Almost no one in D.C. is eager for war with Russia — but they’re eager to justify the bloated military budget
By Dave Lindorff, Salon
Last August, with a chaotic evacuation by air of the last U.S. troops in Afghanistan, President Biden effectively ended one of the country’s most embarrassing and pointless wars, leaving that battered land fully in the control of the Taliban — the same dogged AK-toting Islamic fighters it had ousted from power two decades earlier, but never successfully defeated.
While there were critics who blamed Biden for the rapid collapse of the corrupt puppet regime the U.S. had spent more than $2 trillion propping up — critics who wanted that longest U.S. war to continue — most Americans breathed a sigh of relief that for the first time in a generation, the U.S., while still sending Special Forces “kill teams” into countries like Syria, and with Biden promising to continue using remote drone strikes in “anti-terror” operations, was not engaged in an “actual war.”

Yet now, a scant five months later, the Biden White House has ordered 8,500 U.S. elite airborne troops onto “heightened alert,” telling them to be prepared for rapid deployment to “front-line” bases in countries bordering Russia, and by Feb. 5 had already begun dispatching nearly 5,000 of them. Biden and militarists in the national security establishment — the military-industrial-media-think tank complex sometimes known as “the blob” — and militarists in both parties in Congress are all warning darkly of Russia’s “imminent” invasion of Ukraine. They are also warning of the need for the U.S. to “‘stand firm’ against Russian ‘aggression.'” Most of their alarmist talking points could be lifted from speeches made by their forebears in the Cold War ’50s.
Recent Posts
Is A Citizens United 2.0 Right Around The Corner?
July 15, 2025
Take Action Now Is it possible for American democracy to be further degraded by the influence of billionaires? Thanks to champion of the working…
U.S. Leaders Gave Up On Diplomacy With Iran. We Must Make Them Return To It.
July 15, 2025
Take Action Now Building an antiwar movement means preventing the systemic U.S. aggression that creates the conditions for war.By Hanieh Jodat,…
What To Do When You See ICE In Your Neighborhood
July 14, 2025
Take Action Now How can you deter the Trump administration’s immigrant deportation machine when it pops up in your community? Follow these…
ICE Campaign Of Violence Will Lead To More Deaths
July 14, 2025
Take Action Now Jaime Alanis’s death shows the horrific consequences of a secret police force behaving with utter impunity.By Natasha Lennard, The…