Warmongers?

Warmongers. That's the current epithet that the Tinfoil Hat Party has been tossing around lately. They like to point out that their guy, President Trump, did not start any wars during his term in office, and incorrectly stated that he was the only one in recent memory to do so. They are accusing Biden of getting us involved in a war in Ukraine against the will of "the American people". 

In principle, I'm not in favor of war. However, I also recognize that sometimes war may be the lesser of two evils. Sometimes it may be absolutely necessary, for instance, if we are attacked. Other times it might not be so clear cut, like when an ally is attacked, or, as in the current war between Russia and Ukraine, support for the recipient of aggression may be the best way to stop the dominoes from falling, to use an old Cold War example. 

Let's take a look first at the claim that President Trump was the first president in modern history not to start a new war. Trump campaigned in part on the promise to end "forever wars". We were still in Afghanistan when he left office, although he had begun the process of withdrawal. When President Biden finished the job, he was criticized by Republicans for doing what Trump had promised to do four years earlier. The military under Trump participated in joint Special Forces actions throughout the Middle East; it went back into Iraq to defeat the Islamic State, assassinated an Iranian general; conducted air strikes in Yemen; conducted a failed Special Forces op in Yemen which resulted in the death of a Navy SEAL (Trump blamed the SEAL for his own death); attacked Syria with cruise missiles; and on and on. This isn't to suggest that any other presidents did any better - President Obama has a similar record, but portraying Trump as a peace-loving de-escalator is pure fantasy. 

When it comes to our nation's participation in war, we have a spotty record. Wars have been started based on lies or misrepresentations. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and despite his angry rhetoric, Saddam Hussein was never a threat to the United States. We have also have allowed mission creep to keep us involved well past the achievement of our original goals. Afghanistan is a sad example. Initially we overthrew the Taliban government because they were providing a haven for terrorists, in particular the Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin-Laden. (Funny how we gave Pakistan as pass when they were sheltering Bin-Laden) Little by little though, we were preoccupied with propping up a succession of corrupt Afghan leaders and became viewed by the populace as foreign occupiers, eventually leaving the same Taliban, who we had driven out 20 years earlier, in charge. There was always going to be an excuse to stay there and there would always be an undefined standard of what "victory" looked like. 

So what's the deal with our escalating support for Ukraine? Most of the wars and other military actions of late can be boiled down to civil wars. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is different. While not a NATO member, it's arguable that we have an interest in preventing Russia from rolling over their neighbors - if Putin succeeds in his revanchist and irredentist ambitions in Ukraine, what's to stop him from reclaiming hegemony over Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia? Not much. One of the arguments that some Republicans are making is that it's Congress, not the President, which has the authority to declare war. That's true, yet since World War II, no military operation has been accompanied by a formal declaration of war, including such operations, such as the Korean and Vietnam Wars that were very clearly wars. There have been, "authorizations for the use of force" - generally vague pronouncements of support for limited military operations that have been interpreted quite broadly by presidents of both parties to use force as they saw fit. 

Ideally, the president and Congressional leaders could get together and debate the best course of action. House Republicans are accusing President Biden of acting unilaterally against "the will of the American people". But is that what's happening? While President Biden is taking the lead on our support of Ukraine, every penny of aid to Ukraine has been approved by Congress...something to note in an especially obstructive Republican majority in the House of Representatives and an equally obstructive Senate minority not afraid to use the filibuster to gum up the works.  It's plain that a majority of Congress is in favor of at least the level of support that we have been providing. 

In their never-ending quest to say things that they hope we don't check the facts about, the Republican far-right caucus has been claiming that Ukrainian President Zelensky is "threatening" us, by claiming that Americans need to fight and die to defend Ukraine. Is that what he said? Nope. What he did  say was that if Ukraine was defeated, it was likely that Russia would not stop there, and we would be treaty-bound to defend fellow NATO nations if they were attacked. Of course, once this was pointed out to them, their follow up response was declare that we were not bound by international treaties (which, as required by the Constitution, was ratified by the Senate) and should not step in to defend our NATO allies. It sounds like a page from Losin' Donnie's playbook - who thought nothing of unilaterally withdrawing from international agreements, disparaging our allies, and treating our NATO obligations as a mere financial arrangement. 

While there should be an open and honest discussion regarding how involved we should get in Ukraine's defense, and I'm surely not suggesting we take everything Biden says at face value, I'm certainly uninterested in listening to the misrepresentations, exaggerations, and lies from the Tinfoil Hat Brigade.