Joe Biden is undistinguished in his verbal skills, to include his speeches—also in his “come on, man” and other shallow asides—regarding the war in Ukraine. To the extent that the U.S. intervention in Ukraine is commonly referred to as a “proxy war,” it’s concerning when Biden’s own Ukraine speech releases are inarticulate and inchoate.  He cracks jokes, and as always, falsely reminisces about his own life a lot, although here the context is, after all, a war.

Burisma and other foreign business dealings are a possible explanation for Biden’s failure to bring clear leadership to U.S. assistance and intervention—last month, James Comer released the third “bank memo” showing payments from oligarchs in Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan to the Bidens and their associates. Most in the media thus far are content to let Biden, as they generally do, off the hook on Burisma, as well as his odd sound bites and hefty disdain for normal inquiry about Ukraine.

Anyway, of the U.S. media coverage of the war, what can even be validated? Has corruption in high office persuaded the president of the United States to pursue a correction of course in Ukraine? This question, as with so many around Biden and his network, is still hanging fire.

Burisma isn’t the only stipulated reason for Biden’s routinely brief, confused, and unsatisfactory “comments’ on the war; there is plenty of Ukraine war confusion going around. A trove of discussions on U.S. intervention is available, put forward willy-nilly—so varied as to be daunting. Where is the money going? Why have no proper efforts for peace been put forward at our end? Why is there no formal or effective congressional approval/oversight? What precedent led to our involvement? Again: where lies the clarity of military purpose or grave diplomatic involvement for peace?

Why is Biden’s behavior on Ukraine versus Russia so consistently bellicose and impermissibly costly? Most of what we need to know from the president—the why of American contribution and strategy—is nowhere in the mix. Pseudo-analyses and reactions surround us; e.g., Zelensky as Superhero, Russian macro-aggression, Putin’s ignominy, European historically-sourced outrage and fear, energy, Asian geopolitics, etc.

Yet Biden’s actual intentions are not transparent. The American people are left to speculate on his reasons for his Ukraine enthusiasm. Does Burisma lead to Hunter? Does it lead further than that, right to Joe himself? Are Biden’s “handlers” (who are they?) in charge of this war? And so on.

If a sustained overseas war of intervention is mostly predicated upon the semi-concealed ambitions of the political/federal elite and/or entitled, it is morally destined in history to be judged an unjust intervention. The U.S. had problems with this in Vietnam. I submit that it was, significantly, the intellectually elite “think-tank” liberals/scholars, dating back to Laos, and the federal intelligence and diplomatic apparatuses driving much of presidential policy regarding the Vietnam invention—a chiefly Democratic initiative which turned into war.  Lyndon Johnson’s Achilles heel vanity, and his strong personal desire to appease the Kennedy holdovers in his administration, led to his conflicted, failing warfare and eventual resignation.

We now have a changed world, but there are some comparables. Joe Biden (or his surrogates at his behest?) made the decision to join this current war. It was Biden’s decision—which he must, by his office, own—that precipitated a host of bespoke unilateral military, financial, and purely political actions.

This president’s actions speak louder than his words. Joe Biden is betting very heavily on the Ukraine war. Why? We must remain clueless if we fall back on that variety of helter-skelter news pundits to justify this intervention. Whereas, more seemingly and quite possibly, support for the big battle overseas is sourced in Biden’s explicit, chief intention: acting by using the public purse to obscure a lifelong career of intentionally immoral action… which brings us back to Burisma.

Image: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons, unaltered.