More Billions for Ukraine! Israel Too!

Democrats and Their Love of War

by William Astore 

Posted onFebruary 9, 2024

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission.

Joe Biden and the Democrats are fighting tooth-and-nail for more than $60 billion for Ukraine to further its war with Russia. If only they fought with the same tenacity to help the homeless and mentally ill in America.

According to Heather Cox Richardson:

Funding Ukraine is popular in the U.S., even among a majority of non-MAGA Republicans. Americans recognize that Ukraine’s forces are not simply defending their sovereign territory, they are defending the rules-based international order that protects the United States. Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, is trying to destroy that order, replacing it with the idea that bigger countries can conquer smaller countries at will. 

Meanwhile, at the New York Times, Julian Barnes had this to say about Ukraine:

If the proposed $60 billion U.S. aid package ever comes through, it could enable more audacious Ukrainian strikes behind Russian lines – the kinds of operations that keep Moscow off balance.

The money from Congress, in short, could be the difference between a bad deal and a better one. Having it would strengthen Ukraine’s hand at the negotiating table. Without it, Putin may prove right in his theory that he can outlast the West.

So, America needs to send another $60 billion plus to Ukraine so that maybe Zelensky could have a stronger bargaining position vis-à-vis Putin and the Russians. Makes perfect sense to me.

I cite Richardson above because her posts seem to reflect the conventional wisdom of the Democratic Party. She claims without evidence that funding war in Ukraine is “popular” among Americans and that by sending billions in weaponry there, America is actually defending itself and the mythical “rules-based international order.”

She’s apparently never heard of the folly of throwing good money after bad.

She’s not alone here. Senator Chuck Schumer is on record as saying that without the “investment” of another $60 billion in Ukraine, U.S. troops will soon be fighting their Russian counterparts in Eastern Europe. Thus the only way to prevent this war is to fund more war and sacrifice tens of thousands of additional Ukrainian troops.

Well, thank goodness for Ukraine, else America would already be fighting Russia in World War III.

I remember a time when the Democratic Party was skeptical of war, even anti-war when Senator George McGovern ran for the presidency in 1972. Those days are long gone. Today’s Democratic leaders are even more devoted to war than their Republican counterparts.

Certainly this is true of Joe Biden’s tight embrace and full support of Israel’s war of annihilation against Gaza. Under the same bill proposed by the Senate, Israel is set to receive another $15 billion or so in military aid toward its genocide-in-slow-motion in Gaza.

Joe Biden is merely a figurehead on the warship that is the United States of America.

All that’s missing are his Ray-Ban sunglasses

William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools. He writes at Bracing Views.

https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2024/02/09/more-billions-for-ukraine-israel-too/