Breaking the 'ostriches' lock on Ukraine aid

Bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Marie G-P seeks to force vote to overcome opposition from Trumpist 'Freedom Caucus"

One thing is clear in American politics these days: The right wing of the GOP, once the party of hawks, has become the party of ostriches.

I hope that an effort joined by Southwest Washington Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, often referred to as MGP, overcomes the right’s unwillingness to confront the realities of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

The Skamania Democrat, who has focused largely on district and domestic concerns during her first year in office, is sponsoring bipartisan legislation to help curb illegal immigration and provide military assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. It is her first major foray into foreign affairs.

Despite a few reservations about this initiative, I hope it succeeds. It could help break the power of the minority, Trump-possessed “freedom caucus” that has played such a disruptive and divisive role in Congress.

MGP last week joined other members of the “problem solvers” coalition in introducing the “Defending Borders, Defending Democracies Act.”

It would require that U.S. border authorities to immediately expel “inadmissible” aliens and would provide $66.3 billion in defense assistance, including $48 billion to Ukraine and $10.4 billion to Israel.

Last week, U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican, announced he will seek a “discharge petition” to force a vote on the bill over the objections of the House GOP leadership. It needs 218 votes to succeed, and at least four Republicans would have to sign on for the petition to  pass.

Its prospects are not bright, but it may be the only way to overcome the cowardice of House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Johnson, a newcomer to the GOP power center, is kowtowing to the Freedom Caucus,” a group of 40 to 50 members who oppose Ukraine assistance and could, in the closely divided House, move to strip him of the speakership.

This brazenly puts political ambitions over national security interests. Freedom caucus, indeed. This sycophantic, Trumpist group should be called the “Putin’s fools” or “Trump’s stooges” caucus. Putin has got to be laughing sardonically at them and the former president.

“Failing to act isn’t just turning our back on freedom across our globe — it’s also against our own national security. The America I know stands up for its democratic allies against barbaric autocrats like Putin” — U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez

The need to break this logjam, though is serious and urgent. Ukrainian forces are rationing ammunition and are losing ground that they recaptured after Russia overran it in the early days of the two-year-old conflict.

It is in America’s interests to help Ukraine keep up the fight. MGP puts it well:

“If Ukraine runs out of the arms it needs to defend its democracy, Russia will keep pushing into Europe. It’s an existential threat to Ukraine, but their defeat would also set a terrible precedent of predation against smaller countries,” MGP said in a statement in response to my questions. “Failing to act isn’t just turning our back on freedom across our globe — it’s also against our own national security. The America I know stands up for its democratic allies against barbaric autocrats like Putin.”

Failing to confront Putin could embolden China and North Korea to further menace their neighbors in Western Pacific. It would dent American prestige and the trust of our allies.

Through U.S. support for Ukraine, “We’re undermining Russia’s capacity to wage a larger regional conflict without having lost a single active duty American service member,” MGP said.

She has read her history. Surrendering Ukraine to Putin would be like the West’s late 1930s appeasement of Hitler, whom we ended up fighting anyway at huge cost and loss of life in World War II.  Isolationism in this case is escapism at best and cowardice at worst. 

From the day Russia invaded Ukraine, my biggest fear has been that the West would lose its resolve to assist Ukraine. Putin has counted on that from the beginning.

Russia, from its peasants to Putin, most admires one aspect of political methodology: raw power. It has had a centuries-long, messianic and strategic wish to control all of Eastern Europe and all Slavic peoples. It will not honor diplomacy and it will force its people to endure hardship and repression to achieve it expansionist goals. It understands and respects only military and dictatorial power.

Russia, despite Putin’s selective and distorted reading of history, has no legitimate claim to Ukraine. Millions of Ukrainians have died over the centuries to make it independent. And in one of this new war’s great ironies, the invasion has only increased nationalist sentiment and Ukrainian solidarityh and led to the expansion of the NATO alliance.

From the day Russia invaded Ukraine, my biggest fear has been that the West would lose its resolve to assist Ukraine. Putin has counted on that from the beginning. And I have no doubt that he and his regime are working behind the scenes to get Donald Trump back in the White House.

This is the Donald Trump who preferred to believe Putin’s denial about Russian interference in the 2016 election over that of America’s intelligence agencies. This is the Donald Trump who professes to admire Putin, the autocrat who jails and assassinates political rivals. This is the Donald Trump who recently “encouraged” Putin to invade NATO members who don’t pay their proportional share of the alliance’s costs. (More than half of NATO members now meet the alliance’s guideline to  spend 2% of their nation’s gross domestic product on defense, another consequence of Putins’s invasion.)

Do Freedom caucus members want it on their consciences if many thousands of Ukrainians die and Russia wipes Ukraine off the map, as it has tried to do for centuries through “Russification” policies and cultural repression? Will they regret it if American boots are  one day brought to the ground to defend NATO allies from Russian expansionism?j

This is madness — strict, blind obeisance to an ignorant and self-serving ex president. It’s so egregious I can’t think these right wingers really believe in what they’re doing.  Their real motivation must be to undermine the efforts of the Biden administration, which has built a successful coalition to confront Putin.

The extreme right’s insistence to condition Ukraine aide on better southern border security has been shown to be as hollow as is illogical. It rejected a $95 billion bipartisan border and military aide deal that passed with 70% Senate approval. Why? Because Trump didn’t want to hand Biden a victory. How cynical can you get? 

So much for “America first.”

There isn’t room to explore this fully here. It is true that Biden was slow to address the border crisis, as MGP herself stated recently.

“As the number of migrants unlawfully crossing our Southern Border reached a record high in December, it’s evident the Biden Administration has failed to get a handle on this unsustainable humanitarian crisis. Our government has an obligation to maintain a secure border, yet it’s been unable to even keep track of who’s traveling in and out — the American people deserve better,” she said a month ago.

However, the southern border crisis is nowhere near analogous to the security issues posed by the Ukraine war, and the proposed fixes are mere Band-aides.  I’m also disturbed by blending aid to Israel into the “Defending Borders, Defending Democracies Act” because the Israel-Hamas war is far more complex and sinister than the conflict in Ukraine.

Still, it’s worth endorsing this legislation and the effort to force a vote on it. It’s a way for intelligent members of both parties to blunt the power of this misnamed Freedom Caucus — even if its members want to continue to keep their heads in the sand.