The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Concerning Ukraine, Russia, NATO, And The U.S.
Very rarely, in conflicts like the war taking place in Ukraine, is everything or, for that matter, anything as cut and dry as the MSM makes it out to be. Looking back over history, the USSR and later Russia have always been made out to be America’s bogeyman. I am not defending them in any way, but let’s stop pretending. We have not always been lily white in our decision-making, either. All countries make mistakes, and we have made our share as well.
The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 is primarily looked back upon as a U.S victory where John F. Kennedy stared down Nikita Khrushchev and forced the Soviet Union to cease building missile bases in Cuba. While it’s true that the missile bases were removed, why were they placed there in the first place?
Many Americans still believe it was a power play by Khrushchev to expand the USSR’s strength, but that wasn’t the case. After the disastrous U.S. attempt to overthrow the Castro regime in Cuba with the Bay of Pigs invasion, Castro reached out to Khrushchev for protection against another U.S. invasion. The pair reached an agreement to place Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba to deter any future invasion attempt. The construction of several missile sites began in the late summer of that year.
However, that wasn’t the only reason for the missile placement. The U.S. had placed Jupiter missiles in Turkey, essentially on the Soviet border, and repeated requests to remove them fell on deaf U.S. ears. So, by placing missiles in Cuba, the Soviet Union was giving the United States a taste of its own medicine.
In the weeks that followed, tensions ran high. However, one afternoon, the situation took a dramatic turn. ABC News correspondent John Scali reported to the White House that he had been approached by a Soviet agent. This agent suggested that an agreement could be reached: the Soviets would remove their missiles from Cuba in exchange for the United States’ assurance that it would not invade the island.
While U.S. experts were convinced Khrushchev’s message was authentic, hope for a resolution was short-lived. The next day, October 27, Khrushchev sent another message indicating that any proposed deal must include the removal of U.S. Jupiter missiles from Turkey.
Not wanting to make that concession for public relations reasons, Kennedy made the risky decision to honor Khrushchev’s first message and to ignore the second. That night, Kennedy conveyed to the Soviet leader his proposed steps for the supervised removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba by the United Nations, along with a guarantee that the United States would not attack Cuba.
Attorney General Robert Kennedy held a secret meeting with Soviet Ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin. During this meeting, Kennedy indicated that the United States planned to remove the Jupiter missiles from Turkey soon, although this action could not be included in any public resolution of the missile crisis. The following morning, on October 28, Khrushchev issued a public statement announcing that Soviet missiles would be dismantled and removed from Cuba.
The U.S. Jupiter missiles were quietly removed from Turkey in April 1963.
Similarly, when the war in Ukraine began, the MSM again painted it as an aggressive Russia looking to expand and absorb Ukraine. The truth is that Putin had no such intentions, what he wanted was to keep NATO/United States, off of the Russian border.
When the Soviet Union ended in 1991 and transformed into Russia, the parties forged an agreement that NATO would not expand eastward at all. Then, in 1994, the United States decided to ignore that agreement, and Bill Clinton signed off on NATO enlarging to the east, all the way to Ukraine.
In 1999, the first NATO expansion began into Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. While this breach of the agreement irritated Russia, the expansion was not an immediate threat to its borders.
In 2004, Russia went from irritated to pissed off. NATO/United States expanded again into the Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Also, into Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, and Slovakia. Sensing that the expansion wasn’t finished, in 2007 Putin publicly stated that the NATO expansion needed to “Stop” and that it was “Enough,” but that went unheeded.
In 2008, on insistence by the United States, NATO expanded into Ukraine and Georgia, right against the Russian border. With all of their request having been ignored, war was inevitable and one month later war broke out in Georgia and it was destroyed.
In 2010, the U.S. placed missile systems in Poland and Romania despite Russia’s loud protests. That same year, Victor Yanukovych was elected on a platform of neutrality. Russia still had no territorial interest or any designs on Ukraine at all, what they were negotiating was a 25-year lease for the Severstopol Naval Base, not Crimea or Donbas, just the naval base.
Then came Mink II, which said the Russian-speaking regions to the east of Ukraine should have autonomy. The UN Security Council supported it unanimously, but the United States and Ukraine decided it would not be enforced. There were many thousands of deaths from Ukraine’s shelling of Donbas.
In December 2021 and January 2022, one issue was whether or not the U.S. had the right to put missiles on Russia’s border in Ukraine. Blinken spitefully told Lavrov in January that the U.S. reserves the right to put missile systems anywhere it wants.
After all of this, what were Putin’s intentions when the war began? It was to force Zelensky to negotiate neutrality, which happened within seven days of the start of the invasion. A settlement was close, but Ukraine unilaterally walked away from the table because the United States told them to.
The idea was that Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Türkiye, and Georgia would deprive Russia of International status by blocking it from using the Black Sea.
The corrupt Biden administration found the perfect partner in Zelensky. He is a greedy ex-comedian/con man suffering from Napoleon Syndrome who can switch from aggressor to victim in record-setting time. More importantly, he is the perfect funnel for American taxpayer dollars in a proxy war where no Americans are getting killed. However, almost a million Ukrainians have been killed or severely wounded.
Trump has recently acknowledged this, arguing that NATO expansion into Ukraine has played a major role in setting the war off. Putin has been warning the West that NATO expansion on Russia’s borders would be seen as a hostile act since 2008, following the NATO Bucharest Summit, where the alliance announced that Ukraine would eventually become a member.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov praised President Trump for his comment regarding NATO’s expansion into Ukraine.
“He is the first, and so far, in my opinion, the only Western leader who has publicly and loudly said that one of the root causes of the Ukrainian situation was the impudent line of the previous administration to draw Ukraine into NATO.”
A Sunday morning X post by Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie, may have summed it up best:
“NATO is a Cold War relic that needs to be relegated to a talking kiosk at the Smithsonian.”
Additionally, Musk has expressed his skepticism with the demands for continual support of Ukraine, adding:
“The European Union (EU) leaders and Zelensky having fancy dinners while men die in trenches. How many parents will never see their son again? How many children will never see their father?”
It’s laughable that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other EU conies now consider themselves “War Hawks” boldly predicting that they will do the “heavy lifting” in supporting Ukraine.
Really? After standing by and watching Biden throwing billions of dollars into the Zelensky laundry? Here’s an idea, how about you and your other European buddies start paying a fair share for your own defense and stop peacocking to look good on the world stage.
Starmer announced around $2 billion in funding for Ukraine to buy more than 5,000 air defense missiles.
He also set out four key points to ensure Ukraine gets a just and lasting peace:
1. Military aid to Ukraine will continue as will economic pressure on Russia.
2. Ukraine must be at the table for talks and any deal must ensure Ukraine’s sovereignty and security.
3. If there is a peace deal, the U.K. and other like-minded countries will continue to boost Ukraine’s defensive capability to deter any future invasion.
4. A “coalition of the willing” will be assembled to defend Ukraine and guarantee peace. The U.K. is prepared to back this with “boots on the ground and planes in the air,” Starmer said although he did not name other countries which have also committed resources.
But wait:
“The British prime minister said he spoke to U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday before announcing Sunday that the U.K., France and Ukraine will work together to develop a plan to present to the U.S. to stop the fighting. Starmer insisted any peace plan for Ukraine must have American security guarantees and said the plan is currently being developed on the basis that “it will have U.S. backing.”
So, you DON’T have a plan without the United States.
This JV team of European clowns still doesn’t get it. Trump has a peace plan. All you are doing by fluffing up Zelensky’s feathers is making things worse.
Our country’s long history in the evolution of this debacle is bad enough. It’s time to wash our hands of this. Zelensky shouldn’t get another U.S. dollar. He doesn’t get to demand guarantees about anything, especially when he is doing everything in his power to keep the money flowing and to remain in the spotlight.
When he finally wants peace, we can help facilitate that as long as it costs the U.S. nothing. If the little man has a problem with that, give him Starmer’s number, after all he wants to do some “heavy lifting.”
