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In Washington the global US military empire is a bipartisan affair. With a trillion dollar yearly military budget, there are plenty of opportunities for both the position and the opposition parties to thrust snouts deeply into the trough.
While Ron Paul was in Congress and GW Bush was president, we did a good deal to craft a bipartisan antiwar coalition in opposition to the Iraq war and other Bush-ite neocon misadventures. Then Obama was elected and pursued the same policies of global military empire – but with a better smile – and our coalition disintegrated. Suddenly the Democrats (with a couple of exceptions) were uninterested in the antiwar issue.
Such is the case now, when Obama’s great “success” – the US-led coup in Ukraine – is back in the headlines. Now Obama’s second fiddle is “in charge” of things and those under him who pull the levers are determined to solidify their “great achievement” of peeling Ukraine away from its neighbor and dropping that basket-case into the lap of Brussels and Washington. So for the past five weeks they have been ginning up the idea that Russia is about to invade Ukraine – even when Ukraine’s own defense secretary is practically laughing at Washington’s breathless assertions.
Said Ukrainian Defense Secretary Alexey Danilov:
As of today, we don’t see any grounds for statements about a full-scale offensive on our territory. It’s even physically impossible… Maybe, [seeing Russian troops] is an oddity to our foreign partners who finally saw that there are Russian forces and they move a certain way.
It must be comical for Russia to sit back and watch the US Keystone Kops at the helm of foreign policy blunder and bluster, with Biden’s press secretary insisting that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is “imminent” even as the Ukrainians – who are in a position to know and also in a position to benefit if it was true – pour cold water on the Biden war-fear-porn.
But when it comes to Fed-generated counterfeit money, Congress is always ready to sprinkle plenty around to their favorite causes – usually war and corporatism.
That is why House Democrats are desperately trying to ram through a massive “free weapons” bill for Ukraine before the current lapdog media-driven “RUSSIA INVASION” propaganda dies down.
Just as Big Pharma is rushing to put a new omicron variant vaccine on the market before their Covid gravy train dies out, Washington’s Democratic warmongers (with plenty of Republican fellow travelers) are rushing to send half a billion dollars in weapons to Ukraine before the casual MSM consumer learns (they’re always last to know) that the whole “Russia is about to invade Ukraine” cook-up is another lie.
US military aid overseas is corporate welfare for US Beltway weapons manufacturers who in turn kick back millions to fund pro-war politicians and more millions to fund pro-war “think tanks” who warn us that there are Reds under every bed and that we need to spend moar moar moar!
As The Intercept reports, Pelosi is worried that the “RUSSIA IS INVADING” panic will wear off too soon, so she is “looking to skip marking up the bill and move it straight to the House floor, setting up the possibility of a vote as soon as early next week.”
Angry to be left out of the fleecing of America for foreign interests frenzy, Republicans are racing to offer more of our money to protect the borders of corrupt Ukraine (while foreign invaders are given the red carpet treatment on our borders):
Republicans have offered their own measures. Earlier this month in the House, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the lead Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced the Guaranteeing Ukrainian Autonomy by Reinforcing its Defense Act, a companion bill to a measure sponsored by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Jim Risch, R-Idaho. The bill would give Ukraine $450 million from the State Department’s FMF account and impose sanctions related to the Nord Stream 2 project immediately, without waiting for an escalation as in the Democrats’ bill.
Only $450 million? Come on Republicans! Surely you can do better to flush our money down the foreign policy toilet! Slackers!
As the great Pat Buchanan once said, “Our two parties have become nothing but two wings of the same bird of prey.”
Indeed, Mr. Buchanan. Indeed!
Daniel McAdams is director of the The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity. Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.
Published at original.antiwar.com
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