Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) visited Ukraine on Monday and demanded that Ukrainians keep fighting against Russia despite the bleak situation on the battlefield and urged Kyiv to pass a new mobilization law.
Graham sharply criticized Ukraine’s current draft laws, which exempt men under the age of 27 from being forcibly mobilized for combat, although under martial law, men aged 18-60 can’t leave the country.
Ukraine’s parliament passed a bill last year to lower the mobilization age to 25, but it wasn’t signed by President Volodymyr Zelensky. Ukrainian lawmakers are now debating a plan to mobilize 500,000 fresh troops, although it’s unclear if they can conscript that many people, and the idea is very unpopular within Ukraine as war fatigue is setting in.
“I would hope that those eligible to serve in the Ukrainian military would join. I can’t believe it’s at 27,” Graham said, according to The Washington Post. “You’re in a fight for your life, so you should be serving — not at 25 or 27. We need more people in the line.”
Graham said that Ukrainians should continue to fight regardless of how much support they’re receiving from the West. “No matter what we do, you should be fighting. No matter what we do, you’re fighting for you,” he said.
In the early days of the war, Graham said Ukraine should fight to the last Ukrainian. “I like the structural path we’re on here,” Graham said in 2022. “As long as we help Ukraine with the weapons they need and the economic support, they will fight to the last person.”
Two years later, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed and wounded, and there’s no prospect of victory on the battlefield. But Graham and other hawks in the US are still pushing for the war to continue rather than calling for diplomacy.
During his visit to Kyiv on Monday, Graham said he expected the House to ultimately pass the $95 billion foreign military aid bill that includes $60 billion for the proxy war in Ukraine. He also said he favored the idea of loaning Ukraine money, something that was recently floated by former President Trump.
“I was very direct with President Zelensky. You can expect me to always be in your corner, but it’s not unfair for me to ask you and other allies: Pay us back down the road, if you can,” he said. “I think the loan idea is going to be pretty popular, not just among Republicans but also among Democrats.”
If Graham is so eager for further fighting in Ukraine, why doesn’t he go over there and fight?
Does anybody think there is the slightest possibility that Ukraine will pay back the US?
“Does anybody think there is the slightest possibility that Ukraine will pay back the US?”
If you look at the way the aid is structured, most of it doesn’t depend on Ukraine paying back the US. Direct US aid is mostly (though not completely) in the form of “here’s some money you can buy stuff from our campaign contributors in the ‘defense’ industry with, and we get to brag that we ‘create jobs’ with it,” while the loans are guaranteed by European regimes and will thus be owed to the US by them if Ukraine defaults.
According to this chart, loans (combined with grants) account for only six percent of total US aid to the Ukraine.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2023/09/07/how-much-aid-has-the-u-s-sent-to-ukraine/70778581007/
Most of the “assistance” is “we will give you $X to spend on arms, munitions, etc. … which must be purchased from the US military industrial complex.”
Grayzone took publicly available data and found that the US paid for Ukraine’s debt, held by entities like BlackRock.
This was up until very early 2023, so it could be much higher:
Late unforgettable Justin Raymondo was always amazed at Lindsay Graham’s talent for the dramatic. This is again one of those situations. In Justin’dms immortal words, “Auntie Lindsay is clutching her pearls again.”
Criminals in America who stole the 2020 election for the President of America are dripping with hypocrisy.
America has been taken over in a soft coup by a Kleptocracy of the most corrupt fascists that the world has not seen since Nazi Germany.
A dimwit who is also senile in the person of Joey Biden has been placed in the White House to parrot lines he is told to say.
America has no ethical leg to stand on in calling a Russian election invalid! FJB
American elections have been rigged since the late 19th century, just in a different style than Russian elections in the 21st.
I actually prefer the Russian system, because it’s pretty much just a smirking, open “what are you going to do about it, it’s an ‘election’ because we say it is” fix in favor of a particular clique and a single figurehead. Very few are fooled by it, leaving open more possibility for its eventual overthrow.
The American system pretends to have two parties and engages in a bunch of WWE style melodrama over who will be the rotating figurehead. That’s been a remarkably successful way of fooling even otherwise moderately intelligent people, and of whipping up useful idiots like you into a permanent frenzy, which is why it’s thrived for 130 years or so.
Agreed, although we are pretty damn close to the whattaya gonna do about it model. Lawfare has replaced ballot stuffing. And we know they are coming at Trump from all angles in a legal pile on.
Democrats set up unit to attack third-party candidates
The Democratic Party is launching a full-scale campaign against third-party competition in the 2024 presidential election, mobilizing both the resources of the Democratic National Committee and of outside political action committees funded by longtime Democratic multimillionaire donors.
The effort is its first-ever publicly announced campaign against third parties, although the Democrats have a long and sordid record of behind-the-scenes efforts to block the emergence of any left-wing, let alone socialist, challenge to the capitalist two-party system.
…The NBC article added, “More legal challenges are almost guaranteed, with attorneys actively monitoring third-party ballot access attempts across the country to look for any slip-up that could be exploited.” That is, the Democrats are preparing to challenge every signature and use every anti-democratic legal maneuver to challengers from being on the ballot.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/03/15/zneh-m15.html
Putin murders his critics. An obvious fact that any “stable genius” like Trump should be able to understand.
https://youtu.be/ooWIBgWUSqs?t=10
You bias is in your screen name.
vsya slava Rossii
Вся слава матушке России
That is a FACT, indeed. No question.
A daft, childless military lawyer who has nothing to lose will always make unreasonable demand to keep the contracting pigs happy.
Yes, Ukraine should send its young off to die as well! Never surrender until everyone in the nation is dead! The great democracy of Ukraine should not have another election either. Keep up martial law. No elections. We wouldn’t want King Z getting run out of country for obvious corruption. That would be what we call “a bad look.”
I’m sure you would run an election while your country is being invaded and annexed by the so called “second strongest Army in world,” with a North Korea leader wannabe, Putin.
And do you know who is sending even more young men to die than Ukraine, yes, Russia is, massively.
What a ghoul this SOB is … it’s a hopeless fight but I want you to keep looking eager and ready to die, otherwise I can’t justify more tens of billions of $ pork for my bosses …
I’m just a middleman here: it’s your job to die and my bosses’ jobs to pocket the cash. Let’s all pull together now.
I would be even more insistent than Graham. Both women and men 20-50 should be drafted. But that doesn’t mean I’m in favor of them being used in meat waves. The most important thing is to give them artillery shells. So get your ass out of the Putin caucus, Graham.
Ukrainian Paratrooper Valeriya Shot A Stugna-P Missile Into A Russian Tank—And Burst Into Tears. ‘I Wanted More And More.’
https://ukrainetoday.org/ukrainian-paratrooper-valeriya-shot-a-stugna-p-missile-into-a-russian-tank-and-burst-into-tears-i-wanted-more-and-more/
Let’s get one of those circus cannons, and fire Graham into Russia.
He should carry and air a Ukrainian flag while flying there midair…!
Love it.
He wouldn’t be able to land in Russia alive because Russia has declared him a terrorist…!
*Fireworks! Even better for the clown show.
* missile defense/interception.
Anyone who votes for this warmongering piece of XXXX should have their brains examined! If Trump is on board with this effeminate liar, I have doubts I will even vote for him!
Maybe we can send the American Boomers over there as well. They seem to be the only demographic stat overwhelmingly supports this crap anymore. Probably because they’re the only demographic that still overwhelmingly believes the mainstream media. . .
Please, we’re not all like that.
Boomer is an insult, and your generalization is obscene. I was born in ’43 so technically not a Boomer, but someone born in ’46 would have been an adult during the Vietnam War, and I assure there were many who were (and remain) anti-war.
Better to look at more recent generations who are more interested in social media than politics.
I believe all generations are basically the same. We had two tv channels when I was a kid. People are people and we’re all influenced by whatever time period we were born in. But people talk like it’s something genetic.
It’s not the entire generation, but when 71% still support Israel after killing 13,000 Palestinian kids, that’s a sign that the overwhelming majority are consuming a steady diet of mainstream media junk news. https://news.gallup.com/poll/611375/americans-views-israel-palestinian-authority-down.aspx
“The only way this ends is for somebody in
RussiaSouth Carolina to take this guy out. You would be doing your country — and the world — a great service.”All talk and no action…! Mr. Graham: since you don’t have any children, why don’t you haul your ass to Ukraine and fight against Russia versus ranting afar…! Be a hero…!
Edward N Luttwak @ELuttwak – 13:42 UTC · Mar 16, 2024
In Ukraine the age of conscription is 27, that is when people have started to work & have children. Naturally not many show up. Now they are discussing lowering the age to 25, still absurd. 18 is the right age, with bodies of growing strength. The Ukraine army is much too small
Moonofalabama
Wow, Luttwak is still around? I read his Coup d’Etat: A Practical Manual back in the 1980s.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/03/ukraines-demographics-again-dictate-to-end-the-fight.html#more