The story would have been good for a knowing smile if it had appeared in a satirical publication like the Onion, but this item comes from the least Onion-y paper around--the straight-faced Wall Street Journal. And it wasn't kidding:
It seems the United States wants to help Ukraine in its fight against Russian-backed rebels in the worst way. And that may be just the way it's found. For example, Washington is giving the Ukrainians access to its military intelligence.
Sort of.
Our indecisive, semi-hemi-demi-isolationist administration can't even decide how isolationist it wants to be. So it sends the Ukrainians some of our satellite imagery of the Russians and their tank-driving, machine-gun-firing, Russian-in-all-but-name invaders as they plunge deeper and deeper into what was once Ukrainian territory. But first our snoops take care to blur the pictures. We wouldn't want to risk offending the aggressors.
To quote the Journal:
"The White House agreed last year to Ukraine's request to provide the photos and other intelligence. But before delivering them, the U.S. blacks out military staging areas on Russian territory and reduces the resolution so that enemy formations can't be clearly made out, making them less useful to Ukrainian military commanders, according to U.S. officials briefed on the intelligence-sharing program."
And that's according to American officials. You can imagine what Ukrainian officials have to say, although it probably can't be published in a family newspaper. And our knowledge of Ukrainian cuss words is highly limited, if not nonexistent.
It's as if, in 1939, we had given the Poles waging a last-ditch struggle for their survival only the outlines of the German and Russian troop movements crushing their country to death from two directions. Lest we offend the Fuehrer and his sudden ally in Moscow.
Goodness. Why not run whatever still can be made of these satellite images through a fax machine a couple of times just to make them even less decipherable? And black out the names of any cities, roads and other recognizable landmarks. That ought to make our intelligence less . . . intelligent. If anything still could.
As an Extra Added Bonus, reducing the pictures' resolution and size, and blacking out sensitive place names, adds another day to the time when the Ukrainians finally get the photos. So not only are the final versions of the satellite pictures of poor quality, but dated, too.
And why, do you think, is Washington holding back? Why is it downgrading intelligence to Ukraine? Because, according to officials in Washington, the administration is worried that giving the Ukrainians more accurate and valuable intelligence would . . . trigger more aggression from Russia. This isn't just appeasement. It's a display of base fear.
Or as one American official put it: "You don't want to do anything that incites more instability or invites more aggression from Russia, and therefore make it worse in the end for Ukraine."
Make it worse? How could it be worse? What would the Russians do, invade Ukraine with proxy troops?
If this is helping a friend in need, what would knocking a friend's crutches out from under him be?
Never fear. The Ukrainians have now been reduced to asking other governments to help fill the intelligence gap Washington won't. As of now, the government in Kiev is said to be working with Canada's defense department to obtain information about these Russian-sponsored troop movements in their country. As Dave Barry used to say, we're not making this up.
The way this administration has been "helping" Ukraine is nothing new. Last year, Washington gave Kiev short-range radar systems to track the path of Russian mortars landing on its soil--but the United States held back what officials call Key Components, the ones needed to make the systems effective in battle.
(Sigh.)
Why does Washington provide any help to Ukraine at all if it's not serious help? Last week, this country's director of national intelligence, Mr. James Clapper, told a congressional committee that the Russians, er, that is, the "Ukrainian separatists," were probably going to ignore the latest cease-fire until they captured the Ukrainian port of Mariupol, which would give the rebels access to the Black Sea via the Sea of Azov so they could complete the conquest of the Ukrainian coast, uniting this New Russia. Which is really just an extension of Old Russia.
So how does the United States react? It downgrades space photographs and delays the delivery of vital intelligence to our "friend." Once again an old saying holds true: It may be dangerous to be America's enemy in this world. But it can prove fatal to be her friend.
This whole charade brings to mind the old joke about a couple of Jews who are being stood up against the wall by a Nazi firing squad, but first given a chance to say their last words. One of the soon-to-be-departed takes advantage of the opportunity to curse his killers with what he knows will be his last breath. Whereupon his friend nudges him in the side and whispers, "Hush, you'll only make them mad!"
Editorial on 03/04/2015