There’s Always More Money for War
The United States government always pleads poverty when it comes to paying for things that the American people actually want and need. We can’t have universal healthcare, or ensure housing or food for people in need. We’re struggling with record inflation. Corporations are bleeding this cadaverous country dry. Food and rent costs have shot up and gas was just six fucking dollars a gallon. Yet there is an apparently bottomless Scrooge McDuck vault of treasure available when it comes to paying for wars. Whether it’s a war that the US military is participating in directly, or just supplying money and weapons from the sidelines, it’s rare that the US finds a war that it believes it can’t afford. Currently, Biden is beating the drum and shaking the tin cup around Congress to get funding for “aid” to several countries.
The majority of the funding would go to Ukraine, to further prolong their war with Russia. There is seemingly no end to the amount of money, or bullets and missiles, that must be showered on Ukraine, because there is no foreseeable positive end to their war. Putin’s cruel, capricious, and fraudulently based war on Ukraine has been showing qualities of a “forever war” for some time now. There’s little hope of Ukraine cowing their much larger neighbor, but they’ve also shown no signs of giving in. It’s become a constant war of attrition. Like many such wars, it does not appear to have a military solution. Barring wholesale annihilation, neither side will win through warfare. They’ve had plenty of time to prove that. All that’s been accomplished is death and destruction, yet much of the US government is determined that throwing more money into the fire will somehow, eventually, yield positive results. That’s a generous appraisal, anyway. A more cynical, or informed, appraisal would be that the majority of them know that further funding of the war is fruitless, except in the off chance that it actually does some significant harm to Putin’s hold on power, and of course it benefits the arms industry, which many government representatives are invested in. Some government officials oppose continuing to fund Ukraine militarily, though mostly because they’re Republicans who get wet for Putin and any other bellicose fascist you wave in front of them.
As a gift for Israel’s fresh war on the Palestinians, prompted by Hamas’s attack on October 6th, Biden wants to give billions to fund that war. As if Israel needs more weapons. The US government already gives billions to Israel, most of which is spent on their military, but Biden wants to give them several times as many billions more. The ostensible purpose of this money is for Israel to defend itself against Hamas, giving them more weapons to fight the militant arm of their prison population, mowing the grass in their shrinking, besieged reservations and prison camps, killing and clearing out as many civilians as they can in the process. Why exactly does Israel need more weapons? Weapons exports are a substantial part of their economy. They’re a major manufacturer and seller of military weapons, yet they need billions of dollars to buy more. The only thing that this funding could lead to is the continued, and perhaps complete, eradication of the Palestinian people. While not every Israeli politician will state that bluntly as their intent, and most US politicians will lie and say that it isn’t, it is, and we’re funding it. They have no interest in peace. They’ve fought for decades against and effectively destroyed any possibility for a “two state solution.” The only outcome they envision is completing the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and dominating all the territory they can hold.
To “counter China,” billions are meant to be divvied up among countries in the Asia-Pacific region. This echoes previous times that the US poured military funding into countries because of their fears about a growing runner-up global power overtaking it. Whether China or Russia, the US always finds a big red enemy to stoke paranoia and excuse its support for dictators and military regimes. While the “communist” label is slapped around less commonly these days, though still never correctly, and it applies to China today less than ever, the pattern and impetus are familiar. The US feels threatened, mostly financially, so they label another country evil, pour weapons into countries that agree to help fight the evil, and, predictably, proliferate evil and violence in those countries and against their neighbors, and, most of the time, do little to actually counter the proclaimed enemy. I don’t know how many times it has to be shouted, but the US needs to stop trying to provoke war with China.
Of course, billions will go to “border security,” because Biden is a fraud and a liar and he’s going to finish what Trump failed to do.
Billions are meant to go to humanitarian aid. That shouldn’t be funny, but it is. In a depressing, infuriating way, it’s kind of funny.
Most of the money that our government intends to hand out will be used for warfare. We will be paying billions to sow death and misery. Nothing new there, but no less galling for that.