Victor Davis Hanson’s American Greatness column today is “The crowded road to Kyiv.” It is long, historically informed, and necessary reading in its entirety. As always, he draws back to provide perspective. He writes with some indignation in the penultimate section of the column designated “Leftwing mania” as follows:
On cue, an embarrassed Left now offers some surreal takes on why Putin went into Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014 and again into all of Ukraine in 2022—while mysteriously bookending the four invasion-free Trump years. We are told that hiatus was because Putin got all he wanted from Trump and rewarded him by not invading any of his neighbors.
Really?
Were Vladimir Putin and his advisors more or less delighted that their poodle Trump thankfully flooded the world with price-crashing oil? They were thankful Trump at least had killed Russian mercenaries in Syria?
Putin himself was content that the United States got out of his own advantageous missile deal? Was he thrilled that Trump sold once taboo U.S. offensive weapons to Ukraine? Did the Kremlin grow ecstatic when Trump upped the U.S. defense budget? And was Russia especially thankful that Trump jawboned NATO into spending another $100 billion on defense? Did Putin clap when Trump killed Soleimani and Baghdadi, and bombed ISIS out of existence?
We are left being lectured to now by the ubiquitous retired Lt. Col Alexander Vindman, the political operative remonstrating America on its anemic response to saving his native Ukraine. All this from one of the key operatives of impeaching the one president who, unlike his progressive presidential predecessor, along with the Biden Burisma consortia, really did arm Ukraine and send it offensive weapons embargoed by the Left.
The useful Vindman may have been offered to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. But he never grasped that any country naïve enough to believe the Left’s empty promises about autonomy and freedom reified by mere liberal fiat will be sorely left all alone by its utopian patrons—once a nearby powerful thug invades.
VDH is on a roll. He concludes the column with the section “Biden.” Despite his indignation and seriousness, he had me laughing. Read the whole thing here.
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