Not in Our Name: An Open Letter to President Biden on Ukraine & Russia
The document below is an appeal by Christian thinkers, writers, scholars, and activists to President Joe Biden to reconsider his policy of escalation in the Russia/Ukraine conflict, especially the U.S. military’s stated goal of creating a “quagmire” that costs many thousands of civilian lives, instead of a negotiated peace. Only the undersigned are responsible for the opinions stated here. Pastors, authors, academics, and others are invited to add their names. Contact signnotinourname@gmail.com.
War with Russia
The undersigned strongly and unambiguously express their opposition to your policy with regard to Ukraine. Your strategy is edging the world closer and closer to a nuclear war with Russia, and to another world war. Recently, you requested Congress for even more funds to be sent to Ukraine in order to help them buy more weapons for the military conflict with Russia.
βSo we need to contribute arms, funding, ammunition … so that they continue what they are doing,β you said on April 28 when asking for some more $33 billion in taxpayer funds to support Ukraine. βRobust military assistanceβ for Ukraine is your expression. Reuters reported that βPresident Joe Biden asked Congress for $33 billion to support Ukraineβ and called it βa dramatic escalation of U.S. funding for the war with Russia.β
At the same time, the U.S.-led NATO April 27 meeting in Ramstein, Germany urged NATO members to provide more military support to Ukraine, with Germany promising to send 50 self-propelled Cheetah anti-aircraft weapons. We reject your heightened escalation of this conflict as dangerous and a provocation.
The response from Russia? Just days before Biden’s appeal to Congress, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov responded to the increased U.S. military support of Ukraine by saying there was a βseriousβ risk of nuclear war over the conflict. βItβs real. It shouldnβt be underestimated,β he stated.
Do We Want to Risk a Nuclear War?
The independent journalist Glenn Greenwald just recently stated, βWhatever your views on the moral dimensions of this war, it’s hard to deny this is the most dangerous moment in US foreign policy in two decades. Every week, US/NATO involvement in the war intensifies, as Russia explicitly warns of nuclear war. For what?β
We hereby declare that your escalation of this conflict as the President of the United States has not been done in our name.
Why Replace Ukraine’s Government with a Puppet Regime?
Nor did you act in our name when you, as Vice-President of the United States, were involved in the 2014 coup in Ukraine that toppled the officially elected leadership of Ukraine. At that time, a telephone conversation of your collaborator Victoria Nuland (Assistant Secretary of State under President Barak Obama) revealed how she discussed which leaders should be placed into the new government in Ukraine. The transcript of that conversation also exposed your own direct involvement in this interference with a foreign nation state. This intrusion into the internal affairs of a sovereign nation was not done in our name, either.
You designated this same official, Victoria Nuland, now as the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. In that position, she has recently had to admit that Ukraine does have bio labs and that the U.S. is involved in them and is worried what Russia would do with its dangerous content should they get a hold of it.
Hunter Biden’s Biolabs Investment
βUkraine has biological research facilities which in fact we are now quite concerned Russian troops may be seeking to gain control of,β Nuland said. βSo we are working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach.β
Some of those very same Ukraine bio labs are ones that your own son, Hunter Biden, only months after the U.S.-led political coup in Ukraine in 2014, invested money by way of the U.S. Company Metabiota which is working with the Department of Defense. Additional evidence has been recently unearthed, effectively proving the U.S.’s involvement in Ukrainian bio labs.
This strange and troubling U.S. involvement in bio labs at the border of Russia β with direct involvement of your own family β is not done in our name, either.
The Pointless War in Iraq
And let us also remind you that the United States does not have a good moral standing when it comes to condemning unjust wars of aggression. Recent U.S. history demonstrates a pattern of multiple military invasions of sovereign states β or military and tactical support for others to do so β most prominently the unjust 2003 invasion of Iraq with hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties, but also in Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria.
At this dangerous moment in history, the U.S. must exert its power to become a force for just peace, urging Russia and Ukraine to come to the negotiation table in order to agree on compromises that would enable and ensure peace in the region.
The U.S. should not engage in a policy of intensification of conflict with Russia that could lead to the deaths of millions of innocent people. There are grave consequences of cumulative provocations.
Not in our name, Mr. President.
Signatories
Michelle Bachmann, Dean, Regent University
Dr. Chuck Baldwin, Pastor, Author, Columnist, Radio Talk Show Host, Presidential Nominee
Donna F. Bethell, Esq.
Walter E. Block, Ph.D., Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics Loyola University New Orleans
Rev. Ronald Charles Buxton, Pastor, Van Horn Community Church
Dr. Peter Chojnowski, philosopher and director of Sister Lucy Truth
Patrick Delaney, journalist
Sean Feucht, Founder, Let Us Worship
Doug Fuda, Catholics Against Militarism
Matt Gaspers, Managing Editor, Catholic Family News
The Most Reverend Bishop RenΓ© Gracida
Carrie Gress and Noelle Mering, TheologyofHome.com, Fellows, Ethics & Public Policy Center Scholars, Institute for Human Ecology, Catholic University of America
Fr. Douglas Hauber
Dr. Robert Hickson (USA ret.), retired professor of literature and military history
Dr. Maike Hickson, journalist
Steve Jalsevac, Co-Founder of LifeSiteNews.com
Jim Jatras, retired former U.S. diplomat, GOP Senate foreign policy adviser
Jason Scott Jones, movie producer, founder of the Vulnerable People Project, host of The Jason Jones Show
Dr. Clifford A Kiracofe
Charlie Kirk, Co-Founder, Turning Point USA
Dr. Thaddeus Kozinski, Philosopher, Teacher, and Author
Edward Lozansky, President, American University in Moscow
Jack Maxey, journalist and political analyst
Brian M. McCall, Editor-in-Chief, Catholic Family News
Eugene G. McGuirk, BA, MA, MBA, Deacon and Educator
Eric Metaxas, Author of Bonhoeffer, and the upcoming Letter to the American Church
Hon. Andrew P. Napolitano, former jurist, constitutional scholar, and legal commentator
Fr. David Nix, Diocesan hermit
Jack Posobiec, Editor, Human Events
Pastor David Reinwald, Kissinger’s Church, Wyomissing, Pa
Eric Sammons, Editor-in-Chief, Crisis Magazine
Dr. Michael Sirilla, Professor of Theology, Franciscan University of Steubenville
Beverly Stevens, REGINA Magazine
Larry Taunton, Executive Director of the Fixed Point Foundation
Frank Walker, Editor, Canon212.com
John-Henry Westen, co-founder and editor-in-chief of LifeSiteNews.com
Sir Owen Samuel Whitman, GCS, political commentary and consultant
Michael Yon, War Correspondent/author
Elizabeth Yore, Esq., Founder, YoreChildren
John Zmirak, Ph.D., Senior Editor, The Stream