The military is exceptional, and
@Red Leg you're using an exceptional case of good governance and strict accountability.
May I give a different example? For some reason, like cockroaches, Pelosi, Biden, Romney, and several others have family members affiliated with Ukrainian corporations. Rather odd, considering Ukraine is a financially unremarkable country and would be the about nation 100 down the list of foreign countries where I would seek lucrative investments or board positions if it were me. Moving on to the tangible point: Biden would not release US aid to Ukraine until they removed a prosecutor that was chasing his son and his business partners. Next, the good ole USA instructed Ukraine to take their sovereign wealth that was given to them from the US taxpayer, and buy bitcoins with it. Which bitcoins? The ones at FTX run by Sam Bankman Fried. What did Sam Bankman Fried do with his money that he got from Ukraine that they got from the USA? He was the #1 funder of the Democrat party in the last election cycle.
Fox Business By Houston Keene November 17, 2022
nehls.house.gov
I did not say there was no corruption. After all, Ukraine has a ways to go to reach Hungary's corruption level which is the lowest rated EU country. Though, if you would pursue the index I posted earlier, Ukraine is eleven points better than Turkey which is a member of NATO.
The point I was making is that defense expenditures in the form of foreign aid are extensively monitored.
Can the Army or DOD account for every round of ammunition or anti-tank missile sent to Ukraine? Absolutely not. Let me tell you a story about the US Army. In September of 1990 the 75th FA BDE was deployed to the northern Saudi border as part of Desert Shield. Yours truly deployed as the Brigade's operations officer. One of the battalions in the brigade was 6th BN 27th FA(MLRS) that I was scheduled to assume command of in the spring.
Once redeployed to the States we held the change of command, and I began the laborious 100% inventory of every item in the unit's property book. That included everything from the 27 launchers and over 100 wheel vehicles to every weapon, tool kit, NVG, radio, and a host of other items. Everything had come home from the war except one container which was lost in the supply chain somewhere - probably awaiting offload due to the strike right now. Based on what was missing (no weapons, munitions. comms, or NVGs) that container would have been beyond bursting at the seams. Eventually, the new commander, me, simply wrote those items off as combat loss.
That sort of thing happens in war, particularly when moving vast quantities of material from one continent to another. Is it possible a tool kit ended up in a Bedouin's Hilux when Corporal Schmidlap left his vehicle unattended to take a dump? Absolutely. But that is hardly graft and corruption. During a combat fire mission, does the total number of rounds fired sometimes not match the total submitted to the S4. Absolutely, particularly when moving and shooting where powder canisters or shell casings are left where they are discarded and can't be counted. Those sorts of numbers screw up audits, but they do not represent corruption. I frankly don't think they even rise to "sloppiness." Combat reality might be a better descriptor?
Like many, I do find Biden's actions with regard to the Ukrainian prosecutor suspect, but by all accounts, Ukraine's effort to end corruption was greatly helped by his removal.
The other side of Crypto in Ukraine is that it has been used as the primary source of donations which have funded much of the Ukrainian war effort funded by individual and organizational donations. I am not sure about State's role, but it was a donation mechanism quickly adopted by Ukraine following the invasion. They are easy to make and the Ukrainian government can quickly flip those into large scale purchases of things like commercial drones which Ukraine quickly modifies into weapons. Could an unscrupulous minister figure out a way to steal some of those donations? I am sure one could. But we might also poll the thousands of Russians who have been maimed and killed by these drones with respect to how effective those donations have been.
About Bankman, this is pretty good article from Forbes. Whether you accept their analysis or not, I always find it good to balance a lot of the outrage posted across the web - particularly if Tucker Carlson is running with it. I do not know the truth, but a balanced understanding of the allegations is worth having. Forbes is generally rated a little right of center.
Former crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried had plenty of reasons to spend nearly $40 million on the 2022 midterms. Ukraine likely had little to do with it.
www.forbes.com
