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No, no previous Administration betrayed Ukraine, only Felonious. [1]

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Date: 2025-02-13

I find it troubling and breathtaking how quickly some are trying to deflect from Felonious' betrayal, not just of Ukraine, but our national security as well, with claims that US Administrations have betrayed Ukraine for the past 30 years. It's flat out nonsense.

There's a difference between policy decisions with which one can have honest disagreement, and betrayal. Call them bad judgment if you want, but betrayal? That's just ridiculous. Betrayal is when you go back on your word after because you changed your mind about honoring it. A disagreement on how to best go about honoring that commitment is not betrayal.

To conflate the two is the sort of intellectually dishonest false equivalence that is the hallmark of what I call Fascist Performance Art.

Clinton, 1991 - 1992

The Administration made a deal that benefitted all parties involved at the time. To say it was a betrayal presupposes that the Administration knew at the time Putin would come to power, invade and the West would fail to enforce the deal's provisions.

Bush the Younger, 2000 - 2008

The Administration's decision to delay extending an invitation to both Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO in 2008 to appease Putin was clearly naivete. It was arguably a betrayal of their duty to protect our national security, but not a betrayal of Ukraine or Georgia.

The Administration's silence in response to Putin's invasion of Georgia was arguably a betrayal of the rules based order, and by extension Georgia, not to mention our own national security. Then again, the Administration had ptetty much already betrayed the rules based order with it's invasion of Iraq, so there is that.

Administration: Obama 2009 - 2016

Most would not have predicted Putin would jump the shark, invade Ukraine, and seize Crimea in 2014 in response to the fall of his puppet to a popular uprising in 2014. The failure to predict and prepare for the possibility may have been poor planning, but hardly a betrayal.

Furthermore, unlike Bush the Younger's response to Putin's invasion of Georgia, Obama did act. He imposed sanctions and sent aid and expertise to Ukraine so they could fix their notoriously corrupt and inept military, and train up personnel. Despite Felonious' subsequent efforts to destabilize Ukraine, Obama's efforts bore fruit when Putin invaded in 2022 and failed to decapitate Ukraine's government.

Felonious, 2016 - 2020

Felonious betrayed Ukraine by using aid as a means to extort, destabilize and corrupt its government, as well by loosening sanctions on Russia. That's not to mention betraying our national security in ways that are public record.

Biden, 2021 - 2024

There's a constant refrain of Tuesday night quarterbacks that Biden betrayed Ukraine by not doing enough to for them to win. Personally, I think that this war was destined to be a long slog no matter what we did, and my earlier belief Ukraine could win in short order was naive. That isn't to say I agree with Biden's decisions in 2024 with regard to aid and ROE.

The reality that confronted Biden and Ukraine in the wake of Felonious' reign of error was daunting. People seem to forget that Ukraine needed everything when this war started, and there was a finite pool of funds available. What to send, where to source it, how to support it, etc, are real challenges not overcome with the snap of a finger.

It would have been nice if we could have just beamed the stuff, spare parts and all, over a la Star Trek, and implanted how to operate and maintain it directly into their brains a la The Matrix, but alas. We cannot.

Biden's team did a pretty stellar job dealing with what amounted to rebuilding an aircraft midflight. They successfully herded the cats in NATO and the EU to impose crippling sanctions and provide Ukraine with what they needed as they needed it even as priorities shifted in response to changes in Russian moves.

That's how Ukraine went from on the ropes to liberating half the territory seized since February of 2022 in less than a year. They won the Battles of Kyiv and Kharkiv with Javelins, and ManPADs. They halted the Russian offensive in Donbas with advanced Howitzers. They took back Lyman, Kupyansk, Kherson City, etc, with HIMARS and HARMs. They defeated Putin's winter terror bombing campaign with IRIS-T's, Patriots, NASAMS, etc.

This phase is far more challenging. We have been trying to figure out how to get around contested air space, something not accounted for in our military doctrine and therefore equipment. The notion that this or that decision by Biden would have changed that reality is ridiculous. There were and still are no silver bullets.

Was Biden overly cautious about the risk of nuclear war, especially over the course of this past year? I think he was, but that's easy for me to say when I'm not the guy in the arena making that call. To call it a betrayal of Ukraine though? That's just simplistic nonsense.

Felonious, 2025 -

At the outset, things looked surprisingly good. He let serious people handle the issue while his attention has focused on betraying America, his supporters in particular.

Now that he's turned his attention to Ukraine, that's changed. He's betraying Ukraine and our national security unlike any President from either party before him.

As I said, claims to the contray are intellectually dishonest false equivalent both siderism. It's Fascist performance art which is how we got Felonious in the first place, and the second time around as well.

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