Warning: Max Blumenthal is an antisemite. Max Blumenthal’s Jew-hating fans.
Max Blumenthal’s ‘Goliath’ Is Anti-Israel Book That Makes Even Anti-Zionists Blush
Max Blumenthal and Stephen Gardner discuss the evil in DC. Colonel Douglas Macgregor and Tucker Carlson have said Donald Trump’s biggest sin was the threat to interrupt the money flow to the military-industrial-congressional complex. Ukraine is being used by DC to enrich government contractors. The “real war” is between DC and Putin with so much financial interest involved, DC will let Ukraine bleed to death before they give up their profits. Zelenskyy is a pawn in a money-grabbing scheme. DC is loaded with corrupt people making more money off this war than ever before so they fly their flags to support Ukraine but really they are supporting their huge incomes.
@Adam
Is everything OK. There were no posts in trash or moderation.
If you comment in rapid succession, the system will block you.
@Adam
I am not sure where you found $12.7 billion figure. The funds allocated to Ukraine are far greater than this from the various sources I have found.
There does, however, appear to be some discrepancy in the total aid going to Ukraine. Part of it is due to people ignoring the cost of the US military forces in support of the war, but there is a greater difference than just this. According to a recent WSJ article, the total aid to Ukraine is $66.2 billion, according to CFR, it is $76.9 billion, and according to Marc Cancian of CSIS the total aid is actually $115 billion. Personally, I believe that Cancian is probably the more valid source in such accounting of military expenditures, as he yearly writes a series of white papers for the govt describing various aspects of the military forces “including their composition, new initiatives, long-term trends, and challenges.”. In any event, in the video I shared below from Rand Corp, Cancian describes the breakdown of aid to Ukraine as follows:
Military aid – $50 billion
Economic and Humanitarian – $47 billion
Support to US forces – $18 billion
This latter amount, the support to US forces, is not discussed by anyone else, and it is a significant amount to ignore, one which someone such as Cancian would recognize as being material. In any event, as to what fraction of these amounts has been actually expended to Ukraine is anyone’s guess and I wouldn’t hazard offer my own, and the experts also disagree on this too. The reality is that these expenses have been allocated to the Ukraine war effort, no matter if the funds provide military hardware on the battlefield, or pay for the salaries of Ukraine’s armed forces and political staff, or pay for the deployment of thousands of US servicemen held on high alert in the surrounding areas. I don’t think it is rational to cut out all but the aid going to the battlefield and then also to ignore the amount not yet spent as the funds have been allocated from the budget.
Note that the whole US military budget for the year was about $773 billion. Considering that $115 billion has been allocated to Ukraine in about 18 months, this is a massive amount. While you could ignore that part of the $115 which has not yet been expended, you should also recognize that a sizeable amount of the rest of the total $773 billion has yet to be expended.
Something else to consider is that the entire Israeli defense budget for 2023 is $17.8 billion while Ukraine’s is $42 billion, and the US is covering all of Ukraine’s budget, plus the economic incentives to continue the, war plus the humanitarian aid package, plus the US military support. This is no small amount, no matter how you count it.
Notably, if you find the figures discussed by either WSJ or CFR more convincing than that of Cancian, the totality will change, but not the vast expense being plied into Ukraine, which is well known for its rank corruption, graft and outright theft of foreign aid, even of aid provided for their national defense – and all of the aid forwarded to Ukraine has scandalously been freed of any oversight or accountability.
Here are the links to the sources listed above:
Cancian/Rand (relevant section at 6min 21sec):
https://www.rand.org/multimedia/video/2023/05/23/ukraine-is-running-out-of-ammo-the-West-doesnt-have-enough.html
WSJ:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/08/04/ukraine-war-us-spending/
CFR:
https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-aid-has-us-sent-ukraine-here-are-six-charts
By the way, if your figure of $12.7 billion were correct, it would be less than 10% of what is being described by Cancian, but also less than 20% of the figures discussed by either WSJ or CFR, just FYI.
In any event, these are my thoughts on the aid, such as they are. Let me know if you have a difference of opinion.
Ted, I have to ask you for the third time to rescue my latest post about U,S, military aid from electronic oblivion.
I need to subscribe to an anti-malware program to put a stop to these accident. Do you or any Israpundit readers have any suggestions?,
peloni–oy vay! the figure s I sent you for U,S, miliray aid to Ukraine was way off the mark! I don’t know why the wrong figures, The web sites where I found these figures report 12.7 billion dollars in U,S, nilitary aid to Ukraine during this period. The sites also report that the Bidwewn administration has requested stilol more aid to Ukraine from Congress before the end of this year.
However, the cost of the weapons delivered to Ukraine is only about half of the total aid package. The rest of the aid package consists mainly of loands of various kinds that will enable Ukraine to purchase arms (and God knows what else) from third countries.
This still makes my calculations that this aid to Ukraine still ads up to about 1 percent of the total U,S. expenditures on national defense for these two years ( about 1.4 trillion trillion), and only about 1/2 of 1 percent for total Federal spending for these two years to be roughly accurate. But please cross-check me, Peloni.
peloni– I have been trying to get more accurate information on how much the U.S. has spent on military aid to Ukraine since February 2022, and how this compares with a) total spending on national defense and 2) total federal spending in 2022 and so far in 2023. Total spending on military aid to Ukraine comes to about 12.7 billion for this one and a half year period. Total defense spending for this 1 1/2 year period comes to 1.5 trillion dollars, and total Federal spending for this period comes to a whopping 3.4 trillion dollars.
If my estimates, based on what I think are reasonably reliable web sites, such as the Council on Foreign relations web site, tends to support my claims that military aid to Ukraine has been only a small part of U.S. military spending and an even smaller part of total U.S. government spending since the begining of Russia’s special military operation.” I will get the links to these sites to you as soon as I can. I am not that skilled at providing links to websites, but I will do my best. Once I get toyou the links to these sites, you can cross-check my estimates and will undoubtedly come up with more accurate figures,
Hi, Adam. You said,
You might add to that tactical humiliations, such as
1. Loss by Russia of several important ships, including the Black Sea Fleet flagship, to a country that doesn’t even have a navy
2. A rough parity of combat losses — including Russian dead many times over total 10-year losses by the US in Vietnam, despite Russia’s overwhelming air superiority
3. Anti-Putin insurgency movements within Russia, and repeated attacks against the Kremlin itself.
Yes, Russia is headed, at best, toward a “Pyrrhic victory”.
As for Biden’s role in this war, I count him as a Russo-Chinese asset, thanks to Hunter. This conflict is best seen as a Big Heist, with Biden and Putin as the thieves; and the American taxpayers and Ukrainians as the victims.
@Adam Dalgliesh
It is an old Russian proverb but Reagan had nothing to do with “inventing” it.
Peloni–many thanks for your extremely informative and thoroughly researched post. I will check out all your references, It is true that I missed the links. Links sometimes do not become visible on my defective computer;
Your comments on how the U.S. allowed its military and its weaponry to decay after the end of Cold War I is fascinating. Still, the U.S. seemed to have enough weapons and soldiers to wage the protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think the U.S. did manage to use some state-of-the art weaponry in these wars. But these wars accomplished absolutely nothing for the U.S., and undoubtedly must have drawn down our weapons stocks.
Your report that Russia has been building up its military over the past thirty years while the U.S. has been allowing its military to decay contradicts Putin’s claim that NATO represents a severe threat to Russia, and that UKraine is some kind of spearhead of this attack. Actually, the U.S. has been steadily drawing down its forces in Europe. several of the European NATO members have been cutting military spending and scaling down their militaries for years–especially Britain and Germany. TPutin’s allegation that Russia was being seriously threatened by NATO, as a justification for his invasion of Ukraine, was a lie. However, he was open about his intention to restore Russia’s sphere of influence in Eastern Europe to what it had been in Soviet times. However, the practical result of his :special military operation has been the exact reverse of his military-geopolitical goals. While before 2022 representatives of the NATO countries were holding secret meeings in which a possible disolution of the alliance, or its “repurposing,” were being discussed, and Trump even threatened to pull the U.S. out of NATO unless the European countries ponied up their share of the cost of maintaining the U.S. presence in Europe, the Russian “special operation: reinvigorated the alliance. Previously neutral countries with reasonably good relations with Russiia, joined the alliance. Russia has found it necessary to rely on Iran to supply it with tsome of the advanced weapons that Russia needs to mount effective offensive operations against Ukraine. This reversal of the patron-client relationship between Russia and Iran must be humiliating to the Russian military. The Russians may eventually win their war with Ukraine because they have overwhelming military superiority, which will tell over time. But the cost even of victory will greatly exceed the benefits. A classic “pyric” victory.
@Adam
I did share the source about the military pricing in my previous post so you would be able assess the sourcing for yourself. There is a hyperlink in the text “a single HIMAR cost $5.1 million back in 2014” in my previous post. Unfortunately, I did forget that you might have some difficulty seeing the link when I wrote that post, so here it is again:
https://www.newsweek.com/who-makes-himars-cost-launch-missile-fire-manufacture-1752295
I have found current pricing estimates for the HIMARS to be about $5.6 million and the shells to be about $150,000 per the Eurasian Times (https://www.eurasiantimes.com/himars-is-the-third-weapons-platform-along-with-the-javelin-m777/). This seems to be somewhat confirmed at other sites as well.
I agree that Ukraine has not been given the materials to win this war, but I disagree that the US could provide the weapons to defeat Russia if it wanted to do so. I very much do believe that he US does earnestly want to defeat Russia and displace Putin with a Yeltsin-like stooge, much to the misfortune of the Russian people, but this is just my opinion, such as it is. What is not an opinion however is the fact that since the end of the Cold War, the US has been scaling down its military production. Contrasting to this is the fact that Russia has been scaling up its military production since 2008 when it realized that the US had little regard for its(Russia’s) strategic security concerns. The consequence of these two opposing trends between the US and Russia is that Russia has an enormous military production advantage which the West can not currently collectively match.
You should watch this video (https://www.rand.org/multimedia/video/2023/05/23/ukraine-is-running-out-of-ammo-the-West-doesnt-have-enough.html) which describes the lack of US ability to adequately supply Ukraine. The video is posted on the RAND Corp website and includes commentary by Bradley Martin, a RAND researcher( https://www.linkedin.com/in/brad-martin-24419979), neither of which could be construed to be spreading Russian disinformation.
The US ‘Peace Dividend’ following the Cold war, in combination with the lack of a peer competitor for the past 30 years, has left the US military supply chain significantly withered. The Just In Time manufacturing gambit is a difficult one to rely upon during wartime, and Ukraine is facing the consequence of this reality. The US could of course convert to a war time economy, forcing the manufacturing centers of the country to do as it did during WWII, but the US is not presently prepared to do this, nor should we expect that this will likely change, as this war is a war of opportunity and not exponential threat to the US. Consequently, the US is left upgrading their capacity as possible which will take a period of years not months to complete. In the meantime, Ukraine is faced with the disproportionate ratio of armaments which it is currently employing to a diminishing effect. Hence, you are quite correct to suggest that the US is not supplying Ukraine with enough arms to win this war, but it is because they can not do so, not because they choose not to do so.
Peloni. could you inform us as to your source of information about the HIMARs and other U.S. weapons systems? I would like to cross-check these figures, but I have
no idea where to look for them. I have no doubt that you are honestly and accurately reporting the figures that you have located. But as an old Russian proverb invented by the late President Reagan goes, “trust but verify, trust but verify.”
sits in the circle and knows,” I realize that I have butchered this quotation, Could someone give us the accurate quote.
Finally, concerning the my comment that some defense contractors and Pentagon officials long for the return of the “once and future king, ” I was not suggesting that Trump wanted to be crowned king. I was just quoting this phrase from books that tell the Arthurian legends. As to my suggestion that some arms manufacturers and Pentagon officials maylong for Trump’s return to office, this is
based on thepure specukation some bloggers, not supported by any evidence. However, share this speculation, based on my infallible intuition.
@Peloni, I think you are correct that the figue I gavefor the tpta; U.S. aid to Ukraine for fiscal year 2022-23 was incorrect. One possibiliity is that I left out a zero when I gave this figure. If so, that would mean that U.S. military and civilian aid to Ukraine was $500 million this fiscal year, not 50 million. However, I will stand by my statement that total U.S. aid to Ukraine was less than 1 percent of the total military expenditure for this year and only one half of one percent of the total government spending for the fiscal year. I derived these figures from financial analysts and commentators on the web, not from bloggers that are either pro or anti Ukraine. Therefore these figures are less likely to be biased, since these financial “gurus” are not especially interested in the Ukraine war.
However, another reason why the fmost reports of total U.S.expenditures
may be at least roughly accurate is that the U.S. acts as a “dues collector:” for aid to Ukraine by other countries, some NATO and some non-NATO. The U.S. has organized these countries into a “council,” and each country is assessed a certain amount of aid to give to Ukraine, including transfers of weapons. Most of these weapons , it is true, were originally given or sold to these countries by the U.S., and are now being passed on to Ukraine. This is why Ukraine receives more military aid than is directly provided by the USG.
However, the Ukrainians have been loud in the protests that they have received fsr fewer HIMARS than they need. Not nearlythat have been destroyed in combat. In fact, they loudly complain that they have received very few state-of-the art weapons from all the NATO countries combined. For example, they “boast” that Germany has supplied them with only three or four Leopard tanks from Germany a year, which is supposed to enable them to withstand the hundreds of tanks possessed by Russia. Pro-Ukraine bloggers also complain that the U.S. has sent them a lot of ‘junk.” –meaning war surplus from previous wars that has decayed in storage for years, and is now almost unusual. That includes reports that it has provided Ukraine with shells with decayed nuclear materials in them–like the ones the U.S. accused the Saddam government of using in the Iraq wars. The pro-Ukrainian sources complain that these radiological weapons are not powerful enough to inflict much damage on the Russian forces, but contain enough radiation to poison the Ukrainian soldiers who must handle them in order to fire them.
I will thus stand by my overall conclusion that the U.S. and its allies are not providing the Ukrainians with enough weapons to win the war, although they could provide the Ukrainians with sufficient weapons to accomplish this if that was their objective. I am not sure what the actual objective is of giving the Ukrainians just enough weapons to keepighting for a time, but not enough to win the war. Perhaps the objectves are to force Russia to end its alliance with China, and/or to eliminate Russia as a great power with influence in the world. What is that saying, ‘the circle sits in the middle and knows.”
Hi, Adam. I agree, in general, to your analysis. I had to double-check about who you thought the ““once and future king” was. If you’re correct, that President Trump secretly expects to be crowned, we’re in for a heap of trouble.
Ted, you said, “The “real war” is between the US and Russia.” Since you, Macgreggor, Blumenthal et al have been solidly in Putin’s camp, I take that to mean you are all anti-America (Otherwise, you would have said “The real war is between the American people and the Military Industrial Complex).
Of course, I heartily disagree with you concerning your denegration of Americans; and I still maintain that while the Russians, Biden and Big Military are all making money hand-over-fist, the ones primarily suffering a “real war” are the Ukrainians — whom you and others here consistently deprecate.
Adam is correct — the Biden regime has been slow-walking needed aid to Ukraine; and I have no doubt he will throw them under the bus at the earliest convenient moment. Meanwhile, they have been fighting like the best soldiers in the world, and making mincemeat of the Russians.
@Adam
It is true that Trump did support increased defense spending, but this was at least in part due to the fact that the military had been in need of resupply due to the mindless forever wars going on for twenty years which created a great deficit in the military, recall the phrase “the cupboards were bare”. Such a deficit is also being created once again, with the wholesale liquidation of US military stores around the world simply to support the US war in Ukraine.
Additionally, the spending which was signed into law under Trump was rife with oversight and accountability which would be required in any successful business, as there is no rational explanation for not demanding such accountability except to support such mafia schemes as are currently taking place in Ukraine today. Consequently, the profit gained by legitimate military contracts is only so great, but the graft gained by illicit arms trafficking and outright theft of funds procured by undocumented spending is by far the more lucrative business opportunity, for the MIC, the lobbyists and the politicians, – all boat rise in such schemes. Also, Trump would end the war, reduce the aid, and demand accountability for any potential future aid, thus ending the party which is going on today. So I don’t think you are correct that
because it is not in their interests to obstruct their free access to black market commodities and untracked cash payments which is also all tax free.
Something seems amiss with your numbers about the aid. You say that
Yet a single HIMAR cost $5.1 million back in 2014 and as you note the 2023 dollar is worth far less than dollars back in 2014. But even using this value, the cost of the 20 HIMARS which were initially sent back in 2022 would be valued at $127.5 million, and this is using 2014 dollar valuation. This also doesn’t include the cost of additional HIMARS sent to Ukraine, nor does this include the cost of a single HIMARS shell $100,000 apiece) of which they use thousands. Furthermore, this doesn’t include any costs associated with the other various war toys which have been sent to Ukraine. So whatever the real number might be it must be well north, really really well north, of $25 million.
Also, even if it were actually only 1% of US defense spending, it must be explained how the defense of Ukraine, and the salaries of the Ukrainian Oligarchs which control Ukraine, should be placed upon the US taxpayer, and more specifically, how the US is defended by such defense expenditures. The US has never had any strategic need of Ukraine except to the degree to which it threatened Russia and in case any one doubts this, do recall the words of US Russian Ambassador William Burns who wrote a memo to Condi Rice in 2008 that
Inexplicably, this was related to the 2008 declaration of US support of bringing Ukraine into NATO.
As to the suggestion that Corporate interests might oppose the continuation of the war, I would seriously question how that makes sense since all of the Corporate funding is going to the Rep candidates that are supporting the war. Trump is clearly opposed to the war continuing and yet none of these Corporate interests are actually funding Trump’s campaign. He leads in fundraising due to small dollar donations, not due to large corporate donations by which all of his pro-war competitors are majorly financed. In politics, I would suggest that there are actually no secret yearnings, as political donations make these yearnings quite well known. I am curious if you believe that the owners of the relative interests of the MIC are supporting Trump, either publicly or financially, and if not, why that might be given that he continues to have the greatest support in the Rep party and is the most outspoken Rep opponent of the war. If your thesis that the MIC would prefer business as usual over the war profiteering taking place, it would only make sense that they would support the candidate most likely to fulfill their secret desires.
What are the U,S goals in the war in Ukraine? My guess is that the Pentagon war-planners want to keep the war going on indefinitely without a resolution. The U.S. is a “frenemy” of Ukraine.
This is exactly the same strategy that the U.S. has consistently pursued in the Arab-Israel conflict. It has provided Israel with substantial quantities of weapons. But it has aapplied intense diplomatic pressure on Israel not to take any military action that might enable them to win the ‘long war,” and negotiate a peace settlement with its enemies on its own terms. When necessary to enforce its “orders” to Israel it has withheld arms shipments until the Israelis comply with U.S.commands.
The U.S. objective in the Arab-Israel conflict is to keep the war going indefinitely. This gives the U.S. the balance of power in the conflict, since each side must vie for American support in order to enable their armed forces to keep fighting. It also distracts the Arabs from addressing their grievances about U.S. policies concerning other matters besides the Arab-Israel conflict.
I believe that the U.S. intends to “play” the Ukraine” in the same way that it has “played” Israel for years.
While the U.S. and other nATO companies have given the Ukrainians enough weapons to keep fighting,they have been careful to deny them sufficent weapons to win the war.For example, they Have stubbornly refused to give the Ukrainians military aircraft, without which the Ukrainians have no hope of winning the war. Eventually, the U.S. grudgingly approved the sale of obsolete
F-15 fighter jets to Ukraine iin reponse to intense lobbying By Zelensky of the U.S. Congress and many of America’s allies, both NATO and non-NATO. However,no F-15s have actually arrived, and few Ukrainian pilots have received any training to fly them. Early in the war, the U.S “ordered” the Ukrainians, have “ordered” the Ukrainians not to attack targets in Russian territory. The bills for military assistance to Ukraine specify that the arms provided cannot be used to hit targets in Russia. Recently, however, the Ukrainians have been hitting targets inside Russia, and the Biden administration seems to be looking the other way.
The arms that NATO has provided Ukraine are vastly inferior in both quality and quantity to what the Russians have. For example, the Russians have state-of-the-art fighter-bombers that are equal in capabilities to the most advanced U.S. “stealth” bombers. And they are using these superior craft to bombard Ukraine. They have a large and well-equipped navy, while Ukraine only has “drone” motpr boats. It is true that Ukraine has done remarkably well with its inferior military hardware. But that is only because tens of thousands of Ukrainian solders have been willing to die or suffer disabling wounds in order to protect their country.
The “real war” is between the US and Russia. I do not know why this screenshot was used for this discussion.
Macgregor often blames the war on Blackrock, the military industrial complex and Pfizer. Blumenthal is arguing the same thing..
This is not about being a Putin lover. It is about hating the current regime in the US. It is causing needless deaths and destruction in Ukraine.
Actually, there are many more companies that are losing a lot of money because of the war. And I think that’s the real reason why Carlson and company are supporting Putin.
U.S. oil companies used to own major shares of Russian oil companies. Or they had contracts with these companies aguaranteed share of the oil they pump. Other companies owned shares of Russian gold , copper, and “rare earh” mines, including lithium, which brought them immense profits. Then there were the companies that provided technical expertise, which was in short supply within Russia, for operating their mines and factories, and even for increasing agricultural production, Companies that sold the Russians semiconductors and microchips, which they don’t have the technical expertise to produce them on their own. AmericanAgribusiness companies owned shares of Russian agricultural pruduce for export. Tghe list goes on and on. American companies tens, possibly hundreds of billions of dollars as a result of the sanctions imposed on Russia by their own (American) government.
In retaliation for the sanctions, Russia “nationalized” all of these American interests.
Although the Republican Party may now soft peddle it close ties to many American corporations, since the MAGA voters are not especially enthusiastic about the big companies and banks and their huge profits, these ties exist and will continue to exist. That, in my opinion, is why the Carlson-MacGregor crowd love Putin. After all, whatever crimes that he may have committed, he has always been good to their corporate sponsors.
As for the huge profits reaped by American arms manufacturers, they have actually fallen as a result of the Biden cuts in defense spending. The 3-percent annual increase in defense spending that the Obama-Biden administration has approved since it took office is actually a spending cut, since the rate of inflation is much higher than that. As a result, arms manufacturers are seeing an increase, not a decrease in corporate profits under Biden. Secretly,, they yearn for the return of the “once and future king,” who had always supported increased defense spending.
As for the much balleyhood U,S. military aid to Ukraine financial analysts who specialize in examining Federal spending say it amounts to only 25 million dollars a year, or less than 1 percent of the total defense budget. The Ukrainians also receive 25 million in “humanitarian” aid yearly from the U,S, That still adds up to less than 1 per cent of the USGs annual defense spending.
More later.
Ted,
I don’t know what to make of this piece. Is it intended to stir discussion? or just to make loud noises in echo chambers? Let’s dissect it:
1. Ukraine CANNOT WIN the real war???
I don’t know what Blumenthal and Gardner consider to be “the real war”; but the only war the Ukrainians are involved in — and HEAVILY involved, at that, is against the invading Russians; and for the past year, they have been holding their own against them.
2. The pictures, juxtaposing MacGreggor, Carlson and Putin.
Putin and MacGreggor certainly belong next to each other, as they are on the same side. If Carlson is a full-blown Putin ally like MacGreggor, I haven’t learned this yet. Be that as it may, what is the message here? The subtitle says,
3. “It’s one giant scam!”
Substitute just about ANY word for “it”, and this message will resonate with millions — at the same time that it will be meaningless. Is Putin a scam? Yes. Is Biden a scam? Yes. Are Blumenthal, Trump, Carlson, Xi Jinping, the Ayatollah and Netanyahu all scams? They all are to SOMEone or other. Is the Ukraine war a scam? No — it’s about the only thing that isn’t! It’s all too real!
Here’s what I found about Max (Wikipedia, of course):
“Max Blumenthal (born December 18, 1977) is an American author and blogger.
He was a writer for The Nation, AlterNet,[2] The Daily Beast, Al Akhbar, and Media Matters for America,[3][4] and has contributed to Al Jazeera English, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.[3] He has been a writing fellow of the Nation Institute.[5] He is a regular contributor to Russian state-owned Sputnik and RT, and has frequently used his various platforms to spread Russian propaganda.[6][7][8] In 2023, he was invited by Russia to address a UN Security Council briefing about arms supplies to Ukraine.[9] ”
— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Blumenthal
No surprises there.