Don’t Abandon Kyiv Now!
What a time for lawmakers to play games with Ukraine. Kyiv’s at a critical point in its war with Russia, in the midst of a vital counteroffensive. The tide of the war may hang in the balance. Yet lawmakers pause Ukraine aid. Are they nuts?
President Biden’s almost always wrong, but he was right to insist Congress “stop playing games” and OK more cash after Congress’ bill kept the government running but omitted aid for Ukriane.
We know: Many GOPers hoped to avoid a shutdown and figured they could pass Ukraine funding later. Yet now Speaker Kevin McCarthy is using Ukraine to force the issue of securing the US-Mexican border.
Well, of course something must be done ASAP about the border.
But, hello? This is the United States: We can walk and chew gum at the same time.
McCarthy’s catering to short-sighted GOPers who want to shut the spigot for reasons that are hard to fathom. Is it due to a real intellectual discourse about America’s place in the world, or because it’s trendy and gets you more likes on Elon Musk’s X?
Is there a constituency against helping Ukraine because of deeply held beliefs about “forever wars” or because they’ve been alarmed by scaremongering over nuclear war and a false equivalency with border and welfare spending?
A dollar spent on Ukraine doesn’t directly rob a dollar from stopping the fentanyl crisis or from a pensioner’s Social Security.
Some of the “rebels,” led by Rep. Matt Gaetz, age 2, are threatening to strip McCarthy of his speakership. McCarthy, in appeasing them, has sown panic. What kind of message is Congress sending Vladimir Putin and expansionist regimes like China?
President Volodymyr Zelensky warns if Ukraine doesn’t get more aid, it’ll lose the war. Russia may then feel emboldened and look to gobble up more territory, triggering an even bigger war that costs America not only far more money, but lives.
No one favors giving notoriously corrupt Ukraine a blank check, of course. But that can’t be an excuse to let Russia win.
By the way, Republicans aren’t the only ones to blame here: Clearly the deal to hold up aid involved Democrats, too. That most lawmakers favor more aid but failed to pass it points up Congress’ utter dysfunction.
Biden, too, could be speaking out more, rather than bloviating about fake “threats to democracy” or Bidenomics.
Look: America has a lot invested in its ally, and that’s helped it survive so far; we’ve come too far to give up now. As the world’s superpower, it’s up to America to prevent what would be one of history’s biggest disasters: letting Russia win.