Biden's Faulty Priorities

President Biden Applies Sanctions

I watched the State of the Union speech the other night. Some parts of it were OK, but it was generally just another campaign speech. I had heard the vast majority of it before, but I was surprised when he spoke about the need for border security as part of his immigration reform program. For a moment there, he almost sounded like Trump.

He did a thorough job of recapping the sanctions against Russia for invading Ukraine. All those economic sanctions take time, and I’m not sure the Ukraine has time. Think back to your history lessons on WWII. Even though Germany and Japan were absolutely isolated economically, they both managed to wage war for three or four years before they were defeated. I certainly hope the sanctions will effective, but I don’t think they will be in time to stop the invasion. The Russian government is already finding work-arounds to lessen the impact of the sanctions. According to the news Putin is working through smaller banks that were not part of the sanctions and, as a totalitarian state, they can simply demand their citizens live with shortages. They can also continue the war with income from the sale of natural gas and oil.

Three years ago, the United States was energy independent. For the first time in decades the U.S. was not a net importer of oil. I am not a fan of President Trump. Even though I agreed with many of his policies, he was such a jerk I could not vote for him. He created enemies for no apparent reason. But he did have some good programs. One of them was to give national security priority over many environmental issues. He with cancelled our involvement in the Paris accords on climate control, opened up more federal land to oil exploration, encouraged fracking, and defended the pipeline that brought oil from wells in Canada and the Dakotas. When his programs were implemented, we no longer imported oil from other nations.

When President Biden took office, he kowtowed to the ecology extremists and reversed all these programs. Not surprisingly, we once again became dependent on foreign oil. Russia is the world’s second largest exporter of oil. When Russia invaded Ukraine, 8% of US oil imports came from Russia. We did not, however, sanction their international oil sales. In his State of the Union Address, the President spoke of inflation and “the price at the pump” and said we needed to keep the oil flowing. This is duplicitous and borderline criminal. Our President is so afraid of political fallout, he is willing to sacrifice Ukraine to alleviate the perceived wrath of American consumers. He made that decision without asking us!! I would be more than willing to double my gasoline bill if it helped fight against aggression. I think the American people would also be willing to pay the price.

President Biden’s policies have made our national security hostage to foreign oil producers including Russia. It was a conscious decision to appease his political followers. Now the Ukraine and world-wide democracy is at risk.

Frank Watson is retired Air Force Colonel and long-time resident of Eastern Washington. He has bee a free-lance columnist for over 20 years.