I am speaking about a $95-billion foreign military aid package that included $61 billion for Ukraine. Speaker Mike Johnson’s turnaround from opponent to supporter of the war in Ukraine raised many eyebrows. His meeting with Trump in advance of this announcement added intrigue and speculations about the reasons for this sudden change of heart.
Most likely both men decided that it would help Trump and the GOP to win votes in November, and how many more Ukrainians would die in the process was of no particular concern to them. Instead, Johnson used the same Lindsey Graham and Co’s language that financing this war was the best investment ever made since no Americans were dying, and the only new element was that the Speaker added a personal touch by adding his son into the equation. “To put it bluntly, I would rather send bullets to Ukraine than American boys,” Johnson told reporters last week. “My son is going to begin in the Naval Academy this fall. This is a live-fire exercise for me as it is for so many American families. This is not a game; this is not a joke.”
Well, nowadays it is useless to ask whether such statements correspond to moral, ethical, or any other values that US and EU politicians (there are exceptions, of course, but, so far, their numbers are not enough to change the course) claim to adhere to but Ukrainian President Zelensky surpasses their cynicism by thanking Congress saying “The vital US aid bill passed today by the House will keep the war from expanding, save thousands and thousands of lives.” He is talking, of course, about saving American, not Ukrainian lives.
Such statements and actions from Washington or Brussels, and from Zelensky confirm what was known anyway. The West found a foreign leader ready to serve its interests of weakening Russia by sacrificing the Ukrainian people and their country in exchange for money and glory. In the Western media, he is now George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Winston Churchill together in one face. I doubt all of them or their heirs would be thrilled by being compared to someone who converted his own country into a foreign mercenary legion.
Hellbound and Down 