Why Pres. Biden should visit Ukraine, his moral debt...and why it probably will never happen...
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Dear Citizens and Elected Officials:
May I share a brief dialogue with you, one that actually happened in the NY Times, and then was taken down, with the notation that "the comment you are looking for is not currently available"? (And is still unavailable as of noon, Wed. March 23rd).
I happened to save it all before the Times apparently changed its mind, or someone else outside the Times intervened - and pasted it into my Word Perfect for future use. That future is now.
It started with my comment on the Times' article by Sabrina Tavernise from March 20th, about women's suffering - and valor - in the Ukrainian war: "I don't have the Right to Cry: Ukrainian Women Share their stories of Escape."
Here at : https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/20/world/europe/ukraine-women-escape-stories.html
It fits the main media currents rather well: continual heart rending accounts and images of civilians valiantly suffering and dying, as if the story line won't change until the Ukraine is physically destroyed - and perhaps, as yet unproven, its captives - perhaps even children stripped of their parents - sent off to who knows what in Putin's Russian "homeland."
Readers, I'm getting tired of going along with all this. I like to focus on the leaders in this conflict for the responsibility for the growing tragedy. And when I learned (hard to miss this story) that President Biden would be in Europe this week for a number of high level meetings with NATO and EURO leaders, the opportunity that presents for a quick, dramatic side visit to Ukraine by Biden was also hard to miss.
It's my burdening of Biden and the West in general for their moral responsibility now to stand by Ukraine more forcefully (I've been calling for "boots on the ground" since December) and air cover for as long as President Zelensky of Ukraine has. Because Biden and NATO are adamant they won't risk this to directly challenge Putin's stipulations, some of them wild and some specific, but all wielding the nuclear blackmail threat quite openly - here was a great opportunity for Biden to help himself politically and Ukraine morally and boost it's citizens' morale at the same time.
It also would, for the first time, put the onus on Putin to make some difficult counter move...so there is obvious risk and we don't have to know the how, where and exact when, but if we can still get weapons and food in, we can get a President in - one who failed the test of heading off the invasion by not sending troops in the late fall - December or even January in a way that clearly was not an invasion threat for Russia, but a symbol that we would directly confront a Russian invasion. Instead, we got the Biden pledge to Putin: no wings in the air, no boots on the ground.
Well Mr. President, you have some moral ground to make up to us all, but especially the people of the Ukraine. And Mr. Putin, for once, the next move will be yours.
By the way, it's impossible not to bring in related examples of Presidential visits with some risk in comparable situations: Eisenhower to Korea in December of 1952; Kennedy to Berlin for that famous speech in June of 1963...and as a reminder of how close we have come previously to possible "escalation," the tank to tank face off at Checkpoint Charlie in West Berlin, from October 26-28th, 1961, the opposing U.S. and Soviet armor being 100 yards apart. The Russians backed down. And directly related to my previous posting about an airlift to help civilians in besieged and crumbling Mariupol, I don't recall anyone in American positions of authority bringing up the Berlin Airlift, which unfolded between June, 1948 and May 1949, involving hundreds of thousands of flights by American and British transports to bring in all the vital supplies that West Berliners needed to overcome the Soviet blockade of the city. Chance for escalation? Of course, with the world's greatest military ground force - the Red Army - which had driven the Wehrmacht from the gates of Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad to Berlin itself between 1942-1945, stationed all around to the East.
Here is the dialogue which the New York Times published, and then took away, reason undisclosed. Two readers are very indignant at such an outrageous request...a presidential display of courage and solidarity with the Ukraine.
William Neil
MarylandMarch 20
My thoughts are that Joe Biden should visit the Ukraine this coming week, no matter the risks. It would be both sound political advice to his sinking fortunes, and a temptation to Mr. Putin to do something which would backfire on him. But Biden won't do it: here's why:
https://wordpress.com/post/gracchibros.wordpress.com/205
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4 REPLIES
Carlton commented 2 hours ago
C
Carlton
Brooklyn, N.Y.2h ago
@William Neil "My thoughts are that Joe Biden should visit the Ukraine this coming week, no matter the risks. "
That's unreal, not to mention preposterous.
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Heather Bowers commented 2 hours ago
H
Heather Bowers
Indianapolis2h ago
Ridiculous. Absolutely absurd and unhelpful.
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William Neil commented 2 minutes ago
W
William Neil
Maryland2m ago
@Carlton
Joe Biden has been politically "inert" for a long time, no more shockingly demonstrated than during his July-December 2021 fumbling negotiations with Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who, in my words, "ran the table on a bewildered Joe Biden."
When President Biden finally threw some genuine emotion into the neglected battle to protect voting rights, it was a one-off performance in Atlanta, too little and so late he alienated Mrs. Expand the Base herself - Stacey Abrams, who boycotted the event.
Let me up the ante with you, since you're so outraged: Joe Biden and other leaders of NATO countries, having run the risk of humiliating a former great power by stating that Russia had no claims to anything like our Monroe doctrine ran NATO up to Russia's borders when Russia, in the middle of the 1990's was no threat at all and devasted economically. Now an ugly authoritarian leader, Putin has capitalized and he's willing to physically wreck a nation to bring it back into Russian orbit. The burden for this fiasco does rest ultimately with Putin's actions but there is heavy, demonstrable blame and culpability on Democratic and Republican leaders, including Biden personally, for their misjudgments over 30 years. Will Russians shoot at Joe? He ought to be willing at his age to give it up, which I doubt will happen, and if he is attacked in any way, Putin will have sealed his fate and Ukraine will get its air cover from US and boots on the ground too.
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William Neil commented 2 minutes ago
W
William Neil
Maryland2m ago
@Heather Bowers
What do you tell yourself, Ms. Bowers, as you watch the emotional coverage of blasted buildings, shrapnel shredded mothers and children, and a clear Russian game plan to destroy a nation physically if they can't get it to surrender on its terms? I tell myself that the West now bears the responsibility for this outcome which is day by day eroding the base for negotiations and settlement, because there will be no nation left by the time the bargaining table arrives in a month or two. Biden sealed Ukraine's fate when he told Putin before he invaded that there will be no boots on the ground or wings in the air. Putin took him up on it at a time I recommended sending Western troops to a point South and East of Kyiv - back in December.
Biden won't take risks domestically and won't on behalf of a nation the US has put at risk: the least he could do is put his old neck on the line - and I think it would have - not that he deserves it personally - a beneficial effect for him politically and a real morale boost for Ukraine; that will dissipate though if the people there realize there is no air cover or boots on the ground coming.
Putin has defined Biden's allowable moves just as Senator Manchin did - and I'm sick of his lack of imagination to get out of boxes he needn’t be trapped in.
Biden's no hero, and millions of Ukrainians are going to have to pay for it again, while the West wrings its hands and sends indecisive weapons.
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Best to you all in tough times,