Those words would be: what the hell?
The latest Ukraine news will be the $1.3 billion aid package. Thus far, Congress doesn’t seem to have any qualms about unlimited aid to the beleaguered nation fighting an ongoing war with Russia, a conflict Joe Biden promised to subsidize indefinitely at the expense of the American taxpayer. At a recent NATO Summit, he even declared that Vladimir Putin had lost the war. Not true, but here’s what will be mentioned on the airwaves (via Reuters):
The United States will announce a new pledge to buy $1.3 billion worth of military aid for Kyiv in its conflict with Russia in the coming days, two U.S. officials said.
The previously unreported weapons package includes air defenses, counter-drone systems, exploding drones and ammunition, one of the U.S. officials said.
The United States is using funds in its Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) program, which allow President Joe Biden's administration to buy weapons from industry rather than pull from U.S. weapons stocks.
Among the systems and ammunition the U.S. plans to buy for Kyiv are counter-air defenses made by L3Harris Technologies called the Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment or VAMPIRE, one of the officials said.
Biden let it slip that we’ve depleted our artillery ammunition, with estimates that it will take four-to-seven years to replenish the arms supplies we’ve shipped over there, but that’s not all. The Biden White House voiced opposition to a provision in the defense bill on the Hill that would create an inspector general for Ukraine aid, not that there was much oversight, to begin with; the pro-Ukraine contingent in Congress still dominates both parties (via Defense News):
The White House … told lawmakers it opposes a provision in the House’s annual defense policy bill that would create a special inspector general for Ukraine aid, modelled after the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.
The Ukraine inspector general was one of several provisions in the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act that the White House, in an Office of Management and Budget statement on the bill, told Congress it wants removed.
But that’s not all; Biden is deploying the reserves to Europe:
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including sections 121 and 12304 of title 10, United States Code, I hereby determine that it is necessary to augment the active Armed Forces of the United States for the effective conduct of Operation Atlantic Resolve in and around the United States European Command’s area of responsibility. In furtherance of this operation, under the stated authority, I hereby authorize the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Homeland Security with respect to the Coast Guard when it is not operating as a service in the Navy, under their respective jurisdictions, to order to active duty any units, and any individual members not assigned to a unit organized to serve as a unit of the Selected Reserve, or any member in the Individual Ready Reserve mobilization category and designated as essential under regulations prescribed by the Secretary concerned, not to exceed 3,000 total members at any one time, of whom not more than 450 may be members of the Individual Ready Reserve, as they deem necessary, and to terminate the service of those units and members ordered to active duty.
I’m not sure I like the direction this administration is charting for us.
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