Biden’s tough choices regarding Ukraine.

July 10, 2023

          President Biden has made two tough decisions regarding Ukraine in the last several days. First, he has announced that it is “premature” to admit Ukraine to NATO, just days ahead of a NATO summit in Lithuania.  Second, he has approved the US supplying Ukraine with “cluster munitions” that pose the threat of unexploded ordinance on the battlefield—land that will one day serve as farms, pastures, countryside, and cityscape.

          Each decision has upset some part of the international and US communities, with the cluster munitions decisions raising opposition by many Democrats. And each decision can be second-guessed with convincing arguments for arriving at the opposite conclusion. But Biden has given the decisions careful consideration in light of US interest in global peace and security over the long term. People can disagree with Biden’s decisions in good faith, but any serious discussion regarding the alternative option should include consideration of how a different conclusion can protect US interests—and help the people of Ukraine.

          The decision to oppose the “immediate” admission of Ukraine into NATO has drawn the least opposition—except for Ukraine and its neighbors who fear that the decision will embolden Russia to attack other countries formerly members in the USSR. In an interview on Sunday, Biden said he was committed to “protecting every inch” of Ukrainian territory, but that admitting Ukraine to NATO would immediately place the US on war-footing against Russia. Biden said, “If the war is going on, then we’re all in war. We’re at war with Russia, if that were the case.”  For once, leading Republicans agreed with Biden. GOP Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, Michael McCaul, said, “We cannot admit Ukraine into NATO immediately; that would put us at war with Russia under Article 5 of the [NATO charter].”

          Baltic nations included in NATO believe that the West does not appreciate the true threat posed by Russia. They believe that membership in NATO for Ukraine is vital to preventing further aggression by Russia. Turkey’s leader Recep Erdogan agrees. UPI, Ukraine deserves to be in NATO, Erdogan says; Biden calls discussions 'premature'.   

       Although Ukraine is a “partner” with NATO, it does not benefit from the mutual defense agreement that lies at the core of NATO membership. See UPI article, above.

          Biden’s decision to supply Ukraine with cluster munitions was more controversial in the US. Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee said that supplying cluster munitions would “harm US moral leadership” in global affairs. See Newsweek, Democrat Rips Biden Over Cluster Munitions: 'Crossing a Line'. The US is not a signatory to an international treaty banning cluster munitions that has been signed by 120 nations. Cluster munitions have led to casualties among civilians—often children—who come into contact with unexploded bombs. Rep. Lee said,

We know what takes place in terms of cluster bombs being very dangerous to civilians. They don't always immediately explode. Children can step on them. That's a line we should not cross.

          Biden advisor Jake Sullivan said,

But there is also a massive risk of civilian harm if Russian troops and tanks roll over Ukrainian positions and take more Ukrainian territory and subjugate more Ukrainian civilians because Ukraine does not have enough artillery.

          Readers of this newsletter came down on both sides of the issue in the Comments section over the weekend. One reader wrote the following:

To the end of his long life, W.B. Yeats quoted his father's friend, the Irish nationalist John O'Leary:

"There are some things a man cannot do, even to save a nation."

Cluster bombs are one of those things. Sixty years on, there is still shrapnel in limbs of humans and trees all over Southeast Asia. To no good end.

President Biden: Don't. Do. This.

          Another reader wrote,

The criticism of President Biden for agreeing with Ukraine’s request for cluster munitions overlooks a crucial difference between a country defending itself and a country attacking another country. Sending cluster munitions against another country puts their civilian population at risk. This is the point of the convention against cluster munitions. But Ukraine is defending itself against Russia and will use these munitions in its own country only. The risk to its own people is a judgment that President Zelensky has weighed against the need to repel the invasion. We are right to send the munitions he wants.

          The choices facing Biden were excruciating. There is no solution that avoids military and civilian casualties, although the decision to supply cluster munitions will pose a threat long after Russia’s unprovoked war on Ukraine is over. But if Ukraine does not win that war, the suffering of the Ukrainian people will last generations. Biden made a difficult choice in good faith, and Democrats can disagree with him in good faith. But let’s not forget the proximate cause of this no-win situation is Vladimir Putin’s delusions of rebuilding the mythical Greater Russia.

Two worthwhile articles on the Supreme Court.

          The NYTimes published an article over the weekend regarding Justice Clarence Thomas’s entry into the world of millionaires and billionaires, Where Clarence Thomas Entered an Elite Circle and Opened a Door to the Court. (This article is accessible to all.) The article describes an unseemly closeness between a justice of the Supreme Court and wealthy suitors who shower Thomas with unseemly access to sporting events, vacation travel, and celebrity parties that skirt the edges of legality. If those unreported gifts from “friends with benefits” are not illegal, they should be. The point seems to be to purchase access to the Supreme Court via a corruptible justice.

          Perhaps the most disturbing revelation is that Thomas has allowed the Supreme Court’s courtroom to be used as a reception space for a private organization of wealthy donors, the “Horatio Alger Association.” Per the Times,

[Thomas] has granted [the Association] unusual access to the Supreme Court, where every year he presides over the group’s signature event: a ceremony in the courtroom at which he places Horatio Alger medals around the necks of new lifetime members. One entrepreneur called it “the closest thing to being knighted in the United States.”

In the courtroom, [Justice Thomas] conducts the organization’s foundational rite, the induction of roughly 10 new members. Toward the end of the ceremony, scholarship recipients make a brief appearance, walking in procession through the courtroom.

          Uh, excuse me?? The US Supreme Court is being used as a “graduation hall” for inductees into private society of Clarence Thomas’s wealthy buddies? Where, oh where is John Roberts when this outrage is occurring in the Supreme Court itself?? Gosh, maybe the rest of us can ask to have wedding receptions and birthday dinners in the Supreme Court. Wouldn’t that be cool?

          This has got to stop. John Roberts is incapable of managing the Article III branch of government. Congress needs to step in, impose order, and dare John Roberts to do something about it.

          Ian Millhiser at Vox has published a “wrap-up” to the Supreme Court’s 2022-23 term, The importance of staying angry at the Supreme Court, with sub-header: “The way to beat a partisan Supreme Court is to hold a grudge against it for a really long time.”

          Much of the damage recounted by Millhiser is familiar and grim, but he finds a silver lining in the Court’s refusal to walk over the edge into insanity:

So, while this Supreme Court frequently exercises arbitrary authority over US policy, it drew the line against decisions that could destroy democracy in the United States altogether. And the justices also showed that they are unwilling to sign onto the MAGA movement’s more novel legal arguments. This Court holds old grudges, but it does not necessarily sign on to every new grudge held by the rightmost fringe of the judiciary.

          Millhiser attributes the reticence of a few members of the reactionary majority to adopt the most extreme measures of the MAGA extremists to polling that shows the Supreme Court is losing legitimacy: 59% of Americans disapprove of the Court in the most recent Quinnipiac poll—a historic “negative” rating for the Court.

          And Millhiser ends with this positive note about the quality and experience of President Biden’s nominees to the federal bench:

Moreover, while past Democratic presidents often nominated prosecutors, corporate law partners, and other lawyers who spent their careers working on behalf of the already powerful, Biden has selected an unusually large number of public defenders, civil rights lawyers, and others who’ve spent their careers advancing liberal or democratic values. In just one week in June, the Senate confirmed Dale Ho — arguably the nation’s preeminent voting rights litigator — to a powerful district court in Manhattan, and then confirmed Julie Rikelman, a similarly prominent abortion rights lawyer, to the First Circuit.

            In the end, Millhiser’s prescription is for Democrats to hold a grudge against the Court in the same way that Republicans did for fifty years after the decision in Roe v. Wade. Although we will not need to wait that long to reverse the Court’s decisions of the last 24 months, we need to be as determined and unforgiving as Republicans were about Roe v. Wade.

A cautionary tale about Florida.     

          Donald Trump joked over the weekend that rising sea levels would “create more beachfront property”—a debatable proposition that ignores the newly created sea bed that replaces formerly dry land. But the effects of climate change will not be limited to sea level rise. Indeed, Florida’s Lake Okeechobee becomes a toxic sewer for months each year as rising temperatures, increasing rainfall, and agricultural runoff combine to create a toxic slime in a lake that was once critical to the Everglade’s ability to recharge itself with clean water. See NYTimes, It’s Toxic Slime Time on Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. (This article is accessible to all.)

          The Times’ reporting is remarkable. Lake Okeechobee spews toxic fumes from rotting algae mats that bloom in warm water polluted with phosphorous from agriculture. Joggers must stay away from the lake’s shore to avoid inhaling the fumes. Forget about fishing and boating near the algae blooms. And if record high rains continue, the Army Corps of Engineers may have to release the toxic water into canals that feed into dozens of Florida cities downstream.

          So, Trump can joke about climate change creating new beachfront property, but the citizens of Florida are facing immediate threats from climate change that may make their fancy homes on canals worthless—and dangerous. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen. But if it does, it will be because Republican legislators refused to regulate the use of phosphorous in agriculture. That decision may have benefitted the economic interests of a handful of corporate farmers in Florida, but it is now threatening the life, health, and property of Floridians who live near Lake Okeechobee.

Concluding Thoughts.

          The citizens of Ohio need our help. The first public polling shows that the Republican effort to raise the threshold for citizen-initiatives to amend the state constitution to 60% is too close to call—38% supported the Republican initiative and 37% opposed, with 26% undecided. Democrats must defeat the Republican initiative by VOTING NO on August 8th. If Ohio Democrats can defeat the August 8th ballot initiative, polling shows that they have a good chance of passing a constitutional amendment in November that would protect reproductive liberty.

          Reader Steve Schear makes the following plea:

          Please do your part. Your financial donations here can help the Ohio Democratic Party hire more volunteer coordinators and buy the literature canvassers need. Volunteer for phone-banking with the Ohio Democratic Party here or write letters with Working America here or postcards with Blue Wave here. Lets create the turn-out we need to win!

          A win in Ohio is important for two reasons: The first is that it will secure the right to reproductive liberty for citizens of Ohio. Just as importantly, it will send the message that Democrats will not abide state legislators who attempt to strip citizens of their right to reproductive liberty. That message will be on the ballot in 2024; we cannot flag in Ohio. Let’s help get out the vote!

         Talk to you tomorrow!