ArcaMax

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — About 50 US military “aid” packages have been sent to Ukraine since 2022, according to the Pentagon. And now Congress has just authorized about another$60 billion, with US lawmakers waving little Ukrainian flags in reaction to the vote, like they were a parent at school Sports Day cheering on their kid who keeps tripping over his shoelaces and face- planting into the mud.

Ukraine’s biggest problem is that it's running out of fighters while Russia isn’t. Nothing in this aid package alters that reality. It’s not as though Kyiv lacked enough weapons in the first place. At the outset of their much hyped (but ultimately underwhelming) s pring counteroffensive last year, Western officials had promised a spectacular performance, assuring that Kyiv had everything that it needed to drive out Russia. That never happened – and not for any shortage of weapons, unless having them blown up now constitutes a shortage. In that case, what’s the big plan to ensure that the same thing doesn’t just keep happening? There isn’t any such plan. Because that would ruin the whole business model for those profiting the most from this mess.

What's really going on is that Russia has made territorial gains while relieving Ukraine’s western allies of their need to dispose of their clunkers in an environmentally friendly way. Because while some might be imagining that all this weapons cash is resulting in shiny new hardware rolling onto the battlefield to help Kyiv, what’s really happening in both the US and Europe is that taxpayers are funding a giant blowout of hand-me-downs from Western closets. Ukraine has become one big White Elephant blowout. Which is why, for example, $23 billion just approved in this latest package is specifically earmarked for replenishment of American weapons supplies. In October 2023, the Pentagon said in a statement that there just wasn’t any money to buy Ukraine new weapons, but that it had some old gear to send over with the idea that new funding would be used at home to replace it – like someone giving you free money to switch out your H&M wardrobe for all new Prada.

The same thing has been happening in Europe, with its “off-budget”, ironically titled, European Peace Facility fund used to help finance war by reimbursing its member states for outfitting Ukraine in whatever old junk they might have lying around collecting dust. Sweden estimated its really old weapons to be worth 26 percent of the value of a new version. France figured theirs were worth about 71 percent. But Latvia figured that its weapons were worth 99 percent of the full value, Lithuania 93 percent, and Estonia 91 percent, according to Politico last year, citing European diplomatic sources. Surely there are some solid criteria being used to calculate reimbursement though, right? After all, we’re talking about taxpayer funds here, and not an open bar or a shopping spree. Whoops, guess not. Brussels set up a big pot of free money, set vague parameters for access to it, and the countries involved all ran to the press last year to stab each other in the back with allegations of cheating as they fought over it.

Estonia responded to the allegations, acknowledging that some of the weapons that it sent to Ukraine were apparently so old that they aren’t even produced anymore. It added that this wasn’t really about “an EU compensation scheme, but the stakes are much higher – to beat back Russian aggression, the biggest challenge to our security architecture since the Second World War.” Nah, actually it is literally an EU compensation scheme. And clearly a scammy one, at that.

Guess it’s all OK as long as the public doesn’t demand a return on its investment. If Ukraine was a professional athlete, its sponsors would have dropped it by now for poor performance. The fact that hasn’t happened means that the benefits lie elsewhere for those authorizing the funding. About half the Republicans in Congress voted against the latest aid bill. The other half are largely just a bunch of neoconservatives who tend to reflexively back anything that caters to the military industrial complex. And nothing serves as a greater impetus for massive transfers of US taxpayer funds into the pockets of special interests like a foreign war. They really hit the jackpot with Ukraine, as there aren’t any Americans dying. So it’s a blank check for weapons makers as long as Team Biden can keep the racket going by emotionally manipulating the American public with the need for Ukraine to “win”, or to beat Russia way over there so Russian President Vladimir Putin and his troops don’t someday end up just rolling right up to a season opener at Yankee Stadium or a matinee at your local AMC theater. And to ensure that never happens, Congress just decided to spend $8 billion on … salaries for Ukrainian workers.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon inspector general has confirmed 50 criminal investigations related to American funding for Ukraine, according to Bloomberg in February 2024. Sounds like there’s a rush to shovel as much cash out the door as possible while they still can, before Americans and Ukrainians get wise to the racket.