A huge rift between Europe and the US has opened up in regards to dealing with the situation in Ukraine. The US hawks led by Senator John McCain want to send arms to Ukraine, but German chancellor Angela Merkel sees things much differently. Chancellor Merkel says Ukraine Crisis Won't be Solved by Military Means.
Speaking at the Munich security conference on Saturday, the German chancellor said she wanted to secure peace in Europe with Russia and not against it. Germany has opposed aiding Ukrainian troops for fear of worsening the conflict, which has already cost more than 5,000 lives, but the idea has many supporters in Washington. “I cannot imagine any situation in which improved equipment for the Ukrainian army leads to President Putin being so impressed that he believes he will lose militarily,” Merkel said. “I have to put it that bluntly.”
The US is partially responsible for Ukraine’s indiscriminate use of cluster bombs in the country’s east, US Senator John McCain told Russia’s Sputnik news agency. According to McCain, it is due to the US failing to send Kiev other arms. “I think that if we had provided them with the weapons they need, they wouldn’t have felt they had to use cluster bombs. So, it’s partially our fault,” said McCain.
The White House came under bipartisan pressure from both sides of the Capitol to provide weapons to Ukraine Thursday. Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee made a big push on the issue, while a bipartisan group of House members called for the same course of action in a letter. "The United States must act with urgency to provide defensive lethal assistance to Ukraine," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. "Russia's invasion of sovereign territory of Ukraine, which has continued unabated in the face of political and economic sanctions, is the gravest threat to European security in decades," he said. Meanwhile, the group of House lawmakers said that the administration needed to provide weapons to Ukraine to deter further Russian aggression. "We are calling on the Administration to increase its support for Ukraine. Tighter sanctions and greater humanitarian assistance should be part of that support, but now, more than ever, the U.S. must supply Ukraine with the means to defend itself," they said in their letter. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), ranking member on the House Intelligence committee, was the lead signatory on the letter. He was joined by more than 30 Republicans and Democrats.
U.S. lawmakers will write legislation requiring the United States to send arms to Ukraine if President Barack Obama does not move to send weapons, Republican Senator John McCain said on Thursday. McCain led about a dozen Republican and Democratic senators at a news conference in pressing Obama to send arms to help Kiev defend itself against a Russian-backed separatist movement. "We'll be looking at marking up legislation that calls for it," McCain said.
Fighting over the Donetsk airport between Ukraine’s military and separatist forces backed by Russia has flared anew. The U.S. has begun providing heavier weapons as well as personnel training to Kiev. The conflict could go on for a long time, with Kiev and Moscow locked in a small hot war and the U.S. and Russia stuck in a larger Cold War lite. An extended confrontation would be in no one’s interest, especially America’s. The U.S. has made a habit of promiscuously meddling around the world. The results rarely have been pretty. Thousands of Americans have been killed, tens of thousands have been wounded, hundreds of thousands of foreigners have died, and a multitude of international furies have been loosed. At least none of these conflicts involved a real military power. In contrast, advocates of confrontation with Russia over Ukraine want to challenge a nation armed with nuclear weapons and an improving conventional military, steeped in nationalist convictions, rooted in historic traditions, and ruled by a tough authoritarian. No one should assume that in a military showdown the Kremlin would yield to Washington or that war with Moscow would be a cakewalk. Yet Ukraine’s most fervent advocates assume that any American who fails to believe that, say, inaugurating global nuclear war to save their distant ethnic homeland is a Putin troll, Russian agent, friend of dictators, proto-communist fellow traveler, or even worse. there is at least a Baker’s Dozen of good reasons for America to stay out of today’s messy, tragic, and bloody conflict involving Ukraine and Russia. The first six are reason enough: Ukraine isn’t important geographically Russia matters more than Ukraine to America Blame is widely shared for Ukraine’s travails Washington never guaranteed Ukraine’s security Vladimir Putin is not Hitler and Russia is not Nazi Germany (or Stalin’s Soviet Union) There’s no genocide
