Luna Joins Gaetz in Resolution to Stop Ukraine War Bonanza

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On February 9, Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) introduced the “Ukraine Fatigue” Resolution with the aim of halting military and financial aid to Ukraine. Gaetz was joined by fellow Floridian Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) and nine other lawmakers in sponsoring the resolution.

“I introduced the ‘Ukraine Fatigue’ Resolution today to suspend additional military & financial aid to Ukraine and urge combatants to reach a peace agreement immediately. America is in a state of managed decline, and it will exacerbate if we continue to hemorrhage taxpayer dollars toward a foreign war,” Gaetz wrote on Twitter.

The resolution states that the United States has appropriated $110 billion in military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. The document contains an extensive list of military equipment that has been sent to the country, which has been at war with its neighbor the Russian Federation for nearly a year now. Any talk of negotiating a peace agreement has been virtually absent from the public debate.

DISSENT BREWING

Although the support for Ukraine has been nearly unanimous among both Democrats and Republicans, dissent has been brewing among a minority of the latter. U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) joined Gaetz in signing the “Ukraine Fatigue” resolution. On Monday, he posted a picture of a pallet of cash on Twitter, commenting:

“Imagine a pallet with a million dollar bills stacked on it. Now picture a giant boat with 1,000 of those million dollar pallets on it. Visualize 100 of those giant boats, each with 1,000 pallets, each with a million dollars. $100 billion is how much we’ve spent on UKRAINE.”

MASSIVE SUPPORT

Ukraine has been portrayed as an outpost of liberal democracy to be defended at all costs against the unprovoked aggression of a power-hungry, madman dictator – Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin. In addition to the support from the U.S., the country has received massive financial and military assistance from Western nations, including the European Union, which so far has committed over $50 billion in various assistance programs to Ukraine.

Western politicians and mainstream media have been comparing Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s plight to that of Winston Churchill’s and Ukraine’s war with Russia to the U.S. Revolutionary War.

“ONE OF THE MOST CORRUPT COUNTRIES”

However, some experts do not agree with this view of the country.

“Statements from U.S. and other Western officials, as well as pervasive accounts in the news media, have created a stunningly misleading image of Ukraine,” Dr. Ted Galen Carpenter writes. He is a senior fellow for defense and policy studies at the Cato Institute and the author of 13 books on geopolitics and global conflict.

The truth, Carpenter points out, is that Ukraine has “long been one of the more corrupt countries in the international system.”

“The country is not a symbol of freedom and liberal democracy, and the war is not an existential struggle between democracy and authoritarianism. At best, Ukraine is a corrupt, quasi‐​democratic entity with troubling repressive policies,” Carpenter argues.

He thinks that the mantra often repeated in legacy media – “stand with Ukraine” – is misplaced and that defending the country is not worth risking nuclear war with Russia.

DEFENSE MINISTER OUSTED

On February 7, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov was forced out due to corruption and price-gouging allegations. According to Breitbart, Reznikov was accused of being involved in “dubious military contracts with under-the-table kickbacks to deputy ministers, the sale of military equipment – including American hardware – to international buyers, and embezzlement from the national winter aid budget.”

This comes as a string of other corrupt practices by Ukrainian officials were brought to light in late January.