Though it is always unpopular; indeed, in these days and times intolerable, to our truth-hating world, I'll dare today, as I do daily, to speak the truth, regardless of how unpopular it is and how disliked or even detested I'll be for doing so. Permit me to begin by pointing out our country's dismal history of fighting unwinnable wars. It dates all the way back to the Korean War, which we never called a war, but a police action. The reason for this semantic sleight of hand was so that we could militarily intervene on the Korean peninsula without a declaration of war by the United States Congress, which our Constitution requires in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11. Ever since the Korean War, pardon me, the Korean "police action," we've been circumventing the Constitution and committing soldiers, weapons, and taxpayer dollars to wars all around the world, without a single congressional declaration of war. In fact, it was way back on June 5, 1942, during World War II, that Congress last declared war on a foreign adversary.

In Korea, 37,000 American soldiers were killed, 92,000 were wounded, and 8,000 ended up missing. Our so-called police action in Korea cost us somewhere between $476 billion and $678 billion, depending on whose estimate you want to believe. In the end, when the smoke of conflict cleared, Korea was left divided, the Korean peninsula split along the 38th parallel, leaving the situation essentially as it was before the conflict began. Instead of learning from this horrible mistake and the horrible cost we paid in both lives and lucre, we doubled-down on it and have regularly repeated it. Take the Vietnam War for an example, a war which the Pentagon said cost us 138.9 billion dollars and 58,222 American lives. Yet, in the end, Saigon fell to the communist North Vietnamese and neighboring Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge, whose brutal leader Pol Pot mass murdered Cambodians and buried more than a million of them in his notorious Killing Fields.

A more recent repeat of our fighting of an unwinnable war is the Afghan War, which, despite never being declared a war by the United States Congress, is the longest fought war in American history. Between 2001 and 2021, we lost 2,459 military personnel in Afghanistan, 1,922 of which were killed in action. We also had 20,769 Americans wounded, many of whom were left permanently disabled. All told, the Afghanistan War cost the American taxpayer $2.3 trillion. Yet, once again, when the smoke of the conflict cleared, Afghanistan was right back where it started, in the hands of the Taliban, who can once again turn it into a training ground for Islamic terrorists and a theater from which they can launch terrorist attacks all over the world. The only difference is, when we pulled out of Afghanistan we armed the Taliban with $7 billion worth of military equipment and weapons we left behind. 

While we have not put boots on the ground in Ukraine, for fear it would ignite World War III with Russia, not to mention a worldwide nuclear holocaust, we have spent $350 billion to date funding the Ukrainian Military's unwinnable war against Vladimir Putin's invading forces. Now, Putin's invasion of Ukraine is inexcusable and unjustifiable, regardless of all of the excuses and justifications being proffered by Putin and his fraternizers. Still, our government, as well as European governments, are investing in a losing cause in Ukraine. There's simply no way an inferior Ukrainian military propped up by an endless stream of other countries moolah will ever defeat a far superior military adversary. Remember, Jesus Himself taught that before going to war one should first stop and think about whether or not the war could be won (Luke 14:31-32). If one's adversary possesses the far superior force, it is wise, according to our Lord, to seek peace rather than to go to war. 

In spite of our $350 billion investment, Ukraine is losing its war against Russia, who has now taken control of 20% of Ukraine, where 3.5 million Ukrainians are now living under Russian occupation. In addition, the casualties of this war are staggering. It is believed that over a million people have died in this bloody conflict, the bloodiest since World War II. In addition, much of Ukraine now lies in ruins, with the cost of destruction estimated to be as high as $486 billion. Obviously, the continuation of this conflict and our continual funding of it must be chalked up as absolute madness. Still, our willingness to fight unwinnable wars, no matter how maddening and costly to ourselves, is empirically proven by our recent history, not to mention also being totally incomprehensible and indefensible.

Let me conclude this Wilderness Voice with a few other truths that ought to be told. First, before Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Ukraine had the nefarious reputation of being the most corrupt country in the world. Second, since Russia invaded Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has suspended Ukrainian elections, under Marshall Law, as well as other rights and freedoms, such as freedom of religion and freedom of the press. Third, as any American could have told Zelensky, his public insulting of Trump, for holding peace talks with the Russians in Saudi Arabian without the Ukrainians, would do nothing but make his bad situation worse, by provoking a retaliatory backlash of personal insults from Trump, the champion of all calumniators. Fourth, and finally, while Russia is ramping up its attacks on Ukraine and continuing its carnage of the Ukrainian people, Trump and Zelensky are now engaged in name-calling, Zelensky calling Trump an inhabiter of a "disinformation space," and Trump calling Zelensky a "dictator without elections" and a "modestly successful comedian." And all the time the war in Ukraine rages on, without a true statesman or peacemaker in sight.

PRESIDENT TRUMP BLAST ZELENSKY: "A DICTATOR WITHOUT ELECTIONS"