Biden Squawks Amid Headless Chickens

 Finian CUNNINGHAM

Former editor and writer for major news media organizations. He has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages

There’s a whole lot of theatrical squawking and feathers in the surreal world of Western politicians.

U.S. President Joe Biden put on his best disdainful face to tell the American nation how unacceptable it was for Russia to recognize Ukraine’s breakaway republics.

Biden was commenting after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared Russia would recognize the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.

“Who in the Lord’s name does Putin think gives him the right to declare new so-called countries on territory that belonged to his neighbors?” The American president demanded his nation in exasperation. “This is a flagrant violation of international law and it demands a firm response from the international community.”

The squawk of hypocrisy is laughable. In his half-century as a top politician, Biden has been instrumental in the U.S. breaking up dozens of countries and redrawing borders sometimes with new names. He was involved in the dismemberment and bombing of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the destabilization of the Balkans which continues to this day, as well as engineering the 2014 coup d’état in Ukraine that has led to today’s crisis.

Meanwhile, Washington’s European allies are resembling the fluster of headless chickens as they scrabble to unite a response to Russia’s move to recognize the Donbass republics.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has warned of new sanctions that “will hurt Russian very badly”. But the headless chickens can’t seem to find a lockstep approach on what more economic sanctions they can impose on Russia without also deeply hurting their own economies. Already, the mere talk of suspending the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany is sending gas consumer prices to new heights. It is conceivable that already unbearable fuel prices could double over the next months. That will be devastating for European households and businesses. Are EU political elites really that stupid to inflict so much pain on their populations and not expect violent social unrest on the streets?

The disconnect between the American and European political classes and the rest of their societies is emerging like a canyon.

Joe Biden is warning ordinary Americans to expect even higher prices at the pumps for fuel because of the U.S. policy of confronting Russia. Confronting Russia about what? A distant country called Ukraine that has been turned into a mess because of U.S. meddling for which Biden bears huge personal responsibility from the time he was vice president in the Obama administration? It just doesn’t sound credible. In fact, it sounds absurd.

Russia’s intervention this week to recognize the Donbass republics was necessitated because Washington and its NATO partners have weaponized a Russophobic regime in Kiev. That regime last week ramped up its military offensive against the ethnic Russian population in the Donbass. The Western powers have indulged the Neo-Nazi Kiev regime in its incessant repudiation of the Minsk peace process that was brokered in 2015 by Russia, France and Germany. Moscow’s recognition of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics may just be enough to halt the genocidal aggression from the NATO-backed Kiev regime.

Not to belittle what is happening in Ukraine, but does the response of the U.S. and its European allies really merit the seeming priority its politicians are ordering? (If we can overlook the stench of hypocrisy and duplicity, that is.)

So, Biden is moving troops and warplanes all around Eastern Europe to “defend NATO allies” from alleged Russian aggression. He’s putting the U.S. on a war-footing. And American citizens are told they will have to brace for impact from global energy disruption and inflation.

Britain’s Foreign Minister Liz Truss – who doesn’t know the difference between Ukraine and Russia on a map – has promised to guarantee $500 million in bank loans to support the Kiev regime.

She said: “We are putting our money where our mouth is and using Britain’s economic expertise and strength to support the people of Ukraine. These guarantees can help inject vital capital into Ukraine and help its economy weather the storm of Russian aggression.”

Funny how Truss talks about helping Ukraine “weathering a storm”. The recent Atlantic hurricanes over the last week that have battered Britain are estimated to cost more than $500 million in damage to public infrastructure.

Isn’t it bizarre how the British government seems to be more concerned about providing money to a corrupt regime in Kiev than to fix the problems at home?

The risible disconnect from squawking Joe and his headless chicken allies is not lost on their own increasingly impoverished and deprived people. It’s just one more reason on top of a pile of rancor for the citizenry to have absolute contempt for their supposed governors.

Russia has put forward an eminently reasonable set of proposals for guaranteeing security in Europe with the U.S.-led NATO bloc. Ukraine is only a small part of the bigger picture requiring a legally binding treaty to ensure mutual security between Russia and the West. The U.S. and its NATO allies have arrogantly ignored Russia’s concerns for too long, treating Moscow as if it were an after-thought in their expansion of existential threat.

Washington and its European minions simply cannot bring themselves to recognize Russia’s strategic concerns. That would necessitate seeing Russia as an equal and accepting Russia’s rightful place as a vital strategic economic and security partner in Europe. Such an arrangement is anathema to American ambitions of hegemony and thus we have a Cold War crisis blown out of all proportion to the objective reality. That disproportion is correlated with the disconnect that is becoming all too apparent to the Western public who are being told by their Catch 22 political elites to buckle down for pain.

There’s a whole lot of theatrical squawking and feathers in the surreal world of Western politicians.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/02/24/biden-squawks-amid-headless-chickens/