President Joe Biden gave a stirring, bellicose address in Warsaw, Poland, yesterday to mark the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
He talked about the importance of defending freedom and democracy from dictatorship and aggression, in sweeping tones.
All well and good — except that is the opposite of the foreign policy that Biden exemplified when he first took office.
His appeasement of Russia, and his incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan, invited Russian aggression in Ukraine.
Now, belatedly, he defends “freedom.”
It is worth noting that the Biden policy on Ukraine has now come full circle to the policy once advocated by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in the 2008 Georgia crisis — and which Biden and Obama, then running mates against McCain, roundly rejected in favor of their “reset.”
Moreover, Biden’s enthusiasm for freedom abroad diverges from his policies at home, as conservative radio host Mark Levin noted on Tuesday.
In the U.S., Biden has pursued unconstitutional mandates, sweeping executive powers, and censorship. He also encouraged Canada to crack down on “freedom” protesters in 2022. He has left the southern border of the “land of the free” largely undefended.
Biden has always been a blowhard — one whose rhetoric is too boastful and too aggressive to be taken seriously. He has no real policy convictions; his first instinct is almost always wrong, and the only saving grace is that he changes his mind easily (and belatedly).
The speech would have been great if it had been delivered years ago — which it was, by President Donald Trump, who also told Warsaw that western civilization, and Ukraine in particular, were under threat from Russia:
Today, the West is also confronted by the powers that seek to test our will, undermine our confidence, and challenge our interests. To meet new forms of aggression, including propaganda, financial crimes, and cyberwarfare, we must adapt our alliance to compete effectively in new ways and on all new battlefields.
We urge Russia to cease its destabilizing activities in Ukraine and elsewhere, and its support for hostile regimes — including Syria and Iran — and to instead join the community of responsible nations in our fight against common enemies and in defense of civilization itself.
For his trouble, Trump was called racist. The media also persisted in portraying him as a Russian stooge, when in fact he was pressuring Russia and trying to warn Europe.
Today, such a speech is largely empty rhetoric, because while reckless Ukrainian officials talk about driving tanks into Moscow, the war has become a stalemate in eastern Ukraine, and Europe no longer wants to send tanks and planes. There is pressure on both sides for talks.
By attacking Russia in sweeping terms, Biden has made negotiations more difficult. He accused Russia of “crimes against humanity” — which may be true, but the threat of prosecution gives Vladimir Putin a reason to keep fighting, and perhaps to resort to nuclear arms.
There was also more than a hint of domestic politics in Biden’s address. In his attempt to frame Russia’s invasion as an attack on democracy, he evoked Democrats’ claim to be defending democracy against Donald Trump in particular and Republicans in general.
So while on the one hand it is good to see an American president, especially a Democrat, talk about “freedom” abroad, Biden’s speech lacked credibility and is unlikely to rally Americans to the cause. It may also have made a peaceful resolution to the war more difficult.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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