Reps. Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Mike Turner (R-OH) appeared on ABC News’s This Week on Sunday and pledged that aid for Ukraine will continue to flow unimpeded once Republicans have a majority in the House in January.
McCaul, who will likely head the House Foreign Affairs Committee in the next Congress, also called for the Biden administration to send longer-range weapons to Kyiv. He said that his criticism of the Biden administration was that it “slow-walked” military aid to Ukraine by being hesitant to provide longer-range weapons.
McCaul said the US should provide Ukraine with Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), artillery munitions with a range of up to 190 miles, so Ukrainian forces can hit targets inside Crimea, which Russia has controlled since 2014.
Ukrainian attacks on Crimea will likely lead to major escalations from Russia. Moscow didn’t start launching large-scale attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure until October, after the truck bombing of the Kerch Bridge, which connects the Russian mainland to Crimea.
When asked if Ukrainian strikes on Crimea would “incite Russia,” McCaul said the peninsula could be targeted since the US doesn’t recognize it as Russian territory. “Crimea is not part of Russia under international law. So if they can hit into Crimea, I think that’s fair game,” he said.
Both McCaul and Turner insisted that Republicans will support continuing to arm Ukraine but said there is growing support for more oversight. “I think the majorities on both sides of the aisle support this effort,” McCaul said. “I think everybody has a voice in Congress. And the fact is, we are going to provide more oversight, transparency, and accountability. We’re not going to write a blank check.”
A group of House Republicans who oppose US aid to Ukraine led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) recently introduced a bill that would audit the funds Congress has approved to spend on the war. The legislation will likely be voted down by Democrats, but Greene said she would reintroduce the bill in the next Congress.
The GOP is tired of Biden allowing Russia to define the boundaries of the war.
Which part of the GOP are you talking about? McCarthy, the next speaker of the House, is opposed to support for Ukraine. Fiscal conservatives think we’re bankrupting our own country.
The Liz Cheney gloperialist wing of the GOP has always supported escalation in Ukraine. And before that they supported invasion of Afghanistan and expanding NATO to Russias borders.
She voted Trump 98% too.
That gave me a case of the ickies….
Name any Dem Rep who hasn’t voted Biden less than 98% of the time.
He says he is. The guy is a politician, you know.
This is from 3 weeks ago. McCarthy is a clown. It depends on who is in the room with him or which way the wind is blowing. He blamed Trump for January 6th and a couple weeks later he was in Florida with his knee pads.
“I’m very supportive of Ukraine,” McCarthy told CNN on Sunday. “I think there has to be accountability going forward. … You always need, not a blank check, but make sure the resources are going to where it is needed. And make sure Congress, and the Senate, have the ability to debate it openly.”
So, boundless war is what you’re hoping for ..?
I live on the West coast. Boundless means where I live has offices and industries that might be hit, and, I if survive the explosions, I would be dead within days of radiation poisoning . So, I would really, really like to see the war end.
i live on the west coast too. i think there are more nuclear missile silos on the west coast than everywhere else put together
No, the vast majority of land-based missiles are inland.
https://installed.info/united-states-nuclear-missile-silo-locations/
I managed projects that required building towers in rural areas of the high plains and the inter-mountain west. Once we knew how to recognize the sites easily, it was downright spooky finding out how many there were.
But don’t breathe any sighs of relief. West coast population centers are definitely on the target lists.
wow your link is blocked by my Norton anti-virus program.
anyway seems you are correct here is a missile silo map from google =
https://www.google.com/search?q=u.s.+nuclear+missile+silos+map&hl=en&ei=eAeGY5bgJNyfkPIPjMGqyAw&oq=missile+silos+in+the+US&gs_lcp=Cgxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAQARgAMgoIABBHENYEELADMgoIABBHENYEELADMgoIABBHENYEELADMgoIABBHENYEELADMgoIABBHENYEELADMgoIABBHENYEELADMgoIABBHENYEELADMgoIABBHENYEELADSgQIQRgASgQIRhgAUABYAGDdF2gBcAF4AIABAIgBAJIBAJgBAMgBCMABAQ&sclient=gws-wiz-serp
“The GOP is tired of Biden allowing Russia to define the boundaries of the war.”
Stuff yr antidemocratic neocon twaddle:
Near-half of Republicans poll as wanting to cut US aid to Ukraine.
So the GOP undemocratically rejects the will of its own voters to ‘define the boundaries of the war.’
And both parties undemocratically reject the majority of all voters who poll as wanting the US to push a settlement vs purely military strategy.
Poll: “Half Of Republicans Believe U.S. Sends Too Much Support To Ukraine” [Forbes]
“Nearly half of Republicans think the U.S. is sending too much support to Ukraine as it battles Russia’s invasion, according to a new poll from the Wall Street Journal, a figure that has jumped in recent months….Republican opposition to U.S. aid to Ukraine is up from 27% of GOP voters who said the U.S. was too involved in May….The share of GOP voters who said the U.S. hasn’t taken enough actions to aid Ukraine also fell from 61% in March to 17%.”
Fiesty! A good way to start the day! 😉
The polls always avoid actually asking if anyone wants the aid to Ukraine to be completely cut off. Always loaded questions that ask whether there is “too much support” or “too involved” or “taken enough action” and never with a simple “aid or no aid?”
That’s not the point of the poll, nor does it disprove @abramawicz point. The point is, voters want less, and congress wants more. That is an undemocratic system.
“aid” includes bombs as well as bandages. Wording the poll your way would make out humanitarian philanthropists as war hawks.
I wasn’t trying to disprove his point, nor was I disputing the point of the polls. More of an observation about polls in general. But the poll numbers were about republican voters, so I don’t know if that means it is undemocratic for congress to want to give more since the democrats voted the other way in large numbers. I think Americans, unfortunately, still favor aid to Ukraine if all voters are counted.
True, that particular poll was republican. But 60% of all Americans favor a negotiated end to the war, even if this requires concessions from Ukraine.
To bad those voters don’t connect the fact that our government is preventing a negotiated end with our “aid”. But that’s a misunderstanding of mechanics not a general hawkish attitude. Most people want the war to end
Rep. Michael McCaul (R Texas) gives Republicans a bad, bad name. He is a warmonger, against stopping the horror in Yemen, very pro the ongoing Ukraine debacle. He is a lawyer. He has never been in an army, never served time anywhere other than in the US government. And notably much time was in Homeland Security. He is a vital cog in the machinery that is turning, imminently, our republic into a failed empire. Read history. It’s all happening again. I didn’t even look up his compatriot in forwarding this wonderful pro-endless-war effort.
He’s another GOP gloperialist just like Liz Cheney and GWB.
“Rep. Michael McCaul (R Texas) gives Republicans a bad, bad name.”
Which is saying a lot with all that competition.
I can see several possibilities for this situation to turn into something else… My main concern is Russia…
“asked if Ukrainian strikes on Crimea would ‘incite Russia,’ McCaul said the peninsula could be targeted since the US [and international law] doesn’t recognize it as Russian territory.”
Oh. So in other words, he evaded the direct question, ‘Would attacks on Crimea escalate the war?’ with the non-answer, ‘It’s legal.’
Thanks for making me laugh, a good way to start the day… 🙂
Good point, all that matters is the slaughter be ‘legal’, … like John Yuh’s torture memo.
To be consistent, that would mean that McCaul would recognize the legality of Serbia bombing the hell out of Kosovo because Belgrade doesn’t recognize Kosovo as an independent country. Same goes for Taiwan vis a vis China.
Send these bastards to Ukraine..
Give them jackets with Azov battalion patch on them. Air drop them in the middle of a skirmish.
Now we’re getting creative!
right then. ukraine claims crimea as its own yet would not hesitate to bomb crimea.
way to go.
Using this logic everything Putin has done in the Donbas, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – way to go!
and it all began with 2014 and the overthrow of the legal, democratically elected, neutral government of Ukraine.
Yes Russia should have been familiar with revolutions – anyway since that there has been two democratic elections – so very little to suggest that the current Ukrainian government is not legal.
Fruit of the corrupted tree. You might be inclined to overlook past criminal activity of your country, but fortunately you’re not everyone.
My country has not conducted criminal activity for well over a century – if you are talking about the US then I’m fairly sure that at the very least people in EU have far fewer problems with their criminal activities than they have with unleashing war of territorial conquest.
Long-range missiles, fired from where to where?
Aren’t the Republicans split, some what escalation, some what to abandon Ukraine to its fate. The only thing they know is Joe is wrong
True true, here here!
Yes, there are a few republicans that are returning to very very old anti-war roots. But it is a very small few.
Remember when the founders told us not to become entangled in foreign alliances? Do you also remember all your family calling you a leftists traitor to our country for quoting our country’s founder?
Republicans suffer the same egomania based on CIA writers in Hollywood as liberal progressive democrats.
US citizens will need to be prepared for the great fold. Only foolish people believe the US cannot go broke and then bust. Russia has plenty of resources to carry on, China will simply buy more paper mills in Maine and expand its Boston rapid transit production in Massachusetts. What will the Eurasian allies do with an empty pentagon building in D.C.?
The usual pattern for the US is to walk away from the disasters it creates when they become unprofitable or overly problematic. Of course, the consequences of this one could easily make all the others pale in comparison.
True enough of Washington-Israel, but there is a momentum to the thing which eventually gives it a life of its own. So even though Washington’s God is the almighty bourgeois long-green, the US citizens’ God is the Gun. Just watch pop cult, these people they just love it.
“Top House Republicans Call for Biden to Send Longer Range Weapons to Ukraine to Strike Crimea Reps. McCaul and Turner say there’s support for more oversight of the aid”
Keep poking the bear and Cuba or Venezuela might just host long range Russian weapon systems.
This is how we came to the Cuban Missile Crisis. American intermediate range missiles in Turkey and Russian intermediate range missiles in Cuba.
Blowback can be a surprising event!
Two points:
1) the US already faces the threat of nukes from less than 100 km distance from Washington and New York so this changes what?
2) surely that would be short to medium range weapons.
Havana to Washington 1100 nm!
What is the range of Russia’s hypersonic missiles?
The Russian military says the Kinzhal has a range of up to 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles)
and flies at 10 times the speed of sound, making it difficult to
intercept. Russia has used the weapon to strike several targets in
Ukraine.
A Russian SSBN is easier to track, but the point is making a statement with a Kinzhal deployment.
So clearly medium range.
about 1200 nm launched by Mig 31 1900 if launched by TU 22 – so both require planes to be on Cuba – giving a significant warning time but perhaps more important the payload is 500 kg so probably not the kind of missiles that even with 10 or 20 launched can prevent MAD.
I have no problem with those stats – it does not make stationing it in Cuba any more of a game changer.
Sure the kind of message the Pearl Harbor attack gave the US – not sure this is the kind of message the Russians would be well advised to send as it would prolong sanctions for a very long period.
Is a Russian SSBN easier to track than a missile complex on the island of Cuba?
Sanctions are long term no matter what happens in combat. Try to pay attention.
The point here is that Russian missiles in Cuba does not change things for the US – they have had that threat and worse since nukes could be launched from submarines.
Sanctions are indeed long term – but with missiles stationed in Cuba the Russians would have them extended for much longer than would otherwise be the case – or is there some reason that you think taking this step would make the US think that the Russians had to be placated?