A war with China would be devastating, costing trillions and risking countless lives.
Yet DC continues to push the narrative that China's rise is an "existential threat" to the US.
But this rhetoric only pushes us closer to the real existential threat: a war with China.
Nearly 60 Democrats in Congress—including former speaker Pelosi—are urging the White House to withhold arms from Israel.
But just this week the US agreed to give $23.5B of new military aid to Israel.
Does
@VP
hear these cries to end America’s support for the slaughter in Gaza?
NEW: Despite jailing & sidelining, Imran Khan’s party leading in Pakistan elections
A showdown over valid election results could, however, place Washington in a precarious position,
@AdamNoahWho
writes in
@RStatecraft
The Pentagon paid Boeing $52,000 for a trash can.
This is what we're talking about when we say the military-industrial complex is completely out of control.
John Mearsheimer: In the unipolar moment, America was genuinely interested in remaking the world in our own image.
Those days are gone—we’re now in a world where the U.S. is going to knock off democracies that we think are unfriendly to us and cozy up to autocrats.
NEW: Terrorism in Africa increased 100,000% during 'war on terror'
A new DoD report indicates that violence on the continent today is far worse than when the US military went in to ‘help,’
@nickturse
reports in
@RStatecraft
.
@RandPaul
is readying a joint resolution of disapproval to stop the Biden Administration’s expected sale of $650 million worth of “defensive” air-to-air missiles or AMRAAMs—as well as 596 missile launchers—to Saudi Arabia.
🔥🔥🔥
@mehdirhasan
:
"If [the Biden administration] can’t force their pals the Saudis to end this barbaric and inhumane war against the Yemeni people, then at least stick to what they promised, and end our involvement in it. Is that too much to ask?"
Increasingly Americans want:
-A US arms embargo on Israel
-A diplomatic end to the war in Ukraine
-To stop enriching the military industrial complex at Americans’ expense
-To maintain peaceful relations with China
It’s time for Washington to listen to Americans, not hawks
"In articles related to U.S. military involvement in Ukraine, media outlets have cited think tanks with financial backing from the defense industry 85% of the time, or 7 times as often as think tanks that do not accept funding from Pentagon contractors."
"I don’t always agree with Biden but on Afghanistan troop withdrawal he’s got it right Carrying through with plans set into motion by Trump is something all Americans can cheer," writes Senator
@RandPaul
in
@RStatecraft
.
🔖 Weekend reading:
NEW:
@RandPaul
To Force Vote On Syria Troop Withdrawal,
@KelleyBVlahos
reports in
@RStatecraft
The Republican senator says US solders are in harm's way and have no authority to be there anyway
NEW
#QIVideo
: Why aren’t Americans as loud in our denunciation of Saudi Arabia’s bombing in Yemen as we are about Russia’s aggression against Ukraine?
Mearsheimer: Contrary to the conventional wisdom in the West, Moscow did not invade Ukraine to conquer it and make it part of a Greater Russia. It was principally concerned with preventing Ukraine from becoming a Western bulwark on the Russian border.
@RandPaul
"If the Biden administration wants to have troops there in late 2023 partnering with a military that just led a coup, it should ask Congress to debate and vote and let the American people weigh in,"
@justfp
's
@aidachavez
tells
@nickturse
.
"It's part of a broader Saudi strategy to favor the GOP as MBS calculates that a Republican president will reinvest in the idea of dominating the Middle East militarily, which makes the relationship with Saudi Arabia critical once more." -
@tparsi
The main reason gas prices are so high is because Saudi Arabia is withholding oil production, which Biden suggested is retaliation for his refusal to meet with crown prince MBS.
A senior senate aide I spoke to compared it to “economic sanctions”
.
@RandPaul
: We're in the middle of a potential war with 1100 troops in Niger where the democratically elected president has been deposed, and they're being ruled by a military junta and still our troops are there.
"Demonizing China with poorly supported charges of genocide, hypocritical criticisms of its violation of the 'rules-based order,' & a zero-sum democracy vs authoritarianism framing might be good political theater, but does nothing to advance US interests."
Jamaica Bearings — a company that distributes parts manufactured by other firms — sold the DoD 13 radio filters that had once cost $350 each for nearly $49,000 per unit in 2022. The apparent markup cost taxpayers more than $600,000 in extra fees.
Seventy years ago, Eisenhower warned what nuclear buildups and excessive military spending would cost the American people.
The severe tradeoffs Eisenhower cited in 1953 are even more pronounced today👇
As South Africa's Foreign Minister, Naledi Pandor, told
@QuincyInst
:
“This is our problem with the concept of a rules-based order—there are some who believe they must be exempt from certain parts of the rules, or certain friends or countries are exempt."
Truly shameful statement by Blinken, rejecting the ICC warrants for Netanyahu, Galant and Hamas.
Blinken's idea of the "rules based order" is clearly an order in which the US rules. And not an order where all states - including US allies - are equally subjected to the rules.>>
Harris wants to make the US military the “most lethal” in the world.
4.5 million dead from America’s post 9/11 wars
Thousands of civilians dead in Libya
Over 3 million dead from the Vietnam War
Not sure the problem with US foreign policy is its death toll.
In articles related to US military involvement in Ukraine, media outlets cited think tanks with financial backing from the defense industry 85% of the time.
Learn more about how defense contractor funded think tanks dominate the Ukraine war debate:
Andrew Bacevich at a war memorial in Marseilles, Illinois:
Our penchant for using "freedom" in connection with virtually any US military activity serves as an excuse for not thinking too deeply about the commitments & decisions that led to all those names being etched in stone.
Israel's war in Gaza has:
-Killed nearly 2% of Gaza's population
-Wounded 92,000
-Displaced 1.9 million
And yet, in the same breath the White House claims to be "deeply concerned" about these atrocities, they sent $3.5B more weapons to Israel.
Arms. Embargo. Now.
Ever wonder why the US is perpetually at war? Maybe it’s because:
-80% of 3 & 4 star generals leaving the gov join the arms industry
-700 former Pentagon and other gov. officials now work at a top 20 weapons contractor
-Congress members routinely become arms industry lobbyists
It's no secret that the United States overspends on defense but, relative to the rest of the world, the gap is staggering.
A helpful visualization via
@BBCWorld
:
"As Zelensky has said again and again, this war has to end in some kind of peace agreement and compromise—but U.S. officials like
@sethmoulton
seem to be aiming more and more for complete victory over Russia,"
@lieven_anatol
tells
@democracynow
#DNLive
.
Netanyahu just demanded the US send Israel more weapons.
The US is already complicit in the deaths of 38,000+ in Gaza.
NO. MORE.
There is only one humane answer to Bibi's pleas:
STOP sending weapons to Israel. It's time to push for a permanent ceasefire NOW.
.
@RandPaul
: “Almost all war ends in negotiation. It doesn’t justify [Putin’s] aggression, but I do think we need to find off ramps and exits even for our enemies.”
“Over the last 20 years, the United States has dropped an average of 46 bombs and missiles on other countries EACH DAY.”
@Stephenwertheim
@gravelinstitute
In the last 24 hours, Israel has apparently killed Hamas & Hezbollah leaders, and thus:
-Killed off a Gaza ceasefire
-Risked dragging the US into regional war
-Ended hopes of improved US-Iran ties
Washington: stop enabling this recklessness. Stop sending weapons to Israel NOW.
Eisenhower on NATO, 1951: “If in 10 years, all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been returned to the United States, then this whole project will have failed.”
How the US is enabling potential war crimes in Gaza:
1. The US supplies billions of dollars of weapons to Israel
2. Those weapons are used to commit apparent war crimes
It’s that simple.
Arms. Embargo. Now.
Racism. Materialism. Militarism.
We've begun to wrestle with the evils of racism and economic anxiety, but we can't heal unless our foreign policy of military domination is also overcome.
Each of these three evils upholds the other. Either all of them go or none of them go:
The US military spent $916 billion last year.
That is more than the next 9 countries combined.
War hawks want you to think this somehow helps bring world stability.
Take one look at the news, and it's obvious that nothing could be further from the truth.
"Don't tell me what you value; show me your budget, and I'll tell you what you value." -Joe Biden
Pentagon spending accounts for nearly half of all federal discretionary spending.
QI NRF John Mearsheimer on
@NewsHour
: "One circumstance in which a great power is likely to use nuclear weapons is...when it thinks a decisive defeat is being inflicted on it. What
@POTUS
is bent on doing is inflicting a decisive defeat on Russia."
Flyovers like this cost about $60,000 an hour, roughly the same price as 60,000 N-95 masks or 20,000 of some COVID-19 test kits. Medical workers must be very grateful
The weapons industry has spent $285 million on campaign contributions and $2.5 billion on lobbying since 9/11.
They've received $7 TRILLION in contracts in the same period—$28,000 in contracts for every dollar spent on lobbying.
@WilliamHartung
#QIBrief
"Biden promised to end the war in Yemen. Two years into his presidency, China may have delivered on that promise,"
@tparsi
tells
@ryangrim
@theintercept
.
NEW: 70 years ago, President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered his Chance for Peace speech warning Americans of what an unending arms race would cost our society.
Don’t let the news of Biden dropping out overshadow what’s about to happen in DC.
This week, Biden & Congress will welcome Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu with open arms.
Washington is still funding the annihilation of Gaza and American bombs are still killing civilians.
Netanyahu has made it very clear he is willing to drag the U.S. into a regional war to protect his own interests.
America doesn't need another forever war in the Middle East, no matter what Bibi Netanyahu says.
Quincy Institute alum Annelle Sheline resigned from the State Department in protest of U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza.
“I wasn’t able to really do my job anymore,” Sheline said. “Trying to advocate for human rights just became impossible.”
Since the War in Ukraine began:
-500,000+ troops have died
-Ukraine's fertility rate became the lowest in the world
-Its power generation capabilities have been halved
And things are only getting worse.
Partisan politics aside: Ukraine needs a diplomatic end to this war NOW.
NEW
@KelleyBVlahos
#QIosk
: Why does the U.S. still have troops in Syria and Iraq? Our service members continue to be targets of hostile forces for a strategy that no one in Washington can quite articulate.
@RStatecraft
WATCH: "The United States has the worst record of life expectancy of any industrialized country, and yet we’re putting the bulk of our resources into implements of war."
QI's
@WilliamHartung
joins
@democracynow
U.S. military spending: $877 billion
Combined military spending of the next 10 countries combined: $849 billion
How did we get here?
Lobbyists.
Lots and lots of lobbyists.
Americans don't want to fight in more wars
-Just 22% think US troops should defend Ukraine
-30% believe we should fight for Taiwan
-A minority want troops in Israel
US foreign policy should focus on what’s best for all Americans—not just DC elites & their arms industry pals
The Biden admin claims they are pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza, but as
@AnnelleSheline
pointed out on
@AJEnglish
, this is mere "political theater."
"The notion is nonsense because the Biden administration is not using any leverage."
QI Non-Resident Fellow John Mearsheimer: "The only way this can be resolved is with the U.S. and NATO saying that Ukraine will not become part of NATO. The Russians want it in writing. And I think this crisis will go away once this happens.”
Is American foreign policy reconfiguring? Here's an interesting piece by
@benwallacewells
on the unusual bedfellows the
#UkraineCrisis
has created.
The New Doves on Ukraine via
@NewYorker
Since 9/11, the U.S. arms industry has spent $285 million on campaign contributions and $2.5 billion on lobbying.
They've received $7,000,000,000,000—that's right, $7 TRILLION—in contracts in return.
I wonder where Netanyahu got the confidence to target Hamas & Hezbollah's leadership and risk a massive Middle East war in just 24 hours?
Could it be the minutes long standing ovations Congress gave him last week?
.
@stephenWalt
: The moral case for pursuing peace—even if the prospects are unlikely and the results are not what we’d prefer—lies in recognizing that the war is destroying Ukraine, and that the longer it lasts the more extensive and enduring the damage will be.
It's easy to understand why many people sympathize with Ukraine and want to support it against Russia. But the correct moral calculus on this issue is harder to discern, even for those on Kyiv's side. Latest FP column here:
U.S. war spending is fast approaching $1,000,000,000,000.
Meanwhile, the U.S. now has the lowest life expectancy of any industrialized country.
Is all of this militarism really making Americans safer?
.
@nkulw
: "This is what I find most ominous: the focus on arming 'our' guys to counter 'their' guys, the outright lust for conflict, with no concern at all about where escalation may lead and who will bear its cost."
@RStatecraft
NEW RESEARCH
Biden is pushing a bad deal with Saudi Arabia that will:
- Commit US troops to fight and die for MBS
- Fail to resolve Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- Undermine nuclear nonproliferation
- Risk pulling the US into more unnecessary conflicts
Here’s what Washington’s elites don’t want you to know: A foreign policy built on diplomacy will make you safer than one built on massive military spending and endless war.
Despite the anger we feel about the war in Ukraine, the US has limited options in how far it can go to support Ukrainians without also stumbling into the abyss of war.
In Yemen, we're not trying to stop the war & civillian slaughter—we're sustaining it.
The U.S. & Russia are in an escalatory spiral, bringing us to the brink of direct military conflict, QI's George Beebe warns.
"Each is taking steps that actually threaten the other side, deepen its sense of danger and provoke retaliatory responses that escalate over time."
You: The U.S. isn’t at war
Me: Troops in Syria and Iraq were literally bombed last week
You: The U.S. isn’t at war
Me: We literally bombed Yemen last week
You: The U.S. isn’t at war
We are not the same.
“Long before Eisenhower warned of the dangers of deferring to a military-industrial complex, long before McGovern issued his ‘Come Home America’ call for an end to military adventurism, John Quincy Adams counseled that a career of empire should be rejected as un-American.”
It is appropriate on this July 4, and every day, for patriots to recall John Quincy Adams's reminder that we should speak "the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights"—not of empire.
Do you ever get the sense that there is something fundamentally wrong with the role that the United States has chosen to play in the world today?
Join us at the Quincy Institute as we set to remake America's foreign policy:
The American invasion of Iraq began 19 years ago on March 19, 2003.
@RStatecraft
asked 13 journalists & critics from across the political spectrum: Has the mainstream press learned any lessons from its dismal performance surrounding the Iraq war?
If we’re morally obligated to help the Ukrainian population defend and protect itself, aren’t we also obligated not to facilitate and underwrite Saudi aggression in Yemen?
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone."
"America is still fighting wars around the world—it just doesn’t want to call them wars"
MUST WATCH video from
@GravelInstitute
featuring
@stephenwertheim
:
"The reality is there's ~18,000 applicants to the Special Immigrant Visa program in Afghanistan and they don't have time to wait for processing." —
@AdamNoahWho
We must not allow the interpreters that served alongside U.S. soldiers to become targets.
#ProtectOurPartners
WASHINGTON | MAY 23
What a Foreign Policy For the Middle Class Looks Like
@QuincyInst
&
@amconmag
are bringing together members of Congress, journalists and thought leaders to explore the role of realism and restraint amid global conflict.
🎟️RSVP:
Please do not look away from the ongoing horrors in Yemen; horrors that we as Americans have to take some responsibility for; horrors that the Biden administration doesn't seem to want to stop.
My commentary on
@MSNBC
. It's important. Please watch/share:
Paul Pillar: "If there is a parallel with Tehran in 1979, it is to be found primarily in a U.S. failure to anticipate and understand the nature of the anti-U.S. anger so much in evidence."
OpenAI: we will never sign a military contract or spy on you
*10 secs later*
OpenAI: So we’re working with the military now, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to spy
*15 sec later*
OpenAI: Ok don’t get mad, but we did hire the former NSA head, but we pinky-swear we’re not spying
It's absurd that the US spends more on its military than the next 7 nations combined while our healthcare workers go without PPE. We fully support this amendment by
@SenSanders
@ewarren
to cut the military budget by 10% and reinvest that in our communities
#PeopleOverPentagon
LISTEN UP
Slashing the Pentagon’s budget by 10% will free $74 BILLION to invest into jobs, education, housing, and healthcare
Senators vote on Tuesday!
Join
@BernieSanders
&
@EWarren
, call 202-224-3121 urge your Senators to vote for the Sanders Amendment
#PeopleOverPentagon