Cynical Publius writes:
OK, let's talk some facts about Ukraine:
1. Ukraine is not a liberal democracy. It is a fascist oligarchy with strong neo-Nazi elements and the mere trappings of liberalism and democracy. (This is true even if the weak-minded sheep with Ukrainian flags in their profiles think otherwise.)
2. NATO and the US promised Russia that NATO would not expand into Ukraine, and by posturing that such expansion may take place, NATO provoked Russia.
3. Zelensky is literally an actor with an outsized presence in American politics and is leveraging Democrats and RINOs to his own ends.
4. The national interest of the US is connected to the Ukraine/Russian war tangentially at best.
5. The US is pouring billions of dollars into Ukraine with little if any accountability.
6. Joe Biden is implicated in a pay-to-play bribery scheme with Ukrainian oligarchs, which Biden bragged about publicly.
One need not be Inspector Clouseau to realize that #5 is not a function of #1 through #4, but is instead a function of #6. What does Zelensky have on Biden, exactly?
Yes, this is deductive reasoning, but some things are so plainly obvious that deductive reasoning is all that is needed to achieve truth.
Fred Hoffman responds:
I agree with a lot of what you post, but I don’t agree with what you presented as “facts” about #Ukraine. I’m a former military intelligence officer and lifelong Republican who firmly believes that we need to enable Ukraine to defeat Putin’s invading army. Here’s my response to what you wrote. I mean no disrespect, but this is how the situation seems to me:
1. Since 1991, Ukraine has come a long way toward becoming a liberal democracy along the lines of Western Europe and the United States. No, they’re not perfect, but they’re also not mired in the Soviet era level of mind-numbing corruption that afflicts most of the 15 former Soviet Republics. (Since we’re on the topic, some could credibly argue that the U.S. isn’t quite the liberal democracy we claim to be, either.)
2. Neither NATO nor the U.S. ever promised that NATO would not expand westward. Even Mikhail Gorbachev acknowledged that. Like Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia (also former Soviet Republics), Ukraine came to realize that it needed to align with the West, rather than with Moscow. For Ukraine, NATO is an insurance policy (as it is for the Baltic states). If Russia did not threaten Western Europe, there would not BE a NATO.
3. True: Zelensky was an actor; so too was Ronald Reagan (for whom I voted twice). Okay, Reagan was also the former governor of California. But he was still a professional actor. But I seem to recall that he was a pretty good president, too. Since February 2022, Zelensky has done a pretty credible job as the leader of a country fighting an existential struggle against an enemy that wants to wipe Ukraine off the map.
4. Vladimir Putin is Hitler 2.0. I say this as someone who has professionally observed what Putin has done since becoming president in 2000. I have been to #Russia. I speak Russian. I have a Russian wife. Vladimir #Putin hates the West in general and the U.S. in particular. Putin does not plan to stop with Ukraine; he also has designs on other NATO countries. (Don't take my word for it; listen to what he says, and read what he has written.) So we can either fight Putin now, indirectly, by, providing Ukraine with the tools it needs to defeat him, or we can fight him later when he finally attacks a NATO country. Which do you prefer? I know how I would answer this question. How we support Ukraine also has implications for how other authoritarian regimes (China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela) behave elsewhere.
5. Not true. Most U.S. aid to Ukraine has come in the form of U.S.-provided military equipment that is tracked by specially trained Security Assistance Officers both here and working in Ukraine. I say this as a former military attaché who has worked extensively with Security Assistance Officers in the Balkans and elsewhere.
6. I honestly don’t know how the Biden family financially benefits from Ukraine. Yes, I know the seedy tale of Hunter Biden and his “job” at Burisma, and about Biden himself boasting about holding up funds until the Ukrainians sacked a prosecutor that Biden wanted gone. But whatever tawdry goings-on may be happening in this respect, that doesn’t change the fact that Ukraine was a peaceful country that posed no threat to Russia, or the fact that Ukrainians are now engaged in a life-and-death struggle with an autocratic regime that seeks to eradicate Ukraine as an independent nation.
Ukraine is not tangential to our security interests; it is at the core of them.
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