In a video conference Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine addressed the U.S. Congress and President Biden, asking the United States to intervene in his country’s war with Russia. Among the more aggressive efforts Zelensky requested were the enforcement of a no-fly zone over Ukraine or for the United States to provide Ukraine with fighter jets and anti-aircraft weapons.
Zelensky’s address to Congress included a graphic video “showing the devastation the war is wreaking in Ukraine,” according to a report by CatholicVote. And the video — which was clearly intended to strum the emotional strings of the hearts of the members of Congress — appears to have achieved its goal. Fox News reported:
Members of Congress Wednesday said they were deeply moved by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s address to U.S. lawmakers, including a graphic video he presented showing the horrors of Russia’s war on his country.
“It was heart-wrenching,” Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., said of the video. “It underscored the human side of this tragedy. These are families, children, and lives disrupted in a way that’s really unspeakable.”
“You could see more concern in his eyes this time than what we saw a week or so ago when we did a Zoom with him,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., told Fox News Digital.
“The video really captured the moment — devastating. Hopefully people, not only our country gets to see that video, which is very graphic. The whole world needs to see it,” Tuberville added. “That’s the trouble we’re in with these dictators trying to do what they’re doing.”
“It is a gut punch and reminder of how we have to help the Ukrainian people in this moment,” Assistant House Speaker Katherine Clark, D-Mass., told Fox News Digital.
“To see the images of the beauty of Ukraine before all of this started and then show images of what these bombed out buildings look like, children with blood all over them, dead bodies in the street, putting people who had been murdered into mass graves — incredibly, incredibly moving,” Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., said.
In the address, Zelensky — who appeared on screen in a military-style t-shirt — went all out in an effort to appeal to the emotions of Americans, invoking memories of Pearl Harbor, Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and 9/11. And while he was addressing Congress in his video conference, he widened the scope to include President Biden, saying, “I’m addressing the President Biden,” Zelensky said. “You, the leader of your nation, I wish you to be the leader of the world.”
But the true intended audience appears to be the American people, millions of whom have already seen his address via YouTube and other platforms.
And it is that intended audience that Zelensky appears to hope to move toward more aggressive measures by the United States. Those measures could include American fighter jets enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, though many in Congress have said that is a no-go, since it would mean opening America up to outright war with Russia. As a “compromise,” Zelenskyy asked for the United States to provide Ukraine with fighter jets and anti-aircraft weapons.
This seems a bit like a staged scene for the American people to witness and move toward a willingness to intervene by wading back into the “Cold War” days of the past. In fact, this exact issue was addressed by Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) earlier this month when he appeared on ABC’s This Week with host George Stephanopoulos. As we reported at the time:
As the Russian war in Ukraine continues to heat up, the part America may wind up playing is an open question. And Sunday, while leaving that question open, Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told ABC’s This Week host George Stephanopoulos that he opposes the idea of NATO imposing a “no-fly zone” over Ukraine because “it means World War III.”
Rubio — who serves as vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee — is ordinarily a war hawk, but Sunday, he dialed it back a bit. When asked about his position on a no-fly zone — which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has asked multiple nations to implement — Rubio explained that “no-fly zone has become a catchphrase.”
Rubio went on to explain:
That means flying AWACs 24 hours a day. That means the willingness to shoot down and engage Russian airplanes in the sky. That means, frankly, you can’t put those planes up there unless you’re willing to knock out the anti-aircraft systems that the Russians have deployed — and not just in Ukraine, but in Russia and also in Belarus.
He added that such an act on the part of the United States would mean “starting WWIII,” saying:
So basically a no-fly zone, if people understood what it means, it means World War III. It means starting World War III. So, I think there are a lot of things we can do to help Ukraine protect itself, both from air strikes and missile strikes, but I think people need to understand what a no-fly zone means. It’s not just — it’s not some rule you pass that everybody has to oblige by. It’s the willingness to shoot down the aircrafts of the Russian Federation, which is basically the beginning of World War III.
Having dangled the bogeyman of WWIII to frighten the American people, Rubio and Stephanopoulos segued into a conversation that had the staged appearance of offering the same compromise Zelenskyy offered to Congress: America providing fighter jets and anti-aircraft weapons. Stephanopoulos asked Rubio, “How about this provision of fighter jets? We would provide the fighter jets to Poland, other Eastern European nations. They would send the jets they now have to Ukraine — do you support that?” And Rubio — ever the war hawk — replied, “I do. If that can be done, that would be great. I do have concerns about a couple things. And that is sort of, you know, can they actually fly them given the amount of anti-aircraft capabilities that the Russians possess and continue to have deployed in the region?” Rubio added, “By the way, yesterday was a terrible day for the Russian air force. They’re losing — they don’t have air control either there. But, generally speaking, it’s something I’d be supportive of, and we should do what we can to help them.”
It now appears that Rubio and Stephanopoulos set the stage on which Zelensky played his part before Congress (and the American people) Wednesday. Because Zelensky started the bidding at a no-fly zone (which he knew would be rejected) and then lowered the bid to America providing jets and missiles.
While it is easy enough to understand Zelensky’s position — his country is daily being attacked and he wants Biden (as the “leader of the world”) to come to the rescue — it is also easy to see that America is being played. Rubio’s mendacity duly noted, he was right about this being the beginning of WWIII. And it is not just a no-fly zone that could launch WWIII. If America provides Ukraine with superior weapons of war, Russia will not likely see that as anything other than what it would be: an act of war.
With so much of the world so divided and ready to take sides, it is no far stretch to imagine a regional conflict quickly escalating into full-scale global war with the United States and her allies on one side of the field and Russia and her allies on the other. After all, the prequels to World Wars I and II both started that way — albeit with Germany playing the role of the villain.
As this writer ended that above-mentioned article:
By ignoring the wisdom of our Founding Fathers who warned us against “entangling alliances,” America has created — or at least helped to create — a situation that almost requires world wars. This writer is reminded of something Thomas Jefferson said about another situation in which America found herself because of bad policy. By allowing slavery, America created a growing problem that was already becoming untenable by Jefferson’s day. Describing the situation, Jefferson said, “We now have the wolf by the ears and we can neither safely hold him nor let him go.”
A war hawk, interventionist, empire-building foreign policy has served America — and the rest of the world — badly. And this time, if Rubio is correct, we may be facing WWIII with a nation that (again, thanks to our self-destructive foreign policy) has nuclear weapons.
The correct action on the part of America is to stay out of Europe’s wars. And that includes this one.
