Take your pick on the reason: Incompetence, cowardice, the Biden family’s financial interests in Ukraine that Putin knows about, Biden’s senility, or just simply that the man is a blockhead. But in recent comments, Joe Biden told the press in regards to Ukraine that, “It depends on what (Russia) does. It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and we end up having to fight about we have to do and not do…”
By seeming to excuse a “minor incursion,” Biden effectively gave the Russians a green light to invade Ukraine. Though the White House tried to walk back his remarks, the damage was done. Now we’re sending military supplies to Ukraine, in a sad attempt to repair Biden’s words. Too late.
The Ukrainian president was not happy. “We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote in a tweet Thursday morning. “Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones…”
But this isn’t the first time an American official has given our enemies a green light to invade our friends. On January 12th 1950 President Harry Truman’s Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, gave a speech at the National Press Club. It would haunt him forever.
“In his effort to prevent Soviet domination in Asia, Mr. Acheson was completely blindsided by the fact that Stalin, Mao, and Kim were all communists in a united front against the United States and its allies. In the speech, Mr. Acheson foolhardily encouraged a ‘national independence’ movement to prevent Soviet domination in Asia, strongly signaling Mao Zedong that the U.S. would not intervene if Chinese troops moved to ‘liberate’ Taiwan or Kim’s troops did so to ‘liberate’ South Korea…Acheson excluded South Korea and Taiwan from the American ‘defense perimeter.’ …In this sense, Mr. Acheson’s speech was the coveted green light for Stalin, Mao, and Kim,” to invade South Korea, writes the Hoover Institution.
On June 25th 1950, the North Koreans attacked our forces in the South. Later that year the Chinese Communists joined the attack against us. 40,000 Americans died in action in the Korean War. Such were the consequences of that green light.
It happened again during the administration of Bush the Elder, when US Ambassador April Glaspie talked to Saddam Hussein on July 25th 1990. Here’s what Glaspie told Saddam, according to Foreign Policy magazine. “In a now famous interview with the Iraqi leader, U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie told Saddam, ‘[W]e have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.’ The U.S. State Department had earlier told Saddam that Washington had ‘no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait.’ The United States may not have intended to give Iraq a green light, but that is effectively what it did.”
Saddam invaded Kuwait on August 2nd 1990. We wonder how many will die, how much will be destroyed, because Joe Biden forgot or never read the history of his own era?
In related news, former CIA Station Chief Dan Hoffman details options on the table for Putin. “He could blockade the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. He could launch a full-throttle assault on Kyiv, which we would obviously see. He could also use his Spetsnaz guys, special forces guys — and they’re inside Ukraine already — to topple this Zelensky government. That’s also an option…I have a high level of confidence Putin will do something. As far as what that is, I’m not even sure if Putin has decided yet.”