The above image was made with stable diffusion using the prompt 'Water leaking out of a crack in a pipe.'
A new article from Sy Hersh just came out. The piece draws attention to the rampant corruption reaching the highest levels of Ukraine's government. Here's some of what it says:
"Zelensky has been buying the fuel from Russia, the country with which it, and Washington, are at war, and the Ukrainian president and many in his entourage have been skimming untold millions from the American dollars earmarked for diesel fuel payments. One estimate by analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency put the embezzled funds at $400 million last year, at least. ... Many government ministries in Kiev have been literally “competing,” I was told, to set up front companies for export contracts for weapons and ammunition with private arms dealers around the world, all of which provide kickbacks."
So American funds are being used to line the pockets of Russian fuel merchants and Zelensky's inner circle. Arms and military equipment intended for the war effort are probably being sold off to third parties. Due to .mil search rigging, getting a straight answer out of Google about how much aid the US has provided to Ukraine since the start of the invasion is tricky. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Congress approved $113 billion in aid in 2022.
Fraud on the scale Hersh is talking about should be front page news. From a certain angle, the US appears to be funding Russia while shipping arms to Ukraine that will likely end up in the hands of terrorists. But, much like Hersh's epic reporting on the US being behind the Nord Stream bombings, this latest story is being met with crickets in the mainstream press.
The big story in my Google news feed this week is the arrest of 21-year-old Jack Teixeira for leaking classified military documents in a Discord chat. Beyond confirming that the US spies on everyone including its allies, the documents themselves seem unimportant. So unimportant that I feel like the entire episode is kind of a non-story. Irresponsible kid shares boring state secrets with gaming buddies. The end.
The story itself is a mere footnote, but the powers that be are nonetheless spinning it into a justification for even more aggressive mass surveillance. According to this article, the leak has prompted the Biden administration to look at "expanding how it monitors social media sites and chatrooms." Maybe agents of Uncle Sam will start showing up in my crypto groups, asking if anyone has any classified documents.
It's possible that there's more to this leak and I'm dismissing it prematurely. The media coverage of it is extensive but shallow. The narrative seems tightly controlled, and it draws attention away from stories describing the Ukraine war as a disastrous farce. Perhaps this leak is being used as a smokescreen to obscure the growing chorus of voices critical of the war.
Hersh's new article makes Ukraine seem just as corrupt as Afghanistan was when we were in charge over there. The latest leak makes me wonder why we're giving classified materials to 21-year-olds. Mainstream media is spinning this leak, and they're spinning it away from anything that might support an antiwar perspective. Billions are flowing through the war machine, and all of the major news outlets are on board.
Read my novels:
See my NFTs:
