Predictibly, Jeremy argues that the West should stop helping Ukraine defend itself, joining Putin, Orban, Vucic and our own PFMers.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/02/jeremy-corbyn-urges-west-to-stop-arming-ukraine
If it is Corbyn's opinion that the US is arming Ukraine and using the Ukrainians as a proxy US Army in a US-Russia war and that the US has no intentions of seeking a peace agreement for the sake of depleting Russian resources for the main benefit of the US's own interests and not the interests of Ukraine, then Corbyn is making a very good point. The Guardian does not expand on Corbyn's thoughts, but Klassik knows not if this is because Corbyn did not expand or because The Guardian simply isn't reporting the whole story.
As Klassik pointed out on the Wigwam on May 9th, one needs to pay close attention to comments made by the US government. An example of this are comments made by Adam Schiff, US Democratic House Representative from California and chair of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence during Trump's impeachment hearings in 2020. The point of the comment is not about Trump, but rather how the US views foreign policy with Ukraine and Russia. Here is part of the comment from Rep. Schiff from a transcript of the hearing. It should be noted that Schiff is a top-ranking member in House foreign policy and also Schiff voted for the Bush-Blair Iraq war way back when:
Adam Schiff via Congressional Record CREC-2020-01-21 (Page 9) said:
President Trump’s efforts to solicit foreign interference to help his reelection campaign is pernicious, but his conduct is all the more alarming because it endangered U.S. na-tional security, jeopardized our alliances, and undermined our efforts to promote the rule of law globally. Ukraine is a ‘‘strategic partner of the United States’’ on the front lines of an ongo-ing conflict with Russia. 172 The United States has approved military assistance to Ukraine with bipartisan support since 2014, and that assistance is critical to preventing Russia’s expansion and aggression. This mili-tary assistance—which President Trump withheld in service of his own political inter-ests—‘‘saves lives’’ by making Ukrainian re- sistance to Russia more effective. 173 It like- wise advances American national security interests because, ‘‘f Russia prevails and Ukraine falls to Russian dominion, we can expect to see other attempts by Russia to ex-pand its territory and influence.’’ 174 Indeed, the reason the United States provides assist-ance to the Ukrainian military is ‘‘so that they can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here.’’
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CREC-2020-01-21/pdf/CREC-2020-01-21-senate.pdf
The part in bold shows that the US has military purposes for their support of Ukraine. Now, it might seem reasonable to support Ukraine in the context of controlling Russian aggression as it pertains to Ukraine's sovereignty. Few would probably argue against that point, but the question is if the US has additional reasons for their interest in arming Ukraine. Schiff's notion of Ukraine's fight somehow preventing the US mainland from being attacked by Russia seems almost daft. Where is there any realistic threat of Russia invading the mainland United States? Or any part of the US really?
It is surely not Ukraine's goal, and it certainly doesn't seem to be Zelenskyy's goal, to engage in a permanent war with Russia. Rather, it seems the goal is to obtain a peace. Surely Ukraine would prefer to not cede much in a peace agreement as one could understand, but surely the goal is to achieve peace. The question then is if the US has a peace agreement as a goal of if the purpose of arming the Ukrainians is so that the US can use Ukrainians fighting for their homeland as a proxy army for the US's own goals which deal with issues beyond Ukraine. Klassik has some doubt that Ukrainians have much interest in such things.
In other words, there is some question if the Ukrainians are being used the way the Afghans were in the Afghan-USSR war in the 1980s which was truly a brutal war...one which still has ramifications today. While the USSR was indeed depleted by the Afghan-USSR war, Afghanistan was also left in tatters and that came back to burn the US when Afghanistan was ripe ground for extremism which turned US arms and military training against the US.
The Tories and New Labour have unquestioning support of US foreign policy...foreign policy which has often been wrong and, quite frankly, rather brutal. Klassik believes Corbyn is quite right to offer some questioning of this stance. It's not necessarily a matter of supporting Ukraine, but rather a matter of ensuring that the outcome is peace as soon as possible and that might well come through serious attempts at diplomacy and not 'forever wars'. It's possible the best possible outcome is somewhere between the US's/Tory/New Labour stance and that of Corbyn's, but without Corbyn's stance, there would be nothing to advocate for anything but the US's stance completely.
