Tag: Ukraine

Nothing Burger

“Nothing burger” is a slang term, primarily used in American English, that describes something that was expected to be significant or important but ultimately turned out to be inconsequential, insignificant, or disappointing.

In Alaska, President Vladimir Putin walked on a red carpet, shook hands and exchanged smiles with his American counterpart. Donald Trump ended summit praising their relationship and calling Russia “a big power … No. 2 in the world,” albeit admitting they didn’t reach a deal on ending the war in Ukraine.

By Saturday morning Moscow time, Trump appeared to have abandoned the idea of a ceasefire as a step toward peace -– something he and Ukraine had pushed for months -– in favor of pursuing a full-fledged “Peace Agreement” to end the war, echoing a long-held Kremlin position. The “severe consequences” he threatened against Moscow for continuing hostilities were nowhere in sight. On Ukraine’s battlefields, Russian troops slowly grinded on, with time on their side.

President Trump made his expectations clear entering a summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday: “I won’t be happy if I walk away without some form of a ceasefire,” he said aboard Air Force One.

Yet he did, emerging from their meeting in a diplomatic retreat, adopting the Russian leader’s position that puts off ceasefire negotiations in favor of more comprehensive talks.

“It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up,” Trump wrote on social media. “If all works out, we will then schedule a meeting with President Putin. Potentially, millions of people’s lives will be saved.”

Trump obtained nothing and Zelinsky is still fighting a war he can’t win. Trump should be ashamed but he can’t admit the Alaska summit was a mistake.

“Armageddon”

Is the world on the verge of an “Armageddon?” It appears that President believes we are or at least fears that it could happen. And it is on his mind. No one in the Whitehouse or in his administration has contradicted his words.

President Joe Biden’s stark warning Thursday night that the world faces the highest prospect of nuclear war in 60 years was not based on any new intelligence about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions or changes in Russia’s nuclear posture, multiple US officials told CNN.

One senior administration official said Biden was speaking “frankly” in his remarks at a Democratic fundraiser in New York, reflecting heightened concern based on Putin’s recent nuclear threats.

Biden’s nuclear warning not based on new intelligence but opens a window into real worries inside the White House.

The situation today is reminiscent of the 13-day showdown in 1962 that followed the U.S. discovery of the Soviet Union’s secret deployment of nuclear weapons to Cuba is regarded by experts as the closest the world has ever come to nuclear annihilation.

What is needed is a mediator that both Ukraine and Russia respects. Both countries will have to find a compromise. Is that likely?

In Hiroshima, the black rain started to fall 20 minutes after the bomb exploded. It covered an area about 20 kilometers (12 mi) across around ground zero, covering the countryside with a thick liquid that could douse anyone it touched with up to 100 times more radiation than stepping into the blast center.

The city around the survivors was burning and tearing up the oxygen around them, and they were already dying of thirst. Struggling through the flames, they’d become so desperate for water that many opened up their mouths and tried to drink the strange liquid falling from the sky.

There was enough radiation in that liquid, though, to make changes in a person’s blood. It was strong enough that the aftereffects of the rain can still linger today in the places it landed back then. We have every reason to believe that it’ll happen again if another bomb falls.

Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

A Russian soldier was heard saying on a radio call saying, “We don’t know who to shoot, they all look like us.” Reports ABC News

Blocked road

Day 1 (24 February 2022)

Day 2 (25 February 2022)

Russian forces enter outskirts of Kyiv and – according to the US – launch amphibious assault from Sea of Azov

Day 3 (26 February 2022)

Western intelligence reports indicated that the Russian advance had been slowed, if only for the moment. The Russian priority remained the capture of Kyiv.

Day 4 (27 February 2022)

  • EU’s Borrell (High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy) pledges to work with allies to ‘cripple the Russian financial market’ following other sanctions announced earlier in the day
  • EU moves follow Putin’s order for nuclear forces to be on alert in response to ‘unfriendly economic actions against our country’

Day 5 (28 February 2022)

The bombardment of a residential area of Kharkiv signaled a potentially intensifying turn on the fifth day of Russia’s invasion, which has sparked a nationwide resistance in Ukraine, forced half a million refugees to flee the country and left Moscow increasingly isolated from the world. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine called for an international tribunal to investigate Russia for war crimes. Delegations from Kyiv and Moscow failed to make progress in Belarus.

Day 6 (1 March 2022)

The President of the United States says, “The United States of America stands with the Ukrainian people.” However, we won’t stand too close. You do the fighting and we will watch. How brave!

A Super Power Proves Its Strength

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry Makes a Fool of Himself and the United States

This video has an indistinct sound track

The White House imposed asset freezes on seven Russian officials, including Putin’s close ally Valentina Matvienko, who is speaker of the upper house of parliament, and Vladislav Surkov, one of Putin’s top ideological aides. The Treasury Department also targeted Yanukovych, Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov and two other top figures.

The EU’s foreign ministers slapped travel bans and asset freezes against 21 officials from Russia and Ukraine.

Somehow I don’t think that’s much of a problem. Not from the least threatening Secretary of State in American history. Hillary Clinton was more threatening in her sleep than John Kerry is after four cups of coffee and three Belgian snubs.

But still John “Unbelievably small strike” Kerry took the time out to reassure Vlad that America was not threatening him.

John Kerry, “We hope President Putin will recognize that none of what we’re saying is meant as a threat. It’s not meant as a – in a personal way. It is meant as a matter of respect for the international multilateral structure that we have lived by since World War II and for the standards of behavior about annexation, about secession, about independence and how countries come about it.”

“So we very much hope that President Putin will hear that we are not trying to challenge Russia’s rights or interests, it’s interest in protecting its people, its interests in its strategic position, its port agreement. None of those things are being threatened here. They can all be respected even as the integrity of Ukraine is respected, and we would hope that President Putin would see that there is a better way to address those concerns that he has that are legitimate, and we hope he will make that decision.”

Those are the words of the Secretary of State (Secretary of Foreign Affairs) of the one claimed super power in the world.  The United States apologizes to Russia for taking a minimal action.  It’s an action so small that no one will notice that it happened.

Is it any wonder that the world holds contempt for the United States?

The USA Cannot Police the World

Barack ObamaNews report in the Los Angeles Times today.

President Obama said today that he was “deeply concerned” by reports of Russian military activity in Ukraine and warned Moscow to use restraint as the former Soviet state struggles to forge a new government.
“Any violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would be deeply destabilizing,” Obama said in a statement from the White House. Such a move would be a “profound interference in matters that must be determined by the Ukrainian people.”
Obama’s remarks followed a day in which tensions mounted between the new Western-aligned government in the capital of Kiev and the Russian-speaking majority in the Ukrainian province of Crimea.

The USA has no economic interest in Ukraine. Of course we all feel sad for the Syrians, Iranians, North Koreans, and Ukranians.  We simply are exhausted.  Afghans may be to blame.  We are there to help them develop a free an independent society.  The problem is they don’t want our way of life. Our ‘manifest destiny’ idea that our way is the right way for societies to function and it has been handed down by God is our delusion.

The United States cannot police the world.  We lack the army, the money, and Americans have no appetite for new interventions this year.  That may become a long term attitude.  It is a consequence of our two most recent foreign involvements.  You know, Iraq and Afghanistan.  Neither of those efforts went as projected.  We spent millions, we lost lives, we saw thousands return home with permanent injuries with no success.  In fact the opposite has occurred.  More people and countries around the world either hate or intensely dislike the USA.

Much of the rest of the world does not accept our ideas.  President Obama’s comments about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is more for domestic consumption than about stopping their action.

The exception is our war hawks.  They would have us involved in Syria, confronting Iran, and now confronting Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

It Looks like another “cold war.”