MARCH 18, 2022, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A13
Send Ukraine planes now
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#Keizershowsup
Mayor Cathy Clark has been
delivering her annual State of the City
speech before various Keizer groups
this month, culminating with an
address before the Keizer Chamber of
Commerce on Tuesday, March 15.
The theme of her address was that
though Keizer has faced challenges
over the past year, the city is doing
just fine. Due to more than $8 million
from the federal American Rescue
Plan Act (ARPA), our city will be able
to address some pressing projects,
that will relieve financial stress on the
general fund budget. Last month the
city council earmarked more than $1
million of those funds that will include
upgrades to an important city water
well, ADA-compliant street ramps and
cybersecurity improvements.
The mayor cited the hard work by the
council and city staff to carefully plan
for the needs of the city and continuing
to be good stewards of Keizer’s budget.
Clark said that it was due to the
development of a working plan that
the city’s needs will be met. It is the old
must-haves versus wants discussion—
paying for what is vital as opposed to
paying for things it would be nice to
fund.
Highlighted in the speech was the
result of the police and parks fees that
were added to the city water bills a few
Editorial
years ago. The added park fee helped
fund Keizer's response to the damage
done after last year's devasting ice
storm. Keizer Police has 42 officers on
the job, a direct result of the police fee.
Cathy Clark chairs the Mid-
Willamette Valley Homeless Alliance
and spoke of the work being conducted,
including the important job of gathering
data needed to address the issue of
homelessness region wide.
Mayor Clark is never stingy when
it comes to offering kudos to all the
government officials, agencies and
volunteers who work each day to make
life easier for those in our area who are
in need. It would be hard to find another
elected official who advocates for those
in our community who need assistance,
than Cathy Clark.
One of the mayor's favorite
expressions is Hashtag Keizer shows up.
Keizer shows up to volunteer, to donate,
to support, to get involved. Right back at
you, Madame Mayor. You always show
up, for that the residents of Keizer are
grateful.
— LAZ
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By MARC A. THIESSEN
As Russian warplanes pound Ukrainian
cities with cluster bombs, President
Volodymyr Zelensky has been begging
the United States and its allies to make a
decision: Either stop the carnage by estab-
lishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine or give
Ukrainians the fighter jets to do it them-
selves. “If you cannot shut the sky now...
then give me the planes,” Zelensky said.
Last
week,
Warsaw
answered
Zelensky’s call. The Polish foreign min-
ister announced that Poland was ready
to give its entire fleet of Soviet-era MiG-
29 fighters to Ukraine “immediately and
free of charge”—offering to send them to
a U.S. air base in Germany and asking the
United States “to provide us with used
aircraft with corresponding operational
capabilities” in exchange. The United
States would then transfer the MiGs to the
Ukrainian Air Force.
Incredibly, the Biden administration
scoffed at Poland’s offer. “We do not
believe Poland’s proposal is a tenable one,”
said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby.
“The prospect of fighter jets . . . departing
from a U.S./NATO base in Germany to fly
into airspace that is contested with Russia
over Ukraine raises serious concerns for
the entire NATO alliance.”
So let’s get this straight: On Sunday,
Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave
Poland a “green light” to send aircraft
to Ukraine from Polish NATO bases,
but sending them to Ukraine from a U.S.
NATO base in Germany is not “tenable”?
What is the difference exactly? The Biden
administration is worried that sending
fighter jets from NATO territory into
Ukraine could provoke Russia to declare
us co-belligerents in Ukraine. But Poland
is as much NATO territory as Germany.
Moreover, the United States and its
allies have already acknowledged that we
are providing Ukraine with Stinger anti-
aircraft missiles. Those missiles have the
exact same role and purpose as the MiG
fighter jets: to shoot down and kill Russian
aircraft. Those Stinger missiles are not
magically appearing in Ukraine. They
are not being teleported to Ukrainian
forces. They are being sent to Ukraine
by the United States from NATO bases
in Europe. How is sending fighter jets to
carry out the same mission any different?
And with all respect, the airspace over
Ukraine is not “contested” in any legal
sense. It is the sovereign airspace of a
sovereign nation that has been unlaw-
fully invaded by an unjust aggressor. That
unjust aggression does not give Putin
veto power. The only permission we need
to send those planes is from Zelensky.
The Biden administration’s obsession
with not giving Russia a pretext to declare
us co-belligerents is not only weak; it
is strategically pointless. As Latvian
Defense Minister Artis Pabriks points out,
other
VOICES
“If . . . the Kremlin would like to fight a
war against NATO or Europe, they could
always find a reason.”
The fact is, after a week of shameful
inaction, Poland has come to Ukraine’s aid
—and exposed the Biden administration as
the real obstacle to answering Zelensky’s
impassioned pleas for help. NATO has
plenty of planes it could provide. Poland,
Romania, Slovakia and Bulgaria have doz-
ens of Soviet-designed MiG-29 and SU-27
fighters, which Ukrainian pilots know how
to fly.
But instead of leading and finding a
way to get those jets to Ukraine as quickly
as possible, the Biden administration has
spent the past week making excuses for
inaction. When Poland—understandably
concerned about giving up MiGs just as
the Russian threat to their territory has
grown dramatically—asked for F-16 fighter
jets to replace the lost capacity, the admin-
istration claimed it did not have sufficient
inventory. If we didn’t have enough F-16s
to give the Poles immediately, though,
Biden could have offered to deploy more
U.S. fighter squadrons to guard their
airspace until we do. Or the Defense
Department could have asked Lockheed
Martin to divert some F-16s headed for
other U.S. allies to Poland. If there was a
will, there was a way.
But the problem, it turns out, is a lack
of will. Instead of finding a solution, the
White House tried to blame Warsaw for
the delays and told reporters it was a
“sovereign decision” for Polish leaders to
make.
Well, now Poland has made that sover-
eign decision—and put the ball entirely in
Biden’s court. If those planes are not fly-
ing over Kyiv as soon as possible, Biden
will be to blame. He alone will be responsi-
ble for denying Zelensky the vital military
capability he has said he needs to save
innocent Ukrainian lives. Every day that
he dithers, innocent Ukrainians are being
slaughtered. As Zelensky told NATO’s
leaders last week, “All the people who will
die from this day will die because of you...
because of your weakness.”
Those words should now be ringing in
Biden’s ears. Sending American pilots to
enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine risks
putting us in direct combat with Russia.
But there is absolutely no excuse for deny-
ing Ukraine the aircraft it needs to patrol
its own skies.
Poland’s MiGs can be flying in Ukraine
tonight. If they are not, blame lies with
one man: Joe Biden.
(Washington Post)
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