Joe Biden’s response to President Zelensky’s desperate cry for help is to give Ukraine more than $1 billion in military aid. Unfortunately, the only weapons Biden approves will cause more Ukrainians to die.

It is difficult to believe an American president could screw up giving away more than $1 billion. But of course, Joe Biden is unlike any other American president. This is not the first time I have been amazed at this level of human incompetence. I was once forced to eat at a national fast-food restaurant in Alpine, Texas where the cook was incapable of making an edible Egg McMuffin.

There’s an old truism in football and war: “You can’t win playing defense.” Biden wants to send the Ukrainians only defensive weapons while Putin kills women and children using every high-tech offensive weapon in his arsenal. The bottom line is Putin is killing Ukrainians with the best mass killing weapons his military factories can provide, while all Biden will approve is the modern military equivalent of BB guns.

There are basically two types of military weapons: direct fire and indirect fire. In layman’s terms the difference is that with direct fire weapons, such as pistols, rifles, and Javelin missiles, the soldier pulling the trigger must be able to see the enemy directly. The problem is that this means the enemy can also see him.

Indirect fire weapons, such as the artillery and medium-range rockets Putin is using to destroy Ukrainian schools and hospitals, are preprogrammed to hit distant targets. With the precision guidance available through GPS and similar Russian systems, 3,000-pound warheads can be accurate within 10 feet, even when fired from reinforced bunkers 500 miles away. Biden refuses to supply comparable weapons to the Ukrainians.

There was a time when the military use of direct fire weapons was an act of bravery. Today, in Ukraine, it is an act of sacrifice. At Bunker Hill, American Minutemen were told “don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.” In 2022, allowing enemy troops to get within range, where they can shoot back, is military suicide.

Television has shown us incredible video of American-supplied Javelin and Stinger missiles slamming into Russian tanks and attack helicopters. The problem is that the Ukrainian soldier first had to see that target. Then, when he fired the American-supplied rocket, that missile left a solid smoke trail directly back to the Ukrainian firing position.

In a one-on-one fight, that is not a problem. A pair of Ukrainian soldiers in a foxhole can destroy a Russian tank or helicopter. But Russian tanks and helicopters do not attack alone. Like gangs that now control the streets of American cities, they travel in groups of eight or more. Once a Ukrainian Javelin destroys a Russian tank, all the now-dead tanker’s comrades start shooting at that Ukrainian. The Ukrainians may be very brave, but they don’t last long under the onslaught of multiple Russian high-explosive tank shells. With that smoke trail pointing a fatal finger directly back at the Ukrainian firing position, the Russians don’t miss.

The same holds true when attacking Russian helicopters or MiGs. Even if a Ukrainian-fired Stinger hits the targeted Russian plane, the smoke trail from the Stinger has now pasted a bull’s-eye on the Ukrainians’ backs for all the rest of the Russian planes in the flight.

So, in supplying more Stingers and Javelins, all President Biden has done is give the Ukrainians time to kill advancing Russians one at a time, and then die bravely in the process.

There is a simple solution. The US military used low-cost, simple-to-operate cruise missiles for decades. In the opening days of Desert Storm, Tomahawk missiles helped obliterate Saddam’s capabilities. They could now be fired from anywhere in still-free western Ukraine, far out of sight of the Russians. A Ukrainian soldier would not have to die every time he destroyed a Russian target.

Image: Tomahawk missile launch at sea. YouTube screen grab.

President Biden satisfied the anti-war activists and their fellow travelers within the Democratic Party by promising not to put “American boots” on the ground in Ukraine. We don’t have to. We already have hundreds of these cruise missiles and similar weapons in the European theater. They could be trucked through Poland to western Ukraine. Any experienced Ukrainian artillerymen could learn to operate the missiles in days—but even that could be unnecessary. American and British civilian-military contracting companies could provide experienced “civilian technical advisors” to help the Ukrainians.

Those with combat experience understand that the term “technical advisor” actually describes a veteran civilian expert who can do everything to prepare the weapon for firing. All that’s left for the “indigenous personnel” to do is draw straws to determine who gets to press the big red button. It would give the Ukrainians equal capabilities with the Russians and, at the same time, give us deniability.

The shape of the battle would change instantly with Tomahawks or similar missiles from other friendly countries. It’s very bad for the Russian soldiers’ morale to lose all their food, friends, water, and ammunition supply depots. It’s even worse, when, with no warning, a ton-and-a-half of high explosive goes off 50 feet over their heads.

Of course, the hair-on-fire MSNBC crowd would scream about us provoking a larger war. I would suggest two things to help them get their thinking straight. First, the U.S. gave Russia more than 400,000 trucks, 13,000 tanks, and 12,000 airplanes in World War II, much of it before Pearl Harbor. Those same Russians provided the vast majority of the airplanes, missiles, Kalashnikovs, bullets, and bombs that killed Americans in Korea and Vietnam. Russia still supplies those same weapons to the mullahs of Iran, ISIS, and the Taliban.

Secondly, if realizing the above isn’t enough to get MSNBC’s thinking straight, perhaps a few nights in Kyiv would help them understand the importance of leveling the balance of offensive capability in this war started by their Russian friends.

Of course, one question remains. Biden is not a stupid man, so why is he taking such disastrous action? I hate to say this about any American president but I believe there can only be three possible explanations.

We all know the Chinese and Russians bribed the Biden Crime Family. One Russian oligarch gave Hunter $3.5 million. Considering how hard the Bidens tried to hide these payoffs, who knows how much more was secretly slipped to Joe and Company and, of course, Hunter confided, “The big guy gets 50%.”

Secondly, Biden may simply be even more of a coward than we realized. When Barack Obama unleashed the Navy SEALs to kill Osama bin Laden and avenge 9/11, then Vice-President Biden was one of the few Obama administration officials opposing it.

Finally, as a third possibility, many in Washington believe the “Mumbles and Giggles” administration is really run by far left-wing Obama alumni who simply hate the United States.

As for the real reason, it may be answer D, “All of the above.”

I wish it were “None of the above” and we would unleash the power of what is right to save the Ukrainian people.

Ed Sherdlu is the pen name of a former CBS television network reporter.  He uses a pen name because his mother would be so embarrassed to know that Ed's 12-Step Journalism Recovery Program had been a failure.