When Elon Musk proposed that they should end the war in the Ukraine by letting Russia keep the eastern areas with a lot of ethnic Russians and keep the Crimea which is not historically part of the Ukraine, he got hammered by the press.

The Pope, of course, just calls for peace and reconciliation.

And last week Trumpieboy proposed the same thing.

So instead of selling weapons to the Ukraine why is President Biden not trying to stop the war?

Actually he is,

 President Biden proposed the same thing: which Newsweek calls giving the land to Russia, while ignoring that these areas are historically Russian or ethnically Russian. 

Those peace proposals, of course, make the Ukrainian president mad.

As the saying goes: "Blessed are the peacemakers, because they are hated by both sides".

Most wars historically are stopped when countries get tired of all the destruction of people and things. But when there is an aristocracy or a leader who doesn't have to answer to anyone, and who desires something (usually territory that contains something they need, in this case Russia needs access to a warm weather port) the war will continue.

Sigh.

That is why the Hunter Biden laptop story is important: Because it hints that lucrative business deals for the Biden family from the Ukraine might let Biden be open for blackmail. 

The background of this story includes Trumpieboy asking the Ukraine to investigate these ties: but the Congress tried to impeach Trumpieboy for asking this because politics. 

The backstory of the Ukaine war is that China is watching what is going on. The US help, and the willingness of the Ukrainians to fight an invasion by Russia hints at some of the problems that China might face if they decide to invade Taiwan.

And that could affect the Philippines.

the US has finally decided to increase military presence here and help the Philippines try to stop China from grabbing the sea lanes in the West Philippine sea. 

The nearby nations who actually own this area are upset at China because they are losing fishing grounds and possible economic profit from the natural gas deposit in the area, but the geopolitical reason is about control of the sea lanes, meaning they could block ships going to Korea, eastern Siberia, and Japan, and of course could use that to blockade ships going to Taiwan in case of war. 

If they did block the ships traverse that area. it would mean a longer trip. But I suspect long term plans of China is to block these sea lanes also. You see, China has sent ships to similar shoals/island east of the Philippines to do "scientific" exploration, and last week China harassed Japanese fishermen who were fishing near Japanese owned islands east of Taiwan that China also claims of course.

So the US wants to send soldiers to the Philippines permanently and to help the Philippines protect their territory in the West Philippine sea. 

Phil Inquirer: 

The Philippines and the United States have agreed to restart joint patrols in the South China Sea, resuming an activity put on hold during the Duterte administration and prompting an immediate objection from China.

...Austin and Galvez have described the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (Edca), the governing pact allowing American access to Philippine bases, as a key pillar of alliance cooperation...

translation: Some US military will be allowed to us Philippine military bases but the US will not be allowed to make their own bases, something that would make a lot of Filipinos mad, especially the left. 

And China is hyperventillating about the whole thing: just ignore that even an international court said their claim to the area is not valid.

StrategyPage has a long essay on Chinese aggression, which is slow and patient but persistant. Most of the essay is about Taiwan, but includes this observation:

The Philippines has military detachments on nine of the disputed islands or reefs. These are part of an effort to oppose the illegal Chinese claims.

Since 2020 the Americans have taken a stronger stand against Chinese aggression in the South China Sea by declaring Chinese claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea unlawful, as is the Chinese campaign of bullying to control these resources.

what happened? Well, Duterte hated the CIA (and the CIA worked hard to destroy him over the overhyping of murders in the war on the drug cartels here). One result is that Duterte stopped the joint patrols and tried to make nice with China. Alas, China screwed the Philippines in many ways, so even Duterte turned against them. 

back to the article about Chinese aggression against the Philippines:

In 2016 an international court ruled against China and stated that occupying uninhabitable rocks and building artificial islands did not confer an EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone). Ownership of “rocks” gets, at best, 22 kilometers of territorial waters from the edge of each rock rather than 360 kilometers for EEZ rights.

however, to keep the sea lanes open: 

...The Americans did continue to carry out aerial and naval FONOP with warships to assert the right of innocent passage. This annoyed the Chinese, who claimed most of the South China Sea was under Chinese control and no foreign ship or aircraft could enter without permission.

tranlation: they claim they can control the sea lanes --and airplane flights over the area.

But everything might not be honkeydory in those artificial islands.

 Chinese government officials seeking to save money are questioning the usefulness, cost and risks of continuing this expensive and increasingly vulnerable islands.

Why are they vulnerable?

Shoddy construction and shoddy materials, according to the National Interest website.(article from 2020).

We all know about lousy Chinese cement here in the Philippines.

A couple years ago, the mayor started putting concrete covers on the open air ditches that function as sewers near our house and near the downtown palenke.

But the concrete was lousy and the coverings are slowly deteriorating and breaking, usually under the weight of the rice trucks or from cars parking on the side of the road. We spotted two more new holes this week in the coverings, which are only four inches thick.

The city has reinforced the coverings where the heavy medium sized trucks carrying rice etc. travel. But two months ago, one truck got too close to one of the older covers of the ditch near our house when he made a right turn, and his wheel went through the concrete. So we are waiting for the city to repair that hole, but in the meanwhile they just flagged the hole to warn the truckers not to get too close to the hole.

Wired covered the story of Chinese substandard concrete in 2013, 

Since China produces much of the world's concrete, unless this problem is fixed, a lot of buildings and dams could collapse, not just in China but also those built by China in the third world.

we were flooded here when a small irrigation dam upstream collapsed, but that was small and during a typhoon, so a lot of people near the river had already evacuated. 

Now imagine what could happen if that happened at a major dam upstream from a major city.