by MATT TAIBBI
After nearly two years of pretending “victory” was coming, the president and a senior advisor finally admit the reality of Ukraine’s dilemma. On the hawks who cried wolf
A series of remarkable events with enormous consequences for Ukraine tumbled in rapid succession this week, lifting the veil on years of untrammeled and proud — yet ultimately purposeless and sociopathic — lying by the Biden administration and the Pentagon about the war there.
First, ahead of a crucial vote on military aid to both Ukraine and Israel Wednesday, Joe Biden went on TV to denounce Republicans for threatening to halt the $110 billion national security package. GOP leaders had told the White House they wouldn’t support the bill without border-sealing assurances of the type they knew Democrats wouldn’t accept, so Biden was cornered and clearly pissed. Eyes snapped wide open as the (surely fantastic) drugs aides must pump in by the gallon before public appearances kicked in, Biden went off:
“Republicans think they can get everything they want without any bipartisan compromise,” he snapped. “And now they’re willing to literally kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield and damage our national security in the process.”
He added futher apocalyptic comment:
If Putin takes Ukraine, he won’t stop there… If Putin attacks a NATO ally… Then we’ll have something that we don’t seek and that we don’t have today. American troops fighting Russian troops… Extreme Republicans are playing chicken with our national security, holding Ukraine’s funding hostage to their extreme partisan border policies…
Seconds later, the Commander-in-Chief shifted gears to note he was of course very willing to play that game of chicken. “I’ve made it clear that we need Congress to make changes to fix what is a broken immigration system, because… we all know it’s broken… I’m willing to do significantly more…”
A few hours later, National Security spokesperson John Kirby upped the ante, telling ABC reporter Selena Wang that not only should we be contemplating deployment of American troops, but a possible cost in American “blood” if Putin is allowed to take Ukraine and threaten other NATO countries. (That potential cost has been the same since NATO was founded in 1949, but whatever). Kirby’s offhand observation that Ukraine would “lose this war” absent U.S. support was the actual big news, but Kirby’s “based Biden” comments about “blood” were the ones that went viral:
The blood warning didn’t take. Soon after, Senate Republicans voted against proceeding with debate on Joe Biden’s National Security Package, leaving the upper chamber cleaved at 49-51. The sticking point for Republicans was the $61 billion for Ukraine, which Mitt Romney of all people said they wouldn’t get “unless the border is secure.” (Romney was last seen scoffing that “the idea that [the Ukraine war is] too expensive is a little funny.”) One GOP caucus member after another came out practically wearing nightmares of stampeding MAGA hordes on their faces. Even Mitch McConnell, as if to stall the zombie attack, tried weakly to do a Steve Bannon impersonation, saying “Border security is national security.” Bernie Sanders, showing oddly belated willingness to dagger his onetime presidential opponent, also withheld support, balking over $14 billion for Israel.
After that bang-bang-bang succession of events, proclamations of imminent doom for Ukraine issued from the mouths of every Western national security official and war-supporting politician within reach of a microphone. Then Tucker Carlson tweeted a report that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told House members in a classified briefing that if they didn’t approve more money for Ukraine, “we’ll send your uncles, cousins and sons to fight Russia.”
The weirdly personal threat, which Tucker insists is a verbatim quote, showed how desperate a moment this is for the national security state. Potential consequences extend far beyond loss and suffering for Ukraine. The entire interventionist project is looking at a setback on the scale of the Iraq disaster, a political fiasco so enormous it prompted four years of cuts to the defense budget. Watching Putin waltz across Ukraine after the last two years of blood, profligate spending, and premature end zone celebrations by retired brass and Beltway think-tankers would make the withdrawal from Afghanistan look like one of Biden’s tarmac stumbles by comparison.
This was the big one, the all-in move, and what happened in the Senate might be the fatal river card. There are a lot of people tied to the defense world who’ll be looking for jobs in very short order if the Republicans Austin was threatening do the unthinkable and let the sentiment of voters interfere with Pentagon desires. Think of the unconscionable precedent that would set! It can’t be countenanced, which is why things are about to get real on the Hill. Don’t be surprised if there are some head-scratching conversions ahead. They will empty the oppo folders to get this one done.
In any case, Tucker’s report drew instantaneous condemnation from Jennifer Griffin at Fox News, a rock-solid-dependable groveling NatSec mouthpiece whose niche is being the GOP answer to Natasha Bertrand or Ken Dilanian. Griffin tweeted one of the most tortured denials I can remember:
This characterization of Austin’s remarks is 100 percent not true, acc to two sources who were in the briefings. Austin warned that it is not hyperbole to say Putin won’t stop at Ukraine. If he enters NATO territory US troops could be called to fight; cheaper to fund Ukraine now.
What does “this characterization of Austin’s remarks is 100 percent not true” mean? Carlson didn’t “characterize” anything, he quoted Austin. Unless she’s talking about the phrase “openly threatening Americans,” and claiming “we’ll send your uncles, cousins, and sons to fight” isn’t a threat, then her report sounds more like confirmation than a denial to me. Did Austin say it or didn’t he? She should clear that up, because from where I sit, “Putin won’t stop” and “cheaper to fund Ukraine now” sound like the characterizations to me.
Not many people actually believe the U.S. will end up in a shooting war with Russia if Ukraine falls, which is why I’m skeptical these threats will land with the Bannonites causing this upheaval, though they might scare the actual members of congress. However, Austin, Kirby, and Biden did tell one truth this week that the public will believe. The only problem is, it’s something that exposes the White House and Defense Department for having lied almost without interruption for nearly two years. Biden saying the U.S. is the only reason Ukraine hasn’t been “overrun,” and Kirby imploring that Ukraine will “lose this war” without us, are stark turnarounds from everything we’ve been told since early 2022.
Biden himself has repeatedly insisted things like “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia, never” and as recently as July was saying Russia had “already lost” the war. Hell, in June, Biden got so excited, he announced Putin was even losing the “war in Iraq.”
The PR campaign about how swimmingly the war is going has been multi-pronged. First, keep every alternative site’s content out of programs like Google News, but fill it with sunny Atlantic Council updates (“American support for Ukraine stays strong!”) and interviews with soul-of-credibility types like ex-spy Christopher Steele, who went on Sky News in July to inform us that “Russia has almost abandoned the war militarily.” Second, have lots of former generals give interviews saying victory is at hand (my favorite was Ben Hodges telling Newsweek in October that Ukraine was “running rings” around the Russians). Third: write stories about battlefield victories whenever they happen, e.g. “Senior Leadership Among Those Killed in Strike on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet,” but take the day off when the news isn’t good.
That last tendency is most transparent in the fact that Ukraine writeups often describe a “grueling” or “churning” war of “attrition,” but somehow always leave out the attrition part. You’ll get “Ukraine notches key battlefield victory in war of attrition with Russia” in The Hill, or the Economist opining on “Why Ukraine may be choosing a war of attrition,” or the Center for Strategic and International Studies might issue a report about how ammunition shortages might be affecting Russia’s “ability to prosecute” said “war of attrition.” Other typical formulations: the American Foreign Policy Council writing that Russia is “settling for a war of attrition,” while the International Institute for Strategic Studies describes “Ukraine’s Strategy of Attrition.” Attrition is a strategic choice for Ukraine, but a cross for Russia to bear.
The legacy press has framed most every war story as this or that snapshot moment in a long victory narrative. It’s what you’d expect in Stars and Stripes in 1944, but the effect is a little weird for non-Ukrainian media in 2023. Half the stories have been outright ads for military hardware, e.g. “Bradley Fighting Vehicle Helps Ukraine Stomp Russia’s Sack!” or “Lockheed’s Awesome HIMARS Missiles Turning The Tide!” or “Ukraine to Russian Tanks: Depleted Uranium Shells For Your Ass.”
I wish I were kidding. Unfortunately, this war has been so very much about contracting for Americans that a massively disproportionate number of news articles really has been of the “Black Hornet Drone Introduced” or “Starstreak Missiles Are Three Times the Speed of Sound” type. Since these stories by their nature never mention unsuccessful use, they’ve contributed to the overall impression that Ukraine has not only been succeeding, but winning in surprisingly decisive fashion.
Like Soviet citizens, Americans have had to learn to read between the lines. Stories telling us Ukraine is winning, but “not by Christmas,” or that Ukraine is winning but “progress remains slow,” or Ukraine’s on the offensive, but things are “slower than expected,” have hinted at what’s really been going on. Until this week the only people who’ve come out and said the obvious — namely what Joe Biden just said, that Ukraine is fucked the minute we stop hurling money their way at Brewster’s Millions levels — have been Republican politicians like Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville, who was instantly accused by a trio of weeping Pentagon officials of “aiding U.S. adversaries” when he said Ukraine versus Russia was like a “junior high team playing a college team.” Are they going to say the same thing about Biden now?
When Putin entered Crimea, Barack Obama — in one of his smarter decisions — actually asked the question about what the endgame would be for the United States if it got involved in the situation militarily. He settled on what has since been roundly derided as the “Obama doctrine,” saying, “The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-NATO country, is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do.”
Obama was ripped for saying something obviously true, that Ukraine/Crimea would always be a “core” issue for Russia, but could never be for the United States. What would be the objective for the U.S. in a war with Ukraine? “Winning”? What would that look like? The three outcomes were Ukrainian surrender, fighting to a stalemate to prevent occupation, and “victory,” which would apparently involve defeating the Russian army and regime-changing Team Putin. Obama understood that war really meant stalemate and stalemate meant massive open-ended emergency spending with no realistic exit, unless you consider the Dr. Stranglove post-nuclear salt mine retreat a happy ending. So he punted. He had to.
When Russia invaded in early 2022, the decision was made to get involved in a big way, but the endgame was never articulated. Here and there a little neoliberal fantasy would whoosh out a key politician’s mouth like a flatus: Joe Biden saying Putin “cannot remain in power,” for instance, or Madeleine Albright suggesting that sanctions could lead to an internal “challenge” to Putin’s leadership. There were also fantasies about full-blown military conquest, or a demoralized Russia surrendering, perhaps in the wake of drone strikes in their territory we officially did not encourage, according to news reports that practically came adorned with wink emojis.
The reality was we were always going to end in the exact place we are now, admitting that in order to keep Ukraine viable in its “churning” stalemate, we’d need to spend, and spend huge. According to one measure we spent over $75 billion between January 2022 and July 2023, just a shade under Russia’s $81 billion military budget for 2022. In other words, just to keep this one storyline in Ukraine growing, we’ve had to basically match Russia’s entire military budget.
That was never going to continue forever, and everyone knew it, except the handful of insane monsters in politics and media who pretended that the war in Ukraine was not a pure proxy conflict. It was obvious this moment of truth was coming even before the Hamas-Gaza situation changed the political dynamic at home. We knew it from the Vatican-style smoke signals that occasionally emanated from talking heads in the news, like NATO official Stian Jenssen, who sent heads reeling in September by admitting the alliance was no longer imagining a “complete Russian defeat,” adding that Ukraine should instead contemplate a deal in which they “give up territory and get NATO membership in return.”
Jenssen is chief of staff to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, to whom he had to apologize publicly for suggesting this territory-for-peace trade every sane person knows is the likely ending of this awful bloody farce. Stoltenberg nonetheless was still talking about “winning” even last week, but nobody is going to “win” in this war. There’s only bloodshed and a big and fat, but ultimately temporary, feeding frenzy for Lockheed, General Dynamics, Raytheon and the rest of Lloyd Austin’s buddies. If our leaders were straight with us at the start of this thing, that’s what they’d have asked: “Hey, can we risk nuclear war for a couple of years so taxpayers can fork over a couple hundred extra billion bucks worth of arms dealer bonuses?”
The country of course would have said no, like they’re saying no now, which is exactly why Biden and company didn’t ask. Instead, they lied and lied, but now that the lying doesn’t work anymore, they’re trying the truth, not realizing it’s a little late for that, and insulting as hell to boot. Is there a clue anywhere in the skulls of these people?
Insightful article. America’s stupid, bloody, and foolish proxy war against the Liberals’ fictional bogeyman Vladimir Putin has only brought about the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of young men — Ukrainian and Russian. Any stupid fat cat Marxist Democrat politician or despicable RINO who votes to continue to finance this monstrosity will only have more blood on his hands.
And cash in his/her pockets.
All of Bidens supporters are sitting on Pins & Needles all uptight and feeling the Pain
Lying has been Robin Ware/Robert L. Peters/JRB Ware/Pedo Peter/idiot Biden’s ONLY plan in almost every case. Since the kickback channels are already in place in Ukraine, Robin Ware/Robert L. Peters/JRB Ware/Pedo Peter/idiot Biden just wants to keep the taxpayer cash flowing.
A full accounting of the more than $120 billion dollars will need to be made for the American People. It is our money and we have a right to know where it is and where it went.
Any US or other aid for the Zelensky regime will only prolong the war, and thus prolong the agony. The Ukrainians have already lost.
– Whatever the West can give, be it money or munitions, is insufficient for the need to fight the war. The Ukrainian military currently lacks the means to go on the offensive, and is in defensive mode. It cannot even sustain that for long.
– Western weapons and equipment has been repeatedly shown to be inferior to Russian systems, and the latter are not only superior in the field but can be fielded in greater numbers. The same goes for ammunition, where it will take years for the West to match Russian production of artillery rounds.
– Supply shortages are only part of the Ukrainian military’s logistics crisis. The military supply and transport system suffers as Ukraine’s infrastructure continues to be worn down by Russian air, missile, and drone attacks.
– Ukraine has exhausted its military manpower supply, and is now recruiting teenagers and the elderly. Most sources of mercenary manpower have dried up as well, as the battlefield has become a far more dangerous place. While they still have a lot of Chechens and Georgians in mercenary ranks, the supply is not endless.
More money equals more military into the meat grinder and then into the charnel house.
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