Posted on by kenferriesblog

Rewriting history right before our eyes …

I am getting tired of people in positions of power trying to rewrite history, especially history that I saw becoming history with my own two surgically corrected eyes.

On Page 8 of last Friday’s Kokomo Tribune (yes, I still subscribe to the local newspaper, and so should you because you’d miss it if it went away), there appeared an Associated Press report with the local headline “Trump envoy: Ukrainians ‘brought this on themselves’ after aid paused.”

The “person of power” being quoted was “U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia,” a retired lieutenant general named Keith Kellogg. A quick check confirmed my assumption that he retired from our own armed forces, because for a person supposedly trying to broker a deal between two sovereign nations, he did not sound even-handed in his estimation of the positions of the two combatants.

It all goes back to that imbroglio in the White House back on February 28. Subsequently, you-know-who “paused” military aid to Ukraine and “paused” the sharing of U.S. intelligence with that beleaguered country. Then the United States cut off access to the commercial satellite imagery that gave the Ukrainians a chance to look into the movements of their enemy.

These moves appeared to be intended to cripple one party in this conflict and improve the hand of the other. Not exactly the acts of a good-faith mediator.

The article refers to a shouting match between the president of Ukraine and you-know-who and his live ventriloquist’s dummy, Boy Blunder.

Hold the presses!

My surgically corrected eyes watched that mess in real time and in living color. Yes, there were voices raised, but it wasn’t the president of Ukraine. It was our own twosome “excoriating” (what a wonderful word!) a guy trying save his country from a painfully drawn-out extinction.

All my surgically corrected eyes saw was a blindsided Ukrainian trying to get a word in edgewise between the rants of our own people.

Did he look happy? No. Was his country being trashed? Most definitely.

Lt. Gen. Kellogg’s reaction to the “pauses”? He is quoted as saying that they were already having an impact, and that the Ukrainians “brought it on themselves.” “The best way I can describe it is sort of like hitting a mule with a two-by-four across the nose,” he said. “You got their attention.”

The retired lieutenant general is reminded that the “mule” in question has spent the last three years fighting a war of survival he was expected to lose in three days.

There is a more colorful word in the English language for “mule,” but this is a family newspaper. You can guess who deserves it the most in this instance

It isn’t the guy from Kyiv.

Over the last three years, that guy has thanked the United States profusely for its assistance, including at least one time before a joint session of Congress, where he received a standing ovation from both sides of the aisle. That was back when Republicans still thought democracy was worth saving.

What is his current sin? What deserved a two-by-four across the nose? I suspect it has to do with his standing up for his county’s interests and failing to kiss the ring of you-know-who. It’s hard to kiss a ring when it comes at you, unexpectedly, as part of a cheap diplomatic sucker punch

This whole sorry incident is symptomatic of yet another attempt by this administration to rewrite history – even though we saw the first draft with our own eyes.

We are now told Ukraine started the war. Excuse me. Have we forgotten the two-mile-long column of heavy military equipment lined up on a highway aimed straight at Kyiv? Have we forgotten the little comedian-turned-president who, as the Russians advanced, spurned being evacuated with a courageous “I need ammunition, not a ride”?

The aim currently appears to be to force an ally to a negotiation that confirms the theft by military force of at least 20 percent of its territory, with no security assurances beyond those made in 1994 when Ukraine voluntarily gave up its nuclear weapons (an estimated 1,700 nuclear warheads). They did this as part of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons signed in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s unlamented dissolution.

And what did they receive in exchange?

Assurances that their independence and sovereignty in their existing borders would be respected.

Assurances to which this country and today’s aggressor state are both signatories.

Now both signatories seem to be reneging. For the United States, it seems to be in the hopes of currying favor with an authoritarian leader who has never made a promise he was not willing to break, as he has shown with depressing regularity.

Ukraine is fighting for its life with its own blood. No American blood is being spilled (think Vietnam, Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq). Monetary and military assistance instead is a pretty good deal – especially since most of the money is spent buying American equipment and keeping American workers employed.

The next potential dominoes – Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania – are watching closely to see which way to jump, as is Poland and most of Eastern Europe.

Believe your eyes – surgically corrected or not.

Posted on by kenferriesblog

Small yipping dogs and the future of the world

Have you ever noticed that it is usually the smallest, scrawniest rat dog that yips the loudest and quickly becomes an annoyance?

Which brings us to our recently minted vice president, J.D. Vance, and his incendiary role in February 28’s debacle of a photo-op gone disastrously off the rails.

When in a photo-op with your boss present, the traditional role of a vice president is to sit quietly and listen to the immortal words of the top dog. The vice president should speak only if spoken to. It is expected they will always look worshipfully at the guy in charge. Fawning, while optional, is highly recommended. More lap dog than attack dog.

But not our recently minted vice president.

Sitting on a couch with an uncomfortable looking Marco Rubio (who, allegedly, is in charge of our relations with foreign heads of state and all things diplomatic), our bearded former freshman senator from Ohio interrupted the flow of a tense, but nonetheless diplomatically acceptable, dialog between his boss and the president of a foreign state supposedly allied to the United States, and began to yip vociferously

After making it abundantly clear that he disrespected our ally, the newly minted vice president angrily charged that our ally had disrespected us. He yipped about how our ally hadn’t thanked us enough for what in reality is the boost his country has given to the American armaments industry. (After all, his country used the monetary grants from the United States to buy weapons and ammunition from American manufacturers.)

Then the beleaguered and blind-sided foreign head of state made a boo-boo.

He pointed out that while the country invading his country was just next door, we in the United States have an ocean moat, a moat that has protected us in the past but may not offer such security in the future.

This roused our real-estate-agent-in-chief and deal-maker-non-pariel from a state of glowering, but largely silent, intensity and set him off on a trip down memory lane. In a barrage of indignation, he revisited the various injuries done to him in the past, with special emphasis on those wounds suffered jointly with his good friend Comrade Putin.

We’ve heard it all before ad nauseam ad infinitum ad mortem.

His role completed in this likely ambush; our recently minted vice president mercifully ceased his yipping.

Silent as the tomb, Marco Rubio lived down to his nickname, “Little Marco.”

Our chief deal maker tossed our ally out of the White House with orders that he not be readmitted until he was ready to do a deal no matter how costly, unfair or disastrous that deal may be to the country he leads.

As I write this, I am painfully aware that a good chunk of my fellow citizens (probably not a majority, but a good chunk, nevertheless) think all this is wonderful stuff.

Our big boss was strong and put this supplicant in his place. He told it like it is, and if it isn’t pretty – tough. It’s the way of the world. Get on the bus or get run over by it.

That goes for our so-called allies as well. Who needs or wants the allies who have stood with us for generations? We have new friends: Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, or any other strong-man regime elsewhere on the planet.

And all this is apparently good enough for the cabal of invertebrates posing as Republican senators and representatives who appear willing to sell their souls, their constituents – and their country – down the tubes so long as they avoid primary opposition that might threaten their jobs.

Shakespeare couldn’t have plotted a better tragedy.

If we squander trust, if we squander honor, if we squander truth – those attributes that America has enjoyed in some measure as leader of the Free World order that has existed since World War II, we will find they are extremely hard to regain. If ever.

February 28, 2025, will go down as a dark day in American diplomacy. It is the day we told our friends to go their own way without us and cozied up to those who wish for this nation nothing but ill.

As for our recently minted vice president? Hopefully at the next photo-op his role will be limited to going to get the diet cola. No yipping allowed.