As the Republican Party’s blockade of aid to Ukraine drags into its fourth month, the U.S. government under Pres. Joe Biden has found a clever new way to give Ukraine’s forces the weapons and ammunition they need to defend their country.
It is, in essence, an American version of Germany’s circular weapons trade—the so-called Ringtausch. The United States is gifting older surplus weapons to Greece with the understanding that Greece donates to Ukraine some of its own surplus weapons.
Greek media broke the news last week. According to the newspaper Kathimerini and other media, the Biden administration offered the Greek government three 87-foot Protector-class patrol boats, two Lockheed Martin C-130H airlifters, 10 Allison T56 turboprop engines for Lockheed P-3 patrol planes plus 60 M-2 Bradley fighting vehicles and a consignment of transport trucks.
All this hardware is U.S. military surplus—and is available to Greece, free of charge, under a U.S. legal authority called “excess defense articles.” Federal law allows an American president to declare military systems surplus to need, assign them a value—potentially zero dollars—and give them away on the condition that the recipient transport them.
Politically I want Ukraine to have aid but can we at least admit that the president using a weird tradesies loophole to provide aid that Congress has explicitly rejected…kinda sucks?
Sucked when Reagan did it, sucks when Biden does it.
It would suck if the reasons congress had rejected it were remotely honest or moral.
What really sucks is that the Republicans are all towing the Trump line because it’s an election year and Trump will make or break their campaign. Trump loves a good dictator and thinks he’s buddies with Putin.
Let’s focus on the fact that Biden is exploiting a loophole and going around policies, and not on the fact that those bigotry-motivated policies are very much risking triggering WWIII, on the ground that it is an “eLeCtIoN yEaR”. sure.
Because if russia finally wins its invasion of Ukraine, they won’t stop there, but we won’t let them conquer the rest of Europe peacefully.
Besides, it’s a well known fact, the context never matters, that’s why we have dumb robots applying the laws to everyone without any context or interpretation rather than a complete, complex judicial system.
That way, if someone tries and commits suicide, lands on your car, killing themselves and making you paraplegic, you get charged with death penalty for killing them, the exact same way the driver of an armored SUV, charging in a crowd, blinded by hate, would get charged with death penalty.
I’m agreeing with you on wanting to help Ukraine, but think about what this power does. If Trump takes over he could make an agreement to give military equipment to Turkey so that Turkey arms Russia. He could give Mexico enough military equipment to pay for The Wall. He could give Saudi Arabia military equipment for nothing and then “unrelatedly” his son in law gets another few billion dollars to manage. It’s just structurally not good to give the president this power, Congress has to have the power of the purse.
The ends don’t justify the means because this isn’t the ends. This will keep happening under all presidents for all sorts of reasons. And this isn’t the only way to get money to Ukraine so the moral weight isn’t just on this. He could get to a deal with House Republicans, or he could push other countries to fund Ukraine more unrelated to using the loophole. There are options.
I also disagree with your “oh sure, let’s focus on this instead of the REAL stuff”… I’m not saying to ignore Ukraine funding. We can talk about two things at the same time. You’re the one saying to ignore the loophole because something you like is happening right now.
As the President is Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces though, isn’t this a strategic prerogative of the position though?
Selling equipment that has been made obsolete could be a military prerogative, which is why the law is written like that, but selling below market value in exchange for a political favor is certainly not a necessary military power, and not one you would want a military to have.
Take the specifics out of it and think of it like gold bars. Does Treasury need gold bars? Probably. Say they have the ability to buy and sell gold bars to fit their legal requirements. Whatever, right? Who cares. That’s part of their job. Now say the president starts giving away gold bars for free to his friends. Not really the same thing as “selling” anymore. That’s obviously a qualitatively different thing.
That equipment and those gold bars are worth something, they were paid for by US tax dollars and revenue from a sale would go back to pay back the US debt. But they are being given away for free. So that is the same thing as giving away tax dollars. Which should be a Congress decision.
The US political system is so far beyond your “respect your power” pipe dream it’s laughable you can make this comment with a straight face. The entire Republican Party has become a one trick pony of obstruction and doing nothing. They can’t even fund the fucking government.
Its that line of thought that gives rise to authoritarians. We have to believe in the Constitutional separation of powers.
And for the record the Republicans are funding the government, so far. They’re just doing it by CR instead of an actual budget.
Lol. We already have authoritarians. Wake up boomer, your idealistic ideas are exactly why we are here. Democratic capitulation of Republican authoritarianism and fascism has created a dysfunctional and unsustainable system. Username checks out.
So you’ve just gone full circle and now you’re pro-authoritarian because the other guys are too. K.
You have completely jumped the shark if you think appropriating decommissioned weapons to an ally to help a democratic country fight against a dictatorship is “authoritarian”. It’s been done for over 50 years imbecile.
The pro-authoritarian thing you said is that we don’t have to respect the Constitutional separation of powers.
Just wanted to point out that whether it is an undemocratic move or not does not depend on the recipient of the aid.
While I 100% agree with you that it is good that Ukraine is getting its weapons again, I really doubt that Russia would do anything if they won.
If all support for Ukraine stopped today the Russian military would still have been absolutely devastated by this war and winning won’t help them. And I highly doubt that the population would just sit back and accept the new state of affairs, the Russians would be dealing with constant resistance basically forever.
It would be like Germany trying to occupy France in the second world war except with basically no personnel, no equipment, and with people who are highly subject to corruption and a very high tendency for randomly defecting. And then with all that going on they’re going to attack NATO, no chance.
I wish you were right, but unfortunately you aren’t. I answered you. My phone crashed. I am not answering again. Fuck phones. Fuck this half assed world where nothing means anything, and anyone’s utterly uninformed opinion takes 2 minutes to hastily put in a comment, and 2h to refute. That is, if none of your fucking 10192994848595 layers of abstracted software fucks up. I’m out.
So my opinion is uninformed but yours is informed despite the fact that military experts have given similar advice.
Interesting but I suppose it’s massively helpful if you don’t actually bother to refute me and just tell me I’m wrong.
I can do that to, you’re wrong but I’m not going to say why or provide any evidence because I’m just going to give some flimsy excuse
What don’t you understand with “I am not wasting 2h again on some fucking stupid software crashing and losing all I typed?”
I don’t care what you think. Or what you believe. You have already shown enough that I know I have better things to do with my time. So follow my lead and downvote away, but you won’t take my time.
Edit: that fucking app somehow prevented me from downvoting myself. I had to use another for that.
Sorry, but arguing with “My app crashed so just shut up”, as much as I understand the frustration, is just stupid. Don’t you think? You did not say a single word about their topic and are just getting needlessly angry and abusive.
Reagan did it through bad regimes - at least Biden is doing through democratic governments. AND they are weapons we’d have to decommission anyway. BIG DIFFERENCE between this and Reagan. Stop being disingenuous.
I’m not being disingenuous, I’m complaining about the method and not the result.
They are not necessarily weapons we HAVE to decommission, the president decides that in addition to the sale price so legally it could be anything.
I get what you mean but the block in Congress is based on bad faith. Sometimes you gotta get pragmatic.
Yeah no one here agrees with your argument except the pro Putin crowd. I can only assume that’s what you want.
Somehow I doubt the pro Putin crowd is on board for helping Ukraine and I can’t imagine the 8D chess mind games it would take for them to decide Executive vs Legislative division of powers minutia is the game plan for taking down Biden.
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Sorry you think literally all critiques of presidential power and recommendations on the Constitutional separation of powers are trolling.
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Haha well I’m writing paragraphs of nuanced explanations of my views. You’re the one repeatedly posting single-line comments swearing and calling me a troll with zero explanation so…not to “I’m rubber you’re glue” ya on this one but you might be the troll in this interaction.
Sure. I understand that perspective. And it’s a logical fallacy. Saying a lot of things that wouldn’t typically warrant justification with a response, doesn’t de facto warrant an equally prolific response. Ben Shapiro logic.
What Greece does with their surplus is none of my business.
The president giving away military hardware your tax dollars paid for is certainly your business. The fact that Greece is sending other equipment to Ukraine is the best part of this haha.
Imagine a future President Trump sending military hardware for free to Saudi Arabia and Hungary and not mentioning the US getting anything back for it. Is it still not your business?
Even if you like the outcome here the mechanism sucks.
Why would I have a problem with giving surplus to an ally? We already do that with SA, and probably Hungary. Both also American allies.
If we were selling the military hardware to Greece for a fair market price, I’d agree.
But giving it away for free is different. With this power, only the decency of whoever is currently president prevents them from sending billions of dollars of value to basically any country they want, since things like this laundering through Greece can happen. It’s not just allies, it’s anyone any ally is up for helping.
And those billions in value don’t pop out of nowhere, it’s tax dollars being given away.
Even if you’re not opposed to money being given away to any particular country, you should be a little uncomfortable with giving the Executive Branch the power to give away money like this. It could just as easily be Trump giving hardware to Russia via Turkey. There are no rules preventing it. That is a Congress decision.
First of all, it’s not giving away money, it’s giving away useless hardware.
Second, the US is getting a lot from this in a strategic sense. This is not about money, it’s about weakening one of their biggest adversaries without sending their own soldiers. If Ukraine falls, there is a lot to lose for them and others.
He’s not saying this case is wrong, he’s saying he’s not comfortable with the president having that kind of unilateral power, especially considering what Trump might do with it. I can’t say he’s wrong. Imagine Trump giving away half the military to whoever books Mars a Lago for a month.
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