Old Yeller, the NATO Summit, and Moving Troops to Europe – The American Spectator

On Jul 18, 2023

Since President Joe Biden took office, the media have made it a policy to ignore his failing mental health. That may be changing very gradually because some in the media who fear a Republican victory next year want to see Biden drop out of the race. His conduct at the NATO summit last week is an example that can’t be ignored.

A few among the media are now reporting on what should be the biggest story of the 2024 election: Biden’s mental incapacity to perform the tasks required of an American president. The leaks have begun.

According to several medical websites and that of the Alzheimer’s Association, one of the most frequent symptoms of mid-to-late-term Alzheimer’s disease is irrational anger and shouting at people.

As reported last week by Axios, Biden has evidently reached that stage. According to that report, Biden’s temper can be triggered quickly and result in an assault by “f-bombs.” Staff often take a second person to briefings of the president in order to avoid having to absorb an individual verbal mugging. (RELATED: Joe Biden, the Totally Non-Senile Alpha Male)

This all, so far, takes place behind the scenes, and is, according to Axios, usually triggered by Biden’s outrage at some briefer who can’t answer a question. That’s the spin Axios, a left-leaning website, relies on to make its story a net positive for Biden. It’s certainly worse than Axios portrays.

What we saw when Biden visited King Charles III in Britain and when he attended the NATO meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania, was entirely consistent with Biden’s increasing dementia.

Reviewing some of the palace guards, Biden had to be led off the parade ground by the king. It was an event much like those in which he has turned around after a speech to shake hands with someone who wasn’t there or had to be led off the stage by his wife.

Biden has always been known for his verbal gaffes (at the summit, he referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “Vladimir,” which is Russian President Putin’s first name) and has stumbled up or down the stairs of Air Force One too often to mention. The gaffes and stumbles are now accompanied by other worrisome conduct.

Biden, having apparently exhausted himself in earlier meetings, appeared to fall asleep in one afternoon session. Worse yet, he skipped the big dinner of NATO leaders. The 80-year-old president clearly can’t keep up with the pace the duties of his office demand, yet he expects to be in office for another five years.

Biden’s diminishing mental capacity makes him unfit for reelection. If only Republicans can choose a better candidate than Donald Trump, Biden should be easy to beat next year.

Biden’s policy decisions are likely not the product of his own mind, but they are wholly deficient nevertheless.

Biden prematurely celebrated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s apparent cave-in to let Sweden join NATO. He apparently bought Erdoğan’s consent by bribing him with a future sale of new F-16s to Turkey.

But Erdoğan’s quickly backed off his consent, saying that the Turkish parliament — which has to ratify Sweden’s admission to NATO — isn’t going to be in session again until October, when, Erdoğan still promises, ratification of Sweden’s NATO membership will take place.

The only certainty in the delay is that Erdoğan will find another reason to delay Sweden’s admission to NATO.

The only good thing to come out of the NATO summit disappointed Zelensky. He was outraged that NATO didn’t set a timeline for Ukraine’s admission to NATO. But that admission, which NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said all members agree to, cannot take place until Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is over.

That war will continue because both sides — particularly Ukraine — are running out of trained troops. Ukraine is too short of the munitions — and the soldiers — it needs to make significant gains in its counteroffensive. Putin knows this as well as we do. He can continue his war on Ukraine as long as Russia’s economy supports it. He is willing to send virtually untrained troops into the battles as cannon fodder to keep the war going.

As I wrote last week, Biden is sending cluster bombs to Ukraine because we don’t have enough of the ammunition we need for a fight and can’t produce it fast enough. Biden is sending troops to Europe instead of giving Ukraine the combat aircraft it needs to drive the Russians out of its nation. (READ THE ARTICLE: What’s a Defense Industrial Base, Lindsay Graham?)

On July 13, Biden signed an executive order mobilizing 3,000 reserve troops to active duty in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve, the NATO effort to support Ukraine in Russia’s war against it. Biden — or whomever convinced him to sign the order — is apparently augmenting U.S. forces in Europe.

Most of the time, reserve forces provide the logistical tail for active duty troops. Does this activation of reserves mean that Biden wants to put U.S. troops on the ground in Ukraine?

As this column has said consistently since the February 2022 Russian invasion, the United States has no vital national-security interest in Ukraine. We should never inject U.S. troops into that war for that and too many other obvious reasons to list here.

Putin was weakened by the mini-coup mounted by his former friend, Yevgeny Prigozhin, but not sufficiently to force him to end the war on Ukraine. Prigozhin, who may or may not still be alive, is out of the picture. Putin is counting on the fact that American support for Ukraine will diminish after the 2024 election and will continue the war at least until then.

Biden is enthusiastic about the supposed unanimity of the NATO nations to support Ukraine. That unanimity is his delusion. The U.S. has sent about twice the amount of aid to Ukraine as have all the other NATO nations combined. Even that level of support will shrink if U.S. aid is diminished as several of the Republican presidential candidates — most notably former president Trump — have promised to do.

Biden’s mental health is a legitimate issue for 2024. More of the media — and all Republican candidates — should make it a part of the case against him now and in the year ahead.

Joe Biden, the Totally Non-Senile Alpha Male