Senator Vance (R-OH) would have us believe that Ukraine is doomed:
President Biden wants the world to believe that the biggest obstacle facing Ukraine is Republicans and our lack of commitment to the global community. This is wrong. Ukraine’s challenge is not the G.O.P.; it’s math. Ukraine needs more soldiers than it can field, even with draconian conscription policies. And it needs more matériel than the United States can provide. This reality must inform any future Ukraine policy, from further congressional aid to the diplomatic course set by the president. [The New York Times[1]]
To which there is an answer that doesn’t involve dry statistics and other dreary things.
Senator Vance, you’ve forgotten one factor in your mathematical analysis.
We are the UNITED STATES. Together, we can do anything. We’ve gone to the Moon, we’ve sent probes to the planets and probes are on their way to other solar systems. We’ve rescued countries, and we have doomed other countries.
That’s right, we are capable of the greatest feats, and the greatest crimes. We can abandon Ukraine as we snivel about the penny-pinching cost of it all, or we can provide our aid, in support of another democracy, in support of international law, and in support of our national interest.
We can send more than enough arms to Ukraine to defeat those who threaten to oppress them, to rape them, to bully them, to eradicate them from their very homeland, many of them obsolete in our estimation – but not there’s. We can do this without sending troops.
Or we can turn our backs on them, our fellow humans who wish to control their own destiny, rather than capitulate to the Russian dictator.
Do you want to commit a great crime? Or do you want to accomplish the ‘impossible’ great thing, and set Ukraine free?
1 Via Maddowblog, because I am too cheap to pay for subscriptions to both WaPo and the Times. And I don’t have the time to read both.
