{"id":242305,"date":"2023-08-21T12:00:52","date_gmt":"2023-08-21T11:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=242305"},"modified":"2023-08-15T05:45:50","modified_gmt":"2023-08-15T04:45:50","slug":"amid-staggering-ukrainian-toll-and-souring-us-polls-biden-seeks-billions-more-for-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/08\/amid-staggering-ukrainian-toll-and-souring-us-polls-biden-seeks-billions-more-for-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Amid ‘Staggering’ Ukrainian Toll and Souring US Polls, Biden Seeks Billions More for War"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As Ukraine faces “staggering” losses and US public mood shifts, the Biden administration seeks billions more to prolong the war.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

14 Aug 2023 – <\/em>The Biden administration is asking Congress for an additional $24 billion<\/a> for the Ukraine proxy war, more than half of it in military aid. The request comes one week after a CNN poll<\/a> showed, for the first time, that a majority of Americans oppose additional funding to Kiev.<\/p>\n

For a White House committed to ensuring a Russian \u201cquagmire<\/a>\u201d in Ukraine, public opinion is of secondary importance. Two months into a widely hyped yet now faltering Ukrainian counteroffensive, a fresh influx of NATO weaponry appears necessary to prolong the war. In one of several gloomy assessments to appear in US establishment media, a senior western diplomat tells CNN<\/a> that the prospect that Ukrainian forces can \u201cmake progress that would change the balance of this conflict\u201d is \u201cextremely, highly unlikely.\u201d Ukraine\u2019s \u201cprimary challenge\u201d is breaking through Russia\u2019s heavily fortified defensive lines, where \u201cUkrainian forces have incurred staggering losses.\u201d According to Democratic Rep. Mike Quigley, US military assessments of the war are \u201csobering,\u201d with Ukraine now facing \u201cthe most difficult time of the war.\u201d<\/p>\n

This picture, CNN\u2019s Jim Sciutto observes, represents \u201ca marked change from the optimism at the start of the counteroffensive,\u201d with Western officials now acknowledging that \u201cthose expectations were \u2018unrealistic.\u2019\u201d The battlefield reality is so dire that it is even \u201cnow contributing to pressure on Ukraine from some in the West to begin peace negotiations, including considering the possibility of territorial concessions.\u201d<\/p>\n

But as Biden\u2019s new spending request suggests, there is no sign that the US is among those Western states applying pressure for peace. After all, the stated US aim, as top officials have made clear, is not to defend Ukraine and its long-term future but to instead \u201cweaken\u201d Russia (Lloyd Austin) and ensure \u201ca strategic failure for Putin,\u201d so that Russian can \u201cpay a longer-term price in terms of the elements of its national power.\u201d (Jake Sullivan)<\/p>\n

Whereas CNN\u2019s Western sources now allow themselves to admit that their publicly voiced \u201coptimism at the start of the counteroffensive,\u201d was \u201cunrealistic\u201d, it was in fact, dishonest. As Pentagon leaks<\/a> and subsequent disclosures<\/a> have confirmed, US officials were well aware that Ukraine was not prepared to take on Russia\u2019s heavily fortified defenses, but kept that assessment under wraps. Accordingly, while Ukraine\u2019s battlefield losses are indeed \u201cstaggering\u201d, what is perhaps most \u201csobering\u201d is the fact that the Biden administration both anticipated and encouraged them.<\/p>\n

But just like souring US public opinion, Ukrainian casualties are also a secondary concern, as the Biden administration\u2019s more candid neoconservative proxy war partners continue to make clear.<\/p>\n

To push through the new spending package , the White House is \u201ccounting on help from Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader,\u201d the New York Times reports<\/a>. At a public event, McConnell detailed his rationale<\/a>: The US, he explained, hasn\u2019t \u201clost a single American in this war,\u201d \u2013 not accurate if one counts mercenaries and private citizens, but correct in its implicit recognition that Ukraine has lost tens of thousands of lives on its American sponsors\u2019 behalf. According to McConnell, there are additional benefits of the war that do not extend to ordinary Ukrainians: \u201cMost of the money that we spend related to Ukraine is actually spent in the US, replenishing weapons, more modern weapons. So it\u2019s actually employing people here and improving our own military for what may lie ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Therefore, according to prevailing Biden-McConnell policy, the US must continue to fund a war that will sacrifice many more Ukrainian lives, all so that domestic war profiteers can reap taxpayer largesse for \u201creplenishing weapons\u201d, and so that the US \u2013 not having its soldiers die in Ukraine \u2013 can use the opportunity for \u201cimproving our own military\u201d for a war that it might actually fight.<\/p>\n

Although US officials have reportedly \u201cexpressed frustration<\/a>\u201d at Ukraine\u2019s efforts to minimize military casualties, the Zelensky government does appear to be a willing partner in McConnell\u2019s sacrifice ritual. Ukrainian defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov is said to have told<\/a> US officials that flooding Ukraine with weapons allows NATO allies to \u201cactually see if their weapons work, how efficiently they work and if they need to be upgraded. For the military industry of the world, you can\u2019t invent a better testing ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the benefit of weakening Russia, enriching US military contractors and serving as a NATO \u201ctesting ground,\u201d Ukrainian lives are not the only staggering sacrifice. According to the Wall Street Journal<\/a>, \u201c20,000 and 50,000 Ukrainians who have lost one or more limbs since the start of the war,\u201d a scale unseen for a Western military since the First World War, and a potential undercount \u201cbecause it takes time to register patients after they undergo\u201d surgery.<\/p>\n

According to veteran State Department bureaucrat Aaron David Miller, the Biden administration has no other choice but to continue sacrificing Ukrainians. The US, he explained<\/a>, \u201cis in an investment trap in Ukraine with no clear way out. Chances of a military breakthrough or a diplomatic solution are slim to none; and slim may have already left town. We’re in deep and lack the ability to do much more than react to events.\u201d The key term here is \u201cinvestment trap\u201d: having invested in a proxy war aimed at bleeding Russia, the US is therefore obliged to continue it.<\/p>\n

But if the US were driven by other concerns \u2013 such as Ukrainian well-being \u2013 it could consider supporting the diplomatic opportunities that it has blocked to date. Prior to Russia\u2019s invasion, the Biden administration encouraged the Ukrainian government to crack down on political opponents; further integrate its military into NATO; avoid implementing the Minsk accords for ending its post-2014 civil war; and assault the Russian-allied Donbas. When Russia submitted detailed proposals in December 2021 to address its concerns, the White House effectively balked. And after Russia\u2019s invasion, the US blocked a tentative peace deal that would have seen Russia withdrew to its pre-February 2022 lines. More recently, the US has pushed Ukraine into a counteroffensive that it knew had no chance, and rejected a Ukrainian NATO bid that it had long encouraged<\/a> for the apparent purpose of baiting Moscow.<\/p>\n

In short, the Biden administration has provoked this war and is now seeking a new influx of taxpayer money to prolong it. Even the latter goal is now openly admitted. At last month\u2019s NATO summit in Lithuania, the New York Times reported<\/a>, \u201cseveral American and European officials acknowledged\u201d that their \u201ccommitments\u201d to Ukraine \u201cmake it all the more difficult to begin any real cease-fire or armistice negotiations.\u201d Additionally, US-led \u201cpromises of Ukraine\u2019s eventual accession to NATO \u2014 after the war is over \u2014create a strong incentive for Moscow to hang onto any Ukrainian territory it can and to keep the conflict alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

So long as keeping the conflict alive comes predominantly at the cost of Ukrainian lives, then Washington\u2019s bipartisan proxy warriors clearly have no qualms about forcing a war-weary public to foot the bill.<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Aaron Mat\u00e9 is a journalist with<\/em> The Grayzone, where he hosts<\/em> \u201cPushback.\u201d He is also a contributor to<\/em> Real Clear Investigations and the temporary co-host of<\/em> \u201cUseful Idiots.\u201d In 2019, Mat\u00e9 won the\u00a0Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media for Russiagate coverage in<\/em> The Nation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 mate.substack.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

14 Aug 2023 – As Ukraine faces “staggering” losses and US public mood shifts, the Biden administration seeks billions more to prolong the war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":74652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2999],"tags":[1161,1104,417,1050,91,818,278,961,70,481,1073],"class_list":["post-242305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-war-racket-destruction-capitalism","tag-arms-industry","tag-arms-trade","tag-bullying","tag-imperialism","tag-nato","tag-proxy-war","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-usa","tag-warfare","tag-weapons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242305"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":242307,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242305\/revisions\/242307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}