{"id":47209,"date":"2024-04-21T09:25:39","date_gmt":"2024-04-21T17:25:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=47209"},"modified":"2024-04-21T09:25:39","modified_gmt":"2024-04-21T17:25:39","slug":"the-arsenal-of-democracy-is-merely-an-arsenal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2024\/04\/21\/the-arsenal-of-democracy-is-merely-an-arsenal\/","title":{"rendered":"The &#8216;Arsenal of Democracy&#8217; Is Merely an Arsenal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>Reprinted from <a href=\"https:\/\/bracingviews.substack.com\/\">Bracing Views<\/a> with the author\u2019s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>Imagine that! $26 billion for Israel as it slaughters Palestinians in Gaza. America is led by moral monsters and mental midgets.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<div class=\"captioned-image-container\">\n<figure>\n<div class=\"image2-inset\"><picture><source srcset=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd3cf5d9c-eb83-46cd-91bc-e44c15c9479a.heic 424w, https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd3cf5d9c-eb83-46cd-91bc-e44c15c9479a.heic 848w, https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd3cf5d9c-eb83-46cd-91bc-e44c15c9479a.heic 1272w, https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd3cf5d9c-eb83-46cd-91bc-e44c15c9479a.heic 1456w\" type=\"image\/webp\" sizes=\"100vw\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"sizing-normal\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd3cf5d9c-eb83-46cd-91bc-e44c15c9479a.heic\" sizes=\"100vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd3cf5d9c-eb83-46cd-91bc-e44c15c9479a.heic 424w, https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd3cf5d9c-eb83-46cd-91bc-e44c15c9479a.heic 848w, https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd3cf5d9c-eb83-46cd-91bc-e44c15c9479a.heic 1272w, https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd3cf5d9c-eb83-46cd-91bc-e44c15c9479a.heic 1456w\" alt=\"\" width=\"1160\" height=\"653\" data-attrs=\"{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/d3cf5d9c-eb83-46cd-91bc-e44c15c9479a.heic&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:653,&quot;width&quot;:1160,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:53836,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image\/heic&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null}\" \/><\/picture><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"captioned-image-container\" style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<figure><figcaption class=\"image-caption\"><em>Speaker Mike Johnson confuses the Baltics with the Balkans and says the Bible tells us America must support Israel no matter what that country does. Does he \u201cspeak\u201d for you?<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>I predicted months ago (not a tough prediction) that Republicans would eventually cave and support Ukraine. In this election year, they don\u2019t want to be blamed for \u201closing\u201d the Russia-Ukraine War. Even though the war is going poorly for Ukraine, the answer is never to negotiate or deescalate, it\u2019s always to escalate with even more destructive weaponry. Of course, this is justified by America\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>There was a time, World War II to be exact, when it made a smidgen of sense to call America the \u201cArsenal of Democracy.\u201d Those days are long gone. America is now simply an arsenal.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, this is yet another triumph for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.urbandictionary.com\/define.php?term=MICIMATT\">MICIMATT<\/a>: 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.<\/p>\n<p>But let me give the last word to my smarter wife, who upon hearing of yet another $95 billion for war put it succinctly: \u201cAll that money to kill people.\u201d Then she added: they are the planet-wreckers.<\/p>\n<p><i>William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools. He writes at <a href=\"https:\/\/bracingviews.substack.com\/\">Bracing Views<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author\u2019s 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\u2019s share of the aid, roughly $61 billion, while Israel gets roughly $26 billion, which is $12 billion more [&hellip;]<\/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-47209","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":"$95 Billion for More War, Weapons, and Death"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47209","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=47209"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47214,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47209\/revisions\/47214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47209"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=47209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}