Republican Representative Matt Gaetz is back stirring controversy by suggesting that NATO should consider Russia as a member instead of Ukraine.
The remarks, which Gaetz delivered on the show “Eric Bolling The Balance” on Newsmax, were made as the NATO summit was happening in Vilnius, Lithuania, where members of the alliance decided to not give Ukraine a time frame on being invited to join, despite its aggressive push for entry.
Long before Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, its leader Vladimir Putin was very fiercely opposed to the notion of Ukraine joining NATO, insisting it would threaten Ukraine’s “historic future as a nation.” Putin sees NATO’s expansion to his country’s neighboring nation as the US “imposing its vision of order on Europe.”
While Ukraine has yet to receive an invitation, it was given new security assurances from the US and other members of the alliance at the summit. Gaetz, a vocal critic of Ukraine, has questioned this support.
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“I think one can reasonably ask the question: Has NATO expansion made us safer? I mean, has it really?” Gaetz asked.
“Are we safer today than we were before NATO expanded into the Baltics and put us now on the brink of war? I mean … [Rep.] Seth Moulton [D-Mass.] and [Rep.] Steny Hoyer [D-Md.] have already said, ‘We are at war with Russia.’ That’s not exactly what we signed up for, with Sleepy Joe as the president of the United States.”
And then he asked why Ukraine is even being considered.
“Why would you pick Ukraine? Why not extend NATO to Russia and make it an anti-China alliance?” the Florida Republican said. “Are we really thinking that we’re more afraid of the broke-down tanks from Russia than the fact that China is building a secret military base on the island of Cuba, 90 miles away from the United States?”
In February, Gaetz introduced a House resolution urging an end to military and financial aid to Ukraine and calling for a peace agreement. More recently, Gaetz criticized the Biden administration’s decision to transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine, co-sponsoring a measure to block the transfer. He argued that these weapons would not bring an end to the war or promote stability.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, another Republican lawmaker, also opposes US involvement in the Ukraine conflict. Greene introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, calling for the withdrawal of the US from NATO. She argued that Western European countries should contribute more financially to NATO’s security instead of relying on American taxpayers.
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