Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission.
Surprise! The House has approved $95 billion in more weapons and war for Ukraine and Israel, along with a few billion tossed in for Taiwan. Ukraine gets the lion’s share of the aid, roughly $61 billion, while Israel gets roughly $26 billion, which is $12 billion more than the Biden administration initially asked for.
Imagine that! $26 billion for Israel as it slaughters Palestinians in Gaza. America is led by moral monsters and mental midgets.
I predicted months ago (not a tough prediction) that Republicans would eventually cave and support Ukraine. In this election year, they don’t want to be blamed for “losing” the Russia-Ukraine War. Even though the war is going poorly for Ukraine, the answer is never to negotiate or deescalate, it’s always to escalate with even more destructive weaponry. Of course, this is justified by America’s moral monsters and mental midgets (M4 for short) by saying Putin is evil and that jobs will be created in America among the arsenal-producing merchants of death.
There was a time, World War II to be exact, when it made a smidgen of sense to call America the “Arsenal of Democracy.” Those days are long gone. America is now simply an arsenal.
Of course, this is yet another triumph for the MICIMATT: the military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academe-think-tank complex. Its power and greed are almost irresistible. Add that to AIPAC, threat inflation, and fear-mongering and perhaps it is irresistible until the U.S. empire final collapses under the weight of its own folly.
But let me give the last word to my smarter wife, who upon hearing of yet another $95 billion for war put it succinctly: “All that money to kill people.” Then she added: they are the planet-wreckers.
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.