Biden’s Dithering Over Sending Weapons to Ukraine
President Biden has been dithering over sending weapons to Ukraine from day one. His dithering will be the biggest blunder of this war. And, given the blunders President Putin has committed, that’s saying a lot.
Putin’s blunders began with his ill-fated decision to launch his genocidal “Special Military Operation.” His master plan called for it to take only five days. Yet, ten months later, it’s still blundering on.
But Biden is finally sending the Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine. It has a proven record of intercepting cruise missiles. Yes, the ones Putin has been using to destroy Ukraine’s infrastructure from day one. Which begs the question, what took Biden so long?
Sending weapons: Too little, too late
News of this latest shipment will only provide Ukrainians with pyrrhic relief. After all, Zelensky has been pleading for Biden to send it from day one. And that’s because the need has been so damned obvious.
Yet the whole world watched, in feckless dismay, as Putin kept striking Ukraine with cruise missiles. This presaged the fatal irony in Biden finally sending this air defense system. After all, Putin has almost depleted Russia’s stockpile of missiles.
Those missiles have devastated the country’s energy grid. As a result, Ukrainians are facing a winter of misery – in homes with little water and less light or heat. Of course, that’s the point of Putin’s diabolical plan to “weaponize winter.”
It did not have to be thus. And only irrational fear of Putin’s wrath explains it. But Putin’s nuclear threats are patently hollow.
Indeed, Biden has already called his bluff by sending weapons that have killed thousands of Russian soldiers. Those weapons range from Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to long-range missiles (HIMARS).
So why dither about calling his bluff by sending the air defense system? After all, this is to prevent Russian missiles from killing Ukrainians, not to help Ukrainians kill Russians.
Biden is letting Putin bomb Ukraine to smithereens
History will judge Biden harshly. It will show that Ukraine could have won this war months ago. If only he had sent the weapons Zelensky had requested at the outset.
I have decried Biden’s drip-drip strategy as a form of Chinese water torture in posts like “Zelensky to Macron: Non Monsieur, Humiliating Russia Is Critical!” on June 16 and “Is the West Supplying Ukraine with Enough Weapons?” on July 8.
Sure enough, training Ukrainian soldiers to use this Patriot missile defense system will take months. Now, Biden is steadfastly refusing to send fighter jets. But, given his strategy, he will send them in due course too. The recurring problem, however, is that it will take months to train Ukrainians to fly those jets – training they should’ve begun months ago.
The wonder is what this says about the Pentagon’s much-vaunted military planners. After all, Biden established his drip-drip strategy. So they should have completed contingent training on all weapon systems long ago.
I’m sure Ukraine is happy to have this air defense system. But, by the time it’s deployed, Ukraine might have nothing to defend.
iPINIONS sympathizes with Zelensky’s frustration and stupefaction. But I’m sitting comfortably in my home in America. And I have no reason to fear a missile plunging it into darkness, destroying my home, and killing me.
Of course, Biden can say the same. But he’s praised as the most empathetic president in US history. So, I wish he would show a little of that empathy for besieged and beleaguered Ukrainians.
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