US President Joe Biden gave a speech to the nation from the Oval Office on Thursday night, pledging to send an emergency budget request to Congress to secure funding for Israel and Ukraine, and referring to further assistance funneled to the Kiev regime as a “smart investment” that would pay dividends for future generations.
Joe Biden\u2019s speech from the Oval Office on Thursday was at once “militaristic”, “threatening”, steeped in “self-aggrandizement”, and permeated with “direct lies”, retired Lt-Col Karen Kwiatkowski, a former analyst for the US Department of Defense, told Sputnik.
Joe Biden\u2019s slurred address to the nation, conceived as an impassioned plea to support Israel and Ukraine, also appeared to have been pre-recorded, suggested Kwiatkowski, who noticed a glitch in the footage. It would hardly be surprising if that were the case, bearing in mind how prone the 80-year-old POTUS is for making gaffe-riddled public statements.
In his rare address on Thursday, Biden announced he would be sending a budget request to Congress to \u201cfund America\u2019s national security needs.\u201d By that he meant sending further support to the ongoing NATO proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, and aiding Israel in its fight against Hamas. Previous reports indicated that the additional funding request may include as much as $60 billion in aid to the Kiev regime and a total of $40 billion in aid for Tel Aviv, as well as Taiwan and the US-Mexico border.
The US President underscored that the bill he is sending to Congress will help Israel \u201chave what they need\u201d and will \u201csharpen\u201d their qualitative military edge, including helping to fund their Iron Dome defense system. Biden likened Russia’s military operation in Ukraine to hostilities between Palestine and Israel, and warned that if the US were to step away from aiding Ukraine, \u201cconflict and chaos could spread\u201d abroad.
\u201cThat\u2019s why tomorrow I\u2019m going to send to Congress an urgent budget request to fund America\u2019s national security needs \u2013 needs to support our critical partners, including Israel and Ukraine. It\u2019s a smart investment that\u2019s gonna pay dividends for American security for generations,\u201d Biden said.
Biden’s martial speech making the case for pumping further aid to Ukraine, and for supporting Israel, ended with the words “God protect our troops”, Kwiatkowski pointed out.
\u201cIt is usually \u2018God Bless America\u2019\u2026 His ending tonight is unusual, especially given that the wars he is talking about in Ukraine and Israel are not covered by any existing US mutual defense treaties. Congress certainly has not declared war, or even approved US troops – and Biden himself noted that we give this ‘aid’ that he supports and is asking for as an ‘investment’ in America\u2019s own upgrade of its military capacity. He mentioned several states where military weapons and munitions are made, and how great it was that in these wars we support – we don’t have to die in them, that is for the Ukrainians and the Israelis,\u201d the former DoD analyst said.
It should be noted that Biden\u2019s funding request is coming at a time when the lower congressional chamber remains in turmoil, still without a Speaker, and unable to clear any legislation. Unless the House is able to select a new Speaker and pass the essential budget bills by 17 November, a shutdown of the US federal government will be triggered putting in doubt many of its non-essential functions. Biden has been doubling down on his pledges to send weapons to both Ukraine and Israel, even though the tussle over government spending and, specifically, aid for Kiev has already divided lawmakers in Congress. Even Democrats’ enthusiasm has started to cool on aiding the proxy conflict, according to latest polls. Now, the latest flare-up in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has Congress facing the challenge of an even greater supplemental funding request.
On 7 October, Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise large-scale rocket attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip. After it breached the border, killing and seizing people in neighboring Israeli communities, Israel launched retaliatory strikes and ordered a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to more than two million people, cutting off supplies of water, food and fuel. Thousands of dead and injured have been reported on both sides as a result of the escalation.
Biden, who recently visited Israel to show his support for the long-time non-NATO ally, \u201ccoughed when he spoke of concern and protection of innocents in Gaza, under the laws of war,\u201d Kwiatkowski said.
\u201cHe also curiously spoke of the United States as a beacon of freedom of religion and speech – even as he was asking for billions more to send to countries where churches and religions are being banned, where elections are suspended, and the allied governments’ – in Tel Aviv and in Kiev – intolerance and war against different ethnicities, religions and cultures reminds the world of 1939 Germany,\u201d Kwiatkowski emphasized.
As to the \u201clies\u201d littering Biden\u2019s speech, the former DoD analyst pointed to his reporting to the nation that \u201cthe Ukrainian Army has taken back 50 percent of the territory initially taken by Russia\u201d, and said that that did not ring true. Surprised that Biden\u2019s speechwriters even allowed this to remain in his address, Kwiatkowski continued:
\u201cI understand that the line of demarcation between Russian and Ukrainian troops is roughly what it was last year, and that the summer counteroffensive was a net loss to Ukraine. I’m not sure how they are going to explain that 50% of territory taken back by Kiev.”
Indeed, the much-touted Ukrainian counteroffensive attempt launched early in June quickly ran up against solid Russian defenses and minefields. According to the latest data, the Kiev regime has lost more than 90,000 troops, 557 tanks and almost 1,900 armored vehicles.
“As for the counteroffensive, which is apparently stalling – it has failed completely. We know that in certain areas of the hostilities, however, the opposing side is preparing new active offensive operations. We see this, and we know it. And we are also responding to this accordingly,” Russian President Vladimir Putin highlighted in a recent media interview.
The \u201cshocking\u201d part of Biden\u2019s speech, according to the ex-DoD analyst, was the unabashed \u201cselling point\u201d that Biden offers to increase aid to Israel and Ukraine.
\u201cHe wants Ukrainians to die so we can build more weapons to replenish our own stock with newer products, and he wants to restore Israel’s top-notch military capability – yet he says nothing about how such a top-notch and integrated security system somehow ‘didn’t work’ two weeks ago, enabling a major Hamas attack in the south, or what they have done with the $3.8Bln or so we provide Israel each year in military aid. Of course he does hope that Ukraine can end Putin, but again, the reality on the battlefield and politically in Ukraine point to this being a direct lie to the American people – one that he himself didn’t seem overly confident in telling.”
Kwiatkowski took a moment to speak ironically about Biden\u2019s \u201cself-aggrandizement\u201d over \u201csomehow being the \u2018first President\u2019 ever to visit a war zone, or visit during a war”, and his account of his train trip to Kiev last year, the first president to do something like that “since Lincoln”.
\u201cI imagine that is part of his presidential re-election campaign, but it fell flat,\u201d she drily remarked.
Biden\u2019s address to the American nation was \u201cshort on specifics, yet also awkwardly militaristic and threatening\u201d, Kwiatkowski concluded, as if the President wanted to warn that \u201cif we don’t give money to warmongers holding their hands out – we will have to fight somewhere\u201d, albeit \u201cdownplaying how exactly Americans fighting somewhere would pan out\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n