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Why Are We Doing Less For Ukraine's Defense Than Tiny Denmark?

Why Are We Doing Less For Ukraine's Defense Than Tiny Denmark?

A little under two months ago, tiny Denmark – with a population less than that of New York City and a GDP of $400 billion – committed its “entire artillery” to Ukraine. “The Ukrainians are asking us for ammunition now. Artillery now. From the Danish side, we decided to donate our entire artillery,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told the Munich Security Conference on February 18.

How did we, the richest, most powerful nation in the world, become the country that is turning its back on Ukraine? I’m using the royal “we” here, but you know who I’m talking about: the Republican Party, led by Donald Trump, the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, who ordered House Republicans not to bring up for a vote the Senate’s $95 billion aid package for Ukraine and Israel, which has been moldering on Capitol Hill for nearly two months since the Senate passed it on a bipartisan vote of 70 to 29. Trump was said not to want a bipartisan victory for Biden in an election year, so he picked up the phone and called his poodles in the House and killed a potential deal to bring the Senate bill to the floor where it was expected to pass.

Look at this headline in Sunday’s print edition of the New York Times: “Low on Ammunition, Ukraine Is Ill Equipped to Stop Russian Push.” The story describes a 155 mm howitzer position in Eastern Ukraine where Russia has recently made gains on the ground. The crew of the howitzer had a stock of 33 rounds of ammunition when they received an order to fire on a target. Moments later, they had 16 rounds left. “Artillery decides battles,” said Capt. Vladyslav Slominsky, the commander of the battery with the howitzer that was down to only 16 rounds of ammunition. “Who has more wins.”

The artillery is a proud branch in the United States military. They call their branch “The Queen of Battle” because of the firepower that can be brought to bear on the enemy at a moment’s notice. The war that Ukraine has fought against Russia since the 600 mile front line settled into existence late in 2022 has been almost exclusively an artillery war fought with 155 mm howitzers and HIMARS ground-to-ground rockets.

The Russians have more artillery pieces, more rockets, more tanks, and more soldiers, but Ukraine has hung onto the territory they hold, including the parts they took back from Russian forces near Kharkiv and Kherson earlier in the war. Ukraine’s artillery is said to be more accurate and efficient than Russia’s, which wasted tens of thousands of shells firing wildly into the flat agricultural fields of Eastern Ukraine early in 2023 after the front lines stalemated.

Once Russia began its campaign to take individual towns in Eastern Ukraine such as Bakhmut and Avdiivka, their artillery became more accurate. Given small towns as targets, Russian artillery sat back and simply flattened the towns with tens of thousands of artillery rounds, eventually leaving Ukrainian forces no place left to defend, so they pulled back. Now Russia has claimed to have taken the tiny village of Vodayne, about five miles east of Donetsk and a few miles south of Avdiivka. Tactically, it is yet another redoubt that Ukraine had hung onto as the country continues to defend its eastern flank. Strategically, it is not large enough to be significant.

What is significant, however, is why the village was lost: dwindling ammunition stocks.

The Times quoted Swedish military analyst Johan Norberg saying, “You cannot expect people to fight without ammunition.” But you don’t have to interview an expert to know that armies without bullets cease to be armies and turn into targets.

Vladimir Putin knows this like he knows his own name. Even Donald Trump has seen enough gangster movies to know that when you run out of ammo, you get killed. That’s probably why Trump has leaned on House Republicans not to pass the Ukraine aid bill. If Ukraine runs out of ammunition, and Russia starts winning its war on Ukraine, it will make Trump’s pal Putin happy, and the Russian victories will happen on Joe Biden’s watch. In politics, that is called a win-win.

But it’s a lose-lose not only for Ukraine, but for America’s standing in the world as a bulwark against the kind of totalitarian aggression Russia has brought to bear on its neighbor. Russia could not assert its influence over Ukraine by installing puppet presidents like Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian politician Paul Manafort helped to put in power in 2010. Yanukovych proceeded to loot Ukraine by installing cronies from the region of eastern Ukraine with a large Russian-speaking population, the Donbas. Nearly 50 percent of the economic development budget for the entirety of Ukraine went to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions under Yanukovych.

When he was overthrown in 2014, Putin invaded and occupied Crimea and probably began his plans to militarily invade and seize all of Ukraine. Yanukovych, naturally, fled to Russia, where he still resides. And Paul Manafort, who ran Trump’s campaign in 2016, is said to be in talks to take a prominent position in the current Trump campaign.

What has stood between Putin’s ambitions and Ukraine’s existence is the United States and NATO. Now Donald Trump appears to be running on a platform of turning Ukraine over to Putin and getting the United States out of the NATO alliance, which just last week celebrated its 75th anniversary.

How did we get here? How is it that this corrupt man facing four separate criminal indictments in three different jurisdictions has been able to nearly singlehandedly stymie this country’s ability to help the rest of NATO defeat Putin’s fascistic attempt to take over Ukraine? Why do these Republicans even bother to run for Congress, unless all they really want to do is follow the orders of this man who is weakening the United States with every breath he takes?

What has happened to us? Who are we?

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.

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Trump Cancels Denmark Trip While Ranting About Obama

Trump Cancels Denmark Trip While Ranting About Obama

 

 

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, responding to President Donald Trump’s offer to purchase Greenland, stressed that the island is not for sale — and Trump responded this week by canceling a trip to Denmark he had planned. Trump has maintained that he believes Frederiksen was being disrespectful, and during a press conference outside the White House on Wednesday, Trump used the cancelation as an excuse to bash former President Barack Obama — telling reporters that foreign countries, including Denmark, cannot get away with the type of disrespect they showed the United States when Obama was in the White House.

Trump told reporters, “I thought that the prime minister’s statement that it was absurd was nasty. I thought it was an inappropriate statement. All she had to do was say, ‘No, we wouldn’t be interested.’”

Trump added, “I thought it was not a nice statement, the way (Frederiksen) blew me off because she’s blowing off the United States. And we’ve done a lot for Denmark…. She shouldn’t treat the United States that way.”

Conservative writer David Frum has a theory on Trump’s decision to cancel his Denmark visit: Trump, Frum told Radio 4, didn’t really cancel because of Denmark’s stand on Greenland, but because he knew Obama planned to visit Denmark next month and feared he would be overshadowed. And Trump was clearly obsessed with Obama during the Wednesday press conference.

Trump claimed that when Obama was president, disrespecting the U.S. was the norm — whereas he demands respect for the U.S.

“President Obama, when they wouldn’t let him land in the Philippines — when they treated him so badly in so many places, the Philippines is one that comes to mind…. They can treat him any way they want to, that’s up to him,” Trump told reporters. “But they can’t treat the United States with the statement ‘how absurd’….Respect has to be shown to the United States.”

Trump went on to address other subjects during the press conference, from gun control to immigration. And he found other reasons to attack Obama, claiming that the policy of separating families at the U.S./Mexico border was instituted under Obama’s watch.

“President Obama had separation,” Trump told reporters. “I’m the one that brought them together….. It was President Obama that had the separation.”

In addition to bashing Obama on immigration, Trump slammed him on Russia policy — claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin got away with more under Obama than it has gotten away with under his presidency.

“Russia outsmarted President Obama,” Trump insisted. “They took over during his term, not during mine. Crimea, they took over Crimea…. President Putin totally outsmarted President Obama on Crimea and other things…. He made a living outsmarting President Obama.”

Watch the videos below:

 

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore
A Clear And Present Danger To The Republic

A Clear And Present Danger To The Republic

Whenever Donald Trump makes a remark that embarrasses our country before the world, conventional analysis suggests that this is yet another instance of his infantile narcissism. So we were told again when the president of the United States insulted Denmark, one of the founding nations of NATO and a dedicated American ally, by canceling his scheduled trip to meet with the Danish prime minister — supposedly because she had deemed his scheme to buy Greenland “absurd,” which of course it is.

His visit to Denmark was originally requested by Trump, which made its abrupt, petulant cancellation all the more insulting to the Danes. The usual anonymous sources explained that he had other reasons to break the date, such as his aversion to flying overseas and his aversion to Barack Obama, who is also scheduled to visit Denmark next month.

When Trump appears to lose control — and follows up by suggesting that he is “the chosen one” or “the King of Israel” — it seems natural to worry that he is mentally ill. And that is one way to interpret his behavior.

But it isn’t the only explanation.

We consider Trump’s behavior bizarre because it is so incongruous with what we expect from an American president — whose sworn duty, after all, is to act in the national interest. But what if he is consciously acting against the national interest?  That disturbing question arises again and again, as it did during the Russia investigation, because almost everything Trump does can be viewed as inimical to the nation. The Danish incident is only the latest example in the long list that shows a certain method to his supposed “madness.”

In one way or another, Trump has denigrated or undermined American relationships with nearly all of our traditional allies, sometimes repeatedly. He has complained publicly about the French, the Germans, the British, the Australians, to name a few of the most important, and slammed the European Union as a trading and military partner. Indeed, he has strenuously sought to destroy the EU while befriending the so-called populist far right — the heirs of our fascist enemy. That approach to European affairs just happens to coincide perfectly with the political aims of the Russian Federation.

Meanwhile Trump has abandoned long-standing US policy on human rights, not only committing violations on our border but encouraging dictators around the world. Within the space of a few days this year he berated the Canadian prime minister, our friend and ally, while praising the murderous dictator of North Korea. Maybe that was just crazy, or maybe it was something else.

At home, Trump never stops promoting the same divisive themes that pollute our political system, courtesy of the Russian bots sent by his friend Vladimir Putin. For some reason, Trump won’t allow anyone to record his meetings with Putin as would normally be the case. Perhaps he doesn’t want anyone to hear the Russian dictator expressing appreciation for Trump’s long campaign to undermine the FBI counter-intelligence division, which exists to thwart Kremlin espionage.

But then Trump has sought to discredit and disorganize the entire intelligence apparatus of the United States, most recently with his attempted appointment of a lunatic Congressman from Texas as the director of national intelligence. Putin must also be quite grateful for Trump’s systematic effort to destroy American diplomatic capacity, by appointing non-entities to run the State Department while leaving half of its posts unfilled.

Like the trade war that is decimating our agricultural heartland — among the US economy’s most vital sectors — these recurring acts of sabotage are cited by his supporters as evidence of his “nationalism.” They are nothing of the kind. They are inflicting damage that our most determined enemies could never have dreamed possible before he entered the Oval Office.

You can tell yourself it’s all merely proof of his mental instability, his narcissistic compulsions, his ignorance and stupidity. Or you can wonder, as I sometimes do, whether something rational and sinister lies behind this troubling pattern.

Either way, Trump is a clear and present danger to our republic.

Refugee Funds Seized In Denmark — After They’ve Paid Smugglers

Refugee Funds Seized In Denmark — After They’ve Paid Smugglers

Denmark’s parliament passed legislation today that would allow authorities to seize belongings from refugees arriving in the country. The United Nations condemned the move, calling it regrettable — and it will likely lead to friction between the Danish state and refugees who have already spent their life savings getting to Europe.

The Danish government, whose new policy has inevitably led to comparisons with the Nazi policy of confiscating Jews’ belongings in the 1930s, defended itself from such accusations. “We’re simply applying the same rules we apply to Danish citizens who wish to take money from the Danish government,” said Marcus Knuth, the government spokesperson, in an interview with The Guardian last month.

But there are enormous differences of circumstance between Danish citizens and the refugees arriving in Denmark. The Danes live a relatively comfortable life in a country that provides its citizens with some of the most comprehensive social welfare programs in the world. A Syrian who spent the better part of a year first paying smugglers to get his or her family out of Syria, and paying them again to cross into the EU by land or sea, probably does not have a lot of savings left.

Denmark isn’t the only country to implement such a policy. Switzerland implemented a similar measure recently too. Syrian refugees arriving in Switzerland said they were given a receipt detailing the value of their belongings. Said an information form distributed by the Swiss government, “If you have property worth more than 1,000 Swiss francs when you arrive at a reception centre you are required to give up these financial assets in return for a receipt.” And if refugees stay in the country for a decade, they will have to give up to 10 percent of their wages to the government, presumably on top of taxes they will already be paying.

The Danish government’s recent refugee policies haven’t gone unpunished, however.  The UN has led the backlash against the country. It censured Denmark before the legislation even passed and appointed Filippo Grandi, an Italian, as the next chief of its refugee agency, the UNHCR, despite a leadership bid from former Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt. She helped craft some of Europe’s most restrictive immigration policies while in office, making it somewhat difficult to convince an organization like the UN that she was the right person to assist refugees now.

“The (secretary-general) does not want to be seen supporting the kinds of policies that Denmark and other European countries are pushing,” a Western diplomat said to Reuters before the announcement, adding that Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon is very supportive of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “more refugee-friendly policies.”

And Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei also criticized Denmark’s new laws, announcing in an Instagram post that he will close his current exhibition in Copenhagen in protest. The artist, who is also planning to build a memorial to the refugees who perished crossing the Mediterranean, has spent much of the past year focused on drawing attention to their plight. Jens Farschou, the owner of the foundation where his current exhibition is displayed, told the Guardian, “I didn’t try to dissuade him. This is not so much about which country does more or less for refugees, it is the symbolic importance of the new law. This [kind of thing] is spreading over Europe, and we in Denmark are taking the lead in this by making this law.”