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Southeast Asia on Course to Ukraine-Style Crisis Amid US Militarization of Philippines

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 22.04.2024

US and Philippine troops kicked off the largest iteration of their annual Balikatan exercises in decades this week, with this year’s drills involving some 11,000 US and 5,000 Filipino military personnel, plus forces from Australia and France. Geopolitical analyst and former US Marine Brian Berletic explains why the drills are so dangerous.

Chinese diplomatic and military officials slammed Washington and Manila over the Balikatan drills on Monday, accusing participants of attempting to “flex” their “gunboat muscles,” stoking confrontation in the South China Sea and undermining regional security.

“Reality has shown that those who make deliberate provocations, stoke tensions, or support one side against another for selfish gains will ultimately only hurt themselves,” Chinese Central Military Commission Zhang Youxia said, warning that US-led attempts at “maritime containment, encirclement and island blockades will only plunge the world into a vortex of division and turbulence.”

The Chinese military plans to increase its naval and air patrols in the South China Sea amid the US-Philippines exercises, which will run until May 10, and include everything from maritime security and air defense operations to cyber and information warfare, and simulate the seizure of islands in the vicinity of Taiwan and the South China Sea.

Crucially, drilling will include naval exercises outside the Philippines’ internationally recognized territorial waters near the disputed South China Sea – parts of which are claimed by both Manila and Beijing.

Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte warned current President Bongbong Marcos Jr last week about the risks of cozying up with the US at the expense of balanced relations with China, accusing Washington of trying to provoke a war between the Philippines and China, and emphasizing that he doesn’t believe “America will die for us” if tensions grow into direct clashes.

“I would remove the bases. And I would tell the Americans, you have so many ships, so you do not need my island as a launching pad or a launching deck for you,” Duterte said.

Assuming office in 2022, the Marcos Jr. government moved to expand the Philippines’ Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement with the United States, nearly doubling the number of military bases in the country that the US gets access to from five to nine in 2023. Two of the facilities, the Antonio Bautista Air Base and the Balabac Island Air Base in the Palawan archipelago, border directly on contested waters in the South China Sea.

Echoes of Ukrainian Escalation

Filipinos are right to be concerned about US attempts to militarize their country, says former US Marine-turned author, journalist and independent geopolitical analyst Brian Berletic.

“The Philippines were previously a US colony gaining independence only in 1945. Since then, the US has attempted to reassert political control over the country as well as maintain a large US military presence on its shores. The goal is to militarize the country and use it as part of a wider united front against China,” Berletic told Sputnik.

“Exercises like Balikatan give the US an opportunity to shape the Philippines’ armed forces into a suitable proxy for a potential conflict with China,” the observer warned.

The creeping militarization of the island nation is not unlike processes witnessed in the aftermath of the Euromaidan coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014, which were followed by joint military exercises involving US and Ukrainian troops, Berletic recalled.

These processes ultimately culminated in the 2022 escalation of the Donbass crisis into a full-blown NATO-Russia proxy war.

“Washington’s primary objective in the Asia-Pacific region is to encircle and contain China. To do this, the US is attempting to compromise the governments of nations along China’s periphery including the Philippines, establish a US military presence within their borders, and militarize these countries against China,” the observer explained.

In addition to allowing the US to move its military assets “dangerously close to Chinese territory,” including in the disputed waters of the South China Sea and off the shores of the breakaway Chinese island province of Taiwan, US activities in the Philippines are designed to take advantage of and artificially inflame outstanding regional maritime disputes.

This enables Washington to “both justify a larger US military presence in the region, and turn nations in the region against China,” Berletic said.

“This will result in a similar crisis as seen in Europe where the US not only used Ukraine in a highly destructive proxy war against Russia, but also decimated Europe’s economy, socio-political stability, and placed the entire region on the precipice of a US-driven war,” Berletic fears.

South China Sea Dispute

The dispute between China, the Philippines and other nations over the strategic, energy and fishing resource-rich waters of the South China Sea dates back to the immediate post-WWII period, with Beijing staking claims on the basis of imperial dynasties’ near total control over waters in the area prior to the arrival of the Europeans and Americans in the region.

China has been exploring a regional dispute mechanism with its South China Sea neighbors since 2002, and has called on Washington – which has no claims to the region, to butt out. The US has gradually ramped up its military presence in the region since the early 2010s, when Obama Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the South China Sea a matter of US “national interest.” In addition to shoring up a network of alliances and undermining Chinese negotiating efforts, the US has deployed Navy and Coast Guard ships into the South China Sea on so-called ‘freedom of navigation’ missions to challenge Chinese sovereignty claims. These missions have resulted in a series of close calls between Chinese, US and US-allied warships and military aircraft.

America’s “national interest” in the South China Sea is also inexorably tied in part to a strategy of containing China through the so-called ‘Island Chain Strategy’, which envisions a broad network of US bases and bilateral pacts with regional powers to prevent the Chinese Navy from being able to mount operations beyond its home waters.

April 22, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine: US doubles down, Russia is cool

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | APRIL 22, 2024 

Russia’s free running in the Ukraine war in the most recent months is about to end this week as the Biden Administration has met with success in the US Congress on the long-stalled Ukraine aid bill. The aid approved by the House on Saturday would send $60.8 billion to Ukraine.

Senate approval is expected as soon a Tuesday this week. President Biden has promised, “I will immediately sign this law to send a signal to the whole world: we support our friends and will not allow Iran or Russia to succeed,” 

To be sure, the US is doubling down to forestall an outright Russian military victory in Ukraine through this year. Unsurprisingly, Washington’s transatlantic allies are also rallying, which is the message coming out of the virtual meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council at the level of Allied Defence Ministers chaired by Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at Brussels on Saturday. 

The sense of relief in Kiev is palpable with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy telling NBC, “I think this support will really strengthen the armed forces of Ukraine, and we will have a chance for victory.” He said the US lawmakers moved to keep “history on the right track.” 

On the other hand, the Russian reaction has been rather polemical — The foreign ministry spokesperson said in Moscow, “White House is no longer banking on an ephemeral victory by the Kiev regime under its control. All it wants is for the Ukrainian armed forces to hold out at least until the November voting without damaging Biden’s image… we confirm that Washington’s actions as an active party to the conflict will be rebuffed unconditionally and decisively, and its increasingly deeper plunge into the hybrid war against Russia will end up in a fiasco for the United States as scandalous and humiliating as in Vietnam and Afghanistan.” 

What seems to perturb Moscow most in the US aid bill is its provision for confiscating frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine, which, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov singled out “because this is essentially the destruction of all the foundations of the economic system. This is an encroachment on state property, on state assets and on private property. By no means should this be perceived as legal action — it is illegal. And accordingly, it will be subject to retaliatory actions and legal proceedings,”

Of course, the Russian military moves going forward will be keenly watched. In such fluid circumstances, actions speak better than words. At any rate, an inflection point has come since, evidently with an eye on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forthcoming visit to Beijing, the Biden Administration is also shifting gear to explicitly threaten China for allegedly supporting the Russian defence industry. The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is paying a 3-day visit to China on Wednesday.  

Taken together, what emerges is that the Biden Administration is doubling down on the Ukraine war, contrary to earlier prognosis that war fatigue is setting in. Meanwhile, Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder has disclosed to Politico in a statement that the Biden Administration is considering sending additional military advisers to Ukraine, since “security conditions have evolved.” 

The additional personnel “would not be in a combat role, but rather would advise and support the Ukrainian government and military.” The specific numbers of personnel remain confidential “for operational security and force protection reasons.” They will support logistics and oversight efforts for the weapons the US is sending Ukraine and “new contingent will also help the Ukrainian military with weapons maintenance.” 

Indeed, the fact remains that even in a non-combat role, what is in the cards is an expansion of the US military presence in Ukraine, notwithstanding Biden’s repeated assertions that US troops wouldn’t participate in the war on Ukraine’s behalf, as doing so would increase the risk of a direct Russian-American military confrontation. 

Citing sources, Politico further reported that “One of the tasks the advisers will tackle is helping the Ukrainians plan sustainment of complex equipment donated by the US as the summer fighting is expected to ramp up.” 

Interestingly, it has been reported on Saturday that French troops are already on the ground in Odessa numbering 1,000 and another contingent is expected shortly. This was  forecast a few weeks ago by the Russian foreign intelligence but Paris flatly denied it.

How does the new US $60.75 billion aid package add up? It includes $23.2 billion intended to replenish US weapons stocks; $13.8 billion for the purchase of advanced weapons systems for Ukraine; and another $11.3 billion for “ongoing US military operations in the region.” 

That is to say, in effect, the direct military assistance to Ukraine will actually amount to about $13.8 billion till end-2024. The Russian experts estimate that this allocation rules out another Ukrainian “counteroffensive.” Besides, while the increased flow of US weaponry will beef up the Ukrainian military capability to withstand the Russian offensive, it cannot fundamentally change the balance of forces at the front. 

From a military angle, the cutting edge of the bill lies in the fact that it opens the gateway for the transfer to Ukraine of tactical missile systems [ATACMS] capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to 300 km, which brings Crimea within its range. President Putin is on record that the ATACMS “are not at all able to change the situation on the line of contact… [but are] “certainly damaging and pose an additional threat.”  

Put differently, the aid package aims on the one hand to avoid a catastrophic military situation arising at the front in the coming months, which could be politically damaging for Biden’s re-election bid, while on the other hand, the bulk of funds actually goes to the US arms manufacturers in some key “swing states” and will surely gratify the influential military-industrial complex and the Deep State. 

Biden told Wall Street Journal, “We will send military equipment from our own stocks, and then use the money authorised by Congress to replenish these stocks by buying them from American suppliers. This includes Patriot missiles made in Arizona, Javelin missiles made in Alabama, and artillery shells made in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas.” 

To be sure, the triumphalist narrative of the Ukraine war by the US state department is on a comeback trail. Equally, it appears that Donald Trump has shed his ambivalence and decided to be supportive of the bill. The meeting between Trump and the Republican House speaker Mike Johnson in the run-up to the vote in the House on Saturday would suggest that the latter will not be ousted by his far-right House Republican colleagues.

April 22, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Final Nail in America’s Coffin?

By Ron Paul | April 22, 2024

When future historians go searching for the final nail in the US coffin, they may well settle on the date April 20, 2024.

On that day Congress passed legislation to fund two and a half wars, hand what’s left of our privacy over to the CIA and NSA, and give the US president the power to shut down whatever part of the Internet he disagrees with.

The nearly $100 billion grossly misnamed “National Security Supplemental” guarantees that Ukrainians will continue to die in that country’s unwinnable war with Russia, that Palestinian civilians will continue to be slaughtered in Gaza with US weapons, and that the neocons will continue to push us toward a war with China.

It was a total victory for the war party.

The huge spending bill is all about politics for Biden, yet so many Republicans simply went along with it. The last thing the people running Biden’s White House want to see as a close election approaches are ads blaming Biden for “losing Ukraine.”

The US and its allies have already sent over $300 billion to Ukraine and the country is still losing its war with Russia. Nobody believes another $60 billion will pull a victory from the jaws of defeat. But this additional money is meant to keep up appearances until November at the expense of Americans who are forced to pay for it and Ukrainians who are forced to die for it.

Speaker Johnson could not have passed these monstrosities without the full support of House Democrats, as the majority of Republicans voted against more money for Ukraine. So in the worst example of “bipartisanship,” Johnson reached across the aisle, stiffed the Republican majority that elected him Speaker, and pushed through a massive gift to the warfare/(corporate) welfare state.

After the House voted to send another $60 billion to notoriously corrupt Ukraine, Members waved Ukrainian flags on the House Floor and chanted “Ukraine, Ukraine.” While I find it distasteful and disgusting, in some way it seemed fitting. After all, they may as well chant the name of a foreign country because they certainly don’t care about this country!

Along with sending $100 billion that we don’t have to fund more overseas war, Speaker Johnson threw in another version of the Tik Tok ban, which gives Joe Biden and future presidents the power to shut down websites at will by simply declaring them to be “foreign adversary controlled.”

Not to be outdone, the US Senate on that same day passed the extension of Section 702 of the FISA Act, which not only allowed the government to continue spying on us without a warrant, but also contained new language massively expanding how they can spy on us.

Many conservative voters are asking what the point of Republican control of the House is if the agenda is determined by Democrats. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is even reported to have bragged to his colleagues about how easily Speaker Johnson gave Democrats everything they wanted and asked for nothing in return.

What is the silver lining in all this bad news? Most Republicans in the House voted against continuing the Ukraine war. That’s a good start. Our ideas are growing, not only across the country but even in the DC swamp. Take courage and don’t give up! Work for peace!

April 22, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

NATO Pressuring Greece and Spain to Give Remaining Air Defense Systems Away to Ukraine

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 22.04.2024

Russia dramatically ramped up its air and missile strikes inside Ukraine in March in the wake of a coordinated campaign by Ukraine’s military targeting Russian infrastructure using drone warfare. The strikes created large holes in Ukraine’s air defenses which Kiev’s NATO patrons are now hoping to patch up.

Officials in the European Union and NATO have launched a pressure campaign targeting Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to give their advanced air defense systems away to Ukraine.

“We all know who has them, we all know where they are, and we all know who really needs them,” a person briefed on the campaign told London-based business media in an article published Monday.

The campaign mirrors increasingly loud appeals by Ukrainian President Zelensky asking NATO allies to donate their air defenses to Kiev amid Russia’s strikes. “Patriots can only be called air defense systems if they work and save lives rather than standing immobile somewhere in storage bases,” Zelensky wrote in an X post Sunday.

Germany agreed to give one additional Patriot to Kiev, but other countries, among them Greece and Spain, have hesitated, reportedly sharing more than a dozen Patriots and a handful of S-300 launchers between them (the latter bought by Greece in the 1990s). Greece previously ruled out handing off its S-300s to Ukraine, citing the need to keep its forces balanced with the capabilities of Turkiye – which possesses Russian-made S-400s.

Mitsotakis and Sanchez were reportedly asked to give up their air defense systems to Ukraine at a summit in Brussels last week, and pressure was expected to “intensify” at a Monday meeting of EU foreign and defense ministers, according to officials.

“There are countries that are not in an immediate need of their air defense systems, to be very honest. Each country is being asked to decide what it can spare,” an EU diplomat involved in Monday’s negotiations said. “The most important discussion will be to identify what member states can do to support Ukraine’s air defense. That’s the most important thing,” a senior EU official said.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell confirmed to reporters on Monday that Brussels has been “asking all member states to do whatever they can in order to increase the air defense capacity of Ukraine.”

NATO has engaged in its own push lobbying members to surrender their air defense systems, with alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg announcing Friday at a defense ministers meeting attended by Zelensky that allies had agreed to provide additional air defense support.

“NATO has mapped out existing capabilities across the alliance and there are systems that could be made available to Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said, elaborating that “this mapping confirms that there are systems including Patriot systems available to be provided to Ukraine.”

Weeks of Russian strikes targeting Ukrainian military positions, defense factories, ammunition depots and electricity-generating infrastructure have left Ukraine’s air defense network in a shambles, with the national air defense system disintegrating and forces reduced to operating on a local level. “Their [unified] radar field has been completely lost, and the automated control system has been lost. Their air defenses act locally: what they see, they shoot down. That is, there is no centralized leadership there, like we have with a central command post,” former Commonwealth of Independent States’ Integrated Air Defense System deputy commander Aytech Bizhev told Sputnik last week.

Russia’s defense ministry says it has destroyed over 508 pieces of Ukrainian air defense equipment since February 2022, including 63 systems destroyed since the start of the current year. Along with Patriots and S-300s, Russia has targeted an array of other systems, from mobile tracked Flakpanzer Gepard anti-air artillery to SAMP-T extended range air defense systems, IRIS-T short-range SAMs, NASAMS short-to-medium-range air defense systems, AN/MPQ-64F1 Sentinel radars and other equipment.

The NATO and EU pressure campaign asking members to throw even more pricy air defense equipment into the Ukrainian crisis contrasts sharply with claims by bloc officials that Russia may be preparing to attack European countries, and warnings by military officials in Germany, Italy, Denmark, Belgium and other countries that the depletion of weapons and ammo stocks has left allies with enough supplies to last just days in case of a full-scale conflict.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed Monday that the risk of a direct clash between Russia and the West exists, but said this was the result of NATO’s continued sponsorship of the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.

April 22, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

PM Orbán’s warning to Europe: ‘World wars are never called world wars in the beginning’

“This vortex of war could drag Europe down”

BY DÉNES ALBERT | REMIX NEWS | APRIL 22, 2024

Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán has issued a new warning about rising tensions in Europe, saying that world wars are never called world wars in the beginning, noting that the First and Second World Wars were initiated by a series of smaller conflicts.

“Brussels is playing with fire. What it is doing is an act of temptation. World wars are never called world wars in the beginning. The Third Balkan War, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the partition of Poland, and the end was a world war twice over,” he warned.

Tensions are rising in Europe, Orbán said in a post on his Facebook page on Sunday, pointing out that the mood on the continent is one of war, and that politics is dominated by the logic of war.

“The NATO secretary-general wants to set up a NATO-Ukraine mission. European leaders have already fallen into war, they see this war as their own war and are fighting it as their own war,” he said.

“At first, it was only about sending helmets. Then sanctions, but not on energy producers! Then, yes, on those too. Then, came the arms shipments. First firearms, then tanks, then planes, and then financial aid. More and more, tens of billions. Now, we’re somewhere around a 100 billion — in euros. Money, supplies, weapons, but the situation is not getting better, it’s getting worse,” the prime minister said.

Orbán reiterated a warning he has now issued a number of times, saying that Europe is one step away from the West sending troops to Ukraine. He said that Brussels is promoting a “war vortex” that could drag Europe into the abyss.

At the end of his post, Orbán stressed that Hungarians know what war is like, referring to the devastating period of destruction Hungary faced during the Second World War and the subsequent decades-long occupation of Hungary by Soviet forces, including a crushed uprising against communist rule in 1956.

At the same time, Orbán stated Hungary’s position: “This is not our war. We do not want war, and we do not want Hungary to become the plaything of great powers again.”

“That is why we have to stand up for peace — at home, in Brussels, in Washington, in the UN and in NATO,” Orbán concluded his post.

April 22, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

World Military Expenditure Reaches All-Time High of $2,443Bln in 2023 – SIPRI

Sputnik – 22.04.2024

Global military expenditure increased by 6.8% in 2023 year-over-year and reached a new record high of $2,443 billion, with the three largest spenders being the US, China and Russia, according to new data published on Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

“World military expenditure rose for the ninth consecutive year to an all-time high of $2,443 billion,” SIPRI said.

Moreover, military expenditure increased in all five of the geographical regions defined by SIPRI, the institute added.

The US remained the world’s biggest military spender with a 37% share of the world total and $916 billion spent in 2023. It is followed by China with a 12% share and an estimated $296 billion spent on the military and Russia with a 4.5% share and an estimated $109 billion spent on defense last year, which represents a 24% increase compared to 2022.

Ukraine, the eighth largest spender in 2023, increased its military spending by 51% year-over-year to $64.8 billion, which is 58% of the country’s total government spending.

The Middle East has seen a 9% surge in military spending, with Israel’s spending growing by 24% to $27.5 billion amid its operation in the Gaza Strip, the institute added.

April 22, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

West mired in Ukraine crisis due to unwillingness or inability to confront reality

By Eusebio Filopatro | Global Times | April 21, 2024

As the Russia-Ukraine war drags on, a peace conference is to be held in Switzerland this summer. But Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said that Russia hadn’t been invited to participate in June’s talks. “It would have been funny if it weren’t so sad,” he commented.

Practically all Russian commentators, and even some prominent Western ones, trace the roots of the conflict in Ukraine to NATO’s attempts at incorporating Russia’s neighbor – as officially stated since at least as far back as 2008. A disregard for Russia’s status as an equal and sovereign partner was evident in the contempt for the Minsk agreements, which both former German chancellor Angela Merkel and former French president Francois Hollande described as gimmicks to buy time for the only option that was seriously pursued, military confrontation. Later on, Vladimir Putin’s vocal request for security guarantees was dismissed yet again.

Fast forward a few years, and this historical tragedy has snowballed to its extreme conclusions. Politico recently reported Ukrainian officials’ concerns about a collapse of the frontlines. As Elon Musk calls for a negotiated settlement to come soon, he warns that the longer the war drags on, the larger the territory Russia will seek to annex. Even CNN is now explaining how Russia’s guided bombs are wreaking havoc on Ukrainian defenses. Meanwhile, the IMF has raised Russia’s growth outlook. In short, and irrespective of whether this will take weeks, months or years, Russia is well placed politically, economically and militarily to inflict the final blow.

The conditions of Ukraine’s sponsors are remarkably less favorable. Europe’s economic problems are “far bigger than a shallow recession.” The Union faces a dilemma over restricting imports from Ukraine or throwing its own agriculture under the bus. It is also split on the use of frozen Russian assets to finance the war. The Union will renew its Parliament in June and it is unclear whether Ursula von der Leyen will be re-elected. Even though the US House of Representatives on Saturday passed a $95 billion legislative package, including $60.84 billion to address the conflict in Ukraine, the US’ presidential elections in November still cast another shadow of uncertainty, to the point that NATO is considering setting aside “Trump-proof” funds.

Europe’s public opinion has also made up its mind on the matter. Only one in ten Europeans believe Ukraine can defeat Russia. The Pope has literally invited Ukraine to raise a white flag. Wolfgang Streeck, the Director of the Max Planck Institute, said, “The war is lost but our governments refuse to admit it.” A crushing military defeat would be the worst possible background for European and American elections, and erode confidence in the respective leaderships: The West should not fall prey to a sunk cost fallacy of catastrophic proportions. What would then be the way forward?

The rational course of action would be for the West to turn to diplomacy to correct such a disastrous trajectory, much like Musk and the Pope suggested. Even if Russia refused, or the attempt failed, the West would at least claim the moral high ground on this occasion. A comprehensive peace conference with the involvement of representative guarantors from the Global South could offer a lifeline to Ukraine, and a model for ironing out geopolitical tensions that are dangerously multiplying all over the world. Chinese diplomacy is going out of its way to make this possible, and the African Union, Brazil, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and many others have also stepped forward with constructive proposals.

Yet leaders on both shores of the Atlantic are headed elsewhere. US Vice President Kamala Harris and European Council President Charles Michel are adamant that “There is only plan A”: military support for Ukraine. Along this path, some risky decisions appear increasingly likely. And pressure is mounting to use seized Russian assets to finance Ukraine. Of this move, in 2022, US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said “would not be legal.” But, apparently, a green light could come at the G7 summit in June.

If a botched peace conference would exact high reputational costs for Western diplomacy, the seizing of Russian assets could turn into a kamikaze attack, and unsettle the very domain wherein the West retains relative dominance, the international financial system. Neither initiative is likely to end the conflict in Ukraine.

If all such workarounds are really only dead ends, a reckoning with reality should be hastened rather than delayed. Yet, it is precisely the unwillingness or inability to confront the reality of the situation that got us here in the first place.

The author is a foreign policy analyst for Italy and the EU.

April 21, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Rep. Gosar on Ukraine Vote: Congress ‘Seems to Want to Help Every Country Except America’

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 21.04.2024

The House of Representatives gathered for a rare weekend session Saturday to advance $95 billion in new assistance for Washington’s foreign allies and clients, including just shy of $61 billion for Ukraine. Moscow slammed the decision, saying it signals US ruling elites’ commitment to Ukraine’s destruction in a hopeless proxy war against Russia.

Saturday’s vote to provide new US aid to Ukraine is a sign of the US political class’s readiness to “waste” taxpayer money abroad instead of using it to focus on issues Americans actually care about, Congressman Paul Gosar has told Sputnik.

“Unfortunately, 210 Democrats joined 101 Republicans in voting in favor of wasting more money on a war half a globe away. America is in a ditch and too many in Congress refuse to find the will to address the long list of issues ailing our nation,” Gosar, a Republican representing the state of Arizona, said.

“I’m angry that Congress and Joe Biden don’t hesitate to find another $60 billion for a corrupt country but are unbothered that inflation is 19% higher since Biden took office, gasoline is hovering around $4 a gallon nationwide, 11 million illegal aliens have poured into our country, interest rates for a home mortgage are 8%, our roads and bridges are in disrepair, our national debt is $34 trillion, real wages are in decline, parents have to decide between feeding their children or putting fuel in their automobile and we have a growing veteran homeless crisis in every corner of our country,” the lawmaker said.

Pointing out that he has voted consistently “against every dime wasted on the war in Ukraine” and “repeatedly called for peace,” since the escalation of the crisis in February 2022, Gosar confirmed that he voted against the $61 billion package which advanced through the House on Saturday as well.

“To say that I’m very unhappy that these politicians seem to want to help every single country except America is an understatement. I am beyond angry. It’s long past time we put America first,” he said.

Gosar is one of a handful of conservative Republicans in the House who have sought to rein in defense spending and US funding for conflicts abroad in favor of dealing with more urgent priorities facing the US, including economic issues, the debt and the border crisis.

Gosar joined Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky this week in a motion to oust Speaker Mike Johnson from his seat for advancing the Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan aid bills.

The Arizona congressman has taken a hardline, principled ‘America First’ foreign policy stance, voting Saturday against not only Ukraine aid, but against $14 billion in additional assistance to Israel. Last year, he joined Representative Matt Gaetz, Senator Rand Paul and others in calling for an end to the illegal US military presence in northeastern Syria. In 2021, he joined with House Republicans to vote to repeal the 2002 Congressional authorization for the Iraq War. In October 2022, he extended an invitation to Presidents Putin and Zelensky to come to Arizona to hold negotiations to end the Ukrainian crisis.

April 21, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

US Pumping Ukraine With Weapons to Protract War ‘Up Till Last Ukrainian’ – Moscow

Sputnik – 21.04.2024

MOSCOW – The United States is prepared to pour weapons into Ukraine as long as necessary and spare no Ukrainian lives to make sure that its proxy continues fighting Russia, including via terrorist attacks and killings of journalists, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.

“The ruling elites in the US, regardless of party affiliation, are ready to arm the regime in Kiev so that it will be able to fight up till the last Ukrainian and continue, among other things, terrorist attacks on civilian targets on Russian territory, sabotage attacks and killing journalists,” the ministry said in a statement.

The White House is no longer counting on a “mythical Ukrainian victory,” but wants the Ukrainian army to hold out at least until the presidential election in the US, in order not to ruin the image of US President Joe Biden, the ministry noted.

“The actions of the US, as a de facto party to the conflict, will be unconditionally and decisively rebuffed, and Washington’s ever-deeper plunge into hybrid warfare against Russia will turn out to be as loud and humiliating of a fiasco for the United States as it was in Vietnam and Afghanistan. In any case, the feverish attempts to save [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky’s neo-Nazi regime are doomed to failure. The goals and objectives of the special military operation will be fully achieved,” the ministry added.

On Saturday, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would unlock $60.84 billion in Ukraine-related aid, if approved by the Senate.

April 21, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

US could send more military personnel to Kiev – Pentagon

US Embassy in Kiev, Ukraine © John Moore/Getty Images
RT | April 21, 2024

The US is considering sending additional military advisers to its embassy in Kiev, Pentagon spokesperson Major General Pat Ryder told Politico magazine on Saturday.

The troops would be serving a non-combat role, primarily supporting logistics, monitoring the delivery of US weapons, and assisting with weapons maintenance.

The news comes as the US House of Representatives passed a $61 billion aid bill on Saturday, with the Pentagon saying that the package would include “things like air defense and artillery capabilities.”

Although Ryder did not specify how many personnel could be sent to Kiev, citing “operational security and force protection reasons,” sources familiar with the matter told Politico that the number would be up to 60.

The additional advisers could work at the Office of Defense Cooperation at the embassy, Ryder explained.

Ukraine is struggling to regain the initiative on the battlefield in the wake of a failed counteroffensive last summer, as well as more recent losses exacerbated by the dwindling supply of foreign ammunition.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recently admitted that “things on the battlefield begin to shift a bit in Russia’s favor” with Kiev’s forces struggling “in terms of holding the line.” According to Politico, the advisers would be tasked with helping the Ukrainians with the newly delivered equipment as the fighting is expected to intensify during the summer.

Although President Joe Biden promised that American troops will not be sent to fight Russia in Ukraine, Moscow has repeatedly warned that it considers the US and other NATO members de facto participants in the conflict. Russia further criticized French President Emmanuel Macron and other European politicians who said that they could not rule out Western boots on the ground in Ukraine in the future.

Russia maintains that no amount of foreign aid would change the course of the conflict or save Ukraine from defeat.

April 21, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US house speaker announces ‘new axis of evil’

RT | April 19, 2024

In a dramatic break from his party’s hardline conservative base, US House Speaker MIke Johnson this week praised the country’s deep state, named Russia, China, and Iran as an “axis of evil,” and vowed to put his job on the line to funnel more than $60 billion to Kiev.

For months, Johnson has resisted bringing a $95 billion foreign aid bill to a vote, arguing that neither he nor his fellow Republicans could support such a bill – which would give $14 billion in military aid to Israel and $60 billion to Ukraine – without it being tied to an overhaul of US border security.

However, after a series of recent meetings with US intelligence chiefs, Johnson has changed his tune.

“This is a critical time right now, a critical time on the world stage,” Johnson told reporters on Wednesday. “I think providing lethal aid to Ukraine right now is critically important. I really do. I really do believe the intel and the briefings that we’ve gotten.”

“I believe [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping] and [Russian President] Vladimir Putin and Iran really are an axis of evil,” he continued. “I think they’re in coordination on this. I think that Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed.”

Johnson’s comments represented a break with the Republican Party’s pro-Trump wing. These supporters of the former president – most prominent among them Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz – view the country’s intelligence agencies as arms of the anti-Trump “deep state,” and have called for the flow of money to Kiev to be halted.

“Fighting a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, which is a non-NATO member nation, is not protecting America’s national security interests, it doesn’t protect the United States of America, as a matter of fact, it pushes us closer and closer to world war three,” Greene told journalist Tucker Carlson earlier this month.

Johnson’s reference to an “axis of evil,” however, invokes the more interventionist GOP of the past. Coined by speechwriter David Frum, the phrase was first used by George W. Bush to refer to Iran, Iraq, and North Korea in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq. Former National Security Adviser John Bolton later added Cuba, Libya and Syria to the list.

Despite resistance from some of its Republican members, the House Rules Committee agreed on Thursday to split the foreign aid bill into three separate bills – one each for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. The house voted in favor of this move on Friday, leaving Johnson free to schedule a vote on each bill for Saturday, even as Greene filed a motion to remove him from the speakership.

Johnson said on Wednesday that he anticipated such a move, telling reporters that he was willing to “take personal risk” to pass the bills.

April 19, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

NATO ‘one step away’ from sending troops to Ukraine – Orban

RT | April 19, 2024

The leaders of the EU and NATO are potentially ready to deploy forces to Ukraine, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban claimed on Friday. Brussels sees the conflict between Moscow and Kiev as its “own” and is failing to consider the risks arising from its ever-deeper involvement, he warned.

The mood of EU leaders is “one of war,” Orban told a gathering of his Fidesz Party ahead of the EU Parliament elections. “There is a pro-war majority in Brussels today,” he said, adding that the bloc’s politics “are dominated by the logic of war.” EU politicians are already so invested in the conflict that they fail to see the flaws in their strategy, the prime minister argued.

Despite all the “money and weapons, the situation is not improving [for Kiev], in fact, it is getting worse… We are one step away from the West sending troops to Ukraine,” Orban warned. “This is a vortex of war that can drag Europe into its depths. Brussels is playing with fire.”

Budapest will not let itself be dragged into the hostilities, and “will not enter… the war on either side,” the prime minister pledged, adding that his country “must stand for peace” everywhere, including in “Brussels, Washington, the UN and NATO.”

“We don’t want war, and we don’t want Hungary to become a toy of great powers again,” Orban stated.

The idea of sending NATO troops to Ukraine has been repeatedly floated by Western leaders. French President Emmanuel Macron first raised it in February, saying “all options are possible.”

Macron has since doubled down, stating that there are “no limits” to support for Kiev. His words initially alarmed some NATO allies, who quickly denied having such plans. However, the French leader did receive backing from certain members of the US-led military bloc.

In March, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said Russia’s military operation in Ukraine requires an “asymmetric escalation” on the part of the West. Warsaw’s top diplomat also called the idea of a NATO presence in Ukraine “not unthinkable.”

Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said earlier in April that every NATO member already has military personnel in Ukraine operating as advisers or instructors. Last week, former British minister of state for the armed forces James Heappey told Sky News that sending NATO forces to Ukraine did “deserve consideration.”

Moscow has repeatedly warned that deploying NATO troops in Ukraine would bring the US-led bloc to the brink of a full-blown conflict with Russia. President Vladimir Putin stated in March that it would be “one step shy of a full-scale World War III.”

April 19, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

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