quote:

Is that number correct? It seem high to me. I just did a bit of digging and found that fewer than 40,000 of our own troops died in all the years that we were in Korea in the 1950s.

Holy Cow!! 40,000?? I couldn't find much



How many Russian soldiers have been killed in the Russia-Ukraine war?
Figures vary, but one report at the end of April suggested the figure could be as many as 25,900, according to a call intercepted by Kyiv.

In the call, a Russian soldier was said to have made the admission: “The official tally is one thing, but I’ll tell you now – 25,900 have died. That’s in two f***ing months.”

A transcript of the call was claimed to have been posted online by Ukraine’s secret service.

While the call has not been independently verified, the figure is not so far off Ukraine’s tally. It claimed that 22,800 Russian soldiers have been killed.

However, both of these numbers far exceed that of the British government. It had put the death toll of Russian soldiers at 15,000.

On 25 March Russia’s defence ministry said that 1,351 Russian soldiers had been killed and 3,825 wounded since Moscow launched what it calls its “special operation” in Ukraine on 24 February.

The Russian government gives infrequent updates on the number of its troops that have been killed.

There is also the fact that delay in reporting deaths, the difficulty in identifying the dead, as well as deliberate cover-ups, means the true figure is likely to be far higher.

According to a report from the New York Times, the US has provided intelligence that helped Ukraine kill 12 Russian generals.

Pentagon spokesperson, John Kirby, acknowledged the US was providing “Ukraine with information and intelligence that they can use to defend themselves”.

However, Adrienne Watson, a national security council spokesperson, said the intelligence was not provided “with the intent to kill Russian generals”.

Ukrainian officials have also said they have killed approximately 12 generals.

Meanwhile, on 14 April, Russia was reported to have lost its first female soldier during the war in Ukraine.

Frontline medic Valentina Galatova, 27, a mother of one, died after being hit by mortar fire in Mariupol. Her death was only announced on Wednesday.


How does this compare to other conflicts?
During the Russian annexation of Crimea from 23 February to 19 March 2014, six people were killed.

According to reports the dead included three protesters (two pro-Russian and one pro-Ukrainian), two Ukrainian soldiers, and one Russian Cossack paramilitary.

In August 2016 Russia accused the Special Forces of Ukraine of conducting a raid close to the Crimean town on Armiansk, killing two Russian servicemen. However, the government of Ukraine dismissed the report.

The war in Donbas, which started on 6 April 2014, estimated deaths were around 14,200 to 14,400 (up until 31 December 2020 and before Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine).

This figure included non-combat military deaths. Most of the deaths happened during the first two years of the war.

What is the figure for civilian deaths in Ukraine?
From 4am on 24 February up to midnight on 1 May the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded 6,469 civilian casualties in the country: 3,153 killed and 3,316 injured.



https://inews.co.uk/news/world...es-explained-1615356



26000 is still an extremally high number

Like Para, I don't pretend to fully understand what this "war" is about. While it seems easy to think it's a large country picking on a smaller country, I'd be surprised if Ukrainian hands were clean in all this. And of course it's always easy to root for anyone fighting the Russians (the enemy of my enemy...). But what I'm really sick of is all this "I stand with Ukraine" bullshit.

I see little Ukrainian flags on social media sites, stickers on the backs of cars & vans, even some numbskull waiving a Ukrainian flag on the side of the road the other day. And it's all bullshit. It's all virtue signaling to others that their heart is in the right place. That they are a good person because they "stand" with the underdog. That somehow they're better than those who don't exhibit any overt support for the cause.

What I'd love to tell these holier than thou idiots is to fucking knock it off. No, you don't "stand with Ukraine." You're using the latest crisis to feel better about yourself. That's it. Nothing more. You're virtue signaling because you have low self esteem and this makes you feel better about yourself and others might think better of you too. Fucking idiots.

If you REALLY want to "stand with Ukraine" then head on over there (apparently it's pretty easy as all the celebs are doing it) and pick up a weapon, work in a hospital, deliver supplies, or whatever. Then you'll be standing with Ukraine. Until then STFU.

Philadelphia

Slouching towards war with Russia: Biden's drift is getting dangerous

Joe Biden, the man who has been "wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades," as former defense secretary Bob Gates wrote, has nebulously put the U.S. on a path to war with Russia. Not because he wants to. But because he doesn't know what he's doing.

That's the consensus of foreign policy experts as diverse as Thomas Friedman, golf buddy to President Obama, and Mark Wauck, the decorated former FBI official from its pre-wokedom era.

According to Friedman, writing on May 6:

If you just followed news reports on Ukraine, you might think that the war has settled into a long, grinding and somewhat boring slog. You would be wrong.

Things are actually getting more dangerous by the day.

For starters, the longer this war goes on, the more opportunity for catastrophic miscalculations — and the raw material for that is piling up fast and furious. Take the two high-profile leaks from American officials this past week about U.S. involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war[.]

Friedman cited the leaks from supposed U.S. officials declaring that the U.S. had given Ukraine intelligence to enable it to target and kill Russian generals, and that the U.S. had given targeting information to Ukraine to help it sink the Moskva, Russia's Black Sea flagship naval ship.

As a journalist, I love a good leak story, and the reporters who broke those stories did powerful digging. At the same time, from everything I have been able to glean from senior U.S. officials, who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, the leaks were not part of any thought-out strategy, and President Biden was livid about them. I'm told that he called the director of national intelligence, the director of the C.I.A. and the secretary of defense to make clear in the strongest and most colorful language that this kind of loose talk is reckless and has got to stop immediately — before we end up in an unintended war with Russia.

The staggering takeaway from these leaks is that they suggest we are no longer in an indirect war with Russia but rather are edging toward a direct war — and no one has prepared the American people or Congress for that.

Wauck, too, commenting on the leaks, had this to say:

These braggadocious claims seemed to many, including myself, to be remarkably reckless and provocative. That, in turn, has led some to speculate that the Zhou administration is actually seeking to provoke open war with Russia for domestic political reasons — the Midterm Elections, imposition of authoritarian control over dissent, etc.

Now, however, identifiable Pentagon officials — people with names, like, "John Kirby" — are walking back the claims of the anonymous "senior American officials" and "US officials". This leads to speculation that is little less disturbing than the idea that elements within the US government — carefully concealed behind deliberately vague sourcing statements — are, in fact, attempting to walk the US up to the brink of war, but that other elements, prominently in the Pentagon, are resisting rushin' to war. We have repeatedly pointed to this dynamic throughout the course of Russia's "special operation" in Ukraine.

That the US government is so divided on the core issue of war or peace with a nuclear power is disturbing in and of itself. That one faction in the government is attempting to go over the heads of the Pentagon on the issue of a war of choice adds to the concern. The fact that the sources are identified so vaguely is further cause for concern, since it suggests a lack of military expertise. That this semi-public debate is taking place with essentially no significant input from the one constitutional institution of the American republic which has the authority to declare a war — the legislative branch — or meaningful public debate should raise our concerns to the level of alarm.

Both have pointed out that Biden doesn't really know what he's doing.

Friedman: "Boasting about killing his generals and sinking his ships, or falling in love with Ukraine in ways that will get us enmeshed there forever, is the height of folly."

Wauck: "This leads to speculation that is little less disturbing than the idea that elements within the US government—carefully concealed behind deliberately vague sourcing statements—are, in fact, attempting to walk the US up to the brink of war, but that other elements, prominently in the Pentagon, are resisting rushin' to war."

Now we see the next card come down: Biden signing a new bill to enable arms sales to Ukraine on easier, streamlined terms. According to the Washington Post:

"The Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022 revives this pivotal program, waiving time-consuming requirements on the president's authority to send critical defensive resources to Ukraine," she said. "It's important to note that it's about time. Time is very important when lives are at stake."

This takes us yet another step closer to direct war with Russia.

There may be "wag the dog" reasons for these decisions. But just as likely, the Bidenites are allowing themselves to be jerked around by various sources from defense contractors eager for big contracts, to Trump-haters of the Rep. Adam Schiff variety eager to "prove" that President Trump was the bad guy on Ukraine, to the understandably compassionate Ukrainian-American émigré lobby, to lazy, cheapskate Europeans happy to get the U.S. to do Europe's fighting and secure its energy supply. He's being jerked from all directions and doesn't know what he's doing.

But each day seems to be showing U.S. involvement in the Ukraine conflict getting closer and closer, while there is no public debate about it. We may find ourselves suctioned into a war with Russia, with Ukraine the proxy element, and end up footing the entire bill for the problem. What's worse, we may well be exposing ourselves to Russian cyber-attacks and Russian oil cutoffs, not just of the Russian supply, but the supplies of its proxies and allies. Venezuela, for example, made it very clear to the Bidenites that its loyalty to patron Russia is paramount, so don't expect Venezuela to be supplying the U.S. with oil it won't produce itself. Russia itself has warned of "consequences" to the U.S. for doling out Ukraine military aid.

Biden has signed off on this measure, which comes on top of all the aid packages he's approved, plus the leaks about killing generals and sinking battleships, and all one can wonder is what's next. Will this be the end of it, or will there be more and more to come? Biden is facing a shellacking come November, so it wouldn't be surprising if he leans toward getting us into a war in order to see the voters rally around the flag and president. But on the other hand, this isn't some little third-world hellhole dictatorship; this is nuclear-armed Russia, which is a bit more than a farm with nukes. He may well be biting off more than he can chew, making himself the equivalent of Kaiser Wilhelm II in rank stupidity — and the consequences will be on us.

https://www.americanthinker.co...tting_dangerous.html

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

Yeah, a whole lot of people are involved in the dirty side of this, but my heart is for the man, woman and child that simply wants to live life and not bring harm to any other.

My heart is with them...
But my head says nothing good comes from US involvement.

IMO the purpose of the US military is to defend the shores of the United States. With a wide open border, we are not doing that. I feel like the US citizens are patsies for the world.

There is no easy answer when people who "simply want to live life and not bring harm to any other" are under attack through no fault of their own.

Me too as far as the Ukranian people. But why them? There are a lot of hot spots around the world where people are being savaged and US is not sending them billions of dollars for defense and getting heavily involved. How about Afghanistan? We dom't hear about that any more from the usual MSM suspects being an inconvenient truth but many reports are easy to find of the Taliban ravaging Afghanis such as cutting off their limbs, murdering them, rapes, banning girls from schools, and taking wives and daughters from their homes to be used as live sex dolls for the Taliban. Home come Bono and Sean Penn aren't going over there to help? Well we all know why. Biden and his puppet masters are playing a very dangerous game by super escalating this conflict almost taunting Putin while doing it and they think they can simply blame Trump if their plan falls apart and head out to their underground bunkers.

Why them? Because Russia's done stuck it's foot in the tar baby's ass when it doesn't have the energy to pull loose without a lot of motivation. That's why we supported their opponents in Afghanistan. The only difference is that no one has yet come up with a credible argument that anyone in Ukraine is going to launch terrorist attacks on the US or the West in general if the Russians withdraw. Hell, all indicators are that Ukraine wants to be integrated more fully into the West just as the West is now.

We're concerned about Biden's judgement. That only makes sense. But Biden isn't driving what's happening no matter what kind of dollar figures he touts in pre-election speeches. What's driving events is the mistakes Putin has made and is making in Ukraine. Everything Biden's done has been a reaction, except for not heeding Putin's 1,001 vague threats.

To argue that we should do otherwise, that we should withdraw from what's going on completely, is to go right back to "but Putin made some scary threats!!" Well, guess what - if we react to scary threats that have been made over and over again that someone's going to do something that will obviously wind up being grossly self-destructive, then what are we going to do when Iran or North Korea emits rumbles about nuclear attacks? Shut up and do as we're told because, hey, if it doesn't have an immediate and direct impact within the physical boundaries of the United States then it will magically never be our problem? We'll be putting a ring through our collective nose and inviting every mindless asshole running another country to lead us around by that ring whenever they find it convenient or even amusing.

Putin has repeatedly shown that he has no inhibitions about flying nuclear-capable bombers into US airspace whenever he feels like it. Russians already feel free to meddle in our domestic politics and have since the beginning of the last century. One might or might not fault his reasoning, but there was a reason why Wilson put 1,000-odd socialist agitators on a ship and gave them a one-way trip to Siberia just after WW I. We're not going to gain anything worthwhile by cowering in fear and dressing it up as "America First!" because the world is not going to "just leave us alone" until we finally shit Biden out of our national digestive tract.

There has been a lot of speculation about slouching through gray areas (what we don't know, what we can't reasonably predict) into war. The risk certainly exists. But if it's a gray area then there's nothing that says we are headed into war. "But its a dangerous game!" As Obama showed us, so is inaction and withdrawing from the international stage when things start heating up a bit.

When someone like an American taxpayer approves of or at least condones sending billions of dollars in weapons, money, and other support to Ukraine, I’m more than happy to consider that as “standing with” the country. That sort of thing has been common in US history since at least the start of WWII, and in this situation I’m pretty certain that that aid is appreciated far more than having to deal with another clueless volunteer to actually fight in the trenches.

Objecting to the support? Sure; perfectly understandable for many reasons. (None convince me, but I understand and accept that they convince a few.)

Being triggered by seeing that others don’t object and in fact approve? What else annoys us to that degree? And although it’s an example of the hypothesis contrary to fact fallacy, as I read these discussions, I cannot but wonder what they would be like if this were occurring under a President Trump administration.

quote:

Objecting to the support? Sure; perfectly understandable for many reasons. (None convince me, but I understand and accept that they convince a few.)

Being triggered by seeing that others don’t object and in fact approve? What else annoys us to that degree? And although it’s an example of the hypothesis contrary to fact fallacy, as I read these discussions, I cannot but wonder what they would be like if this were occurring under a President Trump administration.

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying, but if it's that those of us who object to sending $40 billion to Ukraine and getting the US deeply involved in this conflict with Russia
would not object if it were occurring under a President Trump administration.... let me assure you, speaking only for myself of course, you are wrong.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
you are wrong.

You could be right, but hypothesis contrary to fact and all that, so it is nothing more than speculation on my part.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

<snip>

Being triggered by seeing that others don’t object and in fact approve? What else annoys us to that degree? And although it’s an example of the hypothesis contrary to fact fallacy, as I read these discussions, I cannot but wonder what they would be like if this were occurring under a President Trump administration.

Not triggered here… however, think would be looking to see if anybody/family made a fuck ton of money from the Ukrainian government in the past few years.


Sort of like luna_Pelosi, sKerry and mittens_Romney; along with the Biden Family Graft Company.

Heck, didn’t Dr. Jill just go pick up the most recent Biden family payment in Kyiv?

Nancy was just there picking up her diamonds w/ shifty-shifft.

I bet $33 billion in US tax-funded weapons is worth a fair amount of “graft“.

Has anybody checked on the Taliban lately? They got over $85 billion worth of our stuff becoming the worlds 4th best funded military on the globe. Who got paid? That’s what I want to know.

As I say, there are reasons why someone might object to supporting Ukraine in the war.
Imagining—or even if it’s true—that the Biden family is profiting personally doesn’t do it for me, but I understand that it does for some. To reiterate, though, my point is about support for our actions in Ukraine by the general populace and how that’s demonstrated, not whether any particular individual thinks it’s a good idea.

On a related note, though, if corruption in the form of unsavory people benefiting from warfare were a good reason to pick up our ball and go home despite being points ahead as we did in Vietnam and Afghanistan, the U.S. could have done that in World War II as well, and left western Europe to the Nazis and/or Communists. If that had happened we would have had to deal with the victors elsewhere and elsewhen, but at least we wouldn’t be worried about Ukraine today.

For an enlightening discussion of that and other distasteful facts about the “good war” that seldom appear in most histories, I recommend “The Liberation Trilogy” by Rick Atkinson.

Hell, Trump would have done far better working to avoid the war in the first place. Of course his priorities are not focused on leveraging the conflict to enrich himself.

Guys, let's at least recognize and embrace one aspect of this thread. The membership here is spread across the spectrum from adamantly opposed to this endeavor, to unsure exactly what to think, to openly supporting it, yet no one has devolved to hurling insults and accusations against the other. IMO 'that' is the primary difference between liberals and conservatives and one of the biggest strengths of this site.

Biden Wanted $33B More For Ukraine. Congress Quickly Raised it to $40B. Who Benefits?

Tens of billions, soon to be much more, are flying out of U.S. coffers to Ukraine as Americans suffer, showing who runs the U.S. Government, and for whose benefit.

From the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the Biden White House has repeatedly announced large and seemingly random amounts of money that it intends to send to fuel the war in Ukraine. The latest such dispatch, pursuant to an initial $3.5 billion fund authorized by Congress early on, was announced on Friday; “Biden says U.S. will send $1.3 billion in additional military and economic support to Ukraine,” read the CNBC headline. This was preceded by a series of new lavish spending packages for the war, unveiled every two to three weeks, starting on the third day of the war:

Feb. 26: “Biden approves $350 million in military aid for Ukraine": Reuters;

Mar. 16: “Biden announces $800 million in military aid for Ukraine”: The New York Times;

Mar. 30: “Ukraine to receive additional $500 million in aid from U.S., Biden announces”: NBC News;

Apr. 12: “U.S. to announce $750 million more in weapons for Ukraine, officials say": Reuters;

May 6: “Biden announces new $150 million weapons package for Ukraine”: Reuters.

Those amounts by themselves are in excess of $3 billion; by the end of April, the total U.S. expenditure on the war in Ukraine was close to $14 billion, drawn from the additional $13.5 billion Congress authorized in mid-March. While some of that is earmarked for economic and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine, most of it will go into the coffers of the weapons industry — including Raytheon, on whose Board of Directors the current Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, sat immediately before being chosen by Biden to run the Pentagon. As CNN put it: “about $6.5 billion, roughly half of the aid package, will go to the US Department of Defense so it can deploy troops to the region and send defense equipment to Ukraine.”

As enormous as those sums already are, they were dwarfed by the Biden administration's announcement on April 28 that it “is asking Congress for $33 billion in funding to respond to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, more than double the $14 billion in support authorized so far.” The White House itself acknowledges that the vast majority of that new spending package will go to the purchase of weaponry and other military assets: “$20.4 billion in additional security and military assistance for Ukraine and for U.S. efforts to strengthen European security in cooperation with our NATO allies and other partners in the region.”

It is difficult to put into context how enormous these expenditures are — particularly since the war is only ten weeks old, and U.S. officials predict/hope that this war will last not months but years. That ensures that the ultimate amounts will be significantly higher still.

The amounts allocated thus far — the new Biden request of $33 billion combined with the $14 billion already spent — already exceed the average annual amount the U.S. spent for its own war in Afghanistan ($46 billion). In the twenty-year U.S. war in Afghanistan which ended just eight months ago, there was at least some pretense of a self-defense rationale given the claim that the Taliban had harbored Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda at the time of the 9/11 attack. Now the U.S. will spend more than that annual average after just ten weeks of a war in Ukraine that nobody claims has any remote connection to American self-defense.

Even more amazingly, the total amount spent by the U.S. on the Russia/Ukraine war in less than three months is close to Russia's total military budget for the entire year ($65.9 billion). While Washington depicts Russia as some sort of grave and existential menace to the U.S., the reality is that the U.S. spends more than ten times on its military what Russia spends on its military each year; indeed, the U.S. spends three times more than the second-highest military spender, China, and more than the next twelve countries combined.

But as gargantuan as Biden's already-spent and newly requested sums are — for a ten-week war in which the U.S. claims not to be a belligerent — it was apparently woefully inadequate in the eyes of the bipartisan establishment in Congress, who is ostensibly elected to serve the needs and interests of American citizens, not Ukrainians. Leaders of both parties instantly decreed that Biden's $33 billion request was not enough. They thus raised it to $40 billion — a more than 20% increase over the White House's request — and are now working together to create an accelerated procedure to ensure immediate passage and disbursement of these weapons and funds to the war zone in Ukraine. "Time is of the essence – and we cannot afford to wait,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a letter to House members, adding: "This package, which builds on the robust support already secured by Congress, will be pivotal in helping Ukraine defend not only its nation but democracy for the world." (See update below).

We have long ago left the realm of debating why it is in the interest of American citizens to pour our country's resources into this war, to say nothing of risking a direct war and possibly catastrophic nuclear escalation with Russia, the country with the largest nuclear stockpile, with the US close behind. Indeed, one could argue that the U.S. government entered this war and rapidly escalated its involvement without this critical question — which should be fundamental to any policy decision of the U.S. government — being asked at all.

This omission — a failure to address how the interests of ordinary Americans are served by the U.S. government's escalating role in this conflict — is particularly glaring given the steadfast and oft-stated view of former President Barack Obama that Ukraine is and always will be of vital interest to Russia, but is not of vital interest to the U.S. For that reason, Obama repeatedly resisted bipartisan demands that he send lethal arms to Ukraine, a step he was deeply reluctant to take due to his belief that the U.S. should not provoke Moscow over an interest as remote as Ukraine (ironically, Trump — who was accused by the U.S. media for years of being a Kremlin asset, controlled by Putin through blackmail — did send lethal arms to Ukraine despite how provocative doing so was to Russia).

While it is extremely difficult to isolate any benefit to ordinary American citizens from all of this, it requires no effort to see that there is a tiny group of Americans who do benefit greatly from this massive expenditure of funds. That is the industry of weapons manufacturers. So fortunate are they that the White House has met with them on several occasions to urge them to expand their capacity to produce sophisticated weapons so that the U.S. government can buy them in massive quantities:

Top U.S. defense officials will meet with the chief executives of the eight largest U.S. defense contractors to discuss industry’s capacity to meet Ukraine’s weapons needs if the war with Russia continues for years.

Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks told reporters Tuesday she plans to participate in a classified roundtable with defense CEOs on Wednesday to discuss “what can we do to help them, what do they need to generate supply"….

“We will discuss industry proposals to accelerate production of existing systems and develop new, modernized capabilities critical to the Department’s ongoing security assistance to Ukraine and long-term readiness of U.S. and ally/partner forces,” the official added.

On May 3, Biden visited a Lockheed Martin facility (see lead photo) and “praised the… plant that manufactures Javelin anti-tank missiles, saying their work was critical to the Ukrainian war effort and to the defense of democracy itself.”

Indeed, by transferring so much military equipment to Ukraine, the U.S. has depleted its own stockpiles, necessitating their replenishment with mass government purchases. One need not be a conspiracy theorist to marvel at the great fortune of this industry, having lost their primary weapons market just eight months ago when the U.S. war in Afghanistan finally ended, only to now be gifted with an even greater and more lucrative opportunity to sell their weapons by virtue of the protracted and always-escalating U.S. role in Ukraine. Raytheon, the primary manufacturer of Javelins along with Lockheed, has been particularly fortunate that its large stockpile, no longer needed for Afghanistan, is now being ordered in larger-than-ever quantities by its former Board member, now running the Pentagon, for shipment to Ukraine. Their stock prices have bulged nicely since the start of the war:

But how does any of this benefit the vast majority of Americans? Does that even matter? As of 2020, almost 30 million Americans are without any health insurance. Over the weekend, USA Today warned of “the ongoing infant formula shortage,” in which “nearly 40% of popular baby formula brands were sold out at retailers across the U.S. during the week starting April 24.” So many Americans are unable to afford college for their children that close to a majority are delaying plans or eliminating them all together. Meanwhile, “monthly poverty remained elevated in February 2022, with a 14.4 percent poverty rate for the total US population….Overall, 6 million more individuals were in poverty in February relative to December.” The latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau found that “approximately 42.5 million Americans [are] living below the poverty line.” Americans with diabetes often struggle to buy life-saving insulin. And on and on and on.

Now, if the U.S. were invaded or otherwise attacked by another country, or its vital interests were directly threatened, one would of course expect the U.S. government to expend large sums in order to protect and defend the national security of the country and its citizens. But can anyone advance a cogent argument, let alone a persuasive one, that Americans are somehow endangered by the war in Ukraine? Clearly, they are far more endangered by the U.S. response to the war in Ukraine than the war itself; after all, a nuclear confrontation between the U.S. and Russia has long been ranked by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists as one of the two greatest threats facing humanity.

One would usually expect the American left, or whatever passes it for these days, to be indignant about the expenditure of tens of billions of dollars for weapons while ordinary Americans suffer. But the American left, such that it exists, is barely visible when it comes to debates over the war in Ukraine, while American liberals stand in virtual unity with the establishment wing of the Republican Party behind the Biden administration in support for the escalating U.S. role in the war in Ukraine. A few stray voices (such as Noam Chomsky) have joined large parts of the international left in urging a diplomatic solution in lieu of war and criticizing Biden for insufficient efforts to forge one, but the U.S. left and American liberals are almost entirely silent if not supportive.

That has left the traditionally left-wing argument about war opposition to the populist right. “You can’t find baby formula in the United States right now but Congress is voting today to send $40 billion to Ukraine," said Donald Trump, Jr. on Tuesday, echoing what one would expect to hear from the 2016 version of Bernie Sanders or the pre-victory AOC. “In the America LAST $40 BILLION Ukraine FIRST bill that we are voting on tonight, there is authorization for funds to be given to the CIA for who knows what and who knows how much? But NO BABY FORMULA for American mothers!” explained Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Christian Walker, the conservative influencer and son of GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker in Georgia, today observed: “Biden should go apply to be the President of Ukraine since he clearly cares more about them than the U.S.” Chomsky himself caused controversy last week when he said that there is only one statesman of any stature in the West urging a diplomatic solution “and his name is Donald J. Trump.”

Meanwhile, the only place where dissent is heard over the Biden administration's war policy is on the 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. programs on Fox News, hosted, respectively, by Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, who routinely demand to know how ordinary Americans are benefiting from this increasing U.S. involvement. On CNN, NBC, and in the op-ed pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post, there is virtually lockstep unity in favor of the U.S. role in this war; the only question that is permitted, as usual, is whether the U.S. is doing enough or whether it should do more.

That the U.S. has no legitimate role to play in this war, or that its escalating involvement comes at the expense of American citizens, the people they are supposed to be serving, provokes immediate accusations that one is spreading Russian propaganda and is a Kremlin agent. That is therefore an anti-war view that is all but prohibited in those corporate liberal media venues. Meanwhile, mainstream Democratic House members, such as Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), are now openly talking about the war in Ukraine as if it is the U.S.'s own:

Whatever else is true, the claim with which we are bombarded by the corporate press — the two parties agree on nothing; they are constantly at each other's throats; they have radically different views of the world — is patently untrue, at least when it comes time for the U.S. to join in new wars. Typically, what we see in such situations is what we are seeing now: the establishment wings of both parties are in complete lockstep unity, always breathlessly supporting the new proposed U.S. role in any new war, eager to empty the coffers of the U.S. Treasury and transfer it to the weapons industry while their constituents suffer.

One can believe that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is profoundly unjust and has produced horrific outcomes while still questioning what legitimate interests the U.S. has in participating in this war to this extent. Even if one fervently believes that helping Ukrainians fight Russia is a moral good, surely the U.S. government should be prioritizing the ability of its own citizens to live above the poverty line, have health insurance, send their kids to college, and buy insulin and baby formula.

There are always horrific wars raging, typically with a clear aggressor, but that does not mean that the U.S. can or should assume responsibility for the war absent its own vital interests and the interests of its citizens being directly at stake. In what conceivable sense are American citizens benefiting from this enormous expenditure of their resources and the increasing energy and attention being devoted by their leaders to Ukraine rather than to their lives and the multi-pronged deprivations that define them?

https://greenwald.substack.com...more-for-ukraine?s=r

^^^ A few thoughts:

- Politicians are notorious for jumping on bandwagons and trying to outdo each other by yelling "me too!" louder than the rest. It must inevitably be the responsibility of voters in individual Congressional districts and states to deter them from such behavior or vote them out.

- Obama's decision to not help Ukraine before the latest invasion may have encouraged Putin to invade by creating the impression that the US didn't care and wouldn't intervene - which is more or less the same way Obama screwed up in Syria. Putin never screwed with Trump because Trump showed up front that he was willing to go head to head with Putin. That, I think, is why Trump sent arms to Ukraine and supported US training efforts there.

- Weapons have shelf lives. I've been told (on the internutz, so maybe it's BS) that Javelins meet US specs for ten years. Personally I'm happy for the Ukrainians to use any weapons from US inventories nearing the end of their useful lives. Since the US tends to keep inventories based on worst-case scenarios, I'm afraid that by committing to the Javelin we've committed ourselves to keeping a healthy supply of the things on hand anyway.

- I understand what Trump Jr. is trying to accomplish by raising hell about baby formula, but where is the US government supposed to spend money to improve the supply of baby formula? That's an honest question, by the way - I simply wasn't able to figure out an answer to it by myself. Then again, maybe what's needed is for the government to spend more time and attention on the supply problem?

- The argument that there are 30 million Americans out there without health insurance raises a couple of red flags. For the government to provide that with Biden squatting in the White House would require aggressive government efforts to expand the reach of ObamaCare, and I'd personally like to see that thing die a death. At the same time, considering that OCare exists, how is Americans being without health insurance supposed to be linked to government spending in Ukraine?

- The argument has, I think, been raised here before, but the American people are having what has historically been considered a vital and long-standing interest met by backing the Ukrainians. I'm all for a strong defense, but the amount of money sent to Ukraine pales in comparison to the various investments in security that the US has deemed necessary in order to deter aggression by Russia against the US and its allies. The fighting in Ukraine is clearly draining Russia's ability to fight and highlighting Russian weaknesses, which lessens both Russian confidence in aggression and the world's fear of Russian aggression.
-- In its own little way, this has been something of an intelligence bonanza for the US and the rest of the West. China may learn something about our actual capabilities, but we're finally defining Russia's actual capabilities.
-- We have long subsidized defense spending to provide weapons to allies and helped pay those bills by selling weapons to other countries and an ancillary aspect of both that and diplomacy has been having to compete with Russians as weapons suppliers. If Russia is weak and Russian weapons suck, then this reduces the pressure to subsidize the weapons industry both in R&D and in sales to 'friendly' powers.
-- In the course of doing so, we are (I think) weakening the incentives Russia has to pose as an armed threat to us. This has been the major impulse to feed the military industrial complex since Ike Eisenhower first identified it back in the 1950s.
-- Not all potential military threats can be ignored. If Russia's ability to project force and influence other countries is weakened then we can better focus our thoughts, efforts and investments in dissuading Red China from picking any fights.
-- Insofar as this may reduce military spending, we can then focus on whether the money should be spent on social concerns (as defined by the Dems and the media) or left in taxpayers' pockets.

Texas Rep Chip Roy Explodes on Floor After House Democrats Create $40 Billion Ukraine Spending Bill and Demand Immediate Vote

Texas Representative Chip Roy (CD-21) goes full ultra-MAGA after the House democrats created a $40 billion Ukraine spending bill and then demand an immediate vote for support, or else you’re a Russian sympathizer.
WATCH (1 minute):



https://theconservativetreehou...te-vote/#more-232920

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
House Democrats Create $40 Billion Ukraine Spending Bill and Demand Immediate Vote

No fucking way.

While I am all in favor of aiding Ukraine any way we can, this is nothing more than an attempt by Pelosi, Schiff, Biden, etal, to pad their retirement accounts.

This "government" is broken. Plain and simple...

If Russia can survive all of the economic sanctions, I believe their end game will be to utterly destroy all of the infrastructure of Ukraine in areas that they don't absorb into Russia. They will do this at a distance rather than endure further casualties.

Air dominance by Russia will eventually happen and that will allow them to destroy at will, no matter the courage and bravery of the Ukrainian people. Once the country is destroyed, the populace will have nothing to fight for and will agree to a Russian-friendly government.

NATO cannot afford the risk of providing additional planes to Ukraine to offset the Russian air-force and anti-aircraft ground armaments will be defeated, much like when we bombed North Vietnam. Yes, there will be a price to pay in lost aircraft, but I believe Putin is willing to pay that price.

Yes, NATO will have benefited by discouraging Russia from future attacks on other former members of the Soviet Union, but Ukraine will have paid a heavy price and ultimately end up in the same circumstance as they would have if they hadn't resisted. I believe our government knew this and was perfectly willing to offer their country as a sacrificial lamb.

(I could be totally wrong and hope that I am - we shall see.)

Where is the 40 billion for Taiwan?


Maybe they didn’t pay their US delegated politicians as well as the Ukraine/Zelenskyy did?