News Release

Congress Goes All in With War

Share

The Senate could vote on a $40 billion Ukraine aid package as soon as Wednesday.

DAVID SWANSON, davidcnswanson@gmail.com@davidcnswanson
Executive director of WorldBeyondWar.org, Swanson said today: “The pretense that there are ten (or even one) members of Congress who can be relied on to oppose warmaking is dead. War opposition in the public theater of Congress is purely for show.”

Swanson charged: “Members of one of the two parties may pretend to oppose a war when the other party sits on the throne in the White House. But they’re doing electoral campaigning, not governing, not trying to actually end a war. The only time the War Powers Resolution has ever been used to the extent of passing a vote was to pretend to end U.S. involvement in the war on Yemen when Trump had promised a veto. Since Trump left, the members of Congress who talked up the moral need to act urgently have not lifted a finger.

“They even delayed a new pretense of trying to end the war on Yemen in deference to the importance of escalating a war on Ukraine. While $30 billion per year according to the UN could end starvation on Earth, Congress just dumped $40 billion into war escalation, providing weapons that will kill large numbers of people but not nearly as many as will starve this year — including as a result of the loss of crops in Ukraine. A handful of token antiwar Representatives in the House claimed in recent years that they were creating a caucus to reduce military spending. It has no website. It’s issued not a single statement. And not a single member of the House made the slightest public effort to move colleagues against the last military spending bill, not even going so far as to announce that they would vote no. Candidates now winning primaries with antiwar platforms can be expected to fall in line almost immediately. Just ask Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, Mondaire Jones, Ilhan Omar, Ro Khanna, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.” All those Representatives voted for the Ukraine war spending bill.

Last week, CBS News reported in “Rand Paul stalls Senate passage of $40 billion in Ukraine aid” that: “Paul, a libertarian who often opposes U.S. intervention abroad, said he wanted language inserted into the bill, without a vote, that would have an inspector general scrutinize the new spending.”