If there was any one word that characterized our dementia-addled commander in chief last week, it would have to be “stupid.” But to be fair, it was stupid with a purpose. The stunt of flying into Poland and then taking a train into Ukraine to show solidarity with the corrupt Ukrainian regime certainly had to please, if nothing else, the dominant members of the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex. Earlier this year, the Department of Defense not only received their full appropriation of some $800 billion, but also saw an increase of $67 billion, which was even greater than the president’s requested amount by $36 billion. That’s a lot of bombs to go around.
Apparently, it’s not enough to just run away with the national treasury. You’ve got to have a propaganda campaign for the plebs to make their empty lives have meaning now that they can’t wear masks to save grandma. Consider it another round in the live action role playing that has been going on regarding U.S. participation in Ukraine since the Russian invasion last year. If you think that circuses aren’t spendy enough, well, there’s a lot of bread headed across the waters, or really into the Department of Defense and corrupt Ukraine apparatchiks’ bank accounts as well.
What’s actually happening in Ukraine? Besides Western policy driving us closer to World War III, it seems the remaining ground in play in the east of that benighted country is being ground up into rubble. Along with its young population — more than 100,000 by Western estimates, either killed or injured — Ukraine, and to a lesser extent, Russia, is busy blowing its human capital literally to smithereens.
And in the meantime, we have both old men and women of our real governing force, what I and others have taken to calling the Uniparty, stroking their beards in all faux seriousness while sending increasingly inflammatory weapons systems to Ukraine. The latest has been M1A1 Abrams tanks — 31 to be exact, which turns out to be the magic number to form a tank battalion. Germany has chipped in 36 of its Leopard main battle tank — not surprisingly an older model which then allows the German version of our own insane military industrial complex to buy more new toys for their armed forces. Elites in all the different countries are playing “monkey see, monkey do, monkey court World War II” with Russia, all under the nonsense line that somehow Russian tanks are going to roll across Western Europe if they don’t. Note that this is a Russian army that can’t even advance more than 50 miles into Ukraine. I find it hard to understand exactly how advanced armor is even going to do anything except get blown up by the Russian version of portable anti-tank weapons. Which may indeed be the point.
And that’s not enough for Uncle Corn Pop. The latest scuttlebutt is that the U.S. is attempting to find a way to send F-16s to Ukraine. This for a war that has devolved into a 100-year bad dream recurrence of World War I. Lines not moving on the map. People getting killed and maimed for no reason.
Meanwhile, ex-Premier of Russia, and now their erstwhile Secretary of Defense Dmitry Medvedev, continues his nuclear saber rattling. It is all terrifying — even one nuke would change the world order as we know it. And it’s little consolation that the only international figure more addled than our own president is Boris Johnson, former Prime Minister of Great Britain, also in the “send fighter jets to Ukraine” club. With any perverse luck, the first Western capital to be hit may be London.
It all has to stop, now. The war has lost any real meaning on the ground, and is serving only to enrich the defense establishments that have finally figured out the right angle for the grift. Ukraine cannot win, nor can Russia. But the world still has much to lose, with this insane battle between elites over who gets bragging rights on “winning.”
Imagine sending your own children to a nuclear war. No need to worry about body bags. Your beautiful sons and daughters will be vaporized. And this continuation of the state of perma-crisis our elites have inflicted on us has to end. Look, folks — it’s Republicans AND Democrats. Let them know how you feel. Peace in Ukraine, now.
Pezeshki is a professor in mechanical and materials engineering at Washington State University.
