Good God, I hope everyone in Congress recognizes what this bill, which apparently has now passed and Biden will sign it (seeing as he asked for it directly), means.
Let's recap. Per our Constitution the military is under civilian control. That is, the actions of the military, including weapons used by same or suitable for same, are under the control of Congress and The Executive.
Congress must authorize anything that leads to expense, and such must come from The House. Again, this is basic Constitution stuff.
Now Congress has explicitly authorized, and Biden will sign, this bill that specifically permits the transfer to Ukraine of basically anything other than nuclear material. Seriously folks -- that's the only real exception found in the referenced definition.
By agreeing to provide direct weaponry that can be and will be used in the waging of war by one of the two parties to same we have entered the conflict. That our GIs are not directly there is of no consequence. This is no different than shipping arms to Britain during WWI in the Lusitania or the lend-lease provisions in early WWII that ultimately led us to get involved there in Europe. Indeed Pelosi directly referenced those early WWII provisions indicating that she knows damn well the implications of what Congress just did.
In fact it was lend-lease of March 1941 that led Hitler to come after the United States; we had entered the war as a belligerent by officially agreeing to supply war material to Britain.
In those two wars there was no realistic means for the Germans or other Axis powers to hit us directly on our own soil. But they did in fact do that in response when they sunk the Lusitania, which had a bunch of Americans on board. They could reach that ship, did reach it, and did sink it. They did so because we were supplying England with munitions.
We claimed at the time we were not, we were lying and that is now established as a historical fact.
The Germans hit a legitimate military target despite our and Britain's claims at the time otherwise.
Today the situation is different. Russia can hit us here and not just with nukes. They can hit American assets that are by any reasonable international standard military targets all over the world and that includes military command and control which by our Constitution includes all members and facilities of both Houses of Congress along with the Executive, never mind obvious things like the Pentagon.
I don't think Putin is crazy enough to do it right up front but do not mistake "doesn't" tomorrow morning for "can't" -- the door is open.
Don't kid yourselves folks; such a strike, if it occurs, is entirely legal from an international law perspective under the laws of war. It is legitimate for a belligerent to strike the military elements, direct and indirect, of an entity supplying its opposing military.
We are now a belligerent in this conflict having crossed the line when we went from providing food, medical assistance and similar to military goods and the definition in this act does not draw a distinction, not that there really is one that is internationally recognized in the first place, between offensive and defensive arms.
There was some dispute whether we have already done that, of course -- particularly as regards whether we were the enabling intelligence and actionable information that led Ukraine to be able to hit certain things thus far. But up until now there was reasonable plausible deniability to our actions.
NOT ANY MORE; this is not implicit or hidden at all, it is IN YOUR FACE, public, and with no apologies or weasel-words.
Again folks: As of this point in time we are now a belligerent in the Ukraine-Russian conflict.
PS: If you think I'm supporting either side of this corrupt jackwad brigade -- nope. Hard pass. You want to fight Russia go pick up a rifle yourself. I've got no cock in this fight and neither does any honest American.
