Ukraine will be getting cluster bomb munitions from the United States, a move that has elicited outrage from the Left and the international community. A host of nations have banned using such weapons, but not the United States, though we’ve virtually suspended using them in the field, or at least that’s what the Defense Department says. Joe Biden also let slip that we are running out of ammunition. Yet, Ukraine has been a pet project for the Left, seeing it as a proxy way to defeat Russia, whom they still hold accountable for the results of the 2016 election. They couldn’t impeach Trump, so an expensive proxy war is the next best thing.
And while the international community isn’t thrilled with the cluster bomb order, some American liberals are fine doing whatever is necessary to ensure Russian defeat in Ukraine. Take The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart, who appeared to embody a tinge of neoconservativism regarding the new weapons order. Capehart made these remarks on PBS Newshour on July 8 (via RealClearPolitics):
JONATHAN CAPEHART, WASHINGTON POST: This is war.
And President Zelenskyy, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, is fighting or forced to fight a Russian president who's been ruthless, bombing civilian targets from almost minute one, with Zelenskyy pleading with the United States and the West, please send tanks, please send planes, please send us the most advanced military equipment you can give us, because we need it.
And so it — sending cluster munitions is — I think probably crosses a line for a lot of people. But when you are the Western alliance, and the big mantra is, this is authoritarianism versus democracy, and democracy must win, well, democracy has to have all the tools possible to make it possible...
Zelensky banned opposition parties, so I’m not sure this is a true democracy vs. authoritarianism fight. You could argue that the Ukrainian president is doing what needs to be done to ensure his state survives, and we understand that. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War and FDR placed Japanese Americans in internment camps. War powers are wide reaching, which is why I’ve felt that keeping the country out of war should be a constitutional responsibility.
Capehart’s take does re-highlight something about both parties that could be applied to spending and a variety of other issues: they agree on a lot. No side wants to curb spending; Democrats want to drive off the cliff at 90 mph, the Republicans at 40 mph. And when it comes to blowing stuff up, both Democrats and Republicans like to do it, but for different reasons. They may use different language, but both parties have zero qualms about the foreign interventions that have finally drained the American public’s patience. The Republicans decided to take exporting liberal democracy to the Middle East, putting $1 trillion-plus on the credit card for mixed results.
Democrats are against the long wars started by GOP presidents but appear to find the quagmires of Joe Biden to be more palatable. It’s all the same, and there is no doubt that the core of the liberal American intelligentsia would support military deployments based on humanitarian intervention, which is neo-conservativism on steroids regarding bombing everything in sight. All of Africa would be subject to invasion and then some. Capehart’s good vs. evil was used pervasively in the lead-up to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. No doubt malevolent forces operate in international affairs, but we’ve seen the poor results when such a mindset is applied to US foreign relations, and we’re tired of it.
The irony of the Ukrainian situation is that the Russian war machine’s capabilities were overblown. We have two weak nations duking it out; both are stuck in the mud. The Russian officer corps has been decimated. The conscripts they have deployed aren’t much of a fighting force. And if Moscow had a slightly better operational plan and the manpower to go with it, they could finish the Ukrainians, but they can’t. They, too, are running out of ammunition and have no secure communication system, making tracking their movements easy. We’ve sent them everything under the sun, and now the cluster bombs might be a bridge too far for even members of Biden’s own party.
