US Secretary of State Antony Blinken dropped a truth bomb on Friday about the money for very real bombs being dropped in Ukraine: the vast majority of the money spent by Congress on supporting Ukraine’s military has in fact gone to US defense contractors.
"If you look at the investments that we've made in Ukraine's defense to deal with this aggression, 90% of the security assistance we've provided has actually been spent here in the United States with our manufacturers, with our production, and that's produced more American jobs, more growth in our own economy," Blinken said at a Friday presser with his British counterpart, David Cameron, who recently paid a visit to Kiev.
The news comes as the latest Ukraine aid bill, part of a massive piece of legislation that would also provide weapons to Israel and the Chinese island of Taiwan, is being held up in Congress by skeptical Republican lawmakers.
Retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a former analyst for the US Department of Defense, told Sputnik on Friday that Americans have long since been skeptical and cynical about what the US government spends their taxpayer dollars on, which in Ukraine would go toward turning the country into a client state for American corporate beneficiaries.
“It is terribly clear that the Ukraine aid did not give the US economy a boost, but it is clear that this government debt fueled spending on a significant conflict-oriented economic sector profited those companies, and did not help improve either US national security or Ukrainian chances of success in defending their former borders. Mark Theissen is from the line of thinking that government spending on war improves a domestic economy, as a former George W. Bush adviser and a fellow at the generally pro-war American Enterprise Institute.”
Theissen, in an opinion piece for the Washington Post published last week, argued that Republican lawmakers who voted against Ukraine aid were in fact voting against their own constituents, who would be the beneficiaries of money from that bill that would go to defense industries located in their districts.
“This money has been a waste,” Kwiatkowski said, noting it had not improved “the US military security industry, other than potential ‘future’ benefits of clearing our old inventory and forcing more domestic military spending for new and more expensive systems. The biggest impact is that our actions to pressure NATO countries to do the same is a market creation ploy for US defense that in fact is impossible to fund with the current demographics and domestic debt pressure on both the US and much of Europe.”
Kwiatkowski said American leaders “understand that Ukraine is not going to repay any gifts or loans, and the perspective was always to follow up Ukraine’s war loss with a new ‘Marshall Plan’ of state-backed and subsidized corporate investment, and certain Western ‘rights’ to Ukraine’s political directions, military development, and economic investment. [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky’s idea of Ukraine as a ‘new Israel or a new West Bank’ comes from DC thinkers who imagine a heavily subsidized country that is obedient to Washington in Eastern Europe, ideally more obedient than Israel herself has proven to be.”
“Ukraine will deal with the postwar economic landscape by selling natural asset rights and hosting western investment with limited-or-no contractual conditions regarding workforce, domestic law, profit taking, and environmental enforcement. Most of these rights will be claimed by the US and her allies; however, it will be an open season in Ukraine for foreign investment and grift, in ways and in a scope not seen in the past,” she said.
Kwiatkowski predicted Americans would not be surprised by the news that vast sums of their money they were being told had been spent on humanitarian aid had in fact been paid to defense contractors.
“American taxpayers actually understand three things about their government today. The federal government lies to them on a regular basis, and about everything; the federal government is endemically wasteful and corrupt; and the federal government is not concerned about US domestic defense, as seen in terms of both its lack of defense of our own borders from illegal immigration and the drug and human trafficking industries, and its pursuit of foreign policies that directly weaken its ability to influence the world.”
“The national popularity of people like [former US President Donald] Trump and RFK Jr, even of people in the past like Bernie Sanders - in spite of elite suppressions and assault on the character of these people - reflects the fact that the US population is aware that humanitarian spending under any guise by Washington does not help them or improve their lives. Americans in large numbers currently realize they are directly impoverished by inflationary policies of war and debt, and of corporate oligarchies predictable and vast profit-seeking via influence over government policy.”
“The reluctance of both the House and the Senate to approve more spending for Ukraine, and elsewhere, just before Christmas, as many Americans have tightened their belts and reduced their consumption, is evidence that Congress understands the inchoate sentiment of average Americans.”