Category Archives: International news

International news

Mitt was right about Russia

My sense of fair play compels me to offer an apology to 2012 Republican Party presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who once made a declaration that drew scorn from those of us who opposed his election to the presidency.

Romney, now the junior U.S. senator from Utah, declared during that campaign that Russia posed “the greatest geopolitical threat” to the United States. Do you recall the howls of derision from Democrats and others on the left? Why, how could Romney be so, um, naive? So out of touch? So, so … wrong?

Greater threats seemed at the time to lie in places like the Middle East, among terrorist groups intent on destroying “the Great Satan.” So, we laughed off Mitt Romney’s absurd notion about Russia.

Now, though, he seems prescient. Russia has emerged as a profound threat to the entire world. Certainly to neighboring countries, such as, oh, Ukraine and Belarus. And Georgia. And the Baltic States.

The Russians are engaging in cyber warfare against the rest of the world. They interfered in our 2016 presidential election, sought to do it again in 2020. They might try yet again in 2024.

Donald Trump, the president who received help from the Russians in ’16, stood next to Russian killer Vladimir Putin and endorsed his denial that the Russian interfered in our election. He and Putin became BFFs. Putin played Trump like a fiddle.

Mitt was right about Russia. I won’t cry myself to sleep over being wrong in 2012. I just want to acknowledge that Romney told us the truth when he ran for POTUS but a lot of us weren’t yet ready to hear it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

See ya, Prince Andrew

I always have believed that when two parties settle out of court in a legal dispute in which one party accuses the other of doing something nasty or illegal, that the accused is — in a manner of speaking — acknowledging that he or she has done wrong.

So it is that Prince Andrew, son of Queen Elizabeth II, has agreed to pay a woman a hefty sum of money after she accused him of sexual misconduct with her. According to Reuters: The settlement by the 61-year-old Duke of York includes an undisclosed payment to Virginia Giuffre, a woman who had accused him of sexually abusing her when she was a teenager. The settlement, revealed on Tuesday in a Manhattan court filing, said he had never intended to malign her character.

No way back for Prince Andrew after abuse settlement, royal watchers say (msn.com)

Well, I am going out on a limb here with this observation, but it appears to me that Prince Andrew’s time as a public member of the British royal family has come to a halt. Guiffre accused Andrew of having sex with her as part of some sex orgy orchestrated by Jeffrey Epstein, the hideous sex trafficker.

Her Majesty the Queen already has stripped her son of his military rank and his standing as a spokesman for assorted charitable causes. Why did she do that? My hunch is that QEII believed the accusation leveled against Andrew. So, she acted proactively.

Now comes the settlement. Andrew must not have wanted this matter to go to trial for reasons that seem quite clear: He didn’t want any public testimony that details what he allegedly did to/with this young woman.

He denies ever meeting her. Oh, but wait! There’s that picture of the two of them; in the background is Ghislaine Maxwell, former girlfriend of the late Jeffrey Epstein, who hanged himself in a New York City jail cell in 2019.

Goodbye, Prince Andrew. Your 15 minutes of fame have expired.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Stand-down possible?

The more I think about a notion I floated the other day about the Russia-Ukraine crisis, the less goofy it is sounding to me as I roll it around my noggin.

I tossed the idea out there that President Biden might be inflating the imminent danger of a Russian invasion of Ukraine as a way to boost his sagging public opinion poll numbers. In other words, the door to a diplomatic solution might be closer than we are being led to believe it is.

Now we’re getting reports from Paris, Moscow, Kyiv and Washington that diplomatic pressure is mounting against Russian strongman/goon Vladimir Putin. The pressure is reiterating a message President Biden delivered to him during their hour-long phone conversation over this past weekend, that any attack by Russian armed forces against Ukraine would bring swift and destructive economic actions against the Russians.

Putin just might be listening to what he’s being told and — this is still a stretch, I know — might be willing to flinch at the thought of subjecting his people to untold economic suffering.

Putin is a former spy. He also is now a politician. Putin must know that a politician cannot subject his constituents to avoidable misery.

We have plenty of diplomatic leverage we can use against the Russian thug.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Is war coming … really?

You might think I am nuttier than a Payday bar for what I am about to say, but I don’t care. I’m just thinking out loud about what might be occurring behind closed doors in the White House and the Kremlin.

My thought is this: Is it possible that President Biden is overstating the threat of war between Russia and Ukraine to purchase some more negotiating time with Vladimir Putin? Furthermore, would an agreement that Putin’s armed forces are “standing down” give the president a serious public-relations bump at a time when he needs it?

We all know that politicians try to play every angle at their disposal. I don’t doubt for a second that Joe Biden is capable of playing such an angle for his benefit.

I also believe the president when his White House flack machine tells us the crux of what he told Putin in that hour-long phone call on Saturday, that the United States is prepared to inflict immediate and lasting economic harm to Russia if Putin sends in the troops to invade Ukraine. I also have difficulty accepting that Vladimir Putin is willing to accept that damage as the price of a battlefield conquest.

OK, call me nuts. I’m a big boy and I can take it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news, International news, Joe Biden, medical news

Mr. POTUS, tell Putin …

Joe Biden doesn’t need little ol’ me to give him advice as he talks to Vlad Putin, but I will offer it anyway and will make sure I send it to the appropriate place where someone on his staff might see it.

Mr. President, you need to remind Putin — as if he needs reminding — that he presides over a country with a third-rate economy. It is not a First World economic system. It is Third World at best, relying on oil and natural gas to keep it fueled.

Tell your colleague, Mr. President, that economic sanctions of the type we are able to level on Russia will bring great pain to himself and to the people he governs. We can cut off the oil and natural gas shipments to western Europe, which you have threatened to do if he invades Ukraine. We can freeze Russian monetary assets in banks in this country and we can persuade our NATO allies to do the same.

Also, the president ought to remind Putin of the terrible military cost his armed forces will suffer if they take on Ukrainian forces. Ukraine is not defenseless against the Russians. The Russians can win a ground war if they launch a full-scale invasion, but it will come at considerable cost.

And if Putin is interested in gathering up what’s left of Ukraine and annexing it into the Russian federation, he will do inherit a population that hates his ever-lovin’ guts.

The cost of an invasion — no matter its scale — is too great for the Russians to bear. Putin knows this. He just needs a not-so-gentle reminder from the leader of the world’s remaining military superpower.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news, military news

Biden needs an RFK

Who functions in the Joe Biden administration as the tough guy in international negotiations? Who can President Biden rely on to get the message delivered in clear and unambiguous terms that the United States means business when it threatens the other side with severe punishment if talks break down?

I refer to someone such as Robert F. Kennedy, who filled that role for his brother, President John F. Kennedy, during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

The situation today isn’t precisely identical, but to my eyes and ears it reminds me a bit of what transpired in 1962. Russian troops are massing on the Russian border with Ukraine. Russian thug Vladimir Putin is threatening to invade Ukraine if certain conditions are not met. President Biden is trying to talk Putin off the proverbial ledge.

In October 1962, the Soviet Union began assembling missile sites in Cuba. JFK got wind of it and set out to talk Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev out of deploying the missiles that could hit U.S. cities. He ordered a blockade of Cuba, using U.S. Navy ships to turn back any vessels heading for Cuban ports. He then dispatched his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to negotiate with the USSR envoys at the United Nations.

RFK laid down the law: either dismantle the missile sites or face the mighty wrath of American military might. The Soviets backed down. We gave them some concessions, to be sure, such as taking down our own missile sites in Turkey. The point is that JFK had RFK to do his dirty work.

Is there someone in the Biden administration to fill that task now? Man, I hope so.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Fight goes on and on

Americans of all stripes, be they Republican or Democrat, today are cheering the death of the leader of the Islamic State at the hands of U.S. special forces.

The nation’s elite warriors stormed a compound in northern Syria, cornered the ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, who then blew himself up, killing himself and his wife, small children and others.

This raid, while spectacular in its execution and the success it achieved, does not signal the end of the Islamic State as a terrorist threat to this nation and others around the world.

“The fight against ISIS continues. Their leader may be gone, but their twisted ideology and their intent to kill, maim and terrorize still threaten our national security and the lives of countless innocents,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.

So, the fight goes on. Still, it is heartening to know that this nation has the capability to bring a form of justice to murderous terrorists. We did so in May 2011 when SEALs killed al-Qaeda leader and 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden and again in 2019 when our troops killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the ISIS leader in Iraq.

Joe Biden now becomes the third consecutive president — Barack Obama and Donald Trump were the other two — to order our men into harm’s way to protect us against the horror of international terrorism.

Well done, men … and thank you.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

B’bye, ISIS goon

Another Islamic State terrorist has been removed from this good Earth, courtesy of the work of U.S. special forces … to which I say, “Well done, men.”

President Biden issued the following statement overnight:

“Last night at my direction, U.S. military forces in northwest Syria successfully undertook a counterterrorism operation to protect the American people and our Allies, and make the world a safer place,” Biden said in a statement.

“Thanks to the skill and bravery of our Armed Forces, we have taken off the battlefield Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi—the leader of ISIS. All Americans have returned safely from the operation,” Biden added.

What does this mean? Well, it doesn’t mean the destruction of ISIS. Just as we learned in May 2011 when our special forces killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the death of one man doesn’t necessarily eradicate the terrorist organization he led. The same likely will be said of al-Qurayshi’s death.

But to be absolutely certain, these successful missions can degrade the terrorist groups, making them less capable of planning and executing dastardly deeds against innocent victims.

As we have seen, though, in these operations, our special forces are the best on Earth at what they do.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news, national news

Apology accepted, RFK Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has just learned a lesson that I think should be spread throughout the world as it grapples with the issues of the day.

It is that no one ever should compare whatever discomfort one is enduring in the moment to what occurred during the dark, horrible era of The Holocaust. RFK Jr. uttered a most despicable comparison the other day at an anti-COVID 19 vaccine rally in which he bellowed that people who are forced to be vaccinated against a killer virus are enduring trauma similar to what Anne Frank suffered while she was hiding out in her apartment in Amsterdam during World War II.

Kennedy has apologized for his remarks. I accept his apology. I also hope he — nor any other public figure — makes the same hideous analogy ever again.

Anne Frank died at the age of 15 at the hands of her Nazi captors after she and her family were taken from that apartment and sent to a death camp. She was one of about 6 million European Jews who died during The Holocaust, which was the most unspeakable act committed during the 20th century … or perhaps in all of human history.

Kennedy sought to make some odious comparison between what governments are doing now in ordering vaccines to what the Nazis did to Europeans. Good God in Almighty heaven!

I want to add a personal point of privilege. My wife and I saw the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam in 2016 and were moved to tears at the tale of horror it told of the suffering she and her family endured while they hid from their Nazi captors.

The Holocaust stands alone and should never — not ever! — be held up as something to which one can compare other controversial acts.

Lesson learned, RFK Jr.? I damn sure hope so.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news, military news

Hoping for sanity in Kremlin

If you’ll forgive me for relying on my sometimes-wrong trick knee, but I am going to say that the ol’ knee’s throbbing is telling me there will be no land war in Europe.

Russian troops have gathered along their country’s border with Ukraine. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been negotiating his brains out with his Russian counterpart, foreign minister Sergie Lavrov, over ways to forgo an armed conflict.

There will be sufficient economic sanctions coming from the United States and the rest of NATO in response to a Russian attack on Ukraine, if it comes.

I am going to hold out hope that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is going to think better of his temptation to invade Ukraine. He knows that his country is a third-rate economic power fueled almost exclusively by oil. He knows, too, that European NATO forces are not going to war with Russia. Neither will the United States, nor should we enter a land war with Russian forces.

President Biden has walked back the gaffe he uttered at his press conference this past week, suggesting that a mere “incursion” wouldn’t provoke a severe response. There isn’t a damn bit of difference between an incursion and an invasion. Biden must treat them the same way. Yes, U.S. staff levels in Ukraine have been reduced in anticipation of some military action. It is better to be prepared for the worst.

Don’t let me down, trick knee

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com