Tag Archives: Ukraine war

International news, military news

Take that, Vlad!

Vladimir Putin appears to be learning a lesson that carries over from the beginning of recorded history, which is that an invading power cannot conquer another country’s national soul, no matter how much military hardware it throws at its intended victim.

The Russian thug decided two months ago to invade Ukraine. He expected it to be a stroll into Kyiv. His invading forces were met with ferocious resistance from a military establishment that was far from defenseless. It received volunteers who sought to join the fight and, oh my goodness, they have fought back with a vengeance!

Putin’s public-relations stock has plummeted worldwide. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s standing only has grown. He now towers over Putin in the realm of worldwide public opinion standing. Zelenskyy could have fled Ukraine when Putin issued the order to roll the tanks out; he didn’t. He has stayed to rally his people, who have responded valiantly and heroically.

I have been stunned as I travel through North Texas to see the Ukrainian flags flying from ranchers’ fence lines, from front porches, to see local broadcast media proclaim themselves to be “Ukraine strong.”

Ah, yes. Ukraine is delivering a lesson that many of us on this good Earth have known all along. Tyrants such as Vladimir Putin cannot subvert a nation’s identity with bombs and bullets. They give their supposed “victims” the strength to fight.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

That was no ‘gaffe’

Allow me this dissent on the notion that President Biden committed some sort of “gaffe” when he said Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in office.”

Critics and even some Biden supporters keep bloviating about the president’s remarks in Warsaw the other day in which he said, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

They refer to them as “those nine unscripted words” that got Biden into trouble.

I disagree. I didn’t read into those words that Biden was calling specifically for regime change. He was offering his opinion on the thuggish behavior coming from the Kremlin. Joe Biden knows better than to contradict decades of U.S. foreign policy. He knows that the United States is not going to seek to remove the Russian despot from his perch.

He was speaking the truth. Indeed, Putin — the architect of the brutal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine — “cannot remain in power.” Whether he gets ousted depends on whether Russians are willing to make that move.

I am going to give President Biden a pass on what he said in Warsaw. His remarks only tightened the screws on Putin. What is wrong with that?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Biden ‘speaks his mind’?

Michael Kinsley, the liberal columnist and one-time TV commentator, once famously quipped that a “gaffe” occurs when a politician “speaks his mind.”

So it is, then, that President Biden well might have been speaking his own mind when during a speech in Poland he said that Russian strongman Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power.”

Oops, Mr. President. You’ve just spoken against U.S. policy, which supposedly forbids any effort to bring about “regime change” in a foreign government. Oh, but wait! Didn’t we do that when we went to war in Afghanistan after 9/11 and then went to war in Iraq less than two years later while hunting down Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein?

Both those efforts resulted in regime change. The Taliban, though, are back in power in Afghanistan; Saddam Hussein is dead, having been hanged for his crimes against humanity.

The White House is trying to take back what President Biden said, that our aim isn’t to remove Putin from office even as we condemn him for launching his illegal, immoral and illogical invasion of Ukraine.

I am not going to sweat much about what the president said. He was telling us what he thinks ought to happen, not necessarily predicting that it will happen.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Biden shows ‘temper’?

Can the Russian media flacks say anything more ridiculous than what they have declared about President Biden’s comments today about thug/despot/tyrant Vladimir Putin?

The Kremlin issued a statement in which it criticized the president for flashing a “temper.” Why? Because Joe Biden called Putin precisely what he is: a butcher.

President Biden is choosing to avoid mincing words as he travels through Europe. For the record, he also declared that Putin shouldn’t be allowed to continue ruling Russia; the president in effect called for “regime change” in Moscow.

To be clear, the president of the United States is not about to launch a coup attempt against Putin. However, the U.S. president clearly is pissed off at the conduct of the Russian dictator over the Russians’ unprovoked attack and invasion of Ukraine.

Joe Biden reportedly wants Russia kicked out of the G-20 international group aimed at fostering economic cooperation among the world’s wealthiest nations. That reportedly will be a difficult mission to accomplish, according to media reports. However, it is becoming clearer by the hour that Vladimir Putin has isolated himself from most of the rest of the world … by “butchering” innocent civilians through indiscriminate bombing and artillery attacks on soft targets in Ukraine.

That the U.S. president would call him a “butcher” is not a sign of a lost temper. It is a clear signal of President Biden’s realistic view of Vladimir Putin.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Putin: ‘war criminal’

Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin are not going to exchange Christmas cards this year, or probably for as long as either of them is alive.

The president of the United States has accused the Russian thug/strongman/despot/dictator of being a “war criminal” on the basis of his armed forces’ indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine.

Yep. Vladimir Putin fits the description that President Biden has hung around his neck.

The man has committed crimes against humanity. He has killed children in his effort to pummel Ukraine into submission. Putin’s artillery and air force have bombed schools, a maternity hospital, churches, shopping malls, apartment complexes. These all are places where children hide to get away from the carnage that is befallen them.

Donald Trump once proclaimed his desire to make nice with Putin and with Russia. The Russians led by Putin have destroyed any possible warming of relations with the United States, not to mention with the rest of the world through their unprovoked and brutal invasion of Ukraine, a sovereign nation.

For his part, Joe Biden is punishing Putin with economic sanctions that threaten to relegate Russia to Third World status. Keep applying the pressure, Mr. President.

Oh, and be sure you take Vladimir Putin off your Christmas card list.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news, military news

Ukrainians fight back

Fox News’s Stuart Varney has a theory about why Russian soldiers are bogging down in their advance on Kyiv. It has to do with Ukrainian citizens taking up arms and killing the invaders with grenades, rockets and assorted high-tech weaponry.

Varney notes that the Russians are poorly trained and have “low morale” among the troops.

You know, it sort of reminds of me another military action many decades ago.

In 1941, not long after they conquered Greece during World War II, Nazi Germany decided to invade the Greek island of Crete in the world’s first airborne assault operation. Paratroopers bailed out of aircraft and landed by the thousands on Crete.

They were met by rampaging Greek citizens who stormed onto the landing fields with shovels, pitchforks, rifles and pistols and slaughtered many of the invaders; in some instances, they beat the paratroopers to death with their bare hands. The Greeks couldn’t stave off the invaders over time, but they fought literally like their lives depended on their success.

This is the kind of reaction Russian thug Vladimir Putin should have anticipated as he launched his unprovoked and shameful assault on Ukraine. For all I know, maybe he did anticipate stern resistance, but placed too much faith in his troops’ ability to subdue the Ukrainians.

Well, you know what they say when one assumes too much.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news, military news

Is the Russian ‘bear’ without teeth?

Can it possibly be that the supposedly vaunted Russian military machine is, well, not so vaunted after all? Or that the Russian “bear” is a critter without teeth?

We hear reports of the Russian assault on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and how it is stalling, and that Russia is having difficulty resupplying the troops who are caught in the offensive that isn’t making much progress.

CNN.com reports that “thousands of Russian troops” have died in the month-long invasion of Ukraine. The Russians aren’t having the battlefield success we all believed was theirs for the taking.

Then again, few of us foresaw the fight that the Ukrainians would put up even in defense of their homeland against the Russian aggressors.

CNN reports: One such assessment found that approximately 7,000 Russian troops have been killed so far, said one of the sources. But that figure, first reported by The New York Times, is on the higher end of US estimates, which vary because the US and its allies have no precise way of counting casualties. Some estimates place the number of Russian troops killed in Ukraine at about 3,000, whereas others suggest more than 10,000 have been killed.

Are the Russians going to run up the white flag of surrender, flee back to Moscow, lick their wounds and let Ukraine declare victory? I don’t believe that will happen.

Although I do believe Russia is going to pay a grievous price for Vladimir Putin’s desire to expand the nation’s empire.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Alliances hold firm

It is virtually impossible to overstate the importance of the alliance that President Biden has crafted as the world seeks to pressure Russian goon/despot/tyrant Vladimir Putin to end his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

Sure, there are holdouts, nations that remain committed to supporting Putin’s act of aggression. However, the alliances that matter are holding firm. I want to talk briefly about NATO and the European Union.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization came into being after World War II. NATO’s mission was to act as a deterrent to potential Soviet expansion from Eastern Europe into the western part of the continent. NATO did its job then and it is doing the same now as Russia – the descendant of the Soviet Union – seeks to bring Ukraine under its influence.

The European Union also has formed a tight bond among its members as it stands united against the Russian aggressors.

What do NATO and the EU have in common? They all have been pressured by President Joe Biden to ensure that Putin’s power grab does not stand. Whether NATO and the EU, along with the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and other great powers are able to force Putin to give up his assault on Ukraine remains to be determined.

It’s just amazing to watch a U.S. president employ his decades of experience dealing with foreign leaders as a tool to craft alliances that hold firm in the face of a tyrant.

Johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Zelenskyy gathers more allies

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sought more help today from the United States of America in his fight against the Russian invaders who are seeking to pummel Ukraine into submission.

If the Ukrainians are following the lead of their president, Russia remains a huge distance from achieving its goal.

Zelenskyy made an appearance today before Congress, getting a bipartisan standing ovation. In his virtual speech, Zelenskyy asked for more weapons, even more stringent economic sanctions and for the United States to endorse the idea of establishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine; President Biden has adamantly opposed the latter strategy.

However, the U.S. president did pledge to spend $800 million in additional aid to Ukraine.

I want to offer a good word yet again for the skill that Biden has used in unifying NATO in opposition to the unprovoked Russian attack on Ukraine. NATO comprises nations with widely different cultures and political points of view. On this score, thanks in large measure to the pressure put on them by Joe Biden, NATO is singing in unison.

President Zelenskyy, therefore, has an ally at his front doorstep as well as across the ocean.

I wish him well as he seeks to stand firm against the Russian aggressors.

Johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news

‘Enemy of people?’ Hardly!

Let’s take a brief moment — shall we? — to ponder the stupid utterance of a former U.S. president who declared on more than one occasion that the media and those who work for them are “the enemy of the American people.”

OK. Now, let’s juxtapose that stupidity with what we’re hearing from the battlefield in Ukraine.

We are hearing of casualties being inflicted among journalists who are covering that battle between Ukrainian forces and those from Russia who have invaded their country.

A Fox News Channel reporter is hospitalized after being wounded seriously in an attack that killed one of the producers from that network. Journalists from other news-gathering organizations have been wounded and killed while covering the war for their readers, viewers and listeners back home … where “home” might be.

The former president is fond of hammering the media for purportedly producing “fake news,” never mind that he also produces fake news simply through his own stupidity, his own lying.

Journalists who thrust themselves into harm’s way to cover world events — regardless of the danger they pose to those who get too close to the action — are heroes. Their only “enemy” rests in the hearts and minds who deny — or denigrate — the value they bring to a civilized society.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com