • #17
  18. DrewInWisconsin, Unapologetic Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Unapologetic Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    EJHill (View Comment):

    Emblematic of the corruption in Washington is the way Rep. Victoria Spartz (R – IN05) is being treated. A native of Ukraine she was the first to call for military help. The establishment immediately saw her as useful. But the minute she called for oversight on the $Bs we’re shipping there the GOP establishment started a whisper campaign against her. Suddenly questioning the integrity of the Ukrainian Government became high treason and she was painted as Putin’s lapdog. And the Dems and their stenographers stepped up to help.

    Yep. This alone should give us pause.

    I would like Ricochet’s warhawks to explain why we shouldn’t care that so much money and materiel are disappearing into the black hole of Ukraine with no oversight.

    • #18
  19. cdor Member
    cdor
    @cdor

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    cdor (View Comment):

    The article cited is by Robert Zubrin. I believe he is the same man who had a short stint here at Ricochet. Nearly everything he wrote here was excoriating trash talk against President Trump. I have to say this (I wish Mr. Zubrin were here to read it) but Russia has attacked its former satellite “colonies” under 3 of the last 4 U.S. Presidents. Trump is the only one of the last 4 Presidents under whose term Russia behaved passively. I wonder why.

    Trump is the only one who didn’t try to extend NATO and the EU into Ukraine. Is that what you meant?

    Yes, and he didn’t play arrogant games with other people’s countries.  He was straightforward and fair in his dealings with foreign leaders. However, Trump made it clear that the USA was the most powerful country and he intended to keep it that way. If you F with the bull, you will get the horns.

    • #19
  20. Unsk Member
    Unsk
    @Unsk

    I really just don’t understand this type of thinking. So Joe Biden convinced Putin to destroy his military in a long slog of a war?

    Putin has clearly not destroyed his military. They are fighting the way the Russians have always fought. If he has destroyed his military why  is Russia still routing Ukraine / NATO in  Ukraine?  Why is Putin still gobbling up any territory he wants?

    Russia as a result of this war is perhaps stronger financially and geopolitically  than ever in it’s history and Putin’s approval ratings by some sources are close to 80% at home.  Don’t be deluded by the Mainstream Media Propaganda. 

    • #20
  21. Fake John/Jane Galt Coolidge
    Fake John/Jane Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    Not just Biden.  The whole Democrat party.  Maybe even the GOP.  Not sure why, I suspect a lot of corruption and money coming back at them from it.

    • #21
  22. cdor Member
    cdor
    @cdor

    Fake John/Jane Galt (View Comment):

    Not just Biden. The whole Democrat party. Maybe even the GOP. Not sure why, I suspect a lot of corruption and money coming back at them from it.

    Unfortunately, you might suspect it because our government and our politicians have become so corrupt that we don’t trust our elections, our FBI, or our entire DOJ. I have never, in over 70 years, felt this way before.

    • #22
  23. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    UnskPutin has clearly not destroyed his military. They are fighting the way the Russians have always fought. If he has destroyed his military why is Russia still routing Ukraine / NATO in Ukraine? Why is Putin still gobbling up any territory he wants?

    Define “gobbling.” Russia’s armed forces have always been a mess. They are probably the least professional of any major power.

    They have mandatory service but it’s short, just a year long. By the time they are semi-proficient at their jobs they’re back in civilian life. 

    • #23
  24. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    cdor (View Comment):

    The article cited is by Robert Zubrin. I believe he is the same man who had a short stint here at Ricochet. Nearly everything he wrote here was excoriating trash talk against President Trump. I have to say this (I wish Mr. Zubrin were here to read it) but Russia has attacked its former satellite “colonies” under 3 of the last 4 U.S. Presidents. Trump is the only one of the last 4 Presidents under whose term Russia behaved passively. I wonder why.

    Because Trump was sekrit Russian apparatchik obvs. 

    • #24
  25. DrewInWisconsin, Unapologetic Oaf Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Unapologetic Oaf
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Unsk (View Comment):
    We are pushing for a nuclear WWIII, but why? Why are Biden and his puppet masters so hell bent on destroying us all. 

    What better way to bring about a Great Reset?

    • #25
  26. Vince Guerra Inactive
    Vince Guerra
    @VinceGuerra

    Sure he does. So does the uniparty in D.C.,  the international bankers, corporations, and the media. Everyone profits from war…except for the poor people on the ground, or the soldiers. 

    • #26
  27. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Hang On (View Comment):

    I think we’ve been on a war vector with Russia since 2008 under Bush II and have been on overdrive since 2014, long predating Biden. Ukraine is a bipartisan screw-up.

    Or a bipartisan objective.

    • #27
  28. Duane Oyen Member
    Duane Oyen
    @DuaneOyen

    Don’t ascribe to malevolence what can be easily explained as simple idiocy/incompetence.  The thesis of the article presumes a level of intelligence and depth of thought that has never been exhibited by Brandon despite 50 years of observation.

    • #28
  29. Duane Oyen Member
    Duane Oyen
    @DuaneOyen

    cdor (View Comment):

    The article cited is by Robert Zubrin. I believe he is the same man who had a short stint here at Ricochet. Nearly everything he wrote here was excoriating trash talk against President Trump. I have to say this (I wish Mr. Zubrin were here to read it) but Russia has attacked its former satellite “colonies” under 3 of the last 4 U.S. Presidents. Trump is the only one of the last 4 Presidents under whose term Russia behaved passively. I wonder why.

    Well, to be fair, Zubrin is generally right about Trump.  And he is a founder of the methanol economy initiative, which is perhaps the only coherent approach yet offered to the liquid fuels problem.

    • #29
  30. Duane Oyen Member
    Duane Oyen
    @DuaneOyen

    EJHill (View Comment):

    Unsk: Putin has clearly not destroyed his military. They are fighting the way the Russians have always fought. If he has destroyed his military why is Russia still routing Ukraine / NATO in Ukraine? Why is Putin still gobbling up any territory he wants?

    Define “gobbling.” Russia’s armed forces have always been a mess. They are probably the least professional of any major power.

    They have mandatory service but it’s short, just a year long. By the time they are semi-proficient at their jobs they’re back in civilian life.

    It should be noted also that the Chinese PLA is also a mess.  You can’t have a competent on-the-ground military when you are not trusted to train with real guns or ammunition.  PLA is a good government job that Chinese mothers want for their sons, because they don’t fight overseas.  They mostly play soccer on Summer afternoons.

    • #30
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