{"id":45662,"date":"2024-01-30T13:55:14","date_gmt":"2024-01-30T21:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=45662"},"modified":"2024-01-30T13:55:14","modified_gmt":"2024-01-30T21:55:14","slug":"funding-ukraine-to-kill-russians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2024\/01\/30\/funding-ukraine-to-kill-russians\/","title":{"rendered":"Funding Ukraine to Kill Russians"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views<\/a> with the author\u2019s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cMeanwhile, Ukraine is running out of ammunition.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was the last sentence in Heather Cox Richardson\u2019s \u201cLetters from an American\u201d column for January 25, 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I read her daily columns. She\u2019s a strong supporter of the Democratic Party and Joe Biden. She believes Biden has performed well as president and that he\u2019s leading America to a strong and sustainable economic recovery. She deplores Republicans and particularly Donald Trump. And, as her throwaway line above suggests, she\u2019s a strong supporter of Biden\u2019s foreign policy.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cMeanwhile, Ukraine is running out of ammunition.\u201d And I guess it\u2019s the job of all patriotic and loyal Americans to continue funding war in a former Soviet republic. Why? Because if we Americans don\u2019t enable the killing of Russians in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin will allegedly be emboldened to attack NATO, invade Europe, and kill U.S. troops.<\/p>\n

We must use Ukrainian troops over there so we don\u2019t have to fight the Russians closer to home with U.S. troops.<\/p>\n

As far as how long the U.S. government should keep sending ammunition and other forms of deadly munitions to Ukraine, the answer of war hawks like Richardson seems to be: \u201cFor as long as it takes for Ukraine to win.\u201d What winning looks like is often left undefined, but it seems a \u201cwin\u201d would involve the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory.<\/p>\n

How long such a \u201cwin\u201d might take, whether such a \u201cwin\u201d is even possible, and how many more Ukrainians (and Russians) must die in pursuit of that \u201cwin\u201d are questions that go unanswered. Typically when I raise such questions, I\u2019m told it\u2019s up to Ukraine and its leaders to answer them. My job as a U.S. taxpayer is simply to lend my country\u2019s money to Ukraine so that it can have more bullets and bombs to kill more Russians.<\/p>\n

Helping to sustain a viciously stalemated war in Ukraine by sending more ammunition should make me proud to be an American, so I\u2019m told. Why am I not proud of this? What is wrong with my brain that I don\u2019t see the pressing need to send more bullets and bombs and shells to Ukraine so that the killing might continue?<\/p>\n

After all, what\u2019s wrong with more cluster munitions<\/a> and depleted uranium shells<\/a> for our Ukrainian comrades? What could be more democratic, more reasonable, more American, than helping others to kill?<\/p>\n

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<\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author\u2019s permission. \u201cMeanwhile, Ukraine is running out of ammunition.\u201d That was the last sentence in Heather Cox Richardson\u2019s \u201cLetters from an American\u201d column for January 25, 2024. I read her daily columns. She\u2019s a strong supporter of the Democratic Party and Joe Biden. She believes Biden has performed well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-45662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":"It's why I'm proud to be an American"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45662"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45666,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45662\/revisions\/45666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45662"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=45662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}