Progressives Need To Be Better On Foreign Policy

If we care as much about anti-imperialism as we do about domestic policy, we can’t ignore the gap between where Left-aligned members of Congress are and where we need them to be.

When Congress voted to spend tens of billions of dollars on military aid to Ukraine, all six members of “the Squad” voted “yes.” So did the rest of the Progressive Caucus. Bernie Sanders voted for it in the Senate.

That was a serious mistake. The conflict in Ukraine is looking more and more like a proxy war between Russia and the United States—in fact, Seth Moulton of the House Armed Services Committee openly called it a proxy war—and the consequences of deepening American involvement could be catastrophic. A particularly troubling portion of the $54 billion aid package is earmarked to the CIA for unspecified reasons.

U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez & U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on stage at Bernie Sanders Rally

Some Republicans did vote “no” on the aid. Does this mean, then, that Republicans are now the real anti-war voices in Congress, as some have suggested? That idea doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. After all, those Republicans who voted “no” told us their reasons for voting that way in public statements—and for the most part those reasons don’t seem to have much to do with promoting peace.