In the greatest loss of materiel in history, the Biden administration left $83 billion worth of military equipment in Afghanistan during the disastrous 2021 American withdrawal from that nation. Now, with billions in weaponry being sent to Ukraine, there’s a related concern:
How much of this hardware will be destroyed upon arrival by the Russians or, even, land in their hands?
That we don’t really know where the weapons will end up has already been admitted by Washington. As CNN reported last week, “The US has few ways to track the substantial supply of anti-tank, anti-aircraft and other weaponry it has sent across the border into Ukraine, sources tell CNN.”
Military expert Colonel Douglas Macgregor (Ret.), a former senior advisor to the secretary of defense, was even more definitive. Speaking with with Fox News host Tucker Carlson last Thursday, he said that while there is some concern over where the weapons will end up, it’s “not enough to stop the hemorrhaging of material and money into Ukraine.” He continued:
We’ve had terrible problems in the past for accounting for where ammunition and weapons go. We saw that in Southeast Asia; we’ve seen it in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I think we can say with some certainty that many of these weapons will end up in the hands of people we would rather never see them in.
But that aside, if you listen to what President Biden said today, he is conveying the impression that any of this will change the outcome. It will not. What’s happening right now in the Donbass is the final annihilation of what remains of Ukraine’s best forces down in the southeastern corner of the country. They can’t change that.
Remember, the distance from Poland to the battlefront is roughly the same as the distance between St. Louis and New York City. They don’t have the infrastructure to train people, they don’t have the infrastructure to sustain the equipment, and then they’ve got to move it. I’m afraid the only thing we are doing is escalating tensions with Russia and turning western Ukraine into a large target set for Russian missiles, rockets and air strikes.
Macgregor proceeded to say that Biden’s advisors may be impelled by the belief that they’ll be able to dictate terms to Moscow in future negotiations, but that’s “not going to happen.” What will happen, he said, is that if the Russians see “significant military equipment show up, they’ll destroy it from a distance.”
Macgregor called NATO’s Ukraine intervention a “proxy war” in which “large numbers of Ukrainians” will die for nought (video below).
The colonel isn’t alone in this opinion. Echoing him and also discussing possible mercenary motivations behind the weapons-dealing is ex-congressman Ron Paul. As he wrote Monday, calling the Ukraine war a “racket”:
One group of special interests profiting massively on the war is the US military-industrial complex. Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes recently told a meeting of shareholders that, “Everything that’s being shipped into Ukraine today, of course, is coming out of stockpiles, either at DOD or from our NATO allies, and that’s all great news. Eventually we’ll have to replenish it and we will see a benefit to the business.”
He wasn’t lying. Raytheon, along with Lockheed Martin and countless other weapons manufacturers are enjoying a windfall they have not seen in years. The US has committed more than three billion dollars in military aid to Ukraine. They call it aid, but it is actually corporate welfare: Washington sending billions to arms manufacturers for weapons sent overseas.
By many accounts these shipments of weapons like the Javelin anti-tank missile (jointly manufactured by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin) are getting blown up as soon as they arrive in Ukraine. This doesn’t bother Raytheon at all. The more weapons blown up by Russia in Ukraine, the more new orders come from the Pentagon.
Former Warsaw Pact countries now members of NATO are in on the scam as well. They’ve discovered how to dispose of their 30-year-old Soviet-made weapons and receive modern replacements from the US and other western NATO countries.
While many who sympathize with Ukraine are cheering, this multi-billion dollar weapons package will make little difference. As former US Marine intelligence officer Scott Ritter said on the Ron Paul Liberty Report last week, “I can say with absolute certainty that even if this aid makes it to the battlefield, it will have zero impact on the battle. And Joe Biden knows it.”
Even more shockingly, the “Russians are capturing modern US and NATO weapons by the ton and [are] even using them to kill more Ukrainians,” Paul contends.
If this is true — and note that propaganda flies fierce during war — then Russian president Vladimir Putin may be pulling a Br’er Rabbit trick with his protestations about, and warnings against, arming Ukraine. To wit: “Drown me! Roast me! Hang me! Do whatever you please,” said Br’er Rabbit in the famed old story. “Only please, Br’er Fox, please don’t throw me into the briar patch!” (Of course, that’s exactly where the rabbit wanted to go.)
We can add that, while not everything is about money and there no doubt are multiple motivations behind U.S. Ukraine policy, American politicians receive millions in donations from defense contractors and many own stock in companies such as Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. So they have a vested interest in enriching the weapons manufacturers.
Speaking of appearances of quid pro quos, note also that the Biden clan has received millions from Ukrainian sources — and now is party to sending billions to Ukrainian sources. It’s all a really bad look and an even more dangerous game.
Meanwhile, our southern border remains porous as the invasion of our nation continues, unabated.
