U.S. Senate approved today a $40 billion aid package for Ukraine guaranteeing that the war goes on into the indefinite future. Ukraine’s 44-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky is dripping in cash, paying his salary that that of Kiev’s government all with U.S. tax dollars. Democrats voted unanimously to fund Ukraine’s war against the Russian Federation and humanitarian aid, designed to reduce the misery of war yet continues the war for the foreseeable future. So when eleven Republicans, led by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mis.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), rejected Biden’s call for essentially a blank check, the anti-Russian horde won out. Most of the borrowed U.S. cash will be tacked on to the National Debt, now over $30 trillion, breaking the U.S. Treasury in a rising interest rate market, costing the government billions more in national debt payments.
Rubber-stamping Biden’s requests seem like the patriotic thing to do the way the White House has sold the Ukraine War. But keeping the war going only adds to the infrastructure destruction, carnage and mass exodus of refugees from Ukraine. Biden and Zelensky only talk about Ukraine’s big victories in Kiev and Kharkiv, obscuring the undeniable reality that 69-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin has taken almost all of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. U.S. and Ukrainian officials tried to cover-up yesterday’s fall of Mariupol, where the last soldiers and civilians were evacuated from the Azovstal Steel plant. Washington and Kiev won’t admit that Putin has achieved his objectives in the Ukraine War, essentially annexing the Black Sea coastline from Kiev. Giving Ukraine $40 billion assures that the war goes on indefinitely, without any real results to reclaim lost Ukrainian territory.
Zelensky and Biden were offered to avoid the war early on when Putin laid out his conditions for ending the conflict, including (1) independence of Donetsk and Luhansk and (2) recognition that Crimea is a part of Russia. Biden and Zelensky rejected Putin’s conditions for ending the conflict, battling on, destroying more Ukrainian infrastructure and losing more territory. Biden and Zelensky would have to keep the war going for years, if not indefinitely, to reclaim lost Ukrainian territory. Instead of going to Istanbul to negotiate a ceasefire and peace agreement, Biden chose to let Zelensky fight an unending proxy war with the Russian Federation. Ukraine isn’t going to get its Black Sea coast back by continuing to battle the Russian Federation. Only by going to Istanbul and entering into serious peace talks does Ukraine have any chance of getting back its Black Sea coastline.
If you listen to the U.S. press, how could anyone in their right mind not back Biden’s $40 billion request for Ukraine. But as Rand Paul suggests, the Inspector General should monitor every penny spent in Kiev. With Ukraine historically one of Europe’s most corrupt countries, how can the Congress trust that the $40 billion will be spent on the military and humanitarian relief? No one knows how much Zelensky and his cronies have siphoned off from U.S. government funding. “Cost” said Sen. Cynthia Loomis (R-Wy.). “I do support Ukraine’s efforts to protect their people and their country, and it’s just so tragic what’s happening. But inflation is running amok. We are no protecting our own borders,” Loomis said. But to the White House and U.S. press the war in Ukraine is about preserving “democracy” against a totalitarian menace in the name of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
No one in Congress is asking whether the prior funding allocations to Ukraine have resulted in any progress against the Russian Federation. Zelensky and Biden argue that they’re playing the long-game with Putin, not concerned about today’s losses, looking to the future to reclaim Ukraine’s lost territory. But when you look at how Putin has seized most of Ukraine’s Black Sea coastline, how can anyone in Congress continue to throw good money after bad? How can anyone trust Biden or Zelensky when things have gone so badly since Feb. 24. Boasting about Kiev or Kharkiv doesn’t tell the real story of how the Russian Federation has seized most of Ukraine’s strategic coastline. Without a peace process in Istanbul or somewhere else, Ukraine’s isn’t like to get its lost territory back anytime soon. Congress must put a deadline on the White House before Biden breaks the U.S. treasury.
Biden found common ground with Republicans on their collective hate of Russian President Vladimir Putin. At this point, the war in Ukraine isn’t about reclaiming lost Ukrainian territory, it’s about Biden fighting the Russian Federation, hoping, praying and fantasizing about a great Victory Day against the Russian Federation. But if you look at what’s happened since Feb. 24, Ukraine has lost the strategic Black Sea coastline, essentially land-locking the country for the foreseeable future. Where’s the evidence that the heroic Ukraine army has made any progress at all? Putin has accomplished most of his objectives in Ukraine, carving up Ukraine to create a military corridor from Russia to the Criimean Peninsula. Honest members of Congress, not hardcore partisans, must take a close look at what’s happened in Ukraine with U.S. tax dollars. So far it looks like a disaster for Ukraine.
