Jeffrey Sachs: Bipartisan Support of War, from Iraq to Ukraine, Is Helping Fuel U.S. Debt Crisis

[Uncle Joe]

The United States faces a default on its debt in early June if a deal on the debt ceiling is not reached between the Biden administration and Republicans in Congress before then. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is pushing for sweeping budget cuts and new work requirements for recipients of government programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and SNAP. Notably, however, neither Republicans nor Democrats are proposing cuts to one of the biggest drivers of the nation’s debt: the massive U.S. military budget. “We’ve got to get this military-industrial lobby under control, but it’s hard to do, because it’s a bipartisan affair,” says our guest, economist Jeffrey Sachs, whose recent article is headlined “America’s Wars and the US Debt Crisis.”

[Lovie777]

1. Tax cuts for the wealthy..............

[FalloutShelter]

3. Beat me to it.

THIS is the issue.

[Gaugamela]

2. Jeffrey Sachs is spot on. The MIC is kettling us into nuclear annihilation just as

much as the fossil fuel industry is kettling us into climate change annihilation.

[xocetaceans]

4. The problem with your statement is that it completely leaves out the role of Putin and of Russia.

There would be no war in Ukraine had Russia stayed within its borders, but Russia under Putin did not. Contrary to popular (and poorly researched) reports, there was no agreement that NATO not expand.

...

“I was in those meetings, and Gorbachev has [also] said there was no promise not to enlarge NATO,” Zoellick recalls. Soviet Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, later president of Georgia, concurred, he says. Nor does the treaty on Germany’s unification include a limit on NATO enlargement. Those facts have undermined one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s justifications for invading Ukraine — that the United States had agreed that former Warsaw Pact nations would never become part of the North Atlantic security alliance.

...

https://hls.harvard.edu/today/there-was-no-promise-not-to-enlarge-nato/

Beyond that, there was an agreement that Ukraine's security be guaranteed upon their surrender of their nuclear weapons. Russia was a party to that agreement.

...

" The betrayal of Ukrainians in particular cannot be understated. In 1994, the Ukrainian government signed a memorandum that brought its country into the global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty while formally relinquishing its status as a nuclear state. The text of that agreement stated that in exchange for the step, the “Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine.” "

...

https://theintercept.com/2022/02/27/ukraine-nuclear-weapons-russia-invasion/

If one wishes to advocate for neglecting US national security interests and the related European security interests by allowing Russia's invasion of a neighboring European country to stand without opposition, perhaps one should openly say so (in so many words) instead of secreting that idea behind the commonly used MIC trope.

[wnylib]

5. +10,000

[Gaugamela]

7. The problem with your statement is that it completely leaves out what Jeffrey Sachs said

in the video. Sachs never mentions the promise not to expand NATO (which I understand was merely a verbal promise). If Russia or China tried to seize the Strait of Hormuz do you suppose that the US would do nothing because we never had a promise from them not to? Of course not. They know they would be confronting US forces within hours. Did Kennedy blockade Cuba because Khrushchev made a promise not to install missiles? Putin told us for years that Ukraine was a red line — call it Russia's Monroe Doctrine.

Why did the Biden administration deter Zelenskyy from negotiating with Putin before the invasion? Why did Zelenskyy plead with the US administration to stop provoking Putin before the invasion? Do you think he was just naive? Why did the US help orchestrate a revolution in Ukraine in 2014?

The US wanted this war. It apparently also wants one with China.

From the Sachs interview:

So, these have been wars of choice and wars of lies. They are pushed by the military-industrial complex. They are pushed by neoconservatives in both parties. Now we have new drumbeats of war, not only — as if Ukraine was not devastating and threatening enough with nuclear annihilation, now we’re talking war with China. Unimaginable. It could end the world. And yet this is normal discourse in what passes for grown-up discussion in Washington, which is not grown-up at all, in my opinion.

I noted that The New York Times has used the word “unprovoked” regarding this invasion 26 times in its editorials, its opinion columns and its invited guest op-eds. They don’t talk about the truth, which is that our own diplomats — I’m talking about U.S. diplomats, including CIA Director William Burns, who wrote a memo that was released by WikiLeaks in 2008. His 2008 memo said this is existential, from Russia’s point of view. If we continue to push NATO enlargement to Ukraine, this could have absolutely dire consequences. Our diplomats have known this all along. But it’s been the politicians, it’s been the military-industrial complex, it’s been the big companies that have been championing NATO enlargement. That’s a lot of weapons sales if you do that.

Even though the risks are completely understood inside the government by serious people, they’re just not heeded. And this has been true about Ukraine all along. And up until the end of 2021, Vladimir Putin put on the table a draft U.S.-Russia security agreement that was based on don’t expand NATO to Ukraine. And that has been Russia’s refrain for 30 years, and yet we don’t heed it, and now we’re $113 billion into this. It is horrible for Ukraine. We’ve trapped yet another country in the middle of our lobbying campaigns, because this isn’t going to work out well for Ukraine. It’s a disaster. It’s like how it worked out for Afghanistan. So, this is what’s really going on. And I wish that The New York Times would carry some truth in this to explain what this is really about.

US security depends on understanding the security needs of other nations, especially those of our adversaries. I don't know who this "one" is that you hypothesize in your last statement, but its not me and its not Jeffrey Sachs. You can take that urbane pretty boy gaslighting horseshit and shove it up your ass with a spade.

[xocetaceans]

8. If you want to support Putin's aggression with your "understanding", go ahead and say it in so...

many words. You seem to need a refresher on civility either way: one more high hurdle for you won't hurt.

[Gaugamela]

9. Cloaking your passive-aggressive straw dog ad hominems in pompous

verbiage isn’t civility. And presuming to give me personal advice is just another example of your foppish gaslighting. It appears your understanding of global events is as shallow as your self-conceit.

[xocetaceans]

10. Your tell is your reaction. n/t

[wnylib]

6. Well, the Sachs message fits well with MAGA talking points

that we should stop giving aid to Ukraine. It would make Putin happy, but would do nothing to protect democracy in the world.