I’m assuming that the U.S. is going to pay for all of this “aid”, aren’t they?
Let me enlighten you on something. The Department of Defense has tried to take away Tuition Assistance to military members for the last 3 years in a row, because we don’t have enough money. They are threatening to cut the A-10 completely from service, because we don’t have enough money. They are screwing retired military member’s Tricare and the VA system is a disaster, because we don’t have enough money. They lowered my BAH this year, and the DOD is the only entity that received a pay raise LESS than inflation rate in the entire federal government...because we don’t have enough money.
And yet, you want to send millions/billions of dollars of aid to Ukraine? If you feel so passionate about “aiding” them, then set up a Paypal account and feel free to donate your own money. Or better yet, go fight yourself instead of sending Joe Snuffy of the 82nd Airborne who has already been away from home for 7 deployments. We can’t even finish off ISIS or Al Qaeda, who are way more of a threat than the Luhansk volunteer forces and their illiterate Russian green men.
Obama has it all wrong...
Now let me give you pause to reflect:
F.D.R. 1941 State of the Union
“New circumstances are constantly begetting new needs for our safety. I shall ask this Congress for greatly increased new appropriations and authorizations to carry on what we have begun.
I also ask this Congress for authority and for funds sufficient to manufacture additional munitions and war supplies of many kinds, to be turned over to those nations which are now in actual war with aggressor nations.
Our most useful and immediate role is to act as an arsenal for them as well as for ourselves. They do not need man power, but they do need billions of dollars worth of the weapons of defense. The time is near when they will not be able to pay for them all in ready cash. We cannot, and we will not, tell them that they must surrender, merely because of present inability to pay for the weapons which we know they must have.
I do not recommend that we make them a loan of dollars with which to pay for these weapons—a loan to be repaid in dollars.
I recommend that we make it possible for those nations to continue to obtain war materials in the United States, fitting their orders into our own program. Nearly all their materiel would, if the time ever came, be useful for our own defense.
Taking counsel of expert military and naval authorities, considering what is best for our own security, we are free to decide how much should be kept here and how much should be sent abroad to our friends who by their determined and heroic resistance are giving us time in which to make ready our own defense.
For what we send abroad, we shall be repaid within a reasonable time following the close of hostilities, in similar materials, or, at our option, in other goods of many kinds, which they can produce and which we need.
Let us say to the democracies: “We Americans are vitally concerned in your defense of freedom. We are putting forth our energies, our resources and our organizing powers to give you the strength to regain and maintain a free world. We shall send you, in ever-increasing numbers, ships, planes, tanks, guns. This is our purpose and our pledge.”
In fulfillment of this purpose we will not be intimidated by the threats of dictators that they will regard as a breach of international law or as an act of war our aid to the democracies which dare to resist their aggression. Such aid is not an act of war, even if a dictator should unilaterally proclaim it so to be.
When the dictators, if the dictators, are ready to make war upon us, they will not wait for an act of war on our part. They did not wait for Norway or Belgium or the Netherlands to commit an act of war.
Their only interest is in a new one-way international law, which lacks mutuality in its observance, and, therefore, becomes an instrument of oppression.
The happiness of future generations of Americans may well depend upon how effective and how immediate we can make our aid felt. No one can tell the exact character of the emergency situations that we may be called upon to meet. The Nation’s hands must not be tied when the Nation’s life is in danger.
We must all prepare to make the sacrifices that the emergency-almost as serious as war itself—demands. Whatever stands in the way of speed and efficiency in defense preparations must give way to the national need.”