Senate Unanimously Revives Lend-Lease Program

April 13, 2022 Hunter Wallace Alt-Center, Conservatism, Defense, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Politics, Populists, Progressives, Russia, Ukraine, World 18

UPDATE: Just out of curiosity, I looked up what my Republican congressman is saying on Twitter about Ukraine and his voting record. He is one of these people slamming Joe Biden for high gas prices and inflation while voting to ban Russian oil and impose sanctions on Russians. He has a press release whining about high fertilizer prices which are a direct result of his own foreign policy choices.

I’m going to vote in state and local races in the midterms.

As usual, I highly doubt that I am going to bother to vote in federal elections. I will take a closer look at who is running later this year, but I have become less and less inclined to vote for a GOP Congress. We don’t have a single U.S. senator who is willing to oppose this proxy war in Ukraine.

Politico:

“The Senate unanimously passed major legislation late Wednesday to revive a World War II-era program allowing President Joe Biden to more efficiently send weapons and other supplies to Ukraine amid Russia’s bloody invasion.

Senators quickly rallied behind the proposal, known as Lend-Lease, as Ukraine’s military proved it could fend off Russian troops who have been shelling Ukrainian cities and towns since late February. The Lend-Lease program created during World War II was seen as a game-changer in the conflict, as it allowed the U.S. to quickly resupply the Allies without time-consuming procedural hurdles.

Lawmakers are resorting to extraordinary tactics last used during the most significant global conflict of the 20th century — yet another sign that the U.S. and its allies in Europe believe Russia’s invasion presents an existential threat to liberal order. …”

What’s the difference on foreign policy?

What’s the difference on our military budget?

Military spending goes up regardless of which party is in charge in Washington. We also get more deeply involved in far flung countries in Eurasia. There is no difference between Sean Hannity and Hillary Clinton. There is no one to vote for if you would rather stay out of these conflicts.

Politico:

“President Joe Biden is authorizing the transfer of around $750 million in additional weapons to Ukraine amid the ongoing Russian invasion, three people familiar with the new package told POLITICO.

Using his presidential drawdown powers, Biden will give Kyiv’s forces drones, howitzers and protective equipment against possible chemical attacks along with other weapons. …

Relevant congressional committees were notified of the move on Tuesday afternoon, according to two aides. The presidential drawdown authority Biden invoked was doubled in size as part of the massive $14 billion Ukraine aid package negotiated last month by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The new shipment was first reported by Reuters.

The U.S. has already delivered $2.4 billion in military assistance since Biden took office, though the vast majority of that aid has come since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. …”

If we are going to continue to squander hundreds of billions of dollars on our bloated military and fight pointless wars and send tens of billions of dollars to Ukraine while refusing to do anything our own border because we can’t afford it (this was the excuse in the Trump years), why even bother to participate?

18 Comments

  1. Re: “this proxy war”:

    It is actually a HALF-proxy war, because U.S. Delta special force “boots” have been on the ground fighting the Russian military in Khazarkraine throughout the war, in addition to U.S. military trainers and commanders directing the proxies, and immense U.S. “eye in the sky” surveillance giving targeting directions, and U.S. weapons shipments that are still ongoing.

    Of course the Empire will try to “lend-lease” this war. It intends to force the population of Khazarkraine to pay (and will try to make all Russians pay) for all the weapons and training it has “given” them for this war.

  2. Along with Lend-Lease FDR also started the first peace time conscription in the nation’s history. It lasted until Jan. 1973 allowing the U.S. Government to fight WWII then the Korean and Vietnam wars. This is the trajectory the U.S. Government is on again ultimately.

    This is no longer the same country as it was in 1940, 1950 or 1965. The U.S. is now a Third World shithole and getting worse by the day. The industrial base necessary to wage a big, long term war has been sold off and is a shadow of its former self. The wog population is huge and unreliable while the Government is implacably anti-White; is is against the very people who make what works in the country go at all. On top of all this inflation is raging while the Government has debased the currency for decades with unpayable debts.

    It’s hard to see a good outcome from all of this. Sooner or later the politicians are going to come after White males to staff their bloated military with competent people, the dusky hued types haven’t got what it takes. I hope Whites have enough sense to give the Government the finger on that day.

    • Shlomo rode this horse into the ground. I don’t think our nuclear arsenal is very functional either. Fun times ahead!

      • If I recall correctly, a few years ago the US was having problems refurbishing our nukes (which they need to do from time to time.) I believe it was something to do with part of the trigger mechanism and they couldn’t find people to do it anymore since all the competent old timers had retired. Apparently they had been spending years trying to get it done and Couldn’t make any headway. I wonder how much of the American arsenal is still operational?

        • Your comment piqued my interest and caused me to do a google search. From an LA Times article dated May 29, 2009:

          The delay in retrofitting the warheads appears to validate long-standing concerns about an erosion of technical expertise at the Energy Department, as Cold War-era scientists and engineers retire and take with them detailed knowledge about the bombs.

          In May 2009, Obama was basically still in his first 100 days as President, Pixar was still releasing summer classics, and the Yankees were embarking on their last World Series title. It was a long time ago. I doubt things have gotten better for the nuclear program in the last 13 years. Check this out:

          At issue with the W76, at least in part, is a classified component that was used in the original weapon but that engineers and scientists at the Energy Department’s plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., could not duplicate in a series of efforts over the last several years.

          The component, known by the code word “fogbank,” is thought to be made of an exotic material and is crucial to a hydrogen bomb reaching its designed energy level in the microseconds before it blows apart.

          When it came time to make new batches of fogbank for the refurbishment program, the current workforce was unable to duplicate the characteristics of the batches made in the 1970s and 1980s, according to a March report by the Government Accountability Office.

          “I don’t know how this happened that we forgot how to make fogbank,” Coyle said. “It should not have happened, but it did.”

          https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-may-29-na-broken-warheads29-story.html

          “He is as clumsy as he is stupid”-Darth Vader

  3. I have a simple and I think obvious question:

    How are these weapons going to be delivered to Ukraine?

    In WWII, Lend-Lease material, including munitions, was delivered to Great Britain by merchant marine convoys protected by US and English warships (destroyers) — Germany (very successfully) attacked these convoys with submarines.

    Look at a map of the region (link) — Russia controls the Black Sea, so it’s impossible to deliver them by sea; Russia would not permit it — Russia also largely controls the skies over Ukraine; heavy weapons (per above, helicopters, howitzers, etc) would have to be delivered by large cargo planes, and while the US has such capability, would the Biden administration be foolish enough to use large, vulnerable USAF cargo aircraft to deliver heavy weapons to Ukraine? — would they be foolish enough to use US fighters to escort and protect these weapons delivery flights? — I see delivery by air as dangerous and unrealistic.

    This leaves delivery by truck or rail via Poland, perhaps also Romania.

    If you’ve paid attention to hard news of the conflict, you know that Russia has very good precision weapons, and these can be fired from mobile carriers, by warplanes, or from ships in the Black Sea (link) — there is nothing to stop the armed forces of the RF from targeting rail links and roads leading into Ukraine from Poland and Romania — in fact, as I said before, the Russian high command must, and I think will, attempt to interdict these weapons, which will be used to kill Russian soldiers.

    It is impossible to make sense of this idiocy.

    • “there is nothing to stop the armed forces of the RF from targeting rail links and roads leading into Ukraine”:

      Because Russia is trying to avoid civilian casualties to Russian and other Slavic brothers, as long as the U.S. is able to ship the weapons on roads crowded with refugees and normal civilian traffic, and if it continues to disguise delivery vehicles as possibly civilian, Russia is reluctant to take a chance. But if the shoe was on the other foot the U.S. would not hesitate to destroy everything.

    • It’s just target practice for the Russian Military….and the defense contractors win either way…….

      The US is slaughtering Russian Soldiers from a once removed proxy military The Russians will never forgive and forget what America is doing…..America won’t exist past Nov 3 2024….

      Trump’s allegiance is only to Israel….

  4. Take note here that this vote was unanimous. The senate is no more independent than the “legislatures” of North Korea or the EUSSR. Both nominal parties voted in lockstep to deepen the involvement of the US regime in a war halfway around the world, as the southern border of this country remains wide open to an ongoing invasion. Let’s vote moar harder, because that’s really going to make a difference… NOT. Kindly don’t confuse this simple ugly observation of the truth with “blackpilling”. We have to face this reality so we can start to think outside the box the usual suspects have erected for our minds.

  5. The comments to Michael Tracey pointing out lend-lease pushed us into WWII gives me zero hope for the future:

    “And getting into WWII was a bad thing?”
    “Stopping Hitler was a bad thing?”
    etc. etc.

    The morality of the pathetic American is wrapped up in the need to martyr themselves for causes with which they neither benefit nor help humanity as a whole. They want to go into the meatgrinder of war, and they want to drag everyone else into their death wish.

    God help us all. We are doomed.

    • The conditioning runs very deep. I’ve run into several Americans who shun their German ancestry because of bad mustache man. So they’ve managed to beat down Germans on both sides of the Atlantic, and these patriotard German Americans fail to realize that bad mustache man fought against most of the ills they bemoan in this country every day.

      • I have sort of a reverse feeling. I’m 25% Polish through my maternal grandfather, and I’m embarrassed of that part of my ancestry because the Poles were a bunch of entitled, whiny crybabies who got all of us involved in WW2.

        I honestly feel like all the good Poles immigrated to America. The ones who stayed were the illiterate retards with grug brain who think “Russia Bad. Kill Ruskies.” Then again, the same attitude exists in the Baltic states. Hungary is the only East European people acting sane these days. My opinion of East Europe has greatly lowered since February 24, 2022. What a bunch of entitled leeches.

  8. Forty year old weapon systems and aircraft, all obsolete, and no match for their 21st Century Russian counterparts. Ukraine ain’t the Central Front in 1985. Russia ain’t the 20th Century Soviet Union.

    Biden is no match for his 21st Century counterpart, either.

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