Two Points About the $40 Billion Ukraine Bill

From Glen Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald wrote a good article on the $40 billion dollar Ukraine spending bill yesterday, and the few senators and representatives that voted no. A good article, as usual, especially if you want to call up your congressman with some pointed questions.

Two things in particular jumped out at me.

Firstly, two dozen House republicans wrote a letter demanding oversight of where the money goes:

The letter urges a public reckoning on the dangers of the U.S.'s bankrolling of the war in Ukraine: “We write today to express grave concern about the lack of oversight and accountability for the money and weapons recently approved by Congress for Ukraine,” it began.

"The aid package approved by Congress provides unprecedented funding for a foreign conflict in which the United States is not fighting, while there have been no significant hearings or substantive briefings on the use of the money and weapons being provided at taxpayer expense." The lawmakers raised the prospect of sophisticated weaponry falling into the hands of terrorist organizations, citing a documented history of illicit arms-trafficking within Ukraine, a market which is one of the largest in Europe: 

"According to a 2017 Small Arms Survey briefing on arms trafficking, over 300,000 small arms disappeared from Ukraine between 2013 and 2015 and only 13 percent were recovered. Criminal networks, corrupt officials, and underpaid military personnel can make a profitable business from the sale of arms from Ukrainian military stockpiles. For example, in 2019, the Ukrainian Security Service uncovered a plot by Ukrainian soldiers to sell 40 RGD-5 grenades, 15 grenade launchers, 30 grenade detonators, and 2,454 rounds of ammunition for 75,000 Ukrainian hryvnia or around $2,900."

Read that last sentence again.

40 RGD-5 grenades, 15 grenade launchers, 30 grenade detonators, and 2,454 rounds of ammunition for 75,000 Ukrainian hryvnia or around $2,900.

You can’t buy 10 AR-15s in the US for $2,900, much less 15 grenade launchers, detonators, nearly 2,500 rounds of ammo and 40 grenades!

Should we be sourcing all of our weapons purchases from Ukraine? Is there a number I can call for a catalogue, or like a website? Ali-Express account?

Secondly, this tidbit:

Following the Senate vote, a jet was used to fly the bill across the world to President Biden in South Korea, where he signed it into law.

Pause for a second… can you hear that? The screams of all the environmentalists horrified that we sent a piece of paper to the other side of the world on a jet just so that we could start spending money on war machines a few days earlier than otherwise?

Funny, I can’t either. I wonder how serious all those folks in Washington are about actually protecting the environment.

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Anyway, lots of good stuff in the article. Glenn Greenwald does a great job along with Anthony Tobin. Mitch McConnel is awful, Rand Paul is good, Bernie Sanders has knuckled under, and there a handful of Republican congressmen and senators who deserve reelection, at least if you find yourself wondering why we are spending 40 Billion with a B on some sort of foreign proxy war and a bit worried about where that money and the weapons it might buy are actually going to end up. I am definitely in favor of Russia losing this war they started, but damn, 40 billion on top of the 14 billon or so we already spent over the past few months for a war that is Europe’s business, not ours?

Especially with inflation high, a recession looming and government deficit spending largely to blame for both, that seems like a very poor decision, unless you expect a lot of that money to end up in your pockets…