Opinion: America needs to keep pledge to provide military aid to Ukraine
Editor's note: Congress passed a bill to allow for aid to Ukraine and Israel and President Joe Biden signed it into law on April 24.
For many weeks now we watched as partisan gridlock in the United States Congress left Ukraine to twist in the wind before grinding assault by a remorseless Russian autocrat in spite of pledges by our government to support them “for as long as it takes” and bloody proof that, given proper arms, they can and will defend their honor.
Polls also show that a majority of Americans would vote to honor our pledge, as would definite majorities in both the U.A. House and Senate.
Historians will point out that this pledge honors a century old American tradition, sworn this time by a Democrat, mostly because a Democrat just happened to be president when the challenge arose. That we have allowed it to become a partisan issue and a bargaining chip in a power game that is beside the point, this point at least, shames our whole country.
Nevertheless, the balance teeters on the point of a sword. One loud voice in Congress can make a difference. We citizens must let them know that we care about the issue and our honor more than the game.
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Three weeks ago, I, a registered Democrat of conservative nature, joined a small bipartisan group (including one registered Independent) in a meeting with 11th District Representative Chuck Edwards’ staff member Ashley Teague who oversees his International Affairs Portfolio. We came to discuss Ukraine. This has special interest to Edwards because of the large number of Slavic Evangelical Christians who have settled in the district over the past 30 years, largely due to Billy Graham’s roots here.
The total has surged since the 2020 census and is difficult to estimate, but public health officials in the Asheville area speak of over 5,000 more or less evenly divided between Ukrainians and Russians, and they are a visible minority. Given the way Baptists were and are treated by Putin and those before him, they tend to hold similar opinions about Putin’s war.
Our particular group, which had coalesced out of informal contacts, included myself — an Asheville native, now retired from a journalistic career that included extensive work in Russia and Eastern Europe, a retired Navy Captain who had been an attaché in Moscow and served later as a NATO liaison officer in Kyiv, a retired local businessman and community leader, a woman active in the Democratic Party and a 25-year-old Ukraine-born plumber, whose parents travel frequently to their old homeland as NGO volunteers.
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Ashley Teague listened well and respectfully. Of course she promised nothing, but we left satisfied, and we sent a memorandum of the meeting to her counterparts on the staffs of North Carolina’s 13 other Representatives, six more Republicans and seven Democrats.
Although no one identified as MAGA nor as hard core leftie, we all acknowledged wide differences in our general political outlook and party affiliation. Nevertheless we each came down hard on a single issue that we feel a large number of people share, who think like we do. Aid to Ukraine, including military aid, is an urgent matter, of key importance in shaping the future of the world the United States has consistently fought for since World War II, and thus of enormous importance to our national interest and security.
U.S. honor among nations is very much at stake. To pull out now will undermine any notion of American moral authority for generations.
Using aid to Ukraine as a bargaining chip against other issues, like border security or building a liquid natural gas plant in Mike Johnson’s district, cheapens both causes badly and amounts to fiddling as Rome burns.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia,’s threat to unseat Mike Johnson is real, but the fear that making his defense dependent on Democratic votes is a risky gamble that could lead to an intolerable Democrat demand for a pound of flesh down the line can be spiked. Bipartisan support to keep Johnson in the speakership can and should be negotiated at once. A majority of Republicans will applaud the turn toward stability.
Sam Bingham is an Asheville native, retired journalist and former Journalist-in-Residence at Mars Hill University with extensive experience in Russia and Eastern Europe.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Congressional action needed toward military aid for Ukraine
