Two Views on Ukraine

The rhetorical dissonance between these two essays is a wonder to behold.

Over here at RedState, Streiff goes more than just a little bellicose propaganda-meister:

...When Russian troops crossed the border with Ukraine on February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin set out his goals for his cakewalk to Kiev as 1) removal of the “nazis” and “drug addicts” ruling Ukraine, 2) disbanding the Ukrainian armed forces, 3) banning membership in NATO and requiring permanent “neutrality,” 4) banning “nazi” influences in Ukrainian politics, 5) recognizing the annexation of Crimea as legal, and 6) recognizing the independence of the fake republics created by Putin in 2014. In addition to those demands, Putin demanded that Russian be made an official “second” language of Ukraine because the number of Russian speakers in Ukraine has dropped about ten percentage points since Ukrainian independence, and it is difficult to meddle and create divisions unless you have a pressure point like language.

...Just like Austro-Hungary demands required Serbia to give Vienna control of Serbia’s foreign and domestic policy,  Putin’s terms for ending the war were nothing less than making Ukraine a province of Russia....

If you think that's bellicose, read on!

 ...For the war to end, Russia must withdraw. The one thing Zelensky has been consistent about demanding is that any cease-fire must be accompanied by a total withdrawal of all Russian forces from Ukraine.

Ukraine will not let any of the Russian-created Bantustans for Russian speakers to survive. The fake republics in Donetsk and Luhansk will be returned to governance from Kiev instead of Moscow. This will be a bitter pill for Putin to swallow, but it is getting safer to say that he no longer has the initiative in the war he started, and he doesn’t have the power to impose his will. Western aid, military and economic, will keep Ukraine in the fight longer than Russia can sustain its “special military operation.”

Crimea’s future as Russian territory is less than certain. The best that Russia can hope for out of this is to continue what Kiev views as an illegal occupation and create casus belli for a new war somewhere in the future, a war that Russia will not like.

Ukraine will exit this war as a virtual member of NATO and the EU. Its weaponry, equipment, and training will be standardized with NATO. Its commercial contacts will all be focused on Western Europe, not Russia....

Well, everyone is entitled to an opinion.

In contrast, American Greatness makes the case that--as per usual--the American objectives in Ukraine are vague, therefore useless, except to ONE particular group.

...The failure to think clearly about victory and what it requires matters for the current Russia-Ukraine conflict. The United States is currently a belligerent in all but name, providing substantial financial and military assistance to the Ukrainians. Any form of diplomatic compromise appears to be wholly anathema. Instead, Biden has recently requested $33 billion in additional aid to Ukraine. The president has even said—in remarks quickly walked back by government officials—that Russian President Vladimir Putin could not remain in power. So, is the goal regime change? Total Ukrainian victory? 

In spite of the aid already received, Ukraine appears to be slowly losing the war. The Russians, having started the war with an overly ambitious strategy have since scaled back their operations to something more realistic. Russia’s logistics problems seem to have been sorted out. Russians have already retaken the city of Mariupol. And there is now a genuine main effort in the Donbas. 

Russian forces are now fighting inch by inch and pounding the substantial mass of Ukrainian forces in the East with their extensive artillery. Two months into the war, Ukraine has not engaged in any substantial counterattack. 

So will the United States support Ukraine until it is ground into dust?...

...we have official silence regarding any diplomatic terms and increasingly aggressive talk from Biden, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, and members of Congress in both parties. As in Afghanistan, our leaders have embraced a vague and completely fanciful notion of victory that does not allow any evaluation of or reduction of efforts. 

Advocates promise that more weapons, more money, and more time will yield progress, but we were told the same thing about Afghanistan until its government and military completely and rapidly collapsed.... 

So let's be serious about "who wins" this war.

...As with the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, prolonging the fighting is sometimes not a bug, but a feature in foreign policy. While weakening Russia has been an obvious goal of the West since the early 2000s, our dimwitted Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin let the cat out of the bag by saying so explicitly on a recent visit to Ukraine. 

Surely no one can be unaware of the ways the Ukraine war benefits the military-industrial complex. For every Javelin, tank, airplane, or other weapon given away from Western arsenals, there is now a slot in which a defense contractor can sell a modernized and more expensive replacement. 

Long, indeterminate wars allow a continual stream of income to the highly consolidated defense industry, while also empowering host country officials responsible for disbursing the largesse. In Afghanistan, the huge amounts of American money sloshing around worsened Afghanistan’s already rampant corruption, undermining the government’s effectiveness and legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary Afghans. Since Ukraine’s reputation for financial and political rectitude is little better than Afghanistan’s, why does everyone assume that giving them tens of billions of dollars in equipment and aid will not enrich the corrupt leadership class at the expense of Ukraine’s people? ...

Good question, except asking D.C. that question is pointless, as few in the Biden Regime can define "corruption," for the same reason that a fish cannot define 'water.'  They swim in it and feed on it regularly.

That doesn't exonerate Republican poohbahs; Cheney notoriously joined a defense contractor as CEO immediately after giving up the Vice-President chair, and lots of them are living off the largesse of defense contractors, whether during their terms or afterwards.

So the average US citizen will now be living under the revived and very real threat of nuclear attack--just as will be the average citizens of Western Europe (and Russia.)

Isn't that nice?