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J.D. Vance Holds Line Against Warmongering

And: Tucker Carlson supports Ukraine, but refuses to live by the US establishment's pro-Zelensky lies
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Greetings from Amsterdam. I’m in transit to the National Conservatism Conference in Brussels, and overnighted here to visit old friends. I just saw Tucker Carlson’s monologue from last night. It’s first-rate:

In it, he talks about how Volodymyr Zelensky has shut down all opposition political parties and TV channels that he doesn’t control. Tucker says that this is not necessarily out of question in a war situation, but that we should stop praising Zelensky as a beacon of liberty and democracy. Tucker aired a series of clips of Washington politicians heaping praise on Zelensky as a new George Washington. According to Tucker, Zelensky is certainly brave, and worth praising for that fact, and the Ukrainian people are rightly to be cheered for their resistance to this unjust Russian invasion. But come on, let’s not lie to ourselves about who Zelensky is.

Second, Tucker airs a video clip with the head of a Ukraine’s military hospital telling a journalist interviewing him that he has ordered those under his command to castrate captive Russian soldiers, because they are not human, but rather “cockroaches.” YouTube took the video down, but it’s still watchable online; Tucker had the clip. The Ukrainian doctor, Gennadiy Druzenko, later apologized for his words.

Tucker says that inasmuch as we Americans are paying for a lot of Ukraine’s defensive war on Russia, we should know what we are funding. He says several times in the ten minute segment that he supports Ukraine’s self-defense against this unjust invasion, but he is not about to pretend that Zelensky and Ukraine are other than they really are, just because it feels good.

Along these lines, I cheered when I saw J.D. Vance, speaking in an Ohio GOP Senate race debate, stick to his guns in opposing NATO instituting a no-fly zone over Ukraine:

Here’s what Vance said:

“It’s not in our vital national interest. I’m in the minority up here because at the end of the day we can accept as individuals — look, it’s tragic, it terrible. What Vladimir Putin did was wrong in invading a sovereign country on its border, but we have our own problems in the United States to focus on. I’m very distressed that for 4 years Congressional Republicans refused to give Donald Trump $4 billion for a border wall. $4 billion for a border wall when fentanyl was pouring into our country, killing our citizens by the tens of thousands. In one week, they give Joe Biden $14 billion for Ukrainian aide. What I would do in this moment is premise, condition further Ukrainian aid on support for our border and support for our problems. People always say we can walk and chew gum at the same time, let’s actually do it.”

The other GOP candidates came out for the no-fly zone, which would mean World War III. Do you remember how back in 2016, in the GOP presidential primary season, Donald Trump was the only candidate willing to say the Iraq War was wrong? Trump faced a bunch of slander and charges that he was an enemy of the tribe — same as J.D. Vance today — but he was right. The willingness of the revived neocons to ride the Ukraine wave to restoration and yet more war is a good indication that they have learned nothing over the last twenty years.

The entire Ukraine war is a good reminder that they would gladly have us in a world war at the moment if they could. The polls show that most Americans support a no-fly zone … until they learn what it is, and what it would likely mean. I am not watching US cable or broadcast news. Tell me, American readers: are US viewers being adequately briefed on what all this would mean?

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