Prodding the Serpent

"Biden has a tendency to articulate things that we know to be true but that he shouldn't say as president."

"It would be to everybody's benefit, including the people of Russia, if he were to no longer be in charge, but if you're the president of the United States you can't articulate the fact that you want another country's democratically elected leader -- such as democracy is in Russia -- gone."

"The Russian government is willing to use anything as a propaganda tool, ranging from whatever the Ukrainians do, to JK Rowling. They are so opportunistic in seizing on the public debate to justify what they're doing in Ukraine -- or planning to."

"The result of that will be Western politicians will not say anything in public in case Russia pounces on it and uses it as an excuse for any action they wish to take."

"If Russia's performance goes terribly, Putin will be grasping for straws He may well seize on these remarks which provide an unexpected opportunity for him. It's out there now, it can't be unsaid."

Elizabeth Braw, senior fellow, American Enterprise Institute

US President Joe Biden delivers a speech at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Poland on March 26, 2022.

Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images

"For Putin, life itself has always been a special operation. From the black order of the KGB, he learned not only contempt for 'normal' people, always expendable matter for the Soviet Moloch-state,but also the Chekist's main principle; not a single word of truth. Everything must be hidden away, classified."

"Now, one thing has become clear; with this war, Putin has crossed a line -- a red line. This war was unleashed by a man corrupted by absolute power, who, in his madness, has decided to redraw the map of our world. If you listen to Putin's speech announcing a 'special operation', America and NATO are mentioned more than Ukraine. Let us also recall his recent 'ultimatum' to NATO. As such, his goal isn't Ukraine, but western civilization, the hatred for which he lapped up in the black milk he drank from the KGB's teat."

Vladimir Sorokin, Russian writer, playwright

 

The civilized world winced in pain and disgust when the former president of the United States, Donald Trump, issued his many coarse and ill-considered statements regarding relations with America's traditional collegial and trading nations, his penchant for insults and ill-considered language. His impulsive-compulsive decision-making, his egocentricity and belief in his infallible cerebral thinking, his impressively wise commentary.

 

With bated breath the world awaited the time when he would leave office and a successor, more reasoned and intelligent would take the helm of the most powerful country on Earth. And then came another ill-spoken, self-confident replacement comfortable with himself as president of the great United States of America, a country indispensable to the world's civil discourse in place of braggadocio, insults and controversies.

Trump's successor has managed to alter world opinion that fell so low, leaving the U.S. maimed as a colossus of human rights and upholder of justice, freedom and fairness. Smiling unapologetically as he withdrew U.S. diplomacy and troops from Afghanistan, leaving the Afghan people to the sad and sorry plight of life and death under the Taliban. Renewing the nuclear agreement with Iran, extending its pause on nuclear development until 2025 when, with the great strides it made in uranium enrichment toward breakout it can break loose.

In effect, abandoning the hopes of the majority Sunni Arab nations traditionally befriended by the United States interested in petroleum-energy sources and seeding 'democracy', along with the State of Israel between which it and the US no darkness would ever crack the lock on compelling friendship and support. Choosing to proceed with an agreement that is designed to lift sanctions and free up billions for the Islamic Republic to more generously fund and arm its militia proxies in Lebanon, Gaza, Syria and Yemen.

And now President Biden in obedience to his Democratic party's hard-left-fascist wing, like an avuncular relative anxious to please the young and the restless finds it compelling to advance the Islamic Republic's agenda. He sees no evil, speaks no evil, hears no evil and is prepared to shrug off suggestions, recommendations, pleading from former Middle East allies he has shunted aside in favour of doing business with the mullahs of Iran, the sponsor of terrorism under the guise of a theocratic, peaceful nation.

Mr. Biden and Mr. Putin know one another from 'way back. Not exactly a comradely relationship but one of familiarity. With a touch of mutual contempt. A year ago, Joe Biden in an interview allowed that in his opinion Vladimir Putin had the instincts of a 'killer', and acted on those instincts. This is a new era in American-Russian relationship, and it has moved backward to Cold War times, driven by both sides. It is the president of the Russian Federation that decided he must eviscerate Ukraine and embark on a killing mission.

His imperative; to stop Ukraine from becoming totally westernized; to stop NATO and the United States from further incursion into Russia's near-abroad, challenging Russia's east European authority and regional power; an insult and an assault on Russian sensibilities; on Vlad's sense of badly leaking imperialism and the right to encroach upon his neighbours' sovereignty. The dangerously paranoid Putin convinced the walls of democracy are closing in around him personifying Russia's future, needs no prodding.

Suggesting that given the current circumstances where Putin's star has ebbed and crashed, his violent incursion into Ukraine stalled, the astonishing death rate of Russian servicemen and generals, along with Russian mechanized war machines' destruction; supply and morale issues looming toward total failure in a swoop-and-grab invasion, that 'Putin must go', is to invite that same man raging over a humiliating failure, to contemplate the use of the most compelling of his arsenals.

Biden's critical gaffe in recklessly prodding the serpent in the Kremlin was instantly 'rectified' by his administration, desperate to change the dial on the short-wave message to Putin that his days in both Russia and Ukraine are numbered. A man seemingly on the edge of mental derangement, in possession of the world's largest nuclear arsenal will not shrug away the implied notion that NASA may feel compelled to move in, led by the United States, to remove Vladimir Putin from power. 

 

Before the war Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky paid regular visits to the front line in eastern Ukraine   EPA

 

A Third World War, triggered by an accident in loose lips and a feeble mind unable to instantly grasp an error in judgement is not to anyone's advantage. There is carnage enough in Ukraine at this moment in history. Vladimir Putin's threshold for tolerating insinuations of incompetence and war-mongering when he is, after all, only engaged in house-cleaning next door, needs no prodding to have his mind slip its moorings on his nuclear options.

When Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for the Kremlin, refused to strike out the impression that Russia is not beyond considering the use of nuclear weapons, after Putin himself mused on just that, after he placed his nuclear forces on high alert, after hinting that a strike would be imminent in response to any risk of some other country or group manouvering to do the same first, it is sheer folly of the most birdbrained quality for the president of the United States of America to lead the chorus of doom for Putin.

 

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during an event at the Royal Castle, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Warsaw, Poland March 26, 2022. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo

"I just was expressing my outrage. He shouldn't remain in power, just like, you know, bad people shouldn't continue to do bad things. But it doesn't mean we have a fundamental policy to do anything to take Putin down in any way."

"I was talking to the Russian people. The last part of the speech was talking to Russian people. I was communicating this to, not only the Russian people but the whole world. This is ... just stating a simple fact that this kind of behavior is totally unacceptable. Totally unacceptable. And the way to deal with it is to strengthen and keep NATO completely united and help Ukraine where we can."

"I'd just come from being with those families. I make no apologies for it."

U.S. President Joe Biden, White House