Why the $61 billion for Ukraine won't prevent its defeat

Congress pleasing its donors - the Military Industrial Complex

Published in the Edinburgh Evening News, April 25th. Surprisingly, they edited out the sentence about Zelensky’s and his generals’ corruption.

The US House of Representatives finally passed the $61 billion Ukraine aid bill that contains no money to secure the US southern border, despite Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson vowing that it must or he wouldn’t support it. But after a meeting with the CIA, Johnson mysteriously caved.

However, the money won’t help Ukraine - it was never meant to.

$40 billion stays in the US where it will go directly to the military industrial complex (MIC) to replenish depleted stocks and pay for weapons that have yet to be produced. The money achieves only a short respite but then more will be needed, which is just fine with the MIC. JFK famously said in response to a Pentagon request for more American troops in Vietnam, “Then we will be told we have to send in more troops. It’s like taking a drink. The effect wears off and you have to take another.” This is the same thing.

The bill was another demonstration of Congress’ fealty - by both Republicans and Democrats - to their donors. They probably even waved the little Ukrainian flags on the floor of the House because their donors told them to. They ignore the fact that 70% of the American people don’t want more money going to fund foreign wars in Ukraine or Israel or Taiwan, for that matter. They want the money to be spent at home to fix America’s enormous problems. But all these politicians care about is getting re-elected and they need MIC money to do so.

Second, the Ukrainian regime is notoriously corrupt. A 2016 report by Transparency International revealed that 38-42% of Ukrainian households paid bribes for basic public services like healthcare and education. In January, CIA director William Burns told Zelensky to stop taking such a large share of the ‘skim money’ from the US because his [Zelensky’s] generals were complaining that they weren’t getting enough.

Third, Ukraine is being destroyed. The Ukrainian people are completely exhausted. 600,000 are dead, 1-2 million are wounded, and millions more have fled the country. The only thing this money will do is prolong the agony. Tens of thousands of more young Ukrainians will be sent to their deaths.

The real reason the bill passed is to prevent Ukraine’s collapse before the US presidential election in November, which the US security state wants the senile Biden to win because he’s easier to control than Trump would be. There has been no coherent discussion of alternatives to prolonging the war because the US doesn’t do diplomacy anymore.

This is the same Congress and President who are sending weapons and money to Israel for it to finish the job of annihilating the Palestinians so it can create a Greater Israel ‘from the river to the sea.’ (It’s OK for Israel to say this, but not for Palestinians, to whom the land belongs.) The Israel lobby, like the MIC, has the US by the throat and won’t let go until Israel occupies all of Palestine and drags the US into a wider conflict that could ignite WWIII. But the MIC is fine with that.

It doesn’t matter that the US is diplomatically isolated and on the wrong side of history and justice, because it can count on the blind support of its faithful poodle, the UK, closely followed by the EU. Meanwhile, the rest of world looks on in horror as the world’s most powerful nation plays with fire.