The divide between Americans who blindly state they “support Ukraine” (whatever that means) and Americans who are skeptical and see the Russia-Ukraine war as far more nuanced got more heated due to last week’s testy exchange in the Oval Office between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The conflict is not as simple as “I stand with Ukraine” or “you like Vladimir Putin,” despite the left’s false dichotomies and false framing of the argument. It’s the same type of logical fallacy as asking someone, “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?”
While the left thinks it looks good in theory to virtue signal that you support Ukraine, it’s not that black and white. Just because Putin is a bad actor doesn’t mean Zelenskyy should be blindly supported; while he may not appear to be as evil as Putin, he certainly is no angel. He’s canceled elections and is now ruling as a dictator.
Ukrainian MP Oleksandr Dubinsky called for the impeachment of Zelenskyy after the botched White House visit. He said Zelenskyy has failed in foreign policy, causing Ukraine’s isolation from allies, and is engaging in authoritarian rule.
Throwing more and more money that we don’t have at the problem hasn’t solved it; the war has continued and more troops are dying. Russia is receiving technology and tools from China and troops from North Korea, helping Putin continue the war indefinitely with no end in sight.
In a perfect world, Putin wouldn’t have been an aggressor. But the world isn’t the lofty ivory tower that elitist leftists like to pretend, and efforts to remove Putin haven’t worked. And even if they did, would a far worse hardliner take over?
Congress hasn’t required accountability for how the money sent to Ukraine is spent. Unlike the funds sent from Europe, which are in the form of loans, we’re just handing Ukraine the money free. The U.S. has provided Ukraine nearly $183 billion so far.
The left conveniently glosses over the history that led up to this war. NATO pushed to allow countries into its alliance that were somewhat hostile to Russia and located nearby, provoking Russia. The U.S. initially told Russia it would not expand NATO to the east, but then reneged on that under President Bill Clinton, who decided to expand NATO to the east as far as Ukraine.
Jeffrey Sachs, a professor at Columbia University and advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General, said during a speech in February to the European Parliament that Russia had no intention of expanding until Ukraine’s neutral leader Viktor Yanukovych was forced out in 2014 with the assistance of the Obama administration. In 2021, Putin wanted the Biden administration to negotiate and back off on the issue of expanding NATO to include Ukraine, but Biden ignored the outreach, Sachs said. Shortly after the war started, Sachs said Putin tried to get Ukraine to commit to neutrality, which would have ended the war, but the Biden administration talked Zelenskyy out of it.
Similarly, the legendary George Kennan, known for his diplomacy and expertise regarding Russia during the 20th century, warned in the late 1990s that expanding NATO would provoke Russia. He said since a separate, independent Ukraine could “be maintained, in the last analysis, only by force,” the U.S. should not attempt to force Ukrainian independence. If the clash happened, he recommended “a composing of the differences along the lines of a reasonable federalism.”
Biden should have known better. His own CIA director, William J. Burns, while serving as a political officer in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in 1995, warned that “hostility to early NATO expansion is almost universally felt across the domestic political spectrum here.”
While it appears sympathetic on the surface to “support Ukraine,” how is it sympathetic to help ensure that much of an entire generation of young men is wiped out? Last year, a confidential Ukrainian estimate placed the number of their soldiers’ deaths at 80,000, and estimates of the number of Russian troops killed ranges from 90,000 to 854,000.
These leftists — many who actively opposed the Vietnam War and draft — have no problem sending young Ukrainian and Russian men to their likely deaths. While many of us think the Vietnam War would have been winnable if Congress would have authorized enough troops as the generals requested, Congress failed to do so. In contrast, there has never been any credible evidence that sending more money to Ukraine will result in victory.
Even RINO Senator Lindsey Graham backed off his previous support for Ukraine, stating after the Oval Office confrontation that Zelenskyy needs to change or resign.
Where is the leftist support for other countries at war? Nearly half of the world’s approximately 195 countries are in some type of violent conflict currently. Ever see any African flags in the Democrats’ profiles? Of course not. Could this be because Ukrainians are white — in fact some surveys rate them the most beautiful nationality in the world. But don’t expect the minority leftists who rant about how society cares more about white victims than minority victims to desert their hypocrisy.
Joy Reid, who was recently fired from hosting her show on MSNBC because no one watched it, frequently complained about “missing white woman syndrome,” whining that the media covers the tragic disappearance and demise of white women like YouTuber Gabby Petito, but fails to cover similar sad stories about minority women. Hypocritically, Reid doesn’t cover those deaths either.
Thankfully, the grownups are now in charge, and Trump will ensure the war winds down shortly. If Biden hadn’t gotten dementia, maybe he wouldn't have taken such an aggressive approach with NATO towards Putin. But the Democrats cared too much about keeping their puppet in place. So now they’re stuck blindly slapping up Ukrainian flags in order to hide and cover for Biden’s mistake, with the blood of tens of thousands of young men on their hands.
Reprinted from Townhall