Williams reacts to Zelensky’s speech

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke to the United States Congress on Wednesday, March 16, receiving a standing ovation at the end of his address asking for more assistance from the U.S.

Zelensky was thankful for the U.S. support up to now, but continued to press his request for a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

Congressman Roger Williams (R), whose seat will include a portion of Parker County following redistricting, spoke to The Community News about his reaction to the speech.

“I thought he did a great job in showing leadership. He’s stepped up to defend his country. We’ve also seen that the Ukrainians are heck of a fighters, and they’re willing to fight for their country, fight for freedom, and fight for liberty. I was impressed,” Williams said. “He talked about Pearl Harbor, he talked about 911. He talked about Mount Rushmore and tying it all into their history. He talked about being 45-years old, and wishing that little children of Ukraine would have the chance to live at least the length he has lived, which was pretty emotional. They showed a film and it was horrifying. And it brought me frankly to my knees.”

Williams said there were a lot of international politics involved in attempting to get Ukraine the MIG fighter jets they want. Short of that, the U.S. has supplied Ukraine with some powerful weapons.

“What we are doing and what I support is the furnishing of these weapons. We’ve furnished a tremendous amount of weapons, from missiles to guns to rifles so they can fight this war, which we which we have done, and unfortunately, we should have been doing months ago,” Williams said. “The problem is the Biden administration and President Biden knew this was happening. He was told it was happening back in November. And we did nothing.”

Williams said he does not support any U.S. military “boots on the ground” in Ukraine.

“That would be a last resort.” Williams said. “But I will say this to your readers. And I said it publicly. We’re as close to World War III than we’ve ever been in our lives. This is not the Cuban Missile Crisis. I mean, Kennedy turned Khrushchev around before they could install those missiles. This is not Vietnam. This is not Grenada. This is not Desert Storm. This is a nuclear issue we’re addressing with a nuclear power.”

Williams said the Russian invasion has shown that Russia is not as powerful as was thought. United States intelligence officials estimate that Russia has already lost more soldiers in four weeks of fighting than the United States did in all of Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 20 years.

But Williams said the invasion could have been avoided.

“None of this would have happened if this president hadn’t come in and destroyed the XL pipeline,” Williams said. “And, it sent a wrong message in the way we pulled out Afghanistan — it showed weakness. And that’s why these foreign leaders are moving on American because they see weakness in Biden. They wouldn’t have done it with President Trump.”

Can the United states do more?

“We are the most powerful nation in the world,” Williams said. “And we are supplying them with the most powerful equipment in the world. In fact, we’re getting reports that a lot of the ground to air missiles that we’re supplying really destroyed the Russian Air Force. And we also get reports these Russian soldiers were told they were on practice missions, they weren’t told they were going to get into war; they’re running out of food, they’re running out of fuel. We also know that the Russian weapons are only operating about 60% capacity; the rest are failing.”

Many civilians in Ukraine have joined the fight, and the U.S. is also supplying rifles and shotguns.

“For those people, it’s easier to fire a shotgun than a rifle if you haven’t done this before, so it’s really amazing how they’re fighting back,” Williams said. “But short of a nuclear war we just need to supply them with training, we need to supply them with the things we talked about from rifles to land and air missiles, and hope that this guy gets some sense about him and stops this invasion, to where the two parties can talk to build that country back.”

Although very few if any political leaders support the idea of direct confrontation with Russia, the images emerging from Ukraine have horrified much of the world. Williams said there could come a point when. a decision would be compelling.

“America is a compassionate nation. There’s a point that, I have to ask myself, how long do we go with seeing innocent men, women, children killed?” Williams asked. And you also have to understand if we did a no fly zone, that’s the hardest thing to protect, more than likely that would cause World War III. One of the things Zelensky said is that we have to not only protect our countries, but we have to protect the future of the world. And we’re close to that. It just takes one mistake.”