Biden Requesting $33 Billion in Military Aid for Kiev as US & EU Facing Stagflation, Observers Say
20:02 GMT 29.04.2022 (Updated: 13:36 GMT 06.08.2022)
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US President Joe Biden has requested $33 billion from Congress to fund humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine until the end of September 2022. The bill also contains an offer to amend US law so the government can sell seized assets of sanctioned Russians.
"The vast majority of Americans are starting to get extremely upset and extremely irritated with the juxtaposition between how much money is being sent to fund essentially Nazis in Ukraine because that’s what’s left of the Ukrainian army and to continue this useless war that is a losing strategy and a losing game for the United States against Russia. Because this is a US and NATO war against Russia via Ukraine," says Fiorella Isabel, a journalist, political analyst, and a host of The Convo Couch.
Washington has already provided $3.4 billion in weapons to Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian special operation. The latest $33 billion package requested by Biden includes $20.4 billion in additional security and military assistance for Ukraine, as well as funds to boost European security in cooperation with NATO, according to CNBC. A relatively modest $8.5 billion is requested to help support the Ukrainian economy, while another $3 billion would be allocated for humanitarian assistance.
According to the Financial Times, the "sweeping request suggests the US is braced for possibility of a protracted clash" in Ukraine. The newspaper highlights that "Washington is taking an increasingly assertive approach to the war," given the scope and amount of lethal aid it has provided to Ukraine in recent weeks.
The unfolding "proxy war" is completely unacceptable when US gas prices are up, inflation is at a 40 year high, the Americans have food shortages and a shortage of materials in general coming into the country, according to Isabel.
"I also think that the US is headed towards economic disaster, just based on the stock market which is also obviously not doing well. But also the fact that our currency is not backed by anything except a gun, and we don’t have the preparations to deal with that sort of thing, and most Americans don’t understand that this could get really bad and they’re not used to it," she highlights.
Besides covering Biden's $33 billion war chest request, the Financial Times also drew attention to the fact that the US economy contracted unexpectedly in the first quarter. The US gross domestic product (GDP) dropped 1.4 per cent on an annualised basis in the first three months of 2022, down from the 6.9 per cent rise recorded in the fourth quarter of 2021.
The commerce department blames the slowdown on a rise in imports and a slump in private inventory investment, exports, federal government spending, and state and local government spending. However, some observers believe that the major problem is Joe Biden's economic model, the so-called green agenda and the White House's military adventurism and anti-Russia sanctions spree.
"I do not see President Biden as working primarily for US interests," says geopolitical analyst Tom Luongo. "He’s working for a globalist coterie of oligarchs centred around the World Economic Forum I like to call 'Davos.' Davos wants to destroy the global economy and Build it Back Better without oil, gas and any popular input, using the European Union as the model. Forces within the US and UK are all in on destroying Russia, believing they can outlast Russia in a quagmire in Ukraine."
Neither Americans Nor Europeans Will Win
Nobody is really benefiting from the protracted standoff in Ukraine except Western "globalist" elites, according to Luongo.
"'Davos' benefits because it saps the US of vitality, capital and credibility on the world stage, while the European Union gets to play the part of victim caught in the middle between two nuclear powers," he says. "Their economic overthrow of the US through the Democrats failed in 2021, Plan B is to go to war in 2022 and beyond and put the US into bankruptcy (economically, culturally, and spiritually) that way."
Not only are ordinary Americans are seeing skyrocketing inflation and plummeting living standards, their European peers are facing the same problems. The eurozone is struggling with record high inflation for the sixth month in a row exacerbated by sweeping anti-Russian sanctions which backfired on Europe's businesses and energy sector, sending prices higher.
Consumer price inflation mounted to 7.5 per cent in April from 7.4 per cent in March, which is the highest rate since the bloc started keeping records 25 years ago. At the same time, the EU's GDP grew by just 0.2 per cent across the 19 eurozone countries in the first three months of 2022. By comparison, in the final three months of 2021 the GDP growth was 0.3 per cent. "Much of Europe is facing stagflation," CNN admits.
President Joe Biden boards Air Force One at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Friday, April 22, 2022, in Seattle.
© AP Photo / Andrew Harnik
"Illusion of Democracy"
The political climate is growing increasingly poisonous, according to American investigative journalist Daniel Lazare. He notes that while the Biden administration has proven clearly incompetent, the average person is scared and worried due to economic deterioration and soaring crime.
"Joe Biden is thus trying to extend the empire abroad while things at home go downhill," Lazare says. "How long can this contradiction continue? A reckoning is approaching sooner than the administration thinks."
What people in the West are seeing is an empire in decline, and many feel helpless about it, argues Isabel. The problem is the actual political impotence of the Left and the Right — with the first becoming increasingly subservient to the establishment and the second largely focusing on the fight with their left-wing political opponents, according to her.
"Both sides are waiting on someone to save them, be it Elon Musk, [Donald] Trump or Bernie Sanders," says the political analyst. "So you have this never ending tug-of-war between what is perceived as a left in the country and what is perceived as the right and it’s just extremely entertaining, but extremely vapid and superficial and nothing ever comes out of it because that’s the point."
Meanwhile, ongoing media censorship and the recent creation of Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) "Disinformation Governance Board," evokes strong memories of George Orwell's novel 1984 and its notorious "Ministry of Truth," according to Isabel.
By depriving people of truthful and undistorted information, the establishment gets an opportunity to convince everyone that "this whole thing is just what’s required," she notes, adding that simmering divisions between the Left and the Right prevent the people from uniting and makes it easier to manipulate them.
"You have an illusion of democracy, you don’t have a reality," Isabel says. "You have a country that is essentially a military operation with a movie production company and you don’t have fair elections here you have an oligarchy and so there’s illusions of choice. There’s illusions of democracy and none of it is actually a reality and the sooner people realize that the better."
