Enewsletters

When I would visit my grandparents as a kid, it was customary for them to listen to Paul Harvey at lunch.  I was a fan as well and particularly enjoyed the segment he would lead into by saying, “now for the rest of the story”.  As many of you know, he’d take what had commonly been repeated in the press about a popular subject or personality and share the additional facts no one had ever heard. 

There’s been a lot said about the defense and aid package for Ukraine — and a lot that hasn’t yet been heard.  For example, the majority of the funding is going to replenish our own military forces in Europe and weaponry stockpile that is now dangerously low.  Nor is it ever mentioned that NATO is funding 70 percent of the defense and humanitarian aid package overall.  Our portion is 30 percent.     

Here is the first fundamental question I asked myself before the vote knowing how it would be reported: Who do I want to win the war?  The Ukrainian people are bravely defending their country against Putin’s evil invasion.  This invasion is no different than when Germany invaded Poland.  Just as Hitler did not stop with Poland, we should not expect Putin will stop with Ukraine – unless he is resoundingly defeated.

We now know he expected to take Ukraine easily; a select few of my colleagues who have access to far more intelligence information than all of us know he wasn’t going to stop there.  Had all this played out according to Putin’s plan, we would be in World War III.

Meanwhile, it’s my personal assessment that China was planning to take Taiwan while Europe was on fire knowing that our military has been so degraded over the past decade we would be hard-pressed to fight wars on two fronts and win. 

To put all this another way, the Ukrainian people are saving the world and enduring a genocide unseen since the mass killing of Jews during WWII.  They deserve our help — and they need it to win.  Their win is our win.   

Furthermore, a narrowly divided vote on partisan lines in the U.S. House would be viewed as further evidence of weakness by our adversaries around the world — particularly China.  We either stay strong and help Ukraine win, or we all lose.         

It is estimated Ukraine has two weeks of defense supplies left, so funding is urgently needed to assist their fight against Russia’s inhumane assault.  The total package amounts to $40 billion –  $24 billion of that is defense funding, much of which restocks our own inventory of javelin missiles and other sophisticated weaponry that is now at dangerously low levels.  These weapons aren't manufactured in mass numbers quickly. 

The balance is for humanitarian assistance and food.  Republican appropriators were able to successfully strip every unrelated item the Democrats were trying to include.  If you don’t bring Republican votes to the table, there is no leverage to get those extraneous items removed. 

Certainly, we have our problems at home, but those are the result of bad policies put in place by the Biden Administration — not the funding of our military or the funding of our armed forces and weaponry for freedom overseas.  In the case of Ukraine, humanitarian aid, ammunition and weaponry is necessary for freedom to win.  For if Putin is not defeated in Ukraine, the cost for all of us will be far greater later.