Blumenthal Biden his Time
There is little doubt that Connecticut U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal has been emotionally affected by his recent visit to Poland, where he saw writ large at first hand the ravages of Russian imperialist Vladimir Putin’s policy towards Ukraine, NATO, the United States and democracy. About a third of Ukrainians have fled Putin’s assaults on major Ukrainian cities, many of them ending up in Poland.
Blumenthal well understands Putin’s unjustifiable attacks on a sovereign country that has served since the Soviet Union recession as a buffer between Russia and Eastern Europe.
Strategically, Putin wants to crush Ukrainian independence, move Russia’s border westward, so that it is contiguous with the borders of NATO states, put Ukraine permanently at the mercy of Russia by annexing the Donbas region, as Russia had earlier annexed Crimea, providing a land bridge from Russia to Crimea. Both Blumenthal and Biden are familiar with Putin’s strategic war aims. So are nearly all Democrats and Republicans, as well as Pentagon chieftains.
Early in April, the Senate Armed Services Committee grilled both Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley.
“Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the Hill reported, “was the most vocal of several Democrats on the panel urging the Pentagon to step up its support for Ukraine’s war effort.
“It seems to me that often our strategy seems somewhat schizophrenic," Blumenthal said. "We want the Ukrainians to defeat the Russians, but we're afraid that pushing Putin into defeat may provoke escalation. It seems to me that we need to address those fears and realistically provide the Ukrainians what they need to win."
Blumenthal earlier had said that the United States should be supplying adequate weapons to Ukraine – including forbidden planes that would allow Ukraine to regain control of its skies which, everyone in the military knows, is necessary if the friends of the United States and NATO were to win a ground war. Blumenthal is a Marine.
Republican U. S. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the Hill reported, “elicited from Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III the admission that, up until now, the Pentagon has not clearly stated that the U.S. military could provide battlefield information to Ukraine’s forces that could help them fight Russian proxies in the separatist-controlled eastern Donbas region of Ukraine.”
Why couldn’t the Pentagon provide Ukraine with naval assets, Blumenthal asked, “or send American A-10 attack planes that the Pentagon is in the process of retiring. He also wondered aloud whether America cannot train Ukrainian troops so they can operate more U.S.-made equipment. He wondered why the administration has not invoked Defense Production Act authorities to accelerate weapons procurements.”
It was Blumenthal’s finest hour… well, perhaps his finest 15 minutes of fame, and U.S. Senator Tom Cotton, who serves with Blumenthal on the Senate Armed Services Committee, justly complimented Blumenthal.
But Blumenthal’s pointed question – is the State Department and the Pentagon interested in WINNING a military contest against Putin? – might easily be asked of President Joe Biden, the nominal head of the national Democrat Party. Does Biden want to WIN the war in Ukraine?
Praise of Ukrainian courage has become a form of cheap grace among administration and Defense Department officials. Training Ukrainians in the use of new weaponry, Austin said, “would take Ukrainian fighters out of the ‘knife fight’ they are in. And he expressed doubt that A-10s Blumenthal mentioned “could survive attacks in Ukraine. He reiterated, too, that the administration is pushing U.S. defense contractors as hard as possible to turn out more weapons for Ukraine and to backfill U.S. stocks that the Pentagon has drawn down to support the war.”
Owing to an abundance of caution on the part of the Biden administration and its Pentagon advisors, Ukraine has been in a “knife fight” with an acquisitive enemy that has had complete control of the skies over Ukraine from the very first Russian aggression. That IS the problem. The U.S. and its allies are asking Ukrainians to continue a “knife fight” with Putin, who has brought a gun to the fight and has reduced to dust numerous Ukrainian cities, including Mariupol, the gateway to the Donbas region Putin hopes to add to Russian acquisitions.
Over the weekend, Austin and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken paid a visit to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The meeting on Sunday, according to an Associated Press report, “took place as Ukrainians and Russians observed orthodox Easter, when the faithful celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. Speaking from Kyiv’s ancient St. Sophia Cathedral, Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, highlighted its significance to a nation wracked by war.
“The great holiday today gives us great hope and unwavering faith that light will overcome darkness, good will overcome evil, life will overcome death, and therefor Ukraine will surely win.”
Milley is not hopeful. Ukrainians, he said, have “managed to defeat the Russian onslaught onto Kyiv. But there is a significant battle yet ahead down in the southeast, down around the Donbas region, where the Russians intend to mass forces and continue their assault. So I think it's an open question right now how this ends.”