LOS ANGELES.–Touting 52-year-old House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) as a hero, Democrats and Republicans praised his wisdom in granting the House vote on 81-year-old Joe Biden’s request for $95 billion in military aid for Ukraine, Israeli, Taiwan and a host of other countries. Biden finally got what he wanted to prolong the Ukraine War with the Kremlin into the indefinite future with an uncertain outcome. Johnson explained his decision to move forward with Ukraine’s war funding after spending months fighting the idea. Johnson said he didn’t want his son, who enters the U.S. Naval Academy in the Fall, to end up fighting WW III in Europe. Johnson’s reasoning shows he bought the Biden-Zelensky claptrap, insisting the Ukraine War would keep 71-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin from taking over Europe. Johnson showed his highly flawed logic.
Johnson pretended for months that he backed 77-year-old President Donald Trump’s position on the Ukraine War, to cut the funding to pushing the conflict to the peace table. Trump has promised, if elected president, he will end the war in 24 hours, something Ukraine’s 46-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky says can’t be done. Well, Zelensky, before getting the $60 billion, told Congress and the European Union [EU] he would lose the war without more U.S. cash-and-arms. Zelensky’s sales job got through to Johnson saying if he lost the war with the Kremlin, Europe would be set ablaze with WW III. Trump’s approach would force Zelensky to the peace table to negotiate a mutually acceptable peace deal but not only on his terms but what works with the Kremlin too. Zelensky has said he would never compromise with Putin, no matter what the sacrifices.
Trump’s approach recognizes what Biden and Zelensky have been told repeatedly by their generals, that there is no military solution to the Ukraine War. Yet Johnson is explaining his logic in joining Biden and the Democrats says he thinks giving Ukraine $60 billion will change the outcome and win the war with the Kremlin. How can Johnson flip-flop into drinking the Biden Cool-Aid that more war with Russia increases U.S. national security and reduces chances of WW III in Europe? “Ukraine has to not only fight to provide profit for the Americans but it also has to fight the last Ukrainian and is loaded up with debt,” said Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “The favorite colonial policy of the United States of America,” admitting it helps the U.S. Military Industrial Complex. Peskov’s point is that Kiev has been exploied by Washington to help American defense contractors linked to the U.S. war-machine industry.
Peskov also said that U.S. cash to Ukraine would fail to change the outcome because it would force the Kremlin to redouble efforts to defeat the American attempt to turn Ukraine into a U.S. satellite state on the Russian border. “All experts and semi-experts can now see with the naked eye the situation on the front, which is far from favorable for the Ukrainian side, so this cannot change anything,” Peskov said, disputing Johnson’s statements that it would prevent his son from fighting WW III in Europe. Johnson once believed in Trump’s diplomacy model that required high-end diplomacy to end the conflict with both sides making compromises at the peace table. Johnson completely lost sight of Trump’s diplomatic approach to solving the Ukraine War, letting Zelensky know that the U.S. Treasury would not underwrite perpetual war with the Kremlin, for whatever reason.
Unlike Biden, Trump’s approach to foreign policy is one of negotiation and compromise, something he learned coming up the ranks in the rough-and-tumble of New York real estate. Trump built his real estate empire on his negotiation skills, culminating in his 1987 best-selling book with Tony Schwartz, “The Art of the Deal” There’s no art anymore to Biden’s approach to U.S. foreign policy with adversaries, using the Pentagon to get his message across. When Biden told Xi Jinping in 2022 he would commit U.S. troops to defend Taiwan, he showed his approach to gunboat diplomacy, threatening war to get adversaries like Russia, China and North Korea to back off. But Biden has the U.S. embroiled in an unending war with the Kremlin over Ukraine, ending generations of diplomacy, détente and arms control, now pushing the world closer than ever before to WW III.
Johnson showed why he’s no hero to Democrats or Republicans giving Ukraine another $60 billion to continue a destructive war that only harmed Ukraine, with the Kremlin now fighting the war against the United States. Whatever percentage Russia controls of Ukraine’s sovereign territory, 18% to 25%, it only adds to destruction of Ukraine’s infrastructure, and, more importantly, its economic ruin. Ukraine can no longer fund its Kiev government without U.S. government largess, something that can’t go on forever, no matter what the excuses. Biden and Zelensky sold Johnson a bill of goods about preventing WW III. Continuing the war with Kremlin is the fastest way to perpetual war on the European Continent, not a way to promote peace and prosperity. Unless Trump wins the presidency in November, expect the U.S. under Biden to be in perpetual war.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
