Category Archives: Foreign Policy

Posted on by

World War III Watch: Warmongers gotta warmonger!

Like so many of the neoconservatives, former Ambassador John Bolton loves seeing the rivers of blood flow. He tweeted, on Wednesday, February 12th:

It is unconscionable to allow Russia to assault Ukraine’s sovereignty, recruit enemies like North Korea to aid in their fight, and then sell out the Ukrainians by conceding the loss of their territory and NATO security guarantees or membership. By making these and others concessions before negotiations even started, Trump has effectively surrendered to Putin on Ukraine. 1/3 Continue reading →

Posted on by

President Trump finally catches up to what we’ve been saying for years Gaza should be emptied out and cleaned up, the President said. I agree, but cleaned up by the Israelis, and settled by them.

I have been saying for years now that the Israelis should have expelled every last ‘Palestinian’ from Judea, Samaria, and Gaza following the 1967 conquest of the territory. It would have been a humanitarian disaster, but it would have been over 57½ years ago, leaving the Arabs with a chance to build their lives again without being under Israeli occupation, and Israel with shortened, more defensible borders.

Now it seems that President Donald Trump has caught up with me! From The Wall Street Journal: Continue reading →

Posted on by

World War III Watch: Joe Biden sends more aid, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants us to send ground troops

We have said it before: it doesn’t matter how much money and military aid we send to Ukraine, they cannot defeat Russia absent the US and NATO sending actual ground troops to fight Russia, and fighter aircraft and pilots to gain air superiority. Now Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants just that:

U.S. announces more Ukraine aid as Zelenskyy calls for NATO to deploy troops to “force Russia into peace”

CBS News | Thursday, January 9, 2024 | 10:00 AM EST

Ramstein Air Base, Germany — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday said Donald Trump’s return to the White House would open “a new chapter” and reiterated a call for Western allies to send troops to help “force Russia to peace.” He made the plea as the Biden administration announced what will likely be its last major military aid package for Ukraine — a promise of weapons and other support worth $500 million. Continue reading →

Posted on by

Everybody has lost

As Lord Eddard Stark said in Game of Thrones, “Winter is coming.” Winter across the forests and steppes of Ukraine is bitterly cold and brutal.

Our good friends at The Washington Post have spent the last 1,437 days being wholly supportive of President Joe Biden and every move he has ever made, so when they tell readers that “Russian forces have continued to make gains and maintain the offensive initiative” in Ukraine, you know that it’s serious.

As Ukraine marks Christmas, exhausted soldiers wonder if Trump can end the war

Asked for their thoughts about a potential ceasefire in 2025, Ukrainian soldiers said they’d welcome a reprieve but were skeptical one was coming soon

By Isabelle Khurshudyan and Serhii Korolchuk | Thursday, December 26, 2024 | 2:01 PM EST

DNIPROPETROVSK REGION, Ukraine — Christmas on Ukraine’s front line started, fittingly, in an old barn filled with hay. Soldiers filed in as Lt. Mykola Bagirov, the brigade’s chaplain, began chanting prayers in a setting straight out of a Nativity scene — never mind the M113 armored personnel carriers parked beside him.

Bagirov spent the rest of the day dressed in a colorful jacket and carrying a painted spinning star while merrily singing traditional Ukrainian carols and banging a tambourine against his thigh.

His audience, though thankful for the attempt at holiday cheer, was noticeably less enthused. Continue reading →

Posted on by

Is Bill Kristol running our foreign policy?

There was a no-win question asked on the fourth-grade playground at Mt Sterling Elementary School when I attended, back in the days of quill pens and inkwells: If you were up to your neck in [insert vulgar term for feces here], and someone threw a bucket of [insert slang term for urine here] at your head, would you duck? That’s of what President Joe Biden’s latest foreign policy move reminds me:

US asks Israel to approve military aid to Palestinian security forces

By Jewish News Syndicate | Boston Tea Party Day, December 16, 2024 | 2:55 PM EST

The Biden administration has privately asked Israel to approve an urgent request for U.S. military aid to Palestinian Authority forces, Palestinian, American, and Israeli officials told Axios on Sunday night. Continue reading →

Posted on by

Let’s tell the truth: we have been bamboozled before

It wasn’t that long ago that the United States fled evacuated Afghanistan, leaving it to the Taliban, and the Taliban promised that they’d be, if not all sweetness and light, more tolerant than they had been during their previous reign. I do not know whether then-President Donald Trump actually believed the Taliban’s claims as he negotiated the withdrawal, or was simply looking for a fig leaf of cover for the withdrawal — which wasn’t completed until President Joe Biden too office — as President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger did during the peace talks in Paris, but the Taliban have been not-so-slowly returning to the restrictions on the public, especially on women, that they had imposed previously.

Syrian rebel leader’s victory speech holds a message for Iran – and for Trump and Israel too

Continue reading →

Posted on by

Yet another war in which Bill Kristol wants the US involved

I was at the tire shop early this afternoon — the left steering tire on my 2010 Ford F-150 broke a belt and the tire got out-of-round — and tweeted from my phone, at 1:10 PM EST:

I saw a news blurb while at the tire store, in which former and future President Trump said that we should stay out of the mess in Syria, so I wonder how soon the warmongers like @BillKristol and @AmbJohnBolton will want to get involved there.

Well, it didn’t take long!

At least as of this writing, Mr Bolton hasn’t tweeted anything, but Bill Kristol, who turned 18 in 1970 and thus could have enlisted and served in Vietnam — he had a high draft lottery number, and wasn’t conscripted — has, and the man who wants to see the US involved in every war on earth is pushing again.

There are no good guys in Syria. Bashir al-Assad is a murderous thug, while the recently advancing rebel forces are Islamist in nature and a former offshoot of al Qaeda. The Turks are in the north, trying to seize land and attacking the Kurds. Whichever side wins is a loss for Western civilization. President Assad has, reportedly, made overtures to the United States and Israel to help him, in exchange for promises to end Iranian involvement with his government and expel Hezbollah fighters, but if those reports are true, no one could take Mr Assad at his word anyway.

Mr Kristol knows all of that, but he still wants the US involved. In this case, incoming President Trump is right: we should stay out of it!

Posted on by

World War III Watch: the British and French are discussing sending their own troops to fight in Ukraine

Sometimes there are little things hidden inside of more sensationalized stories.

Though we haven’t seen as much about this recently — our American credentialed media were fixated on the election, and Israel’s war against the Palestinians — meaning that the Russo-Ukrainian War has somewhat faded into the background. Stories about foreign soldiers who traveled to Ukraine to fight the Russians? We heard a lot about them early on, though little recently. Yet this headline from the Associated Press might be seen as either misleading, or at least somewhat disingenuous clickbait.

Russia reportedly captures a Briton fighting for Ukraine as Russian troops advance

Monday, November 25, 2024 | 10:09 AM EST

Russia’s military captured a British national fighting with Ukrainian troops who have occupied part of Russia’s Kursk region, according to reports Monday, as Moscow began daylight drone attacks on civilian areas of Ukraine and its ground forces accelerated gains along parts of the front line.

Continue reading →

Posted on by

John Podesta makes commitments for our government that President Trump will not keep

Yeah, this might not work out!

Conservatives actually love John Podesta. Thanks to his lax computer security, Julian Assange of WikiLeaks was able to hack into many of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s e-mails, the exposure of which helped her to her strong second-place finish in that election. Mr Podesta helped, in his own inimitable way, to elect Donald Trump!

Cop29: wealthy countries agree to raise climate finance offer to $300bn a year

EU and nations including the UK, US and Australia indicate they will make the increase in exchange for changes to a draft text, sources say

Adam Morton, Fiona Harvey, Patrick Greenfield and Dharna Noor in Baku and Damian Carrington | Saturday, November 23, 2024 | 2:45 AM EST

Major rich countries at UN climate talks in Azerbaijan have agreed to lift a global financial offer to help developing nations tackle the climate crisis to $300bn a year, as ministers met through the night in a bid to salvage a deal.

The Guardian understands the Azeri hosts brokered a lengthy closed-door meeting with a small group of ministers and delegation heads, including China, the EU, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, the UK, US and Australia, on key areas of dispute on climate finance and the transition away from fossil fuels. Continue reading →