Longer range missiles to Ukraine increases Ukraine war going nuclear

 Longer range missiles to Ukraine increases Ukraine war going nuclear

It’s Standard Operating Procedure for Trump to argue and act on both sides of many issues. Case in point is America’s failed proxy war against Russia destroying Ukraine.

Trump knows it’s a lost case and campaigned to end it. He even hinted US would cease the weapons pipeline to facilitate that end. He bashed Zelensky in the Oval Office, telling him he has ‘no cards’ left to continue that war.

Alas, Trump just can’t pull the plug on ending weapons to Ukraine, without which their military will collapse.

But instead of cutting off all weapons and ending the war, Trump pivoted to announcing he’ll just sell US weapons to European NATO countries who will donate them to weapons’ strapped Ukraine. That solution is DOA since NATO countries don’t have the do-re-mi to buy sufficient weapons to keep Ukraine in the fight. Nor can US weapons makers build them fast enough since they’re preoccupied with supplying them to Israel to complete their Gaza genocide.

What to do? Trump just announced plans to send thousands of long range cruise missiles for Ukraine to attack deep into Russia. The $825 million US giveaway will send 3,350 Extended Rang Attack Munitions (ERAM) along with GPS guidance systems to attack 280 miles into Russia This is 90 miles further than the current 190 mile range US ATACMS missiles.

The ERAMs will not reverse Ukraine’s inevitable defeat. But they will certainly provoke Russia to again lower its nuclear deterrence threshold policy against long range missile strikes as they did when the ATACMS were launched inside Russia.

The ERAM will begin arriving in Ukraine in about 6 weeks. Given Trump’s mercurial, contradictory and inexplicable governing strategy, it’s possible he’ll change his confused mind and cancel the ERAM giveaway which will not secure victory, but might push the button to nuclear war.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL

DNC to overwhelming Democratic base: ‘Not prudent to call out Israel’s genocide and cut off all US genocide weapons.’

DNC to overwhelming Democratic base: ‘Not prudent to call out Israel’s genocide and cut off all US genocide weapons.’

The progressive Democratic base is fed up with America’s enabling of Israeli genocide in Gaza. Over three quarters of the base (77%) are calling Israel’s destruction of Gaza and the Palestinians there what is surely is…genocide. Only 8% of Democrats support Israel’s war on Gaza. Calling the genocide a war on Gaza is akin to calling the Nazi death camps a war on European Jewry.

Astonishingly, at the DNC summer meeting, DNC Chair Ken Martin and his resolutions panel rejected a resolution calling for a US arms embargo to Israel and urging support for a Palestinian state. Martin’s reasoning essentially supports America’s enabling of Israeli genocide.

“I know that there are some who are interested in making changes today, but as we’ve seen, there’s divide in our party on this issue. This is a moment that calls for shared dialogue. It calls for shared advocacy, and that’s why I’ve decided today, at this moment, listening to the testimony and listening to people in our party, to withdraw the resolution.”

Martin and the DNC are not “listening to people in our party.” They're listening to the Joe Biden wing of the Democratic elite totally committed to creation of Greater Israel to maintain US dominance over the Middle East. That dominance is being erected over the bodies of the entire Palestinian population in their own homeland.

Martin and his minions appear oblivious that support of genocide cost Democratic nominee Kamala Harris millions of votes last year, helping propel Trump back into the White House. These voters, disgusted with Democratic support and enabling of Israeli genocide, will never come back till the Party pivots away from genocide to peace and a Palestinian state.

Tragically for Democratic hopes in ’26 and ’28, Ken Martin and the DNC squandered a chance to begin that pivot.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL

Why won’t 519 other congresspersons join Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green and 13 other congresspersons in condemning US enabled Israeli genocide in Gaza?

 Why won’t 519 other congresspersons join Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green and 13 other congresspersons in condemning US enabled Israeli genocide in Gaza?

Only 14 of Congress’s 533 members (2 vacancies) are correctly calling Israel's genocide in Gaza... genocide and calling for end to all US weapons fueling that genocide.

The most impassioned and articulate in condemning the most grotesque US foreign policy in its 250 years is Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Green. She doesn’t hold back while the 519 congresspersons who dare not jeopardize their standing with the Israel Lobby cower in the background. "I don't know about you, but I don't want to pay for genocide in a foreign country against a foreign people for a foreign war that I had nothing to do with. And I will not be silent about it."

Greene is an outlier in the Israeli genocide loving Republican Party. All 272 other Republicans in the House and Senate want nothing to do with Greene’s principled stance.

Democrats are just a tad better. The other 13 congresspersons condemning Israel’s genocide and calling or end to all US weapons fueling it are Democrats. But that is only 5% of 260 Democrats in Congress, a sorrowful indictment of the so called progressive party. Supporting genocide is not progressive. It is ghastly.

My peace organization West Suburban Peace Coalition in Glen Ellyn IL in the IL 6th District, reached out to our Congressman Sean Casten in January, 2024 and this month on Zoom regarding the genocide. He refuses to join the morally centered congresspersons calling the genocide what it is and demanding end to all genocide weapons to Israel. He continues to claim he’s “doing everything he can to end the suffering of the Palestinian people.” Nonsense, he doing nothing except engaging in ‘happy talk’ designed to lull his constituents into believing he cares about a people being wiped out of their homeland with his tacit cooperation.

My appeal to Congressman Casten including this appropriate warning. “Congressman Casten, please do not let ignoring the genocide you surely know is happening remain a stain on your congressional resume for one more day during your congressional career.”

Sadly, my Congressman Sean Casten remains in league with the other 518 congresspersons who refuse to stand up against the Israeli genocide their government, of which they are members of and are complicit with, is supporting.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL

An apt comparison

 An apt comparison

Biden and Trump sending tens of billions in weapons to Israel to enable their genocide in Gaza would be like FDR sending Zyklon B gas to Nazi Germany to enable the genocide of European Jewry and other Nazi undesirables during WWII.

When the last Palestinian is dead or gone from Gaza's 139 square miles of rubble, Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu can tell America, "We couldn't have done it without you."

America's enabling Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza: grotesque, despicable, unforgivable.

Chicago Tribune letters again avoid reality of Ukraine’s impending battlefield defeat.

 Chicago Tribune letters again avoid reality of Ukraine’s impending battlefield defeat.

 

It’s understandable the Trib would publish letters promoting further aid in weapons, severe economic sanctions, even NATO troops to enable Ukraine to prevail in their war with Russia. But it is not understandable that all 7 letters advocating that policy published August 25, are disconnected from battlefield reality.

 

Virtually all historians, political scientists and military realists concur that Ukraine’s military is within months, if not weeks of collapse. They also agree there is no way outside of all out war, likely to go nuclear, to reverse that collapse They understand any peace settlement must include Russia’s 3 security objectives including no NATO fur Ukraine, neutrality for Ukraine going forward, and no return of the Ukraine oblasts containing Russian leaning Ukrainians seeking peace and separation from the Kyiv government bent on their destruction.

 

This alternative, reality based assessment of the war, deserves to be provided to the Trib’s readership. But only publishing readers promoting endless war which simply ensures Ukraine’s battlefield defeat, is not responsible journalism. Trib readers deserve a full range of views; indeed one more connected to reality.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL