It’s Past Time To End U.S. Participation in the War in Ukraine.
I’ve always been a staunch Pat Buchananite (and later Ron Paulian) non-interventionist when it comes to foreign conflict. During the 90s, I abhorred Bill Clinton’s adventurism in places like Bosnia and Somalia. Black Hawk Down is a great movie, but those American military personnel should never have been placed in harm’s way in the first place. It might seem hard for younger viewers to imagine this, but George W. Bush campaigned on what he called a “humble foreign policy” and “no nation building” ahead of the 2000 election. That was sweet music to my ears as a first-time presidential voter that year, and I enthusiastically voted for Bush.
You can say, “well, 9/11 changed things,” but 9/11 had nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Iraq’s government, despite the Bush administration attempting to link the two in order to sell the American people on the war. The reasons for launching a war against Iraq were proven to be, at best, a horrible intelligence failure, and at worst outright lies. Now just about everybody, including most of those responsible for the war, acknowledge it was a mistake, and one that left hundreds of thousands dead, the area destabilized, and under greater Iranian influence. You can say, “okay, but we had to invade Afghanistan.” How did that work out? We ultimately captured and killed bin Laden in Pakistan, eventually left Afghanistan in disgrace after 20 years of pouring blood and treasure into what has been called “the graveyard of empires,” and the very party that was in control in Afghanistan before we invaded is now again in power. We spent two decades sending young Americans to die for absolutely nothing, not to mention the vast civilian deaths.
U.S. foreign policy elites can’t stop interfering all over the world. In 2014, we didn’t like the pro-Russian government of Ukraine, so our government lent support to the pro-Western Maidan revolution. The result of meddling by both the U.S. and Russia was the start of eight years of civil war in Eastern Ukraine. Russia, and Russia alone, bears the blame and the responsibility for starting the current war in 2022 by invading Ukraine, but a lot of parties, including the U.S., the U.K., the E.U., Ukraine, and (oh, yes) Russia, have a share of the blame for creating the conditions that led to the current war.
Since 2022, Russia has grabbed a large swath of Eastern Ukraine and has painfully eked out additional territorial gains, while Ukraine has successfully prevented Russia from taking additional oblasts and has even successfully
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LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.
