U.S. war machine has much to gain from Ukraine battle

America is still what it began as, 246 years ago. The world’s leading democracy remains a divided nation. The visible disconnect between people’s desire for justice and leadership goals is vast and manifests itself in a long festering visceral discontent that, at this moment pulls America backwards — reminiscent of the 1928 Scopes Monkey Trials, the prosecution of a Tennessee science teacher for illegally teaching evolution in the classroom.

The righteous superiority American claims over Russia and China fizzles when America is willing to take away women’s right to safe health care, a right they have enjoyed for decades — relegating female Americans to second-class citizens.

This kind of jaw-dropping hypocrisy does not go without a response.

Thankfully some common sense does prevail. May Day celebrations around the world brought hundreds of thousands of workers into the streets for world peace. In Berlin, over 100,000 Germans came out to protest against Germany sending more lethal arms to Ukraine.

As food and fuel shortages surge prices, reasonable people say, enough is enough. They are asking, how many more Ukrainians need to be killed or maimed to weaken Russia?

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has already agreed to Russia’s terms — neutrality and the surrender of Donbass and Crimea.

The West will not let Ukraine sue for peace. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin admits the U.S. is fighting a proxy war with Russia. Nancy Pelosi urged Ukrainians to emulate American revolutionary heroes while Boris Johnson, with an eye to his own election advises Zelenskyy, with Churchillian quotes, to fight for ultimate victory.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military industrial complex, which seems to be running U.S. foreign policy is making billions in arms sales. The Pentagon reports the U.S. gave the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces $18.6 billion in military equipment between 2005 and 2021. By the time the last transport plane left Afghan airspace, the Americans had left over $7.12 billion in military equipment on the ground.

U.S. President Joe Biden wanted to go back and bomb the military equipment the U.S. had left, but was advised against it by the Joint Chiefs of Staff because of potentially huge civilian causalities. With Afghanistan over, Ukraine has become the new moneypit for U.S. military industrial complex.

Jon Peter Christoff, West Kelowna