Category Archives: Ukraine

This blog post is going to be about politics and it is going to be critical of President Trump’s rush to get a peace deal in the Ukraine War. For those who say, “How could anyone be against a peace deal that stops the killing quickly?” the answer is signing a deal is no indication that either side will abide by this agreement and if past is prologue, especially in Ukraine, there’s nothing in the past to suggest this time will be different. The Ukrainian people still want to fight for their country and are outraged by Russian brutality in this three-year old conflict and Putin has no history of keeping his word in deals. That’s the reality.

So, Trump’s big selling point among his supporters is he’s a great businessman and the master of the deal. He’s been great at selling himself, that’s irrefutable, because he’s faced more negative media coverage and Democrat smear campaigns than you can count and he won, not only the election in November 2024, but also the popular vote. I voted for him, even though all the same concerns about his judgment and character persist. I want him to succeed, especially with securing the border, dealing with the illegal immigration problems, rebuilding our military, and keeping America safe. I want him to succeed on the world stage in foreign policy, because America’s role as a world leader is vital for American national security.

Reality checks, where you pull yourself away from the media drama, for and against Trump, can help sort out where this Ukraine War and this Trump-brokered peace deal are really at. First it’s important to state that Trump’s big boast that he could end this war in 24 hours, if elected was total nonsense, but it’s what is driving the Trump administration haste in negotiating this deal. Getting this deal done fast to bolster Trump’s prestige outweighs every other consideration with the Trump administration. That makes this deal’s priorities more about Trump than about American national security. The hype about the numbers of dead and “stopping the killing” have never been the driving force to stop combatants, if they think they can still field an army and they still are committed to their political aims. Wars are about politics, not the human cost to achieve them.

Trump is selling Russian talking points, down to constantly attacking NATO and blaming Ukraine for starting the war. Putin started this war and it’s disgraceful for Trump to blame Ukraine. The effort to divide NATO was a top Soviet foreign policy aim and it’s a top Putin aim. Trump has bought into that too and while the Democrat “Trump-Russian Collusion” allegations were bogus, Trump respects and admires brutal strongman leaders, because he admires toughness. Trump openly admires Putin and Xi and craves their respect. Just listen to Trump go on and on about how much they respect him to get a feel for what matters to Trump. None of this personality-centric foreign policy is good for American interests abroad. Trump has called Zelensky a dictator and demanded Ukraine hold elections, even though Ukraine was invaded by Russia, is fighting to survive, and has marital law in place due to this wartime footing. At the same time Trump never criticizes Putin’s dictatorial actions and he has praised Xi for his iron control over the Chinese people.

I voted for Trump, despite my concerns about his character issues, but I think his character issues will cause more problems rather than resolve many of the big foreign policy issues. Moral clarity, as the leader of the free world, matters, and for Trump to blame Ukraine for starting this war is appallingly dishonest and false. For Trump to so publicly attack NATO allies emboldens America’s adversaries, who perceive a fractured NATO alliance, where there’s no trust between the Trump administration and our European allies.

Many Trump followers seem perfectly fine with ditching our European allies and abandoning NATO, but I doubt they understand how vital our NATO alliance is to our global security framework. Trump is slashing within the Pentagon at the same time he’s bragging about rebuilding our military. I don’t see setting flames to all our security structures at the same time, without any real plan for what’s replacing these vital pieces being a good plan. Even with this firing top generals, there isn’t any coherent plan for who’s replacing them and Trump makes ad hoc decisions, mostly based on people he saw on TV or who supported him. Most of the best generals aren’t the ones who are in the media constantly. What I see unfolding is a lot of burning things to the ground without a real plan to rebuild anything. The same thing is happening with the DOGE efforts, which are more political theater than a carefully thought out plan.

Trump does not speak with moral clarity and he is deliberately pushing Putin lies about the Ukraine War. If Trump believes these lies, that bodes very poorly for American national security. Putin started this war and could have stopped the war at any time, by withdrawing his forces from Ukraine. Putin doesn’t want to end this war without dismantling Ukraine’s sovereignty. So, along comes Trump, who’s going to work out this peace deal like a businessman.

First, Trump is demanding Ukraine repay US aid to Ukraine, which sends a strong signal to other countries that the US can change the terms of agreements, after the fact. This is a huge win for our adversaries, to be able to tell countries not to trust American aid, because a few years from now they’ll demand you give it back. None of the strings Trump is attaching to this past aid to Ukraine were in the agreements under the Biden administration. Foreign countries aren’t like partisan Americans – they see one America and see America not keeping its word.

Trump wants rights to rare-earth minerals in Ukraine as a payback for US aid to Ukraine. That brings us to this hype about the US controlling mineral rights to some massive mineral reserves in Ukraine. Here again the rush to get a deal will likely lead to a boondoggle, not some huge win for America. The Trump administration and right-wing media have been hyping these massive mineral reserves in Ukraine, but Jim Geraghty, a National Review pundit, who actually travels to check things out himself, went to Ukraine. He has provided some of the best reporting and he linked to an article from S & P Global, a US company that provides analysis and data on investment opportunities. Here’s a S&P Global report on Feb. 13th, Ukraine rare earths potential relies on Soviet assessments, may not be viable :

“The deposits would be difficult to develop. Some are stuck behind battle lines or, in the case of the geological record for one of the sites, require advanced processing technology and a stable energy grid to extract. And the valuation of the deposits is based on decades-old data: No sources contacted by Commodity Insights were aware of any commercial exploration or assessment of those deposits in the post-Soviet period.”

And this:

“Out of six rare earth deposits in Ukraine, only the Novopoltavske field in the Zaporizhzhia region has proven reserves with the license open for nomination. The large phosphate and rare earth deposit requires a $300 million investment, according to “Ukraine: Mining Investment Opportunities,” a report by the Ukrainian Geological Survey and the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine.”

The likelihood of US companies investing huge amounts of money to build mining operations in a area fraught with security issues in Russian-controlled territory is slim. Even if this war ends, the likelihood that hostilities will persist is very high, as is the likelihood that both sides will continue fighting. No matter what kind of deal Trump brokers, the odds are that this will go right back to being a frozen conflict. US companies would have a very hard time operating in an area controlled by Russian forces. And on top of that in Trump’s rush to get a deal, at any cost, companies will want up-to-date geological surveys and data before pouring in millions upon millions of dollars.

Many Trump supporters want to believe in Trump’s bold ideas and there’s plenty of right-wing media making money selling Trump euphoria, but while I might waste $49 on a Shark VACMOP based on advertising, when it comes to important things, like national security, I’m much more cautious and look at the history and details carefully. I see no need for a rushed peace deal that is piecemeal and not carefully thought out. It’s apparent that the Trump administration has silenced all dissent within the administration and the VP appears to be the enforcer – of no opposing viewpoints are allowed to be voiced.

The reality is Putin has not kept his word on any agreements and Trump spouting Russian talking points bodes poorly for American national security. There’s this sentiment being boldly spouted among some Trump pundits that we should let the Europeans foot the bill on Ukraine and let them send their military aid – just wash our hands of Ukraine. Well, if the US abandons Ukraine and our European allies, then the US will have lost substantial power as the leader of the free world and if you treat you long-time allies like adversaries and suck up to your Russian adversary, well, there’s an old Soviet era term for that too – DUPE. Trump is setting the stage to become the biggest American dupe in history.

Too many Republican politicians twist themselves into knots to support Trump and not publicly disagree with him. For me, America matters more than any politicians’ feelings and I refuse to go along to get along with any politicians. They’re supposed to be working for we, the American people. I also don’t care if anyone else agrees with me, it’s my opinion this Trump-brokered Ukraine War deal is starting to smell to high heaven. I want more details and more transparency, not spin and bragging. Hard to believe that the Trump rush-rush approach is starting to look as bad as the Biden foot-dragging approach.

This post is going to be about our modern news media ecosystem and the Ukraine war. First point I’d like to make is it’s very hard to discern the signals from the noise. The signals are the meaningful information, while the noise just makes it harder to detect the signals. Our partisan spin information war now fills the American news media space with so much noise that important signals often get drowned out or buried completely, regardless what news media format you’re consuming. Even print media often doesn’t provide the most basic information about images or events in their copy and lots of times the important details are buried way down in the story.

It’s become commonplace to see photos and videos circulate on the internet that don’t include any information about when and where it was shot, who took the photo or video, who the people are in the images and a clear explanation of what the image shows. Often images are selectively edited or altered, which leads to further confusion. Many people, without any hesitation, share images and videos they `they know nothing about and they buy into them completely.

Both Russia and Ukraine have waged massive propaganda efforts, since Russia invaded Ukraine. Unfortunately, so many American political leaders, former government officials, to include former intel and defense officials, and many, many “experts” on foreign policy from academia now live online. Our news media people live online too. They also leap to share information they have no idea where it came from or if it’s true. The human race wasn’t ready for social media, I think.

I know I’m beating a dead horse here, but again Twitter is the main online social media space where they congregate and unfortunately that’s where most of them get their “information.” The problem with this rapid tweeting and retweeting behavior is the signals usually get missed, while the tweet noise floods the zone. The rest of America, who isn’t following the Twitter politics crowd ends up with the “news” that’s spun out from the partisan spin battles on Twitter to other news media in America.

Most Americans aren’t on Twitter and even if they went on Twitter it’s doubtful they’d see what I’m talking about. I didn’t understand Twitter’s role in the American spin information war at first either, but then I decided to follow hundreds of politicians, journalists and news organizations to see what would show up in my feed. Then I spent a lot of hours watching the Twitter interactions and learning how the partisan talking points generated and that opened my eyes to how the corrupt Dem spin information war, that I’d been trying to understand since the 90s, was operating in the Twitter age.

Trump learned how to fight spin battles on Twitter too and there’s now a dedicated Trumpian right-wing spin effort too, plus some assorted other right-wing media spin efforts. I can go on Twitter and sit for about 15 minutes scrolling my feed filled with journos and politicians and see spin cycles form in real time. It happened by accident, not by design, because I was just wondering why the cable news had begun mentioning Twitter and tweets so much.

One important point about the American spin information war is we don’t live in a vacuum, so foreign operatives are involved in trying to influence the American news too and the Russians have always been aggressive about those efforts, going back through most of the last century.

Russia was struggling to counter the Ukrainian propaganda war and the one place in America where Russian propaganda gains traction these days, bizarrely is within the right-wing media space, where due to the binary-thinking, many Americans will be for or against something based on if the “other side” is for it, they are automatically against it. Dems and Hollywood rushed to wrap themselves in Ukrainian flags and worship Zelensky, so many on the right automatically took the opposing view.

Anyway, back to the signals and noise in regards to the Ukraine war, both Ukraine and Russia are running massive propaganda wars, so getting accurate information about the facts on the ground is difficult. Added onto this is Hollywood and Democrats rushed to aid Zelensky’s propaganda war and Zelensky reminds me of Donald Trump in some ways. He’s a former actor and knows how to stage himself effectively, just like Trump’s a master of owning the stage. Trump could upstage any world event. Zelensky has been packaged and sold by Democrats and the vast liberal media space as the infallible hero and too many Americans are invested in Ukraine without any serious thought to American national interests.

There are important reasons for America and Europe to thwart Putin’s naked aggression, but at the same time it’s important to carefully keep sight of American national interests in how we do that.

The worst thing Biden and many European leaders have done is talk big, then drag their feet on aiding Ukraine, while mewling to Putin, trying to coax him to keep the oil and gas flowing. They imposed punishing sanctions on Russia, to include on buying Russian oil. Then they continued to buy Russian oil. What kind of message did that send Putin? If you want to be taken seriously, you need to put your money where your mouth is. Biden and many of the European leaders have talked out of both sides of their mouth.

And worst of all, if you truly feel stopping Putin’s aggression is a grave threat to stability in Europe and that weakness at this critical juncture would embolden, not just Putin, but China too, then it makes no sense to try to embark on some cockamamie green-energy transformation. The Ukraine-Russia conflict has led to a full-blown economic war, but the US and Europeans weren’t as serious as Putin has been. If you were serious about stopping Putin, you’d be ramping up American fossil fuel production and the Europeans would be postponing their Great Reset to fight the Ukraine War, which they blabber on is the greatest threat since WWII. They would not be buying a drop of Russian oil, and they’d be working overtime trying to carefully assess what arms to send to Ukraine, while trying to speed up resupply of their own military stockpiles. Instead, they were just trying to kick the can down the road, hoping Putin would back down, so they could focus on their Great Reset and green-energy transformation. Their priority wasn’t stopping Putin – it was the Great Reset.

The Biden administration is most concerned about all its liberal pet projects – green-energy, racial politics, gender politics and most of all defeating and crushing Republicans. I haven’t seen any real seriousness in how the Biden administration has gone about helping Ukraine or really wanting to stop Putin’s aggression. Now that things have spiraled into a huge mess, Biden isn’t out there giving any calm. clear articulation of what the goals are, what’s at stake, or why the US should care about the war in Ukraine. Instead, he was rambling on at a Dem fundraiser about Armageddon and Putin – just like he tried to blame his own war on American fossil fuel as being Putin’s fault. He was concerned about defeating Republicans – not about convincing Putin to withdraw from Ukraine.

The Biden administration has offered no clear and consistent statements on Ukraine, that it followed with actions that bolstered those words. It was all big talk, then still buying Russian oil, while the Germans and French kept going on bended knee to the Russians, begging them not to turn off the Russian oil and gas spigots. The US/European effort to aid Ukraine has been a hodgepodge, convoluted mess with a lot of foot-dragging and lack of coordination between Western leaders and a lack of coordination with Ukrainian leaders. I believe the Obama foreign policy people are running this sideshow, because it has all the earmarks of their incompetent and clueless stumbling and bumbling, followed by overreactions that were the Obama foreign adventures.

I have no idea how things will turn out, but I feel certain that if the US and West cave on Ukraine, China will be on the move very quickly. A lot of Americans, especially on the right, have become isolationist after all the military adventurism in the past two decades and they don’t want to hear about sending US troops anywhere. I understand that, but the reality is Reagan was right: “We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”

America is still a force for good. If we decide to pick up our toys and go home, saying it’s not our problem or we don’t want to be the world’s policeman, that won’t keep us safe. Russia, China and other malignant actors in the world would quickly move to fill the void left by a US retreat from the world.

This blog post is going to be about some Ukraine-related happenings.

To say there’s been a great deal of propaganda involved with reporting on what’s happening with the actual war in Ukraine would be an understatement. The Russians and Ukrainians have waged massive propaganda campaigns, that make it hard to even really understand what’s happening in this conflict. I’ve relied a good bit on the UK Defense Ministry assessments, but even there I’m wary. After the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle and the bold-faced lies coming from the US Pentagon, it pains me to say I don’t trust the Biden-run Pentagon to be truthful. Along with the reporting on the conflict, there’s been a massive propaganda effort to paint Zelensky as the most noble, heroic leader ever, but here’s a reality check. Zelensky deserves credit for mobilizing and uniting his country to fend off a full-scale invasion by Russia, but he’s also engaged in a massive propaganda effort, creating a staged production that he’s used to influence the world.

In this process, propaganda has masked a whole lot of truths about Ukraine, how the Russian-Ukraine situation has evolved, the US and European roles in setting the stage for this confrontation and the reality that Ukraine has been a massively corrupt country for many years and a lot of money laundering went on there… heck, just look at Hunter Biden and his Burisma deal. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Russia naturally fed stories in western media hyping the Ukraine corruption and no less than Poltifact, that “fact-checker” site run by liberals, who carry water for Democrats decreed: No, Ukraine isn’t the money laundering or child sex trafficking capital of the world. Case closed… well, not really.

Fast forward to July 20, 2022 and this story at liberal NPR caught my attention: Corruption concerns involving Ukraine are revived as the war with Russia drags on.

So, in April if you mentioned Ukraine’s history of corruption, you were subject to being labeled as carrying water for Putin or being a Russian bot, but now in July, NPR is running a story on Ukraine corruption. Here are the first two paragraphs from that NPR article:

“WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s dismissal of senior officials is casting an inconvenient light on an issue that the Biden administration has largely ignored since the outbreak of war with Russia: Ukraine’s history of rampant corruption and shaky governance.”

“As it presses ahead with providing tens of billions of dollars in military, economic and direct financial support aid to Ukraine and encourages its allies to do the same, the Biden administration is now once again grappling with longstanding worries about Ukraine’s suitability as a recipient of massive infusions of American aid.”

This sort of dramatic narrative shift bugs me, because, pardon the bad puns, but the liberal mass media narratives become brainworms, that once the media yammer on about 24/7, quickly destroy all functioning brain cells and people just jump on-board the next narrative train and all memory of the previous narrative is wiped clean from their memory.

Here’s my hunch about what’s happening. The Russians slowed down gas flowing to Germany through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline (some turbines needed repair). The Germans were in a panic, worrying that Russia would shut down the flow of gas permanently, so the Germans pressured the Canadians, who had the turbines in Canada where Siemens Canada was repairing them. Some Canadian lawmakers are upset that Canada returned the turbines to Russia. Here’s a paragraph from Harretz (an Israeli news organization) article, Russia Resumes Gas Supply at Nord Stream 1, but a Full Cut-off Hangs Over Europe’s Head, dated July 21, 2022:

“German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in an interview with RND that “The Canadians said, ‘We have a lot of questions,’ so we said, ‘We understand that, but if we do not get the gas turbine, we will not get more gas, and then we will not be able to give Ukraine any support at all, because we will be busy dealing with a popular uprising.'” However, she later clarified that her statement was “perhaps too exaggerated”, but is a possible scenario.”

I think the Germans and French want Ukraine to make a deal of some sort with Russia, as this conflict looks like it’s going to become a long, border war and Ukraine is bleeding NATO countries, the EU and the US dry, with needing a constant, massive flow of military and humanitarian aid. Many European countries also have taken in large numbers of Ukrainian refugees and added to the last round of Europeans being invaded by a largely NGO-orchestrated (imo) refugee crisis from the Syrian conflict, well, let’s just say countries can only absorb so many refugees and when push comes to shove most people become more ethnocentric and take an attitude of “we need to take care of our own people first.” Add in that several European countries rely heavily on Russian gas and oil and they have no feasible plan to deal with what to do if Russia turns off the spigots.

So what to make of all this, well, I think with NPR now speaking what was deemed “Russian disinformation” only a few months ago, that the Biden administration, Germans and French want an off-ramp out of the Ukraine-Russia conflict. The UK is an unknown at the moment with their prime minister choice undecided: How Liz Truss, Russia’s Nemesis, Could Change Ukraine War if She Becomes PM. In America, we’ll likely know which way the Biden administration is headed when the liberal media/pundit crowd and blue checkmark Dem crowd on Twitter remove the Ukrainian flags next to their names and replace them with some new climate change flag or symbol. If they bug out on Ukraine virtue-signaling, that will be akin to the Vatican smoke signals... heralding a new narrative has been selected.

Yes, I believe the Ukraine conflict is about to be relegated to old news and go the way of the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle, never to be a lead news story by liberal media again, unless something unforeseen happens and things escalate. I believe climate hysteria will be igniting the news… and lots of stories pushing eating bugs. Here’s a BBC piece from July 20, 2022: For most people in Europe and the US, the idea of eating crickets and grasshoppers can seem revolting, but they are a popular snack in parts of Africa and Asia. Not only are they packed with nutrients but they are less harmful to the climate too.

Now, you now why I posted the YouTube video at the beginning…

Have a nice day.