[Salon] Ron DeSantis finally speaks of Ukraine attack, blaming Joe Biden

[Todd Pierce <todd.e.pierce@icloud.com>]

There’s too much of Florida’s Il Duce's Double-talk to unpack here, even for me in an email. But this says a lot, of how both the anti-Trumpers,  and the pro-Trumpers, got it wrong. Or duplicitously misdirected the country into believing Trump was some kind of "Putin’s Puppet,” from the Democrats and the Dick/Liz (Never saw a war they didn’t want to start) Cheney “Right.” While the “Non-interventionist Conservatives,” the New Right, bamboozled us with lies that “Trump is ending the endless wars,” all the while Trump was increasing the readily apparent threat to both Russia and China with his and the Republican’s massive military buildup, and its attendant strategic encirclement of both Russia and China. While simultaneously embarking on a “clandestine” war of aggression on Iran with co-conspirator Netanyahu and Israel. 

So DeSantis has this correct, in a rare act of honesty:   

“The media spent four years saying that Trump was some type of agent of Russia,” DeSantis said. “And yet, when I was in Congress when Obama was President, Obama refused to send weapons to Ukraine. When Trump was President, we sent weapons to Ukraine. Putin didn’t like that very much.”

Like the countries in Europe didn’t like it when they saw each other building themselves up for war in 1914, until finally they realized they couldn’t take a chance by avoiding war, when they all held to the “Ideology of the Offensive.” Which is our National Ideology, and “mobilizations" were launched in 1914, and the war was on. Leading to 75 years of misery for much of Europe, and the world. All begun again with our refusal to allow one country to have any sense of safety, while we never stopped our massive armament programs and military expansionism, and our series of wars since 1991. Wash, rinse, repeat. 

To the historically illiterate Republicans, it’s always “weakness” that leads to war, having studied only one causal factor of war: Munich, and the eagerness to avoid war after seeing first hand the calamitous consequences of war, barely only 20 years before. Never do they see the causal factor of one country massively preparing for war, leading to the other country’s fear of aggression, and responding in kind. Unfortunately, that ideology of the Republicans/Conservatives propagated by people like Goldwater/MacArthur (I came across a memo of the latter at the Eisenhower Library calling for nuking Korea, and China, if “necessary.” Will share it soon.), and their Conservative “theorists,” was adopted more and more by the Democrats since 1992, modeling themselves after Republican Hawks like Gingrich so as to compete electorally. Now we have two parties in the likeness of what Kendall/Burnham worked so hard for. 

https://floridapolitics.com/archives/501886-ron-desantis-finally-speaks-of-ukraine-attack-blaming-joe-biden/

Ron DeSantis finally speaks of Ukraine attack, blaming Joe Biden

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After five days of silence on the matter, Gov. Ron DeSantis finally on Monday expressed a position on Russia’s attack on Ukraine, ridiculing Russia’s effort, extolling Ukrainians, blaming President Joe Biden and praising Donald Trump.

DeSantis said Russian President Vladimir Putin miscalculated what it would take to conquer Ukraine because Putin read too much into what the Governor said was Biden’s appearance of weakness.

After a few days of seeing news of the war — reports the Governor made sure to question because he contends a lot of what the media reports is false — he said he saw the “moxie” of Ukrainian fighters and how the whole world is “kind of coming down.” He offered his assessments Monday at a news conference in Vero Beach.

DeSantis also expressed his belief that Europe and the United States under Biden still have not done enough to dissuade Putin because they have not “hit him where it counts.” That would involve sanctions on Russia’s oil and gas, which DeSantis said haven’t been pursued because Biden has rolled back Trump’s efforts to make America more energy independent.

“This is a guy who basically is an authoritarian gas station attendant — OK? — with some legacy nuclear weapons from the old Soviet Union,” DeSantis said of Putin. “Their whole society is hollowed out except for that energy. Hit him where it counts.”

“The problem with that, with Biden,” DeSantis added, “is he has stepped on the neck of our domestic energy here in the United States.”

He said Biden should bring back the Keystone pipeline, get rid of the ban on oil production on federal lands, and welcome more domestic production, then America would be in a better position to shut off Russia’s pipelines.

DeSantis’ comments came several days after most other major American political figures had expressed unity with the Ukrainian people and condemned Putin and Russia.

DeSantis did not actually call for unity with Ukraine, nor did he condemn Russia for attacking a sovereign democracy, though he did ridicule Putin for making missteps. He said the Russian forces went in “half-heartedly” with a lack of overwhelming force and a lack of daring.

He did not comment on whether Florida might have a response, as Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried had urged the state to divest its assets invested in Russian-controlled entities. Fried is a Democrat looking to challenge DeSantis in the gubernatorial contest this year.

DeSantis also lavished praise on Trump, at least as a comparison to Democrats, saying that Trump prevented aggression from Putin while neither Biden nor President Barack Obama did so.

“The media spent four years saying that Trump was some type of agent of Russia,” DeSantis said. “And yet, when I was in Congress when Obama was President, Obama refused to send weapons to Ukraine. When Trump was President, we sent weapons to Ukraine. Putin didn’t like that very much.

“When Obama was President, Putin took Crimea. When Trump was President, they didn’t take anything. And now Biden’s President and they’re rolling into Ukraine,” DeSantis said.

The Governor said when Biden oversaw a “total catastrophe” with his withdrawal from Afghanistan last August he emboldened Putin and also probably emboldened America’s adversaries in China and Iran.

“The weakness has bred a lot of the disorder that we’re seeing right now,” DeSantis said.

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