Key Republican members of Congress are launching a two-front campaign to pressure the Biden administration to send Ukraine more advanced weapons, Defense One reported Saturday, citing people familiar with the plan.
One aspect of the campaign is to pressure Biden administration officials through closed-door briefings. The other is to apply public pressure, something Republican leadership has been doing throughout the war.
The main demand from the hawkish Republicans is for the US to provide MQ-1C Gray Eagle drones, F-16 fighter jets, and Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), which have a range of up to 190 miles. Providing Ukraine with either weapon would significantly escalate US military aid and bring the US and Russia closer to a direct clash.
The latest weapons package the Biden administration announced included Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs (GLSDB) for the first time. The GLSDB can hit targets up to 94 miles away, nearly twice the range of the munitions Ukraine has been using with the US-provided HIMARS rocket systems. But nearly doubling Ukraine’s strike range did not satisfy the hawkish Republicans.
“I have repeatedly called for more, better, and faster aid to Ukraine, but today’s announcement from the President is more of the same unnecessary slow-walking that has gotten us to this point,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) said Friday after the new weapons package was announced.
“We should begin training on the F-16s and ATACMS they have asked for immediately and seek to transfer these weapons systems as soon as possible. Training for Abrams and the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb should have started months ago,” Wicker added.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has previously called for Biden to send Ukraine ATACMs so they could strike Crimea, which would risk a major escalation of the war. For their part, Ukrainian officials appear to be focusing their effort on securing F-16s or other advanced Western fighter jets.
While Republican leadership is pushing for more military aid to Ukraine, there are signs they are thinking about how the war will end. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), the head of the House Armed Services Committee, who favors sending ATACMs, has said the US must give Ukraine everything it needs now so the conflict ends by this summer. But a lot could happen between now and the summer, and each escalation risk provoking Moscow.
They can’t let the Democrats be the ones to run on squandering our national wealth to markedly increase the risk of killing every American citizen?
Maybe we should remind them that war is not as effective as peace: https://believeandobey.net/the-practicality-of-peace/
Washington is a bipartisan MIC swamp and echo chamber that will get us all killed these days. Both parties just jumping at the chance to show who is more hawkish.
If we ever get to amend the Constitution again, we should definitely add a section that says whoever calls for war in Congress shall volunteer themselves and their children to be drafted first and shipped straight to the front lines when said war occurs.
This demopublican circus is hilarious. I especially enjoy their tank narrative. They are sending M1’s to Ukraine and say that they will be sending the reduced version with inferior armor. LOL
These idiots actually think that this lie will somehow prevent the informational fallout when this worthless junk is destroyed in Ukraine. M1’s, with that “superior” armor burned like firewood in Iraq after getting hit with old Soviet weapons. Putting them up against more advanced Russian tech will be a complete disaster. And they know it.
“A total of 23 M1A1s were damaged or destroyed during the war. Of the nine Abrams tanks destroyed, seven were destroyed by friendly fire and two intentionally destroyed to prevent capture by the Iraqi Army. Some others took minor combat damage, with little effect on their operational readiness.”
That being a US government claim, I naturally doubt it. So I look forward to the video you no doubt have links to showing M1s “burning like firewood in Iraq after getting hit with old Soviet weapons.”
It’s classified! But it might be on Hunter’s laptop.
Wow, Hunter’s credentials continue getting upgrades. I didn’t know he was no ordinary citizen. We are now dealing with a Snowden type individual.
You been dealing with any and everything associated with Trump for years. Anyway, now you know.
I only seen a few videos of blown up Abrams. I’m sure there are thousands. It would be nice to do some independent research on how many tanks US lost in Iraq alone but I doubt anyone cares. Abrams is trash. It doesn’t even have auto loader.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/l3yLpqyhNBSH/
They’re in a hurry to get their cash cow milked before it goes up in flames.
31 Trillion in debt and the war party says “more more more”.
“Republicans Pressure Biden to Send More Advanced Weapons to Ukraine Republican hawks want Biden to send Gray Eagle drones, F-16s, and ATACMs”
More payola for the Kleptocrats!!!
Wicker and McCaul: Miniature McCainiac types.
These two repubs are no better than the warmongering Dems. Vote them out.
Neocons are shameless and relentless. Of course they have always featured in both parties, in the uni-party of war.
and those ilk always get the air time on our State-affiliated media.
The only thing as bad as a democrat is a hawkish republican. Why can’t we have ron paul republicans?
Anyone gonna watch the State of the Union address tonight?
Hey, I see Bono’s gonna make an appearance…can’t miss that 😂
“Friends” like these Ukraine doesn’t need. What Ukraine needs is dialogue to stop the fighting now, while they still have a country left. Between refugees leaving the country, most of whom claim they will “never go back”, and population transferred to Russia through loss of territory, Ukraine’s population has been halved. Loss of major power generating facilities, heavy industry, and agricultural lands will cripple its economy for decades to come; and the incremental devastation of its infrastructure – roads, bridges, airports, military facilities – will take decades to replace; longer, if they have to pay for it themselves.
So let’s give them more, and more destructive, weapons, so they can hit the Russians harder – which will only result in the Russians escalating right back, increasing the devastation and loss on Ukraine.
What a sick pack of imbeciles.
Ukraine does what we/NATO tell them to do. They don’t care about their own people, as witnessed by the regime killing their own in the East.
Idiots owned /bribed by the arms industry… Throw em out.
Damned politicians seem to want to spend Federal money that benefits their constituents. Later, they want to moan and groan about the size of the national debt and the size of the Federal government.
Biden reminds me of Regan who I supported and voted for way back when. When asked something about who the US favored in the Iran, Iraq war Regan got that little smile on his face and said something like ‘ as long as they are killing each other we don’t have to worry about it. That’s sort of the way we are operating today, you know as long as the Russians and the Ukrains are killing each other we are good to go. That kind of business leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Donald Regan, the Treasury Sec?
” … send Ukraine more advanced weapons”.
Read US weapons, well received by the Russian Armed Forces as they stress test end to end their Industrial War Machine, now functioning as the most tested, the most effective and the most dangerous armed forces on the planet. Of The West’s war machines, frequently dispatched against non-compliant third world countries with no hope, their small theatre engagements by special forces, war games and parade ground marches, they are yet to be tested against a peer competitor and look very uninterested in doing so, so directly.
All these benefits to the Russian State courtesy of Washington largess in the form of this Proxy War and Western weapon systems, generously supplied to The Ukraine, wherein, as the Ukrainian Defense Minister remarked – The West provides the weapons, we supply the blood.
Other benefits accruing to the Russian State, courtesy of the Washington – London Elite Masters of The Present Arrangements, include a Russian population united behind The State and united in opposition to The West.
In recognising this does one must accord credit to those where credit is richly deserved.
___________
This war runs on the timetable and objectives of The Russian Armed Forces. The West has lost. And so, running on empty with nothing beyond Mainstream Media Messaging . . .
___________
Narrative Collapse. Desperately Seeking Exit Strategies – with Honour, with PsyOps . . . https://les7eb.substack.com/p/washingtons-war-part-viii-narrative