248 - House Republicans Enable Putin and Jeopardize Ukrainians Just to Save Trump
"Useful Idiots"
They should hang their heads in shame. Ukrainians are dying all along the 600-mile long war front. Tired and endangered infantry are being forced reluctantly to retreat only because American Congressional Republicans refuse to do what they know is right, and that they must eventually do: appropriate the funds requested by President Biden to resupply Ukraine's fighting forced with ammunition, electronic equipment to counter Russian jamming, air defenses, and long-range artillery. The question is not about the amounts -- $60 billion for Ukraine's army and air force, $14 billion for Israel (now open to second thoughts because of the humanitarian disaster in Gaza) and $10 billion for various other relief and reconstruction objectives.
Democrats in the House of Representatives need to overcome Speaker Mike Johnson's hold on the appropriations by enacting a discharge petition that will put the appropriations bill before the entire House for a vote. It has widespread support; the Senate has already passed the bill. Readers might very well pass this column on to their respective Representatives, for action.
There is much more at stake even than saving lives and guaranteeing freedom in Ukraine. The Economist put it well last week: Russia "morphed into a nihilistic and unpredictable foe of the liberal world order, bent on disruption and sabotage. It is like North Korea or Iran on steroids, armed with thousands of nuclear warheads."
Russia exercises an ability and a willingness to hobble international institutions -- the very bedrock foundations of the new world order that was created by the U. S. and its allies after World War II. Remember that Putin has just been re-anointed by his fake election for life-long rule over a declining world power that is totally under his harsh control. Dissent is not permitted. Punishment is readily available for anyone caring to criticize him or the Russian military effort in Ukraine. I labelled him the Butcher of Sochi in a recent column. Putin is the longest serving Russian dictator since Stalin, whose model of repression Putin now seeks to outdo.
That means bombing Odesa and other Ukrainian cities on a nightly basis, jamming counterattacks by Ukrainian missiles and drones, sending assassins against the late Andrei Navalny's aides in Lithuania, and redoubling alliances with China and North Korea. I worry about the safety of Navalny's widow. Putin may even already be upgrading Kim Jong-un's security and attack skills in North Korea in exchange for the thousands of shells Kim is sending to Russia.
It is no hyperbole to suggest, as President Biden and Polish President Donald Tusk (among others) believe, that Putin has his conquest sights set on Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania after Ukraine, with Poland and Germany also in line. Putin said as much in his election victory comments in Red Square on Monday.
Republican playing, Trump-initiated and inspired, preposterous political games are feeding Putin's immediate and his longer-term ambitions. Putin also knows that Trump is in his pocket, so time -- Putin assumes -- is on his side. His stomach for conquest is obviously stronger than are the innards of American resolve, or so he believes. Furthermore, he has no Quisling better than Trump to arouse a gullible public. Does President Biden really want to share intelligence information with Trump that will somehow be leaked to Putin?
The only good answer to Putin is to make war against him and his military lackeys through proxies like Ukraine. But for Biden's offensive through Ukraine to be credible, he must have funding approval now, not tomorrow. The war against Putin is our war, a titanic struggle to preserve freedom and humanity not only throughout Ukraine and Europe (minus Hungary and Serbia) but throughout the entire world. Even the African and South American countries who are trying to be neutral in the Ukrainian war in order to preserve their access to discounted Russian oil or fertilizer know that the democracy that their constituents demand cannot be guaranteed by a Russian victory. Asians are aware, too, that a Russian success against Ukraine will embolden China's Xi Jinping, doom their respective desires to remain independent, and condemnTaiwan, and cut access by the Philippines and Vietnam to the resources of their South China Sea.
The West and NATO, led by the U.S. (and not by a neutered Congress) needs to send military reinforcements. But it must also (Trumpism be damned) double down on the export of "universal liberal values." The transmission of those values and accompanying soft power enabled us to win the Cold War. We successfully undermined the "inhumanity" of the Soviet totalitarian system (which Putin now tries to resume). Its disinformation we countered; its ideological underpinnings we exposed as fully false. We need now, urgently, to answer Russian disinformation efforts in Europe (let's try to remove Hungary from NATO), and to do much the same across the global south. It is time to try to strengthen the likes of Radio Liberty and to beam true news into Russia through whatever social media outlets are still usable.
Until Putin is imploded somehow from within, the political leaders of Europe and the U. S. must give no quarter to his malign endeavors. To do so, President Biden and his counterparts must overcome wooly-headed hesitation within their own countries. In Washington, we cannot afford to wait until after November; the no-sayers in Congress must be marginalized now.
P.S.
In any other country someone preaching violence, suggesting that shoplifters be shot, that a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be executed, that migrants were poisoning the nation's blood, that rally attendees should attack protesters, and that a "blood bath" would follow his electoral loss would be prosecuted and jailed. But Trump gets away with such vituperations and approvals of violence. In Brazil former President Jair Bolsonaro has just been indicted for forging his Covid-19 vaccination record. Only the likes of Putin -- he can do “whatever he likes” against NATO and Ukraine says Trump -- can applaud as U. S. tolerance of Trump's outrageous calls to violence are stretched beyond any prior limits. And, just in, the U.S. ranking in the World Happiness Index fell out of the top 20 for the first time — one more consequence of Trump’s malevolence and his eruption of polarized violence. Added stress becomes toxic.