Hemorrhaging West to East Returns Home: man’s War profiteering means Immeasurable Loss

The President’s War in Eastern Europe, and Questionable Currencies

October ending Congressional Research Service Reports

Excerpted Data Estimates

For FY2023
Congress established a PDA funding cap of
$3.7 billion via P.L. 117-180

For FY2022
Congress increased a special authority (22 U.S.C. §2364) used to overcome PDA caps
From $250 million to $500 million via P.L. 117-103 and
Up to $1 billion via P.L. 117-128

Estimated Totals
2014-October 14, 2022
Estimate reported $20.3 billion
Including estimated $17.6 billion committed by the Biden Administration


Congressional Research Service Reports
Presidential Drawdowns for Ukraine
FY2021-FY2023 (in millions of dollars)
 

# Authorized Value # Authorized Value

#1	Aug 27, 2021	60.0 13	June 23, 2022	450.0
#2	Dec 28, 2021	200.0 14	July 1, 2022	50.0
#3	Feb 25, 2022	350.0 15	July 8, 2022,	400.0
#4	Mar 12, 2022	200.0 16	July 22, 2022	175.0
#5	Mar 16, 2022	800.0 17	Aug 1, 2022	550.0
#6	Apr 5, 2022	100.0 18	Aug 8, 2022	1,000.0
#7	Apr 13, 2022	800.0 19	Aug 19, 2022	775.0
#8	Apr 21, 2022	800.0 20	Sep 8, 2022	675.0
#9	May 6, 2022	150.0 21	Sep 15, 2022	600.0
#10	May 19, 2022	100.0 22	Oct 4, 2022	625.0
#11	June 1, 2022	700.0 23	Oct 14, 2022	725.0
#12	June 15, 2022	350.0

 

sub Total 10,635.0
Sources: Department of State and Department of Defense.

WAR matériel 2022 as of October 14 

 

· 20 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and ammunition (+18 more via longer-term procurement);

· 2 National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) (+6 more via longer-term procurement);

· 1,400+ Stinger anti-aircraft systems;

· 8,500+ Javelin anti-armor systems and 32,000+ other anti-armor systems;

· 700+ Phoenix Ghost Tactical UAS, 700+ Switchblade Tactical UAS, and other UAS;

· 142 155 mm and 36 105 mm Howitzers with more than 1 million artillery rounds;

· 20 120 mm mortar systems and 115,000 mortar rounds;

· 1,500 Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles, high-speed anti-radiation missiles (HARMs), and laser-guided rocket systems;

· 20 Mi-17 helicopters;

· hundreds of Armored Humvee Vehicles and 440 mine resistant vehicles;

· 200 M113 Armored Personnel Carriers;

· 10,000+ grenade launchers and small arms; and

· Communications and intelligence equipment

ADDITION: The Biden Administration has authorized third-party transfers of U.S. defense articles and equipment from several NATO and EU members to Ukraine.

 

For FY2022 Congress increased Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) funding cap (22 U.S.C. §2318(a)(1)) from $100 million

Up to $200 million via P.L. 117-70

Up to $300 million via P.L. 117-86

Up to $3 billion via P.L. 117-103 and

Up to $11billion via P.L. 117-128.

For FY2023
Congress established a PDA funding cap of
$3.7 billion via P.L. 117-180

For FY2022
Congress increased a special authority (22 U.S.C. §2364) used to overcome PDA caps
From $250 million to $500 million via P.L. 117-103 and
Up to $1 billion via P.L. 117-128


Estimated Total
2014-October 14, 2022
Estimate reported $20.3 billion
Including estimated $17.6 billion committed by the Biden Administration

Source: IN FOCUS “U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine,” Congressional Research Service, Update October 21, 2 022, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12040

November Hard News

Washington Times (The): “House Republicans call for Ukraine aid audit,” by Joseph Clark November 18, 2022, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/nov/18/house-republicans-call-for-ukraine-aid-audit/

“A group of House Republicans calling for more scrutiny over U.S. taxpayer-funded aid to Ukraine as Congress takes up a White House request for an additional $38 billion in support to Kyiv.”

In October an open letter was released in which several “liberal” Members of Congress had “urged” the president “to push more assertively for peace talks”; however under “intense pressure from “party leaders,” the liberals succumbed to pressure, essentially saying we really don’t want peace, peace talks, or nonviolence in the region; we prefer a war between nuclear power, thus global annihilation.

Though legislators affiliated with the other side of the uni-war-party have thrown around “no blank check” for Ukraine rhetoric and even more voted nay on a 40 billion dollar package, lawmakers have shown themselves to be all in for furthering aggression and bloodshed, and deepening debt and impoverishing ordinary Americans and essential institutions.

 Florida Press: “Mills Demands Audit of Ukraine Funds in First Congressional Press Conference,” by Grayson Bakich, November 18, 2022, https://floridianpress.com/2022/11/mills-demands-audit-of-ukraine-funds-in-first-congressional-press-conference/

“The soon-to-be Republican majority in the House of Representatives is on the warpath.”

Floridian Publisher Javier Manjarres cites the rhetoric flying from the jaws of MOC-elect Cory Mills:

“‘Why are we allowing this to grow and become some warmongering, military-industrial complex buildup that only benefits who… Not the American people. … Americans deserve transparency … Will you (the Congressional leadership) commit to a 100% audit of Ukrainian funds so the American taxpayers know where their money is going?’”

Decrypt “SBF’s Alameda Moved $89 Million Worth of Crypto into a New Wallet: 

The now- defunct and bankrupt trading desk moved $2.7 million worth of Serum, FTX, and Uniswap tokens into the wallet yesterday, on-chain data shows,” by Stacy Elliott November 14, 2022 https://decrypt.co/114610/alameda-89-million-crypto-new-wallet

Alameda Research, a quantitative trading firm, founded in 2017 by Sam Bankman-Fried and Tara Mac Aulay (currently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy), its CEO Caroline Ellison, is headquartered in Hong Kong on the eastern Pearl River Delta in South China

“

We don’t know exactly how much money was raised for Kiev and how much of it reached its intended destination” (RT News). “On March 14, FTX launched a new online portal for cryptocurrency donations (‘Aid for Ukraine’) in partnership with Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation. Through this, crypto traders, both large and small, could donate bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which FTX would convert into cash for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense to spend on weapons and other war-related expenses.” 

RT international news headlines: “Is there a link between ‘Aid to Ukraine,’ the US Democratic Party and the suspicious collapse of the FTX Crypto exchange?” November 18, 2022 https://www.rt.com/news/566626-ftx-and-ukraine/

“Breaking news throughout the first half of November has been dominated by coverage of the sudden collapse of FTX, one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges.… Much of the money taken out of FTX by its founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has disappeared completely. … Official investigations into FTX and Bankman-Fried have only just begun. …

“The US Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission” are investigating whether “stolen client deposits were used, in any way, to prop up Alameda, the FTX exchange sister company into which Bankman-Fried “secretly and illegally moved billions.”

Bankman-Fried is a very well-connected figure in US politics who “has boasted of meeting policymakers in Washington ‘every two or three weeks for the last year.’ Over 2022, this has included multiple audiences with senior government officials and top Biden advisers at the White House. These meetings escalated in volume around the time that the Ukraine conflict began…” In early March 2022, Sam Bankman-Fried’s brother (his political operations director), Gabe Bankman-Fried, visited the White House along with Jenna Narayanan, a Democratic strategist who once worked for the Democracy Alliance, which has been called the “most powerful liberal donor club” in the US. …

In April and May, “concurrent with his donating $865,000 to the Democratic National Committee,” Sam “Bankman-Fried himself … visited the White House on numerous occasions.”

The peoples of Europe and Asia and Africa are not enemies of the United States of America. 

REPEAT that: 

Peoples of Europe, Asia, and Africa are NOT enemies of the USA or enemies its people.

Therefore, powerbrokers in and around the United States and their various and variously connected partners should not be legislating, ordering, executing, bribing and bartering for, or acquiescing to wars and other acts of aggression against countries abroad; or against the homeland of the United States of America: its institutions, and against its people.

Acts of aggression committed (or caused to be committed) by U.S. agents or entites abroad are inseparable from acts of aggression against the homeland. People who believe otherwise are living in a separate universe, a cave of distraction, an altered state, a state of delusion, a dimension that is separate and apart from human and societal reality.

Make no mistake about it. The crises, cries, and painful consequences of war are felt, simultaneously; and they are felt in multiple sectors and dimensions.

War abroad is abandonment at home. Though profiteers and grafters may profit, the nation and its thousands, perhaps millions will languish in some degree of want and suffering, and in a state of smoldering resentment.

War abroad sets off the ricochet. In some shape or form, the rocket is sure to touch down one day.

War provokes antagonists (adversaries, enemies, ill-wishers) where there were none.

 War instills irrational fear and division among neighbors, near and far; and seeds the ground, in ripple effect, for rash (careless, injudicious) self-harming action.

 War takes. It never gives.

 War sickens society all over the world.

Composition and Commentary excluding quoted material and individual images
Copyright © Carolyn LaDelle Bennett
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