Is Biden Really Displaying Cowardice?
Or is there something more disturbing being done?
Sorry for that image, I know its disturbing. But I wanted to get your mind into the idea I’m going to be suggesting here.
Dylan Combellick is a well trained and experienced intelligence analyst, and his work on discussing and informing us of the Ukrainian conflict is, in my opinion, unmatched on Medium — or anywhere else from what I’ve read. His direct experience with Russia is invaluable in what he’s doing for us all.
But if any of my (or his) regular readers have noticed, I’ve got some nitpicks with his opinions and statements about Biden and Biden’s activities in supporting (or not) Ukraine against Russia. He’s made no bones about calling Biden’s actions cowardice, and I do object to that.
Not because I’ve any special insight to Biden’s character. Hehehe, I don’t. I’m just another Progressive American voter — albeit older than a lot of them.
But what I DO have is experience in watching — carefully — the actions of the United States over the last fifty plus years, and how this country has changed and morphed into something I don’t like in today’s world.
Not that I’ve ever been particularly excited over some of the stuff we’ve done in and to other countries before this. There are a lot of disturbing things we’ve done that a ton of Democrats admit are at the basis of the immigration issues we have that are still creating bad conditions their people are running away from.
But you see, that’s a part of what I’m talking about.
Americans (me included) like to think this is a great country. That we are (and always have been) that shining city on a hill that’s an example of democratic perfection for the world to admire and emulate. What we’ve never truly realized is that underneath that shine is the moldy tarnish that never gets talked about and seldom sees the light of day. Or at least the media seldom shines a light on it.
That mold has gotten deeper and more rotten over the last fifty years, and maybe even before that. At the basis of that are the Rich White Men (RWM) who are descendants of the guys we fought with in the 19th century over monopolistic capitalism and the growing corporate power they wanted to use to take over the country. They kind of lost then, but since, their descendants (both by blood or by character) have now taken control of the Republican party and are working hard to overturn our democracy.
Is Biden, as President, actively working with them? I doubt it, as he does still seem to be working with a Democratic Party that seems to still support our democracy.
But that doesn’t mean he isn’t AFFECTED by them, or isn’t being influenced by their demands. After all, it’s a matter of public record that many of the same Rich White Men (RWM) who fund the GOP are also giving money to top tier Democrats. That has to have some affect on how they act. I’m sure it had the effect of dragging the Democrats further rightwards than many of us would have preferred.
And so, Dylan, I’m going to suggest an alternative to your “Biden is a coward” opinion. Note that I do not claim special knowledge or sources of information. I’m just going by public information and my own observations. I could be wrong, and completely off base.
But given Biden’s past service, I doubt the cowardice thing too. He’s too experienced for that.
But as relates to the Russian/Ukrainian conflict, I can see a possibility we’ve missed, and it relates to how Biden is dragging this thing out, and that the EU and NATO aren’t especially pushing the US to go faster. I’ve mentioned before that Russia has a well developed and very efficient disinformation system that manages to divide and convert smaller countries to, if not allies, then to countries with internal conflicts that keep them from opposing Russia or the RF (also to distract the US). That capability is certainly at the center of our political issues here in the US, and that’s not only disturbing, but it’s actively harmful and threatens our democracy. Which is most obviously the goal of the Russian oligarchs. (Don’t forget that term, it’s important!)
I don’t think it’s that off base to mention that the US is also fighting a budding oligarchy of our own, and that’s what I’ve been talking about in part. But oligarchs hate real war, because it prevents the full operations of actual business, which is where those oligarchs make their money. They’d rather take care of their enemies more, shall we say, sneakily? Using perhaps, the lives and money of others?
So think about it this way.
The American wannabe oligarchs are looking ahead (they’re better at this than most of us) and they don’t like the idea of Russian oligarchs getting ahead of them in vying for world control. They’re by damn, American oligarchs, and so THEY deserve that control, not those damn Russians!
Right?
So, instead of taking on the Russian Federation themselves, they’re happy to let Ukraine, the EU, NATO, and the US do that for them, and for that reason, they want to drag this conflict out to exhaust the Russian economy, let Ukraine destroy as much as they can to weaken it, and have Russia completely empty their old WWII and Cold War stockpiles of weapons and vehicles to cripple their capabilities in the future.
Just as they’ve done in the past in the Twentieth Century, they’re perfectly happy to waste the lives, economies, and tax money of others to accomplish their purposes, so they can sit back and keep counting their wealth. Kinda like Scrooge McDuck and his piles of gold coins!
And the most fascinating part of this is that not a single American politician has to know or understand that their actions in regards to Ukraine are truly at the behest of our own oligarchs. All of it can be carefully hidden away and brought to their attention through intermediaries who themselves may be ignorant of the source.
And even better, those sources may even be in cahoots with European oligarchs who are working in Europe with similar goals.
And if Ukraine fails? Well, that’s life, doncha know. Not their money, not their problem.
So, how likely is this?
I cannot say. It’s possible, and I’d even say likely, given that warfare and political infighting is, long term, harmful to good business activities, though that infighting can be often beneficial to the oligarchs in actually taking control. But long term?
Russia and their land grabbing oligarchs are gonna be a problem for the western oligarchs, and I do think they may be taking advantage of this war to kill off Russia — or at least reduce their power and influence. We’ve been used this way before, and it’d be no surprise to see them doing that again now.
What do you say? Likely? Unlikely? Or have you got a slightly different angle on this? I’d love to see other ideas about this.
So, hey, you do know that as a Medium reader and/or writer, when you read an article and like it, you CAN clap up to fifty times, right? You can come up with a system, like fifty claps for a really great article (mine!) and perhaps thirty or thirty-five for a good one, and perhaps twenty for one that’s ok, and perhaps a single clap for one you read but weren’t at all impressed with but didn’t want to just walk away from. (Same with the comments, also.) Don’t feel too bad, it was almost two weeks before I got told about it.
