Where Is the Anti-War Left in America?

In Congress, they talk a big game but fold every time; it’s easy to be anti-war until the war propaganda starts

It’s difficult to imagine the Democratic Party being more of a disappointment. Things could somehow always be worse, but the list of accomplishments is embarrassingly short while the existential crises continue to mount, the party prefers to use only kind words and virtue signaling to address dire problems, and we’re now on the brink of WWIII.

The progressive edge of the party has turned out to be a complete paper tiger and punching bag of a scapegoat for every other political player in the nation.

They do nothing, accomplish nothing, and yet get blamed for every Democratic Party loss — even though those defeats are usually easily explainable and, quite honestly, justified — and they get used as a fear-mongering tool by the right, who claim Biden is ‘beholden’ to the far left.

Now, every Democrat in Washington just voted to send $40 billion to Ukraine and the Biden Administration is sending troops to Somalia.

Somehow, the only dissent came from the right and the loony-toon Marjorie Taylor Greene gave the speech that ideologically would have been AOC’s role.

So much for the anti-war left.

…it’s very very very easy to be anti-war until the war propaganda starts.

There was a weird phenomenon I witnessed during the 2020 election. The few times I ventured onto that cesspool called Facebook, I saw friends and relatives, from Rural Trump Country Michigan, liking and reposting long political posts bashing Biden. Well, that part wasn’t surprising.

I had spent the entire primary election dunking on the party as a whole and poor Sleepy Joe, who I’ve always said should be allowed to sit in a chair on his Delaware porch with a blanket on his lap and a nurse feeding him a bowl of porridge, not out here trying to give speeches, do media appearances, and pretend to contribute to world-changing decisions.

I knew he’d be a disaster, but that was not hard to see. And right-wing country dudes from my rural part of America with their massive trucks and Skoal rings in their jeans always post about how much the Democrats suck.

The surprising part was that they were saying supporting Democrats means supporting more war. For them, historically correct or not, the Democrats had become the war party.

I had never seen much anti-war sentiment from these types of posts in the past. Iraq and Afghanistan were obviously Bush’s war crimes that dragged out and became very unpopular, but I had surely never seen the framing of ‘if you vote for the Democrats, you’re voting for more wars.’

I guess they knew something I didn’t.

I had surely never seen the framing of ‘if you vote for the Democrats, you’re voting for more wars.’

Immediately after the invasion of Ukraine, the US started approving hundreds of millions of dollars in aid packages, the overwhelming majority of which went to military equipment aka US weapons contractors’ bank accounts.

Since the second day of the war, every two-ish weeks the Biden Administration approves a new massive round of aid spending.

The top eight weapons contractors met in the White House a few weeks ago to reportedly discuss their ability to continue supplying this war for years, and let us not forget that Secretary of Defense Loyd Austen was on the board of Raytheon before his new position promoting American forever war and defense spending.

The aid packages to Ukraine quickly added up to some $14 billion.

Of course, we should be helping the Ukrainian people against this illegal invasion, but let’s not be naive and think that money is going directly to the people of Ukraine — we have other options. Most of those billions are going to be skimmed by US weapons manufacturers like Loyd Austen’s former employer, whose CEO is openly excited about the future prospects of Europe needing to re-up their weapons reserves while they expand their military budgets.

That’s $14 billion mostly spent on armaments that US defense analysts already admitted we have no idea what happens to once they enter Ukraine. It’s, ‘here’s a few billion to give to Raytheon to buy some weapons.’ Then they cross the border, and we have little to no idea what happens.

And we pat ourselves on the back and pretend we’re helping.

It is also well documented that there are extremist groups in the country, even part of the national guard, and defense analysts were openly nervous weeks ago about where those weapons could end up.

“This could be a problem 10 years down the line, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be something we’re thinking about… Over 50 million rounds of ammunition — all that ammunition isn’t just going to be used to fight Russians. Eventually that ammunition is going to be misused, whether intentionally or not.” — CATO Analyst

They admit the last times the US did this in Syria and Afghanistan before that, high-grade weapon systems found their way to terrorist organizations, and they admit some of these weapons sent to Ukraine will undoubtedly be used for the wrong reasons.

That was weeks ago.

Every new hundred-million-dollar package was going to ‘turn the tide.’ Ridiculous Medium essays with thousands of reads boasted how the Javelins and Stingers were going to push the invaders back to Moscow. Then those same freaking writers were convinced the drones were going to have the ill-prepared and ill-trained Russkis fleeing back to their dachas.

Also weeks ago, even CNN reported, “Privately, officials recognize that Ukraine has an incentive to give only information that will bolster their case for more aid, more arms and more diplomatic assistance.”

So, the US sent billions of dollars worth of weapons into a war zone, admits the information we’re receiving might not be accurate, and doesn’t know where a lot of the weapons go once they cross the border.

And then Biden asked Congress for $33 billion more in aid.

Not only were both parties on board, but they also upped it to an even $40 billion for good measure.

So, the US sent billions of dollars worth of weapons into a war zone, admits the information we’re receiving might not be accurate, and doesn’t know where a lot of the weapons go once they cross the border.

First, they increased the bill by more than 20%, then they fast-tracked it to get in on the floor, and then it was overwhelmingly approved in a vote of 388–57. There was not one Democratic dissenter. Not a single Squad or Progressive Caucus member thought we should put this on hold, talk about it, debate the details, and make sure there’s oversight.

That is despite progressives in Congress speaking out against this exact kind of blind escalation mere days, weeks, or months ago.

Here’s a sampling — S/O to Glenn Greenwald’s Substack for pointing these out:

I certainly join [House progressives] in the concerns of having increased aid, lethal aid, into that area. That will only inflame the situation. I also join them in the concern that we need restraint, that the last thing the American people want is an escalation which could lead us to some long war in Ukraine with Russia, that that’s a very dangerous situation, and no one in this country — or, very few people in this country would want that. There’s a reason President Obama didn’t send lethal aid into Ukraine and had a greater restraint in his approach. So, I do think we should do everything possible not to escalate the situation, while having the moral clarity that Putin is in the wrong in this case…. — Ro Kanna (D-CA) February 8th, 2022 on Democracy Now

“There is no military solution out of this crisis — diplomacy needs to be the focus… We have significant concerns that new troop deployments, sweeping and indiscriminate sanctions, and a flood of hundreds of millions of dollars in lethal weapons will only raise tensions and increase the chance of miscalculation. Russia’s strategy is to inflame tensions; the United States and NATO must not play into this strategy.” — Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) Progressive Caucus Press Release January 26th, 2022

The consequences of flooding Ukraine with billions of dollars in (US) weapons, likely not limited to military-specific equipment but also including small arms + ammo, are unpredictable & likely dangerous.

Specially when they’re given to paramilitary groups w/out accountability. — Ilhan Omar tweet March 8th, 2022

That was the rhetoric in the lead-up and beginning. And then they all voted to send $40 billion with zero oversight to a war zone that US pundits and government officials are now OPENLY calling a proxy war.

When people like me called it a proxy war in March, we were demonized and called every lazy trope under the sun from an apologist to foreign agent to bot-farm troll.

Now they say it gleefully on American television and some lawmakers are even going a step further and saying there’s ‘no off-ramp’ and victory can only come when there’s ‘regime change in Moscow.’

Or Steny Hoyer’s (D-MD) old ass said, ‘at a time of war’ it is inappropriate to criticize the president.

We are not at war, Steny.

But we are engaged in a proxy war.

A proxy war in which the US government has approved $54 billion in the first ten weeks. That’s more than the average we spent per year in freaking Afghanistan.

Again, it’s only been ten weeks. American officials are openly talking about extending this for years. How much money are we going to hand to Dick Cheney and Lockheed Martin?

US defense analysts admit it is a black hole, and they’re unsure where these weapons are going once in the country. And yet all we do is send a few billion more to Raytheon and Halliburton then dump dangerous armaments into that black hole.

It is precisely the thing progressives have railed against. Questioning and debating this path forward is precisely in line with a left-wing ideology.

Sixty-four percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, thirty million don’t have healthcare, and forty-four million are living in EXTREME hunger.

And we don’t even debate a bill about dumping forty billion dollars into a black hole? There’s a slush fund for the State Department and freaking CIA, and ‘the left’ in Congress has nothing to say? And the only dissent comes from right-wing loons?

The only one who says maybe we should debate this and have some oversight is Rand freaking Paul?

Marjorie Taylor Greene is a nutter, but how the hell does she give almost the same speech as AOC did in September of 2021?

Where’s the talk of diplomacy as Pramila Jayapal and the Progressive Caucus once advocated for? The only one calling for a peaceful resolution is Donald freaking Trump.

It’s embarrassing. It’s a joke. And all this escalation is extremely dangerous.

But it’s very very very easy to be anti-war until the war propaganda starts. Until you’re Chris Hedges or Michael Moore getting booed on stage for speaking out against Iraq. That actually takes some courage.

The anti-war left in America doesn’t just lack courage; it doesn’t even exist.