UPDATE: An embarrassed Tony Blinken turned down Poland’s offer to swipe planes so the US could donate them to Ukraine.
The Biden regime is a joke.
* * * * * * * * * *
Previously–
Guest post by Bill Hennessey
The Biden Administration is a joke from top to bottom.
Today, Poland announced it would release “immediately and free of charge” its entire MiG-29 fleet of 28 aircraft to the United States for transfer to Ukraine. The transfers would take place at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
Shortly after the Polish announcement, the US Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland told a Senate committee the Polish announcement caught the US completely by surprise.
“I was in a meeting where I ought to have heard about that just before I came (to a Senate hearing), so I think that actually was a surprise move by the Poles.”
—US Undersecretary of State, Victoria Nuland
How could two NATO Allies be this disconnected and out of touch? Simple: Antony Blinken tried to shift blame for Ukraine’s lack of weapons to Poland, and Poland called his bluff.
Remember this story from Sunday?
Well, I made a mistake or wasn’t clear about the timetable. Blinken claimed that he was working with Poland to transfer its MiGs to Ukraine after he’d already met with the Polish Prime Minister who rejected the idea. Poland doesn’t want to get into a shooting war with Russia, especially while hosting a million Ukrainian refugees. But Blinken, wanting to look tough, told CBS News the transfer was in the works.
Poland, likely disgusted at Blinken’s lie, basically said, “Alright, America, you can have the planes.”
By transferring the planes to the US on a US air base, Poland can wash its hands of the deal. If the US, in turn, hands the planes over to Ukraine and offers Ramstein as a launching pad, Russia’s beef is entirely with the US.
In other words, Poland humiliated the US and exposed Blinken as a liar.
Blinken’s underhandedness was further exposed by the Pentagon. Spokesman John Kirby said about the proposal (via Fox News):
“It is simply not clear to us that there is substantive rationale for it,” he said in a statement. “We will continue to consult with Poland and our other NATO allies about this issue and the difficult logistical challenges it presents, but we do not believe Poland’s proposal is a tenable one.”
Of course, it’s not tenable. Russia already said that it would retaliate against any country that allowed Ukraine to use its airports to launch combat missions. The Pentagon was obviously never onboard with the plot, which must have been dreamed up by the State Department without consulting any other government department. For that matter, Blinken didn’t even discuss it in depth with Poland.
But Kirby said more:
“The prospect of fighter jets ‘at the disposal of the Government of the United States of America’ departing from a U.S./NATO base in Germany to fly into airspace that is contested with Russia over Ukraine raises serious concerns for the entire NATO alliance,”
Exactly what I said Sunday.
And that’s not the only humiliation for the US and its adolescent administration today. The Wall Street Journal reported that Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirate rejected numerous calls from Joe Biden in the last two weeks while taking calls from Vladimir Putin.
Which reminds me of something we shared last night:
In for a shock, indeed. In essence, Sindreu’s piece argues that this move substantially increases the risk that the US dollar loses its privileged status as the global reserve currency and, at a minimum, likely ensures a polarization of the global economy into at least two camps – the West in one and Russia/China/Iran/Saudi Arabia plus other targeted or aligned countries in the other.
The WSJ story seems to confirm that Saudi Arabia is firmly on Team Putin and not on Team Biden. Now we know why Biden’s pleading for more oil has been ignored since last August. The POTUS is no longer Number One on the Crown Prince’s speed dial.
Things are unraveling quickly. You won’t hear much more about the Polish MiG humiliation in the press unless the US decides it now must find a way to get those planes into combat. The same way the Biden Administration felt compelled to ban Russian oil imports after denying that was possible.
The Biden Administration has alienated its NATO Allies that are geographically closest to the conflict—the one bearing the lion’s share of the refugee crisis. In the process, it managed to drag Germany into the affair. European allies are surely taking notice and wondering if they should stay in a mutual-defense alliance with a country headed by a lifelong idiot who now has dementia. They’ve met our number two and laughed her off the stage. At what point does NATO tell the US it’s no longer welcome in the club? With the USD potentially losing reserve status, NATO might be better off without our money. Do Germany and Poland think they can wait until the next election while there’s a war raging in their hemisphere?
Biden is bumbling his way into World War III the way he bumbled out of Afghanistan. But the potential price to be paid by a mistake in Europe is far larger than the costs of the Afghanistan debacle. The Taliban have no nukes; Putin does. We had no mutual defense pact with Afghanistan; we do with Poland and Germany.
When Robert Gates said Joe Biden has “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades,” he meant it. But if Biden bumbles this one, it will be his last mistake—and ours.
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