DEJA VOUS

#181

Have we been here before? In blog post 136, I introduce the book Overthrow by Stephen Kinzer, in which he writes about the fourteen governments the United States has overthrown to set up submissive puppet regimes allied to the goals of American imperialists. American imperialists overthrew the democratically elected government of Ukraine in February of 2014 in what is known as the Maidan Revolution. Ukrainians see this period as the Revolution of Dignity during the Euromaidan protests. The Euromaidan protests opposed the Western Powers who ousted the pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. In an article titled “With a $40 billion plan, the US is setting itself up for an expensive failure in Ukraine“, Scott Ridder explains how the US policies in Ukraine led to its economic demise and the economic destruction of Europe. Scott Ridder Jr. is a former United States Marine Corps intelligence officer who served with the United Nations implementing arms control treaties and as a United Nations weapons inspector from 1991 to 1998. He is also the author of the book Scorpion King, about America’s suicidal embrace of nuclear weapons and the failed efforts to curb this threat to humanity. 

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi convinced the House to pass a $40 billion appropriations bill for Ukraine in just one day with 368 votes for and only 57 Republicans against. The bill then went to the Senate, where it was approved and subsequently signed into law by President Joe Biden, despite the objection of Senator Rand Paul. According to the CATO Institute, “Congress has created a stunningly misleading image of Ukraine by stating it is a bulwark of freedom and democracy.” The Cato report claims that “Ukraine has long been one of the more corrupt countries in the international system. In its annual report published in January 2022, Transparency International ranked Ukraine 123rd of the 180 countries it examined, with a score of 32 on a one-to-100-point scale.” According to SIGAR (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction), “US officials often empowered powerbrokers who preyed on the population or diverted US assistance away from its intended recipients to enrich and empower themselves and their allies.”

According to Ritter, “When looking at the rush to provide Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars of US aid and assistance, one cannot help but be struck by a sense of déjà vu that Washington is repeating the same mistakes that helped produce the Afghanistan debacle.” In my post 179, I quote Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) “The money supposedly destined for Ukrainians ends up in the pockets of non-profits and NGOs that are often run by people close to the politicians in Washington.” She claims that the money given to Ukraine is like a revolving door, some of it stays in Ukraine, but some of it comes back to favored people, such as our representatives in Congress. According to Ridder, “much of this money will be deployed to pay the salaries and pensions of ultra-right Ukrainian politicians and soldiers who espouse neo-Nazi ideology.” The neo-Nazi Azov Battalion populates Ukraine’s military. Ukraine is becoming a rallying point for neo-Nazis and mercenaries from all over the world. The US Congress, in June 2015, passed legislation that banned the training of Azov members by the US military, as well as any transfer of US weapons to Azov control. Together with the US Congress, the Biden administration has shunned the rule of law by ignoring the restrictions imposed in 2018. 

Please forward https://kennethelongauthor.com/ to friends

Ken’s email is klong@kennethelongauthor.com