Anti War: Thread

grarpamp grarpamp at gmail.com
Sun May 1 17:26:12 PDT 2022


'Down Payment On World War III': Peace Activists Blast Biden's Ask For
More Ukraine Aid

by Brett Wilkins via Common Dreams,

Peace advocates reacted to Thursday's request by U.S. President Joe
Biden for $33 billion in additional aid to Ukraine by warning against
what they called a dangerous escalation and by accusing the
administration of misplaced priorities.

Biden is asking Congress for additional funding for war-ravaged
Ukraine, including more than $20 billion in "security and military
assistance," $8.5 billion in economic aid, and $3 billion in
"humanitarian assistance."
Via NBC

"It's not cheap. But caving to aggression is going to be more costly
if we allow it to happen," said Biden. "We either back the Ukrainian
people as they defend their country, or we stand by as the Russians
continue their atrocities and aggression in Ukraine every day."

The president's appeal for additional funds comes on top of the $4.6
billion in security assistance the U.S. has given Ukraine since
January 2021, including $3.7 billion since Russian forces invaded the
country in February.

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the women-led peace group CodePink,
called Biden's request "a down payment on World War III."

"Biden's call for an enormous $33 billion for Ukraine is over half the
entire budget for the State Department and USAID," she tweeted,
referring to the United States Agency for International Development.
"We need diplomacy, not billions more in weapons!"

Benjamin also noted that the Biden administration—which refuses to
unfreeze Afghanistan's central bank reserves—"won't fill the $2
billion shortfall in the urgent U.N. appeal for the desperately poor
people of Afghanistan."

    $33 billion to the Ukraine.

    Ppl can’t put food on the table. Rents gone up. Housing prices
have gone up. Raises have almost gone down when accounting for
inflation. We’re having supply shortages across the board.

    But we have $33 billion to spend on Ukraine but not US citizens.
    — Joe Biden Hates Black People (@realnikohouse) April 28, 2022

Jennifer Briney, host of the Congressional Dish podcast, tweeted: "How
can the U.S. possibly maintain the already-pretty-clear-fiction that
we aren't 'in' the Ukraine-Russia war if we inject $33 billion into
it? How can this not lead to escalation?"

Ben Freeman, a research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible
Statecraft, pointed out that "the $20 billion military assistance
package is more than the total defense budgets of all but 13 countries
in the world."

Others commented on what they implied are the administration's
misplaced priorities amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, worsening
economic inequality, and the climate emergency. "Biden's $33 billion
'emergency' military aid package for Ukraine is three times the size
of the EPA's entire budget for 2022," tweeted CounterPunch editor
Jeffrey St. Clair, referring to the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency.

    DATA: A cumulative total of U.S. military aid to Ukraine since
Russia's Feb. 24 invasion.

    February 25: $350m
    March 12: $550m
    March 16: $1.35b
    April 1: $1.65b
    April 5: $1.75b
    April 13: $2.55b
    April 21: $3.35b
    April 24: $3.67b
    April 28: $14.67b (if approved by Congress)
    — Jack Detsch (@JackDetsch) April 28, 2022

Writer and activist Margaret Kimberly bemoaned that "Biden is asking
struggling Americans who lost their child tax credit for $33 billion
after his Ukraine police blew up in his face."

Ben Cohen, co-founder of the ice cream company Ben & Jerry's, wondered
why Biden is "asking for an extra $33 billion to help Ukraine and not
an extra $33 billion to replace every single lead pipe in America"
when "we have at least 1.2 million children suffering from lead
poisoning here and now."


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