RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/bidens-pathetic-energy-theater/

The New York Times reports that President Biden has a plan to counteract Russia’s energy stranglehold on Europe:

The Biden Administration announced on Tuesday that it was working with gas and crude oil suppliers from the Middle East, North Africa and Asia to bolster supplies to Europe in coming weeks, in an effort to blunt the threat that Russia could cut off fuel shipments in the escalating conflict over Ukraine.

The EU currently imports about a third of its oil and gas from Russia. And, of course, the Germans have been busily making the situation worse by shuttering their nuclear-powered electric plants and pushing for the opening of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would bypass Ukraine and further entrench German dependence on Vladimir Putin’s petro power.

“We expect to be prepared to ensure alternative supplies covering a significant majority of the potential shortfall,’’ a Biden administration official told the Times.

And if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. . .

https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/ric-grenell-ukraine-russia-biden/2022/01/22/id/1053553/

The situation with Ukraine is a “disaster” with only “terrible and bad choices,” says former ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell, and foreign leaders “smell weakness” with President Joe Biden in charge.

“All the work we did, whether it’s the border, whether it’s the Middle East, and now what we’re seeing in Europe is frustrating,” Grenell, who served under former President Donald Trump and is now a senior national security analyst for Newsmax, said on “The Count.”

“We don’t have any good choices. But the reality is that the leaders of Russia and China and a whole bunch of other places smell weakness.”

And now, with the news that the United States is starting to evacuate nonessential personnel from Ukraine, that shows that there is no plan for what will happen if Russia invades Ukraine or what will happen if Americans are left behind enemy lines, like they were in Afghanistan.

“We don’t have a handle on the numbers,” said Grenell, adding that the U.S. does not have an ambassador in Ukraine, so lower-level individuals are left to coordinate with Washinton.

“I can tell you from experience,” he said. “I’d been at the State Department for 11 years. The individuals who are in charge of our embassy in Ukraine right now are not making decisions on their own. They’re going back and organizing with the assistant secretary of state for Europe, who is Karen Donfried, who used to work for the German Marshall fund where the Germans paid part of her salary. So this is a disaster situation all over.”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10439847/Three-Bidens-Iran-negotiating-team-RESIGN-not-tough-nuke-deal.html

Republican Rep. Michael Waltz praised the negotiators who have stepped back for ‘recognizing when diplomacy is getting too desperate’
Waltz has had his own experience in the Middle East as an Army Green Beret 
State Department official confirmed Tuesday that Richard Nephew stood down
He was  U.S. Deputy Special Envoy for Iran and known as sanctions architect
Nephew, who wanted Biden to take a harder stance against Iran, has reportedly been avoiding the meetings in Vienna since December 
At the same time, reports emerged that two other negotiators had left
It comes at a critical time in negotiations between the West and Tehran 
Iran has rejected talk of an interim agreement and wants a legal guarantee that the U.S. will not walk away from the nuclear deal

A Republican member of Congress on Tuesday praised three Biden administration officials who walked away from their roles on the State Department’s nuclear talks with Iran.

Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida, who served in the Middle East as one of the Army’s elite Green Berets, told DailyMail.com their departure at a critical junction of the discussions is a reflection of President Joe Biden’s policies putting ‘national security at risk.’

A State Department official confirmed that Richard Nephew, known as the architect of sanctions on Tehran, had stepped down as U.S. Deputy Special Envoy for Iran after urging a tougher stance on nuclear talks.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18174/biden-latest-mayhem

It should not be surprising that Russian strongman Vladimir Putin believes he can invade Ukraine, a sovereign neighboring nation, and claim it as an historic part of his empire. After all, there is a shameful European history to reflect upon, combined with the most recent actions of the United States under the current White House.

In 1938, Western democracies were more than willing to hand over a free and stable central European nation to Hitler. The Czechs found themselves abandoned and served up on a plate to the Third Reich as Hitler threatened war if the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia was not annexed by Germany. The reason for his demand was that it was territory long populated by many ethnic Germans. (And this may sound disturbingly familiar if you follow Putin’s logic why Ukraine is his, given that part of its diverse population is Russian.)

Some 84 years ago, Britain’s Neville Chamberlain conspired with the French to appease Hitler, and telling a BBC audience, “How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing.”

The deal forced onto the Czech leadership by the democracies was that the Sudetenland would become part of the Reich but the rest of the Czech nation would be secure. It was cynical nonsense of course. Hitler sensed the moral bankruptcy of the democracies and within 12 months would take over the rest of Czechoslovakia. He did it without firing a shot and without the democracies confronting him.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/cameronarcand/2022/01/24/pentagon-8500-troops-being-placed-on-high-alert-for-possible-deployment-to-europe-n1552382

Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby announced that 8,500 American troops are on standby for swift deployment to Eastern Europe in order to assist NATO allies if Russia decides to invade Ukraine.

“Secretary Austin placed a range of units in the U.S. on a heightened preparedness to deploy, which increases our readiness to provide forces if NATO should activate the NRF or if other situations develop,” he said Monday.

“All told, the number of forces that the secretary has placed on heightened alert comes up to about 8,500 personnel.”

The administration is hoping that this move will deter Putin from starting combat at the Russian-Ukrainian border, but reporters quickly scrutinized the decision, particularly if those troops are not going directly to Ukraine.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/russia-ukraine-biden-weakness-mike-pompeo

From negotiating with the malign Iranian regime while they have threatened former President Trump, or allowing the Taliban to sweep through Afghanistan and directly imperil American lives, or refusing to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for its central role in the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic or for its aggression towards Taiwan, the Biden administration’s record after one year in office is marked by abject weakness.

But his weakness has been unmatched in attempting to deter Russia’s imminent invasion of Ukraine.

For months now, Vladimir Putin has massed Russian military forces on the Ukrainian border. Last month, on December 17, the Kremlin unveiled two draft agreements that essentially acted as ultimatums for NATO and the Biden administration.

The demands? For the United States and NATO to guarantee that NATO would not expand further east, that the United States would withdraw its nuclear missiles from Europe, and that no NATO country would cooperate militarily with former Soviet countries.  In effect, Vladimir Putin wants to reestablish Russian dominance over Eastern Europe by recapturing old Soviet bloc countries.

Of course, this would be disastrous for Europe and American national security.  President Putin made no offers or concessions in exchange for these demands.  He included no guarantees to withdraw the mass of Russian troops in the Donbass region of Ukraine, and proposed no plan to end Russia’s illegal occupation of Crimea.

All he ‘promised’ was to no longer threaten America.  Any competent team in the White House, any capable American president, would have responded to such threats with immediate and tangible costs to the Russians.

They would have responded to the massive military build-up on Ukraine’s border with preemptive, crushing economic sanctions and an ironclad guarantee to help Ukraine defend itself should Russia invade.  President Biden should be rallying European allies to commit themselves to standing against Putin and his lawless, authoritarian actions.  But deterrence was lost with Biden’s weakness.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18164/houthis-terrorist-group

Attempts to deliver humanitarian aid to the poverty-stricken people of Yemen appear to have been blocked by the Houthis themselves, as well as by the United States, which has withdrawn support for Saudi Arabia, while giving the Houthis a free pass.

The Houthi strategy, it appears, is to use the dire living situation of the civilians under its control as a shield to get what it wants, such as being removed from the terrorist list and continuing its terror activities without facing any consequences.

If the Biden administration surrenders to this strategy, not only will the terror group feel that it has won, it will also be empowered to ratchet up its violence, crimes, and drone and missile attacks.

A surrender to this form of extortion will also set precedent for other terrorist groups or countries to deprive their populations of humanitarian aid, and hold them as hostages while they blackmail the US and the international community into handing them as a ransom whatever they dream up — in addition to continuing their terrorist activities without any consequences.

The United States can, as it is doing with Iran, re-list the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and allow the export of humanitarian goods to Yemen — if the Houthis even permit. If they do not, it is all the more reason to hold them accountable even more harshly rather than reward them.

This morning, Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, intercepted two ballistic missiles, launched courtesy of the Houthis.

The problem began almost a year ago, courtesy of the Biden administration. After less than a month in office, the Biden administration reversed yet another policy of the former administration. On February 12, 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken officially revoked the designation of the Houthis, an Iran-backed militia group, also known as Ansar Allah (“Partisans of Allah”), as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. According to the U.S. State Department press release:

“This decision is a recognition of the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen…. on Yemenis’ access to basic commodities like food and fuel. The revocations are intended to ensure that relevant U.S. policies do not impede assistance to those already suffering what has been called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/01/west-barks-putin-caravan-moves-bruce-thornton/

For nearly two decades Russian President Vladimir Putin has challenged the West’s “rules-based international order” seemingly validated by the collapse of the Soviet Union, which Putin has called “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” During that time, Western leaders have imposed economic sanctions on Russia, and diplomats have scolded Putin for his violation of human rights and the borders of his neighbors, illiberal policies and murders of political rivals, and ongoing attempts to restore the old Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.

But as recent events show, all that tough talk hasn’t slowed Putin down, and if anything has confirmed his contempt for a rich global rival unwilling to face the hard choices necessary for checking his aggression, even though, as the Associated Press said last week, the conflict is heading for a “potentially disastrous confrontation.” With oil prices rising significantly, easing the costs of economic sanctions; China and Iran increasing its cooperation with Russia; and a year of feckless global retreat and appeasement by the Biden administration––including cancelling Trump’s sanctions on the company building the Nordstream 2 pipeline for increasing Russian natural gas deliveries to Europe––Putin may now be calculating that the time is ripe for more aggressive actions to achieve his goal of pushing NATO from Russia’s borders, and restoring its geopolitical clout.

Most recently, Putin has intensified his ongoing pressure against eastern Ukraine by moving nearly 100,000 Russian troops to the border with Ukraine. He’s also sent paratroopers to Kazakhstan to prop up its president, a Putin lackey who is facing serious protests. Many of the protestors have been killed.

The actions against Ukraine are a continuation of aggression going back to the Obama administration in 2014, when Putin seized Crimea from Ukraine, then invaded eastern Ukraine with “little green men,” Russian soldiers in unmarked green uniforms.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/01/washington-in-slumber/

Sleepy Washington is likely on the verge of being awakened by a major world crisis.

Washingtonians may not fully grasp the impression their city gives to foreign visitors these days. It is one of somnolence. Too many shops or restaurants are closed, temporarily or permanently; the traffic is light; the streets largely empty. As a suburbanite, I drive into Washington for meetings and find I never have to use a parking garage these days. Downtown is sufficiently deserted to make finding a parking meter easy. Thus, to foreign visitors, it often seems that the city is asleep and nothing important is happening right now.

They are right. What, after all, is happening on Capitol Hill? Nothing — or rather nothing but kabuki. Despite knowing what the outcome will be, the Democratic leadership forces votes that will be lost. Perhaps they are thinking this will be useful in November, but for the moment, it means that Congress is doing nothing of serious value.

And what is going on in the executive branch? On the border issues, nothing. On Covid, nothing: The president has said this is mostly a state issue, and anyway, most Americans have given up relying on so-called experts in the federal government. Americans can sign up now for three free masks, a pathetic measure of government action. The “energy in the Executive” of which Hamilton wrote consists nowadays of travel and speeches, and the only thing that gets this president energized is an opportunity to attack his domestic opponents.

On foreign policy, the president is waiting for Putin’s next move. This puts the United States in a position of reaction, issuing repeated warnings of a vague and general nature. Of real action, such as sending 10,000 troops to Poland or announcing a shipment of 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine, there is none. The only significant thing that happened in the foreign-policy world in the last week or two was the president’s disastrous press-conference error in saying that a small incursion into Ukraine by Putin would not be a very big deal. This was such an amazing mistake that the White House issued a correction in the nature of a retraction within one hour of Biden’s speech. But such errors give insight into the mind of the president, and this insight will have been profoundly unnerving to every American friend or ally anywhere in the world. Those who are dependent on Joe Biden for their security will have shivered last Wednesday evening. Think of it: This is the most dangerous, immediate national-security issue, and it was certain to come up at the press conference, yet the president was not only inarticulate but actually unable to state U.S. policy clearly.