![\"representative](\"https:\/\/libertarianinstitute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Representative_Adam_Kinzinger_at_Hudson_Institute.jpg\" "\\"representative")
<\/span><\/div>\nWell, this war in Ukraine will last \u201cmonths and years<\/a>.\u201d At least, that is what the\u00a0leaders of the D.C. foreign policy blob<\/a>, the\u00a0media<\/a>,\u00a0President Joe Biden\u2019s men<\/a>,\u00a0Pentagon<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0NATO<\/a>\u00a0leadership have decided. Their plan is to pour\u00a0oil on the flames<\/a>\u00a0and keep the fire raging. Also, Americans are going to have to cough up the dough for\u00a0another massive aid package<\/a>, with $20 billion worth of weapons to keep the blood flowing. In total, this next package will\u00a0cost<\/a>\u00a0the taxpayer $33 billion. With Biden\u2019s proposed $813 billion \u201cdefense\u201d budget for 2023, the U.S. is\u00a0spending<\/a>\u00a0more on the military and war now\u00a0than ever before in the country\u2019s history<\/a>.<\/p>\n Now that we have our very own\u00a0Ministry of Truth<\/a>, it would appear any national debate over these polices, indeed if such a debate is ever allowed to take place, will likely have to be moderated by cockroaches and Keith Richards.<\/p>\n NATO is set to\u00a0expand<\/a>\u00a0again, bringing in\u00a0Finland and Sweden<\/a>. This will extend the alliance\u2019s border with Russia by greater than 800 miles and further stoke nuclear tensions, bringing the current brinksmanship to a whole new level. Moscow\u00a0plans to respond<\/a>\u00a0including by increasing air and naval forces in the Baltic Sea and reinforcing its Kaliningrad exclave, which lies between NATO members Poland and Lithuania, with additional nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles. Until 2004, it was unthinkable that NATO would ever expand to Russia\u2019s borders until that actually happened. Like most of our issues with Russia,\u00a0this is all Bill Clinton and George W. Bush\u2019s fault<\/a>.<\/p>\n Even as Russia\u2019s Foreign Minister\u00a0Sergei Lavrov<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0other leaders in Moscow<\/a>\u00a0repeatedly warn of nuclear conflict and World War III, even directly\u00a0comparing<\/a>\u00a0the current situation to the Cuban Missile Crisis,\u00a0senior Pentagon officials<\/a>\u00a0say\u00a0they are not concerned<\/a>.<\/p>\n Nor do our all-knowing rulers appear concerned with the fact that they have\u00a0\u201calmost zero\u201d ability<\/a>\u00a0to keep track of the myriad sophisticated weapons systems they are sending to Ukraine. CNN quoted briefed sources saying intelligence shows American arms are falling into a \u201cbig black hole<\/a>.\u201d They say it\u2019s worth it.<\/p>\n Nor do they seem to be concerned with the\u00a0Russians\u2019 warnings<\/a>\u00a0regarding how the West\u2019s weapons flood in Ukraine\u00a0threatens<\/a>\u00a0to expand the war into NATO territory and destabilize Europe.<\/p>\n UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss\u00a0demands<\/a>\u00a0the West must \u201cdouble down\u201d on arms shipments, insisting particularly on \u201cheavy weapons, tanks, airplanes\u2014digging deep into our inventories, ramping up production. We need to do all of this.\u201d<\/p>\n Our top diplomat Antony Blinken\u00a0says<\/a>\u00a0the plan is regime change in Moscow,\u00a0much like his boss<\/a>\u00a0did in March with his Polish \u201cgaffe<\/a>.\u201d Ironically, the $47 billion in weapons and other U.S. aid pledged to Ukraine these last two months will soon\u00a0surpass<\/a>\u00a0the State Department\u2019s entire budget.\u00a0Eat your heart out, Netanyahu<\/a>!<\/p>\n Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, former Raytheon board member, says the goal is to see Russia \u201cweakened<\/a>\u201d to the point where it lacks even the capability to defend itself just outside its borders. As Pat Buchanan\u00a0notes<\/a>, this policy, whether its intended to or not, pressures the Kremlin to more seriously consider pulling its nuclear trigger.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can\u2019t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,\u201d Austin\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0with a clear eye toward increasing Russian casualties and the long term destruction of Moscow\u2019s conventional power.<\/p>\n Perhaps, Austin wants to cripple Russia so severely that his Pentagon can fight a\u00a0war with China<\/a>, the \u201cmost consequential strategic competitor and the pacing challenge for the Department<\/a>,\u201d without having to worry so much about Moscow\u2014deemed a\u00a0second tier \u201cacute\u201d threat<\/a>, albeit one armed with roughly 6,000 nukes\u2014getting involved.<\/p>\n Austin\u2019s Raytheon pals are making a killing on this proxy war as well as the ancillary effects such as European NATO states, at long last, increasing their military spending.<\/p>\n As Ron Paul has\u00a0written<\/a>,<\/p>\n One group of special interests profiting massively on the war is the US military-industrial complex. Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes recently told a meeting of shareholders that, \u201cEverything that\u2019s being shipped into Ukraine today, of course, is coming out of stockpiles, either at DOD or from our NATO allies, and that\u2019s all great news. Eventually we\u2019ll have to replenish it and we will see a benefit to the business.\u201d<\/p>\n He wasn\u2019t lying. Raytheon, along with Lockheed Martin and countless other weapons manufacturers are enjoying a windfall they have not seen in years. The U.S. has committed more than three billion dollars in military aid to Ukraine. They call it aid, but it is actually corporate welfare: Washington sending billions to arms manufacturers for weapons sent overseas.<\/p>\n By many accounts these shipments of weapons like the Javelin anti-tank missile (jointly manufactured by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin) are getting blown up as soon as they arrive in Ukraine. This doesn\u2019t bother Raytheon at all. The more weapons blown up by Russia in Ukraine, the more new orders come from the Pentagon.<\/p>\n Former Warsaw Pact countries now members of NATO are in on the scam as well. They\u2019ve discovered how to dispose of their 30-year-old Soviet-made weapons and receive modern replacements from the U.S. and other western NATO countries.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There is scarcely a status quo to oppose. For weeks, escalations have continued apace. London has\u00a0deployed<\/a>\u00a0SAS troops\u00a0in Kiev<\/em><\/a>\u00a0to train Ukrainian troops on English anti-tank weapons. The U.S. is\u00a0training<\/a>\u00a0Kiev\u2019s troops\u00a0in Germany and two other secret locations<\/a>\u00a0in Europe on heavy artillery, radar systems, and armored vehicles. Washington is\u00a0expanding<\/a>\u00a0intelligence sharing with Kiev for its war with Russia in the Donbas,\u00a0providing<\/a>\u00a0howitzers, vehicles to carry them, and an additional 144,000 artillery rounds.\u00a0Poland<\/a>\u00a0is sending tanks to Ukraine,\u00a0Slovenia<\/a>\u00a0has a plan to send large numbers of T-72 battle tanks as well. The Germans will be supplying\u00a0anti-aircraft tanks<\/a>\u00a0to Kiev and the Pentagon says an unidentified European ally is providing\u00a0Ukraine with warplanes<\/a>.<\/p>\n London\u2019s armed forces minister declared his government\u2019s support for Kiev\u2019s \u201ccompletely legitimate<\/a>\u201d attacks inside Russia using British arms. This comes amid an\u00a0uptick<\/a>\u00a0in reports of Ukrainian cross border\u00a0drone<\/a>\u00a0and helicopter\u00a0assaults<\/a>\u00a0including on Russian\u00a0oil depots<\/a>,\u00a0residential areas<\/a>, and\u00a0villages<\/a>. The U.S. and its European allies are\u00a0implementing a long term policy that looks to exile Russia<\/a>, looking toward a new world order where they no longer seek to \u201ccoexist\u201d with Moscow.<\/p>\n London wants Europe to\u00a0cut off<\/a>\u00a0all Russian energy \u201conce and for all,\u201d which would make war more likely, impoverish innocent people, and cause\u00a0massive recessions<\/a>.<\/p>\n The U.S., NATO, and Russian\u00a0presence<\/a>\u00a0in the Mediterranean Sea has reached Cold War levels, as\u00a0NATO builds new Eastern European battlegroups<\/a>.<\/p>\n In March, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg\u00a0warned<\/a>\u00a0that any \u201cuse of chemical weapons would totally change the nature of the conflict, it would be a blatant violation of international law and would have far-reaching consequences.\u201d This weekend, legislation for a new Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) has been\u00a0introduced<\/a>\u00a0by Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-IL). Kinzinger\u2019s announcement calls the would be AUMF a \u201cclear red line,\u201d which would authorize Biden to deploy troops to Ukraine to fight Russians if Moscow should \u201cuse chemical, biological, and\/or nuclear weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n With the almost complete bipartisan Congressional support for the renewal of Lend-Lease and other anti-Russia, pro-war legislation, it is not outside the realm of possibility that this bill and its cynical redline trap becomes law.<\/p>\n For nearly two decades, Washington has funded \u201cbiological research\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and other laboratories inside Ukraine. According to the head of the DoD\u2019s Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, some of these labs may contain Soviet-era bioweapons.<\/p>\n As Dave DeCamp, news editor at Antiwar.com, has\u00a0reported<\/a>,<\/p>\n The Pentagon funds labs in Ukraine through its Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). According to\u00a0a Pentagon fact sheet released last month<\/a>, since 2005, the U.S. has \u201cinvested\u201d $200 million in \u201csupporting 46 Ukrainian laboratories, health facilities, and diagnostic sites.\u201d<\/p>\n Moscow has accused Ukraine of\u00a0conducting an emergency clean-up<\/a>\u00a0of a secret Pentagon-funded biological weapons program when Russia invaded. The World Health Organization\u00a0said it advised Ukraine<\/a>\u00a0to destroy \u201chigh-threat pathogens\u201d around the time of the invasion.<\/p>\n For their part, the U.S. maintains that the program in Ukraine and other former Soviet states is meant to reduce the threat of biological weapons left over from the Soviet Union. While downplaying the threat of the labs, Pentagon officials have also warned that they could still contain Soviet-era bioweapons.<\/p>\n Robert Pope, the director of the DTRA\u2019s Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, told the\u00a0Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in February<\/a>\u00a0that the labs might contain Soviet bioweapons and warned that the fighting in Ukraine could lead to the release of a dangerous pathogen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Much like previous Syrian redlines, this is practically the hawks\u2019 invitation to bad actors seeking U.S. intervention to go ahead and launch an attack that could be plausibly blamed on our Hitler du jour to manufacture their desired casus belli.<\/p>\n