Tag: Ukraine

The Madness of Threat Inflation

W.J. Astore

And the Insanity of Wanting to Rule the World

What will historians say decades or centuries from now when the U.S. empire collapses into ruin? How will they explain it?

Consider the United States in the big picture. I see a country with unique strengths. Two wide oceans protecting us. A long secure border with Canada. A securable border with Mexico, the current immigrant “crisis” be damned. Canada and Mexico aren’t our enemies. No invasion is coming from them. As a country, the USA occupies a geographical/global position that is uniquely safe and advantageous.

Why are we so fearful? Why do we spend a trillion dollars (or more) each year on national “defense”?

How incredibly lucky we are! (Credit: Tom Van Sant/Geosphere Project, Santa Monica/Science Photo Library)

Of course, I put “defense” in quotes because the USA is an empire with a military configured for offense. Global reach, global power, was the motto of my service, the U.S. Air Force. The U.S. military strives for full-spectrum dominance, meaning total control of the land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace, justified in the false name of “defense.” The cost of this febrile quest for dominance is, I believe, ultimately unbearable. Why do we persist in such folly?

What country would dare to attack the USA? Other than small terrorist networks like Al Qaeda, no country, no people, no leaders in their right mind would dare attack us, let alone invade us. They know they’d likely be obliterated if they did. Does anyone truly fear an attack on the USA from China? Russia? Iran? North Korea? Given America’s belligerence, evidence of our unbridled vengeance after Pearl Harbor and 9/11, and our vast arsenal of highly destructive weaponry, including thousands of nuclear warheads, anyone attacking the U.S. would be pursuing a death wish.

I am not afraid of Russia, a regional power that is stuck in a quagmire war against Ukraine. I am not afraid of China, a regional military power and economic superpower that is tied to us in global trade and has no intent, near as I can tell, to attack my country. I am not afraid of Iran, or North Korea, or similar “threats” of the moment. So why is my government constantly exaggerating these threats and telling me to be afraid?

Of course, I know all about Ike’s military-industrial-congressional complex. I write against it all the time. It’s not just the MICC and its pursuit of profits and power, however. It’s the corporate interests that say Taiwan must be “protected” for its microchips, the Middle East must be “protected” because of its oil, that Ukraine must be “protected” for its rich agricultural wealth (even as Russia’s gas pipelines to Germany are destroyed) and the riches to be had once the war is over and Ukraine is rebuilt. I know there’s nothing new about this; I’ve read my Smedley Butler.

When I first signed up for the U.S. military in 1981, and then went on active duty in 1985, I thought the U.S. did face a possible existential threat: the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact, and Communism. By 1991, that threat was largely gone. Even Cold War hawks like Jeanne Kirkpatrick wrote enthusiastically of the U.S. becoming a normal country in normal times. WTF happened? Why didn’t we?

Here we are, more than 30 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the U.S. government is selling Putin’s Russia as a serious threat again. When we see clear evidence that Putin has more than enough to handle with Ukraine, we’re told to look toward China as the Next Big Threat. Meanwhile, irrational, indefensible, blank checks of support given to Israel in its murderous campaign of ethnic cleansing in Gaza threaten a wider war in the Middle East, a war some in our government seem to be spoiling to fight, knowing of course that they and theirs won’t be fighting it.

We Americans need to get a collective grip on ourselves and our own government. Stop feeding the Pentagon brass with money: it only encourages the bastards. Stop listening to the fear mongers. Turn off the mainstream media and ignore all the threat inflation. Look within yourself and control the fear and divisiveness they try to instill in you.

As Senator George McGovern, a war hero, said in 1972 when he won the Democratic nomination for the presidency: Come home, America. Close most of the military bases that America has overseas. Make deep cuts to the Pentagon war budget. Let other peoples settle their differences without our meddling, without our depleted uranium shells, without our cluster munitions, without our Hellfire missiles, without our mendacious rhetoric about a “rules-based order.”

Come home, America. We have a vast country with vast potential—and serious problems. Time to tackle them instead of seeking to dominate the world.

Or, as the Good Book says, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3 NIV) Yes, indeed. Let’s remove the planks from our own eyes, which should keep us very busy for decades, rather than globetrotting to remove the sawdust from the eyes of other peoples who’d prefer us to stay home and leave them alone.

Come home, America. Let’s start removing those planks.

Thoughts on War in Gaza and Ukraine

W.J. Astore

America as the Essential Nation for Trigger Treats

Some thoughts — more or less connected — on war in Gaza and Ukraine:

Israel is engaged in a “traditional” war of conquest. Like the Romans destroyed Carthage, Israel is essentially destroying Gaza using American-provided weaponry, together with hoary approaches like famine and disease.

What surprises so many is that ruthless wars of conquest aren’t supposed to happen. It’s 2023! We’re civilized people! Only dictators like Putin are ruthless! But, as many people have noted, Israel has already killed more children in two months than Russia has killed in nearly two years of war in Ukraine.

No — Israel and the USA are not civilized. The so-called rules-based order is might makes right. Thucydides defined Israel/USA policy 2400 years ago: The strong do what they will; the weak suffer what they must.

The Palestinians are being killed, starved, and shoved off their land because Israel wants it. The Hamas attacks provided the excuse for the final solution to the Gaza question.

But let’s be clear here: Wars of conquest are a feature of humanity throughout history. Look at the history of the United States and its conquest of Native Americans or its war of “manifest destiny” against Mexico. It’s a land grab.

Gaza isn’t primarily a religious war of Jews versus Muslims. There may be some Jews who believe it’s “their” land because the Torah says so, but many other Jews are against this brazen war of conquest. Religion isn’t the main cause here. The causes are greed and power, land lust and the pursuit of black gold (fossil fuels off Gaza). And vengeance.

The Biden administration refuses to place any conditions on massive weapons shipments to Israel. So much for “leverage.”

*****

Judging by the U.S. federal budget, America’s leaders are most addicted to violence and war, whether manifested against our fellow humans or against nature and the planet. Dangerously, in violence people often find a sense of purpose and belonging as well as scapegoats even as they embrace and empower leaders who promise them blood-soaked redemption.

It’s quite possible the historical Jesus was betrayed and killed because he rejected redemptive violence.  Jesus seems to have taught redemptive peace, and that was an unpopular message among Jewish people 2000 years ago, who apparently were looking for liberation through military victory over the Romans, not salvation through the grace offered them by a peace-preaching prophet and rabbi who took the side of the marginalized and oppressed.

*****

The average age of Ukrainian troops is now 43.  Young women are being actively recruited into the ranks. Men as old as 60 are being pressed into service. “Body snatchers” are illegally grabbing men off the streets and forcing them to the front. Does this sound like a winnable war for the “imperfect democracy” of Ukraine?

I continue to see a stalemated situation with little chance of a decisive military victory for Ukraine.  Assuming the war continues, Ukraine will continue to be hollowed out.

Meanwhile, Russia has most certainly been weakened militarily by this war, and perhaps economically as well with the destruction of the Nordstream pipelines.  Russia is less of a threat to NATO than it was two years ago, meaning that NATO has even less to fear from an alleged expansionist Putin.  Given the quagmire faced by Russia in Ukraine, I doubt very much that Putin is contemplating an invasion of any NATO country.

Suffice to say I am against another $62+ billion for Ukraine and I am for diplomatic efforts to foster a ceasefire and settlement.  Indeed, I think that if the U.S. stops military aid to Ukraine, Zelensky and Putin would likely find a way to end this war and all its killing and destruction.

Yet, the Biden administration is persisting in its plans to send scores of billions in more weaponry to Ukraine, with Senator Lindsey Graham still boasting Ukraine will fight and die to the last man (and woman?). If Biden’s war package is approved, U.S. aid (mainly military) to Ukraine will approach $200 billion in two years. That’s roughly $8 billion a month, double the monthly cost of the Afghan War. Yet Americans are told this is the price of freedom: massive shipments of weapons and other forms of aid so that Ukraine can kill Russians.

The Biden administration has embraced war in Ukraine as well as war in Gaza, essentially placing no conditions on massive shipments of U.S. weaponry to fuel these conflicts. Someone please tell me what is “progressive” and humane about Joe Biden’s policies.

I know freedom isn’t free; I had no idea freedom came at so high a cost in deadly military weaponry and dead bodies. I guess it’s true, then: America is the freest country in the world because we dominate the world’s trade in life-takers and widow-makers. Exceptional we are in our belief in war and weapons; essential we are to any country looking to add “trigger treats” to their arsenals of democracy.

It’s a wonderful life in Pottersville USA.

Was Bedford Falls the illusion?

‘Tis the Season for War

W.J. Astore

Hellfire Missiles and Cluster Munitions under the White House Christmas Tree

As Christmas approaches, it doesn’t seem to be the season to be jolly, unless you’re a U.S. weapons manufacturer. It seems instead yet another season for war, as the president and Congress fight over how much deadly weaponry to send to Ukraine and Israel (and to Taiwan as well). Look under the White House Christmas tree and you’ll find Hellfire missiles for Israel, cluster munitions for Ukraine, and similar gifts offering joy to the world.

Last week, Ukraine’s president paid a visit to Washington where he posed with his most fervent supporters and gift-givers: U.S. arms manufacturers. Talk about a photo op!

Zelensky meets with high-ranking executives of the “merchants of death,” or Santa’s DC Beltway elves

Zelensky is no dummy. He knows that Congress and the President ultimately answer to the military-industrial complex. Look for a compromise bill in January that gives Ukraine most of the weapons that it’s requesting.

Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to send Israel the bombs, missiles, and shells it’s using to level Gaza. Last night, I was reading a book and came across this quote about war. Can you guess the person speaking?

“The victor will not be asked afterwards whether he told the truth or not [about the war]. When starting and waging a war it is not right that matters, but victory. Close your hearts to pity. Act brutally. [The] people must obtain what is their right. Their existence must be made secure. The stronger man is right. The greatest harshness.”

“The greatest harshness” might give the game away. It’s Adolf Hitler before the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939. It’s from Ian Kershaw’s definitive two-volume biography of Hitler, v.2, p. 209.

A brutal, pitiless, war of the greatest harshness: that description doesn’t seem alien to our world today.

U.S. Power Sets All the Wrong Examples to the World

W.J. Astore

An Open Letter from the Eisenhower Media Network

I’m a member of the Eisenhower Media Network, or EMN. We’re a small network of retired military types and former U.S. government officials who are openly critical of the military-industrial-congressional complex, America’s open-ended forever wars (the global war on terror; the cold war against Russia and China), and rising militarism within and across our society.

Recently, EMN issued a new letter in opposition to the Washington bipartisan consensus for war and more war. I’m proud to say I had a hand in writing it, as did Matthew Hoh and other members of EMN. Here’s what we had to say:

Military and Foreign Policy Experts Open Letter on U.S. Diplomatic Malpractice

Does America inspire the world by the power of its example or the example of its power? Far too often, and despite President Joe Biden’s words during his inaugural address, America’s overmilitarized power and diplomatic malpractice are its examples to the world.

We must change that. To make America truly essential and indispensable, we must not remain the world’s leading arms maker and weapons exporter. We must instead become the world’s greatest and most committed peacemaker and diplomat.

The problem is that America continues to make war, continues being “essential” only as the world’s leading merchant of death, and continues seeking dominance through military supremacy that ends, in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and earlier in Vietnam, in mass death and colossal folly.

In our first open letter last spring in The New York Times, we, the undersigned, argued that a thoroughly militarized U.S. foreign policy would generate ruinous and worsening consequences and increasingly limited options for the U.S. and the world. Recent events bear this out.

The results of U.S. diplomatic malpractice are cruelly displayed in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific. Risks of further escalation and a world war are rising. Predictably, a militarized foreign policy characterized by rejecting or ignoring international laws and treaties and by disingenuous negotiations and talks has offered no solutions to volatile wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle East while making war more likely in the Indo-Pacific.

Militarized solutions breed and feed more war. Earnest and deliberate diplomacy is the best hope to bring peace, stability and reconciliation to the world.

We chose Ike as our inspiration because he warned Americans of the dangers of the military-industrial complex and because he rejected a world dedicated to manufacturing weapons to commit mass murder. 

War in Ukraine

The failure to pursue diplomacy in Eastern Europe, both before and after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has resulted in a costly and destructive stalemate for which there are two likely futures:

  1. The collapse of the Ukrainian state due to a deteriorating economic and military situation hastened by corruption.Here, Ukraine’s fragility resembles that of previous houses of cards built by the U.S. in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam.
  2. A harrowing and bloody stalemate in Ukraine where firepower, made more lethal by technological advances, rules a battlefield where neither side can achieve decisive tactical or operational gains. The pursuit of ways out of this stalemate likely entails horizontal and vertical escalation, neither of which offers solace to those seeking an end to death and destruction in Ukraine and the establishment of peace and stability.

Horizontal escalation sees the war extending further to civilian population centers and infrastructure and includes the possibility of other nations joining the conflict. Vertical escalation sees the expansion of arsenals to weapons of greater range, lethality, and consequence, including nuclear weapons. These two forms of escalation may be intertwined and reinforcing. So, as the war may expand horizontally to resemble The War of Cities between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s, it may expand vertically as well with more powerful weapons being introduced by both sides. The use of nuclear weapons is increasingly conceivable under these conditions.

These two likely futures may intersect. For example, a Ukrainian collapse could see NATO forces, likely Polish and Romanian, marching into western and central Ukraine to counter a Russian push to fill a collapsing Ukrainian state. Such an event could lead to a war between NATO and Russia, a war that conceivably could go nuclear.

Hamas, Israel and the Middle East

The Russia-Ukraine War now rages concurrently with the war between Hamas and Israel. This war, too, is born of a U.S. refusal to foster diplomacy. Unlike the conventional war between Russia and Ukraine, we are witnessing an asymmetrical conflict more akin to the wars of insurgency many of us experienced in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Worse, the Hamas/Israel bloodletting in Gaza is characterized by an ethnic cleansing campaign that would be impossible without U.S. diplomatic, economic, media, military and political support. We are disgusted by and find repugnant the brazen and bipartisan support by the U.S. government for rampant violations of international law by Israel. Ethnic cleansing in Gaza, long planned by senior members of the Israeli government and powerful elements of Israel’s reactionary right wing, follows in the ghastly wake of Hamas atrocities against civilians on October 7.

Here, the U.S. government isn’t just passively witnessing war crimes; it is enabling them. With the frightening possibility of escalation to a regional or even a world war, the violence in Gaza has fed and feasted upon decades of deliberate diplomatic malpractice in America. Decades of putting Israel first, second, and last while ignoring the plight and pleas of Palestinians have made political settlements to the blockade of Gaza and the occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank nearly impossible.

Whereas a month ago, we lived with the risk of nuclear war as an outcome of escalating conflict in Ukraine, we now face the elevated risk of a rightfully feared world war as a consequence of entangling alliances between nuclear-armed Moscow and Washington in the Middle East.

China and the Path Ahead

To this, we must add the dangers of war with China, something hyped by leading U.S. politicians; the still unpaid costs of the $8 trillion wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; a militarized federal budget for which 60% of discretionary spending goes to war and all its wounds; and a hollowed American economy.

Decades of reckless U.S. war-making, both direct and via proxies, while coddling corrupt, ruthless, and unjust foreign governments has, not surprisingly, made the world more dangerous and less stable. Failure to invest in and maintain our country has weakened and corroded America’s infrastructure, institutions, and industries. A hypocritical flaunting of international law and an espousal of an ethereal rules-based order, coupled with an arrogant disregard for past U.S. crimes and blunders, have caused dozens of nations to flock to competitors – a movement away from America that will undoubtedly accelerate if we remain on our current militaristic path.

Moreover, decades of colossal military spending have witnessed few strategic gains for the U.S. Our military, often saluted as the world’s greatest by politicians, hasn’t won a major war since World War II. That same military annually faces significant recruiting shortfalls that cast considerable doubt on the integrity and staying power of the All-Volunteer Force. America’s legacy of failed wars is not redeemed by ongoing displays of vacuous military boosterism. Feel-good patriotism can’t suppress the bitterness many of us military veterans feel toward the past, nor does it calm the worries we have about our nation’s future.

Pope Francis has spoken of a “famine of peace” that exists in the world today. In this spirit, we call for immediate ceasefires, without conditions, in Gaza and Ukraine.

The surest way to prevent wars from exploding into uncontainable wildfires is to starve them of fuel. To think or speak that these conflagrations can be managed, adjusted as if by damper or thermostat, is a fool’s conceit or a liar’s word. We have been burned too many times in our professional lives to believe hot wars can be “won” by throwing more gasoline on them, whether rhetorically or in the form of cluster munitions, depleted uranium shells, and similar forms of “aid.”

A better path ahead is clear. Peace, not war, must be fostered. In embracing peace through diplomacy conducted in good faith, America would indeed exhibit the power of its example, becoming essential to a world that cries out for liberty and justice for all.

Nothing Screams Christian Values Like Massacres and Mass Weapons Sales

W.J. Astore

America’s Cross of Iron

Roughly half of President Biden’s recent budget request for more than $105 billion for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and border security is dedicated to weapons sales. Nothing screams Christian values like massacres and mass weapons sales.

Speaking of massacres, Aaron Maté has a powerful article on Gaza and the U.S. role in facilitating Israel’s destruction of the same. Here’s an excerpt:

According to Save the Children, the number of Palestinian children killed in just three weeks has already surpassed the annual number of children killed across the world’s conflict zones since 2019. “Gaza has become a graveyard for children,” a UNICEF spokesperson says. “It’s a living hell for everyone else.” In a statement demanding a ceasefire, seven UN special rapporteurs now warn that “the Palestinian people are at grave risk of genocide.”

I remember when Sting got into trouble in the 1980s for singing that the Russians love their children too. Is it OK to say the Palestinians love their children too and would prefer that they not be obliterated by “Made in USA” bombs provided for free to Israel?

I wrote this just this morning to a friend who’s been taking fire because she believes the Palestinians in Gaza are human beings who shouldn’t be targeted for ethnic cleansing:

The Israel/Palestine issue is both complex and simple.  To keep it simple, we’re all human beings.  No group of people are “human animals.”  If any country should know the dangers of dehumanizing an enemy, it’s Israel.  Yet that’s precisely what Israel is doing.

There are plenty of Jews who are bravely denouncing Israel, but their voices are not being heard.  Meanwhile, the US government supinely serves the worst elements in Israel.  Our own government is complicit in ethnic cleansing, not that I’m surprised about this, given our nation’s history.

They say Dexter was a serial killer, but he’s got nothing on the jackals in the US and Israel who’ve already killed roughly 10K Palestinians with many more deaths to come.  (With apologies to real jackals.)

I’ve been writing to my senators and representative as well, imploring them not to vote for more murderous weaponry, whether for Israel or Ukraine (or anyone else). Just about all our politicians make noises about our country advancing Judeo-Christian values yet they conveniently forget about values like “thou shalt not kill” and “blessed are the peacemakers.”

Hellscape in Gaza (Photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

It would be far better if the U.S. stood on the sidelines and did nothing, yet Congress and the President must show their “strength” by using taxpayer dollars to ship scores of billions in weaponry to facilitate mass murder. As they do so, they pat each other on the back for being strong while boasting of creating jobs for various weapons makers in the “homeland.”

That’s how perverted and twisted government officials are. They’d rather spend scores of billions on death overseas than help struggling Americans here at home.

We need to vote the warmongers out, except I can’t forget what Emma Goldman said about voting: “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”

Biden’s BS Bundling

W.J. Astore

Why Not Add Medicare for All or Aid for the Unhoused?

President Biden’s “aid”—or, to be honest, weapons packages—for Ukraine and Israel also bundles together other weapons wish lists, or trigger treats, for Taiwan and border security. Here’s a quick summary, courtesy of Heather Cox Richardson:

Today [Friday] the administration asked Congress for a little over $105 billion in funding for national security. The package would devote $61.4 billion to support Ukraine (some of it to replenish U.S. stockpiles after sending weapons to Ukraine); $14.3 billion to Israel for air and missile defense systems; $9.15 billion for humanitarian aid to Ukraine, Gaza, and other places; $7.4 billion for initiatives in the Indo-Pacific; and $14 billion for more agents at the southwestern border, new machines to detect fentanyl, and more courts to process asylum cases. 

It’s more than absurd to call these weapons exports “funding for national security.” The United States is not made more secure by funding permanent war in Ukraine or genocide in Gaza; quite the reverse, actually.

Scenes of destruction in Gaza sure make me proud to be an American. Let’s bundle more bombs and missiles for Israel.

Of course, the Biden administration knows there are elements in Congress who are against scores of billions for more war in Ukraine, hence its decision to bundle it with aid to Israel, Taiwan, and border security. It’s a cynical exercise to bundle all these packages together and to demand that Congress vote “yea” or “nay” on the entire bill.

Revealingly, polls show that slightly more than half of Americans are against more weapons shipments to Ukraine and Israel, despite all the propaganda about how killing Russians and Palestinians is vital to U.S. national security. What Americans are in favor of is humanitarian aid, the comfort of warm blankets rather than warm guns. Americans have a lot more sense and compassion than their government.

Speaking of the wonders of bundling, if Congress is so eager to send aid to Israel or perhaps to beef up Taiwan (those “Indo-Pacific initiatives”), let’s bundle a few more proposals into this bill.

How about a $15 or $18 federal minimum wage? Student loan debt forgiveness? A public option for health care or even medicare for all? How about humanitarian aid for America’s unhoused, the people living in tent cities?

Sorry, I don’t believe my “national security” is enhanced by more weapons for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, or even at America’s border with Mexico. Bundling all these weapons packages together, to the tune of $105 billion plus, isn’t just cynical. It’s total bullshit. BS, to be technical.

It makes me almost glad Republicans can’t elect a speaker because you just know most in Congress are eager to enable more killing overseas—in the cause of national security, naturally.

We’re making America a greater democracy one major weapons shipment at a time. Bundling them together is truly the sign of the “indispensable” nation.

Biden’s Trigger Treats for Ukraine and Israel

W.J. Astore

The Exceptional Nation Promises More Bullets, Bombs, Guns, and Missiles

In an address to the nation from the Oval Office last night, President Biden promised more trigger treats* for Ukraine and Israel: at least $60 billion for Ukraine and at least $10 billion for Israel in an “aid” package that may reach $100 billion.

President Biden urges Americans to send more weaponry overseas so America’s allies can kill more evildoers. Trigger treats!

Biden repeated several tired cliches about America. That we’re the essential nation, the indispensable one, and also the arsenal of democracy. But maybe what we’re really truly “essential” for is guns and more guns, war and more war?

Biden assured us that sending scores of billions in weaponry was good for America: that those artillery shells and so on that shred Russian and Palestinian bodies are made right here in the USA. They’re job-creators, not body-manglers! Rejoice as America adds more jobs by providing more guns and ammo to Ukraine and Israel.

Biden, like so many in the Pentagon and the U.S. military, resorted to business-speak, explaining that this massive package of “aid” was an “investment” in national security that will pay Americans “dividends” down the road. Actually, all this weaponry will be bought the real American Way, with deficit spending, and the “dividends” will most certainly be more death and destruction and possibly even World War III.

Biden apparently sees only one course for both Ukraine and Israel: total military victory over their opponents. There was no mention of diplomacy, of ceasefires, of negotiation, of compromise. The only way out is through a massive number of dead, full stop.

Biden, who has a bad habit of pointing at the camera, and therefore America, for emphasis, did implore us not to give into hate in its various forms, including Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. Yet it’s not easy to square an anti-hate message with $100 billion in mostly military aid so that Israel and Ukraine can squash and kill all the evildoers in their midst.

Biden, in sum, had a very grim message for America, and therefore for the world, one that embraced war and more killing as “essential” and “indispensable” because that’s the only course one can take when confronted by “pure, unadulterated evil.” And, anyway, war creates good-paying jobs in America. Trigger treats for all!

*I took the idea of “trigger treats” from a local gun shop that is displaying a sign for Halloween that reads “No tricks just trigger treats.”

The War Party Rules Washington

W.J. Astore

Guess What’s a High Priority for Democrats in Congress?

Here’s a reminder of a stark reality: When President Joe Biden finally ended the disastrous Afghan War in 2021, the Pentagon war budget went up by roughly $50 billion.

The Afghan War was costing America almost $50 billion a year until the war party in DC (both Democrats and Republicans) decided enough was enough. So how could ending a war result in a substantial increase in military spending?

That’s easily answered. The bipartisan war party pivoted from the lucrative but frustrating war on terror to the much more lucrative “new cold war” with Russia and China. And of course Vladimir Putin’s provoked invasion of Ukraine early in 2022 sealed the deal. Putin’s illegal invasion, provoked as it was, as NATO itself admits, was a massive boon to the military-industrial-congressional complex. Pentagon war budgets have continued to soar since 2021 (and indeed since 2001 and the original launch of the war on terror), with no end in sight other than perhaps nuclear Armageddon. (Not an end I’m looking forward to, but there’s no fate but that which we make.)

A few in Congress, mostly Republicans, are finally growing tired of massive military aid to Ukraine, though these same Republicans are generally in favor of even more massive military budgets to “deter” China. Yet Democrats are fighting against reductions in military weaponry to Ukraine with the kind of energy you’d think would be devoted to helping Americans deal with poverty and inflation.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (left) carrying water for Zelensky of Ukraine. More war, please! 

So, for example, House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries has stated that a high priority for Democrats in the ongoing struggle over electing a new House Speaker is that the new Speaker must support higher funding—for Ukraine! (Jeffries also wants the impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden to end.)

Higher military spending for Ukraine is a top priority for Democrats, even as Americans struggle with higher bills for food, housing, health care, and other essentials of life. Think about that for a moment.

Of course, Congress was prepared to continue paying for Ukraine’s war effort even if the federal government had shut down, so Jeffries is nothing but consistent here. Waging a wildly expensive and dangerous proxy war against Russia is more important to Congress than helping Americans who are struggling across our land with food and gas bills.

Small wonder that the largest political party in America is composed of “independents.”

Whether it’s RFK Jr., Cornel West, or someone else, we need to get behind independent candidates and reject the Democratic-Republican war party. Vote the war pigs out!

Canada Applauds a Waffen-SS Soldier

W.J. Astore

The Good Nazi?

In 1985, President Ronald Reagan was attacked for visiting a German military cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany, because that cemetery included forty graves of members of the Waffen-SS, the combat branch of the Schutzstaffel led by the infamous Heinrich Himmler. Reagan’s intent was to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the ending of World War II in Europe, not to celebrate those forty graves among the 2000 in that cemetery. Nevertheless, he was deeply criticized for laying a memorial wreath at Bitburg, as the photo below shows.

By Elke Wetzig – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49406384

Fast forward nearly 40 years to 2023 and we recently witnessed the spectacle of the Canadian Parliament giving two sustained standing ovations to a living (former) member of the Waffen-SS, a Ukrainian (Yaroslav Hunka) who’d joined the Nazis to fight against the Soviet Union in World War II.

No one it seems in the Canadian Parliament thought it odd to applaud a soldier who’d fought on the side of the Nazis during World War II against an ally of Canada. And, yes, the Soviet Union was an ally of Canada and the U.S., and more than any other country was responsible for defeating Hitler and his murderously racist regime, whose most fanatical followers were members of the SS.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s apology, meanwhile, was done in two parts. He blamed the House Speaker (who resigned) for this colossal blunder even as he attacked Russia for seeking to exploit the mistake for political advantage. Meanwhile, Poland is seeking to extradite the former member of the Waffen-SS for possible war crimes committed during World War II.

How could such a colossal blunder have occurred, and just before Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar?

Knowledge of history was simply cast aside, I think, because the Canadian political “elite” were so eager to showcase a Ukrainian who’d killed Russians, even if he’d done so as a member of the murderous SS. Of course, President Zelensky was present at this debacle, applauding along. It was all about showing support for Ukraine in its allegedly righteous war against Russia, with Canada naturally being on the side of the righteous. 

In a recent podcast featuring Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn, Kirn noted astutely that the Canadian Parliament, apparently to a person ignorant of World War II and Nazi history, was more than anything applauding itself, celebrating their own rectitude, in saluting an old soldier who’d killed Russians. What did it matter that he’d served Heinrich Himmler, who oversaw the “Final Solution” and the Holocaust? What mattered was showing you stood in solidarity today with Zelensky against Putin.

Heinrich Himmler (center), head of the SS, visits the unit of the Waffen-SS under question, the so-called Galicia Division formed in 1943 (Getty image; BBC News)

If America was “ashamed” of Ronald Reagan in 1985 merely for visiting a cemetery to commemorate war dead where two percent of the graves were Waffen-SS members, how should Canadians feel about their political elite standing as one to stormily applaud a living, breathing, former member of Waffen-SS and saluting him as a hero for killing Russians?

“Ashamed” doesn’t begin to capture the depth of this crime against history.

Everything that’s wrong with America in one sentence

W.J. Astore

Guess who’s exempt from a potential government shutdown?

I saw this today at CNN.

The Pentagon has also determined that the training and support of Ukrainian forces is exempt from a potential government shutdown, and will continue even in the increasingly likely event that Congress fails to pass a spending bill in the coming days.

Isn’t it nice to know that even if the U.S. federal government shuts down, Ukraine will still get all the weapons and related military aid they need to continue to fight and kill Russians? Americans may be furloughed from their jobs or have to work for no pay, but Ukraine will get paid.

That one sentence shows you the priorities for “your” government. Guess what? You’re not a priority, but war overseas is. You’re not exempt from a government shutdown, but Ukrainian military forces are.

So, if you want to get paid, America, or enter a federal facility that may be closed due to a shutdown, just wave a blue-and-yellow flag and tell the government it’s all for the war effort in Ukraine.

Bring this flag with you and tell the government you’re exempt from the looming government shutdown