Donald Trump repeatedly said during the campaign that he wanted the war in Ukraine to come to an end. So why is Joe Biden lighting a match, flinging it on the conflict, and walking away into the Amazon rainforest?

Well, let’s be honest. We have no idea if this decision was actually made by Joe Biden, because we have no idea if he is capable of running his own bathtub at this point, let alone the foreign policy of the United States. And Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in the middle of packing up his office, announced this fascinating financial priority just last Thursday.

BREAKING: Secretary of State Antony Blinken announces "every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed [to Ukraine] between now and January 20th" when Trump takes office. pic.twitter.com/7m6VLLfTlI

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) November 14, 2024

That would have been AFTER he learned Marco Rubio would be taking his job in January. So, did Blinken, his staff at Foggy Bottom, or someone else decide to authorize Ukraine’s usage of long-range missiles to strike deeper into Russian territory? Or does the White House really want us to think that Joe Biden himself gave the thumbs up to this?

The decision allowing Kyiv to use the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMs, for attacks farther inside Russia comes as President Vladimir Putin positions North Korean troops along Ukraine’s northern border to try to reclaim hundreds of miles of territory seized by Ukrainian forces.

Biden’s move also follows the presidential election victory of Donald Trump, who has said he would bring about a swift end to the war and raised uncertainty about whether his administration would continue the United States’ vital military support for Ukraine.

The official and the others knowledgeable about the matter were not authorized to discuss the U.S. decision publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The North Korean troops are a concern, although there have been reports that the language barrier, plus discovering the access of unlimited internet pornography, have made them more of a burden than a help to Russia. (And if these North Korean troops ever make it back, the odds are VERY high that they will spend the rest of their lives in a gulag, unable to tell anyone of what the West can offer them.) It is true that having North Korean soldiers involved escalates the war internationally. But is allowing Ukraine to use long-range missiles the best way to respond?

Zelensky, for his part, seems to think so.

JUST IN: Ukrainian President Zelensky threatens Russia after receiving U.S. authorization to strike Russian territory.

“Strikes are not carried out with words; such things are not announced. Missiles will speak for themselves—they certainly will.”

Can we not??? pic.twitter.com/VZpOR6iHHD

— Patrick Webb (@RealPatrickWebb) November 17, 2024

The question then becomes, what will Ukraine do with these missiles?

Ukraine will now be able to strike targets inside Russia, most likely at first around the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces hold over 1,000 sq km of territory.

Ukrainian and US officials expect a counter-offensive by Russian and North Korean troops to regain territory in Kursk.

Ukraine may use ATACMS to defend against the assault, targeting Russian positions including military bases, infrastructure and ammunition storage.

The supply of the missiles will probably not be enough to turn the tide of the war. Russian military equipment, such as jets, has already been moved to airfields further inside Russia in anticipation of such a decision.

But the weapons may grant Ukraine some advantage at a time when Russian troops have been gaining ground in the country’s east and morale is low.

“I don’t think it will be decisive,” a Western diplomat in Kyiv told the BBC, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

“However, it’s an overdue symbolic decision to raise the stakes and demonstrate military support to Ukraine.

“It can raise the war cost for Russia.”

There are also questions over how much ammunition will be provided, said Evelyn Farkas, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defence in the Obama administration.

“The question is, of course, how many missiles do they have? We have heard that the Pentagon has warned there aren’t that many of these missiles that they can make available to Ukraine.”

Oh great. So this is going to be a “symbolic” gesture that escalates matters and STILL won’t actually do anything? Which, come to think of it, is a perfect summation of the entire Biden administration’s foreign policy. Putin did warn that if NATO weapons were used against them, Russia would see that as NATO becoming directly involved in the conflict. Of course, that was before he had North Korean troops on his front lines, so he doesn’t have room to talk about dragging other countries into the conflict – but since when has Vladimir Putin been celebrated for his ideological consistency?

Back to the question at hand – who made this call?

Joe Biden has been at the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit in Peru, where he showed up late for the big photo at the end, and then decided to take a tour of the Amazon with his daughter and adult granddaughter (because why not get one last trip in on the taxpayers’ dime). Are we really supposed to believe that Biden made this decision while wandering around the Amazon rainforest?

I’m not sure the sitting president of the United States should just be walking off into the rainforest, like this is the end of “Field of Dreams,” after delivering a few remarks on “climate change” and NOT mentioning Ukraine at all. And why would he – he’s got a pre-prepared script and reading off the teleprompter in the Amazon rainforest. (Yes, we need to preserve the beauty of the rainforest. Also, crank up that generator so Grandpa can read his lines off the teleprompter.)

What is likely is that this decision was probably made earlier, but only announced now to Zelensky and the world, once Team Biden knew that Kamala Harris had lost the election, and their plans and policies regarding Ukraine were going to come to an end. This looks like the State Department and the White House giving the incoming Trump administration the middle finger on their way out the door. Trump ran on ending the war in Ukraine, and the Biden administration just made that possibility more difficult. We have two more months of Joe Biden in the Oval Office, ostensibly still the president of the United States, and if every decision the Deep State makes from here on out is designed to screw over or thwart Donald Trump’s potential plans, it is going to be a very long and dangerous two months.

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click