24 November 2024

Going Out With A Bang? Biden Plays Nuclear Chicken With Russia – OpEd

Dave Lindorff

There is no justifiable explanation for lame duck President Joe Biden’s sudden turnabout decision to okay Ukraine’s use of longer-range US ATACMS ballistic missiles which can hit targets as much as 200 miles inside Russia.

Biden and his ironically-dubbed national security “brain trust” of Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan have for most of this year been nixing Kiev’s request for such missiles as well as permission for Ukraine use Britain’s Storm Shadow stand-off air-launched long-range cruise missiles to hit Russian targets. They did this arguing that such attacks on the Russian heartland could lead to a spiraling escalation of that war — an escalation that could quickly go nuclear.

Now those two out-of-their-depth but supremely over-confident advisors and the doddering outgoing president they serve are claiming the US “has to respond” to Russia’s supposed escalation of the war. They are referring to Vladimir Putin’s acceptance of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s offer of over 10.000 North Korean troops to assist Russia in driving invading Ukrainian forces out of its Kursk region north of Ukraine.

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