Ukraine aid — and US stockpiles — are running out. What’s next?
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos | Responsible Statecraft | May 17, 2023
There might be a massive new Ukraine aid budget debate on the horizon, as Uncle Sam is depleting the last one at a record pace and Pentagon stockpiles are, by all accounts, running low.
According to a new report by Defense One, some $36.4 billion of the $48.9 billion allocated for Ukraine-related military aid since February 2022 has been delivered, contracted, or “otherwise committed.” There is only $11.3 billion left, and it will “run out in four months.”
The most recent allocation ($1.2 billion last week) came under the U.S. Security Assistance Initiative, which means the additional air defense systems, artillery rounds, and ammunition that have been promised will be farmed out to U.S. defense contractors and won’t be ready for shipment right away. Alternatively, aid has come via the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which sends Ukraine weapons directly from the Pentagon’s stockpiles. According to the Department of Defense, there have been 37 such drawdowns totaling over $21 billion in weapons and supplies since August 2021 when the U.S. first responded to Russian forces massing along the border with Ukraine.
But now reports indicate that American stockpiles of HIMARS, Javelins, Stinger missiles, and 155 mm artillery rounds have been shrinking since late last year, and arms manufacturers are now scrambling to keep up.
This has led the U.S. to go out on an ammo-raising spree, gathering pledges from allies and partners. Some, like South Korea, have resisted but found a way to comply. According to the Wall Street Journal, Washington has sent Ukraine more than one million rounds of 155 mm caliber ammunition, and allies and partners have contributed more on top of that. Moreover, NATO and European partners are being pressed to send whatever they have from their own stockpiles for Ukraine’s anticipated counteroffensive.
So where does this leave us? It would seem that defense contractors need additional money and capacity to backfill the stores. Without more, Ukraine with be under-supplied for both its counteroffensive and whatever follows it. Meanwhile, American stockpiles are waning, which hurts readiness.
One congressional aide “who closely tracks the issue” told POLITICO this week that the money to draw down existing U.S. stockpiles will expire in July. According to the report, which speculated when and how big the next aid package will be, “that would mean the flow of equipment could be disrupted if Kyiv has to wait an extended period for a new tranche of funding.” Would it be included in the appropriations process, or a supplemental? “I expect there will need to be a supplemental at some point,” Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) told POLITICO. “It’s also clear that it’s taken far too long to get munitions and tanks delivered to the Ukrainians.”
But as Sam Skove points out in his Defense One report, there is the nagging issue of Republican members of Congress who have said they would not support another “blank check” to Ukraine and would expect not only greater oversight but also an articulation of a diplomatic strategy for ending the war before they would support another multi-billion-dollar package. Their position not only reflects a need for a full accounting for where the money is going, but also concern that the American economy right now cannot afford what has become the most expensive U.S.-war-that-is-not-a-U.S.-war in history.
In addition, Skove points out:
American public support for the war is also flagging. Both Democrat and Republican voters’ willingness to pay for the war has fallen, according to a recent poll by the Brookings Institution think tank. For example, the share of Democratic respondents willing to support Ukraine even if it meant higher energy prices at home dipped from 80% last October to 65% last month.
As the president ramps up for what should be a grueling 2024 re-election campaign, what happens on the battlefield in the next few months will no doubt signal how much more the U.S. will press on with such limitless assistance. There is certainly a constituency for continuing “for as long as it takes,” but it’s clear now that our stockpiles are not limitless, and neither is American patience, especially when their own economic security is at stake.
West fueling Ukrainian financial woes – Moscow
RT | May 17, 2023
Western financial measures are leading Kiev into a sovereign debt crisis, with the burden expected to exceed Ukraine’s GDP by the end of the year, the Russian ambassador to the UN has warned.
“We will hear a lot today about the solidarity of the Western community with Ukraine, the readiness to support it ‘as long as it takes.’ However, it is necessary to understand that this support is taking Ukraine to the brink,” Vassily Nebenzia told the UN Security Council on Monday. “Its foreign debt surged to a record $132 billion, or 89% of GDP in 2022. It’s estimated that by the end of this year it will exceed 100%.”
The Russian envoy added that the “enormous funds allocated to Ukraine by the IMF, the EU, and the US are driving that country into a debt pit,” cautioning that “ordinary Ukrainians will have to repay the debts.”
Commenting on Kiev’s agreement with US financial company BlackRock to launch the Ukraine Development Fund, Nebenzia noted that the American firm will be in charge of managing the finances.
“What essentially is happening under the guise of attracting private investment for large-scale projects in key areas of the economy, is a transfer of state sovereignty to external corporate management of the world’s largest investment fund headquartered in New York,” the diplomat stated.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has pushed Western leaders to provide more and more cash to sustain the economy and military. He previously told the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund that the country would need $55 billion in 2023 to cover the estimated budget deficit and rebuild critical infrastructure amid the conflict with Russia.
Ukraine has already deferred payments until 2024 on more than $20 billion of debt held by international investors. It is set for foreign debt restructuring next year, with G7 creditors claiming they would only extend their grace period for Ukrainian debt if private creditors agree. The nation’s budgetary shortfall is estimated to surpass $43 billion in 2023 alone.
Russian ‘Kinzhal’ hypersonic missile destroys Kiev’s US-made ‘Patriot’ air defense system
By Drago Bosnic | May 17, 2023
For most of this month, the mainstream propaganda machine has been parroting the same story over and over again – a Russian 9-A-7660 “Kinzhal” air-launched hypersonic missile was shot down by a US-made “Patriot” SAM (surface-to-air missile) system. The “conclusive” evidence cited by the political West is laughable at best, but it was enough to convince those without specific knowledge of how weapons actually work, which includes most of the population. Moscow didn’t really comment on the claims. Or to be exact, not until the early hours of May 16, when the actual response came in a very “non-rhetorical” form.
Namely, the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) launched a SEAD (suppression of enemy air defenses) mission over Kiev, with the operation including two “Kinzhal” hypersonic missiles, which were used to neutralize at least one battery of the “Patriot” SAM system. While neither side commented on the variant of the destroyed US-made air defense system, video evidence shows that it was most likely one of the latest iterations, the PAC-3 MSE (Missile Segment Enhancement upgrade) that also includes the much-touted CRI (Cost Reduction Initiative) interceptors. The cost of a single CRI missile currently stands at close to $5,300,000, meaning that the 32 interceptors fired by the Kiev regime forces amounted to nearly $170,000,000.
Such a massive quantity of interceptors was still nowhere near enough to stop the Russian hypersonic weapons, although the Neo-Nazi junta announced that it shot down most of the missiles fired by the VKS, including the claim that it allegedly neutralized six “Kinzhals”, despite the fact that the Russian military used only two during this attack. Although Moscow didn’t publicly reveal this, the information is based on the comments from the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu himself. In response to the Kiev regime’s reverie, Shoigu stated laconically:
“The figures given by the Ukrainians about the interception of Russian missiles are [usually] three times higher than the amount [of weapons] we actually use.”
Several military experts estimate that the VKS used a lot of decoys of various types to bait the air defenses in and around Kiev, which would explain the claims of the local authorities that the Russian strike was “exceptional in density”. The Neo-Nazi junta officials stated that the attack also included cruise missiles and drones. Local air defense forces allegedly shot down 18 missiles and nine drones, including six “Kinzhal” hypersonic missiles. The claims are widely ridiculed by military experts and numerous Telegram channels, with dozens of memes and practical jokes being posted by users and commenters.
Serhiy Popko, the head of the capital city’s military administration, stated: “The barrage was exceptional in its density, with the maximum number of missiles in the shortest time possible, but the vast majority of enemy targets in Kiev airspace were detected and destroyed.”
CNN, the flagship of the mainstream propaganda machine, immediately resorted to damage control to save the “Patriot’s” reputation, as it only arrived late last month and just recently entered service, claiming that “a US-made ‘Patriot’ air defense system was likely damaged, but not destroyed, as the result of a Russian missile barrage in and around Kiev early Tuesday morning local time”, citing a US official as its source. The report further claims that “the US is still assessing to what degree the system was damaged”, adding that “this will determine whether the system needs to be pulled back entirely or simply repaired on the spot by Ukrainian forces”. It also noted that “a US National Security Council spokesperson referred CNN to the Ukrainian government for comment”.
Such advice by the US government can only be interpreted by the fact that even Washington DC simply wants to avoid having to do anything with the Neo-Nazi junta’s ridiculous claims. The issue obviously lies in the fact that such laughable propaganda is not only completely unsubstantiated, but also makes the US itself look like a laughingstock of the world. This is particularly noticeable when looking at somewhat less propagandistic US media, such as The National Interest. Geoff LaMear, the author of one of the analyses recently published by the TNI, stated that “Patriot missiles won’t save Ukraine“, with the following assessment:
“‘Patriot’ systems are limited to pinpoint defense of major assets and are designed to operate in tandem with air defenses engaging targets at higher and lower altitudes. Without these additions, ‘Patriot’ will have too many threats to engage and the result will either be porous coverage that doesn’t protect its defended assets, or coverage that quickly subsides when ‘Patriot’ runs out of interceptors. Moreover, ‘Patriot’ systems are themselves vulnerable. Operating a ‘Patriot’ radar system gives away its location, making it an open target for Russian attacks. This means that ‘Patriot’ is not a one-stop-shop for defending Ukraine’s military assets or its people.”
Indeed, the “Patriot” is simply one segment of the US air defense/ABM (anti-ballistic missile) doctrine that also includes several other types of longer-range systems and interceptors. However, considering how lucrative air defense contracts are, the political West will surely continue suppressing any information about the destruction of its much-touted systems, while also parroting the ludicrous claims that Russian hypersonic weapons are being shot down by these same SAM systems. Such assertions come despite the fact that even top US officials repeatedly reiterated that there’s no viable defense against maneuvering hypersonic targets. This includes President Joe Biden himself, who stated last year that the “Kinzhal” cannot be intercepted.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Is the United States Moving Its Capital to Jerusalem?
American Politicians flock to Israel while dismembering the US Constitution in deference to Jewish power
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • MAY 16, 2023
It would seem that American politicians and media think that the entire world should rightly conform to the marching orders emanating from Washington, even though that pretense has become a bit shopworn after more than twenty years of pointless wars initiated and sustained by a series of clueless presidents and Congress. Increasingly, the international community is looking for a way out of the tight embrace offered by the White House, a growing sense that a multipolar world would be much better than “rule of law” dictated by any self-proclaimed superpower.
Recently there have been indications that rather than Washington being the center of the universe that title should rightly belong to Jerusalem as an extremist-led Israel has demonstrated its power over the self-anointed idiots who fancy themselves to be the “leaders” of the United States of America. Why do I think that? I truly believe that there have been several interactions lately involving US politicians and the Israelis that illustrate just how ignorant and self-absorbed America’s governing class actually is. The most egregious example of the “wag the dog” syndrome whereby Israel says “jump” and the fawning American government representatives beg to ask “How high?” comes from none other than the newly appointed Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, who spoke before the Israeli Knesset on May 1st. McCarthy made it a point to flatter his Israeli hosts by emphasizing that traveling to Israel was his first foreign trip as speaker, underlining the value of the relationship, and observing that he was also only the second speaker invited to make the trip to the Jewish state to address the Knesset.
McCarthy was accompanied by the usual cast of congressional toadies who flock to Israel during every recess. The group was bipartisan and included the loathsome Steny Hoyer of Maryland who has made and even led the groveling entourage more than twenty times. The ambition-driven McCarthy, who has never been accused of having a great deal of brain power, delivered a predictable speech that produced the pro forma standing ovations from the audience, but I would call attention to one part of it in particular where he said the following: “This is the foundation of our special relationship: We are the only two countries in history that were conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that we are all equal. Our values are your values. Our heritage is your heritage. Our dreams are your dreams. America is grateful for our friendship with Israel. We are a better nation because of it. And we must never shy away from defending it… As long as I am speaker, America will continue to support fully funding for security assistance in Israel.”
Nearly every line in this part of the McCarthy speech is basically either an out-and-out lie or a twisting of reality to such an extent that it is incomprehensible. Palestine, by the way, was not mentioned by McCarthy, but how Israel can claim to be “conceived in liberty” with the “proposition that we are all equal” when it has been engaged in genocide and expulsion as well as government endorsed violence directed against its Christian and Muslim subject population? And if American and Israeli values are identical, can we expect in the US different laws based on religion. And our common “heritage?” Israeli Jews claim to be “chosen,” don’t they? And finally, how on earth does McCarthy claim that the United States is a better nation because of its ties to Israel? It is ridiculous and insulting, but it leads to the punchline that McCarthy is making an unconstitutional pledge to defend Israel, no matter what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his band of criminals do, presumably to include attacking Iran. McCarthy should be impeached. Or even better he should magically become a Palestinian and spend a couple of months under the Israeli occupation. He might change his tune.
McCarthy continued his exaltation of Israel campaign after his return to Washington. On May 9th, he blocked an effort by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib to host a gathering at the Capitol Visitor Center that would have included least nine groups for an event entitled “Nakba 75 and the Palestinian People.” “Nakba” in the title of Tlaib’s canceled event is the Arabic word for “catastrophe,” which would have meant the speakers would be describing the founding of the state of Israel as a “catastrophe” for the Arab inhabitants of historic Palestine, which it was with hundreds of thousands left homeless, many winding up in refugee camps. McCarthy announced in a message that he was shutting down the event, tweeting that “This event in the US Capitol is canceled. Instead, I will host a bipartisan discussion to honor the 75th anniversary of the US-Israel relationship.” McCarthy’s announcement was in response to a letter from Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt to him which said ADL had concerns that some of the organizers of the “Nakba” event “have a record of rhetoric that demonizes and delegitimizes Israel, as well as dangerous stereotypes about Israel’s supporters.” Apparently free speech relating to a historic event is not even allowed to congressmen in today’s Zionist-occupied America.
If more evidence of the slime that is at the heart of the American political class is needed, I would cite another event which took place in Jerusalem on April 27th as both shameful and a disgrace. And “no” I am not referring to the Israeli police and army shooting dead more Palestinian teenagers on and around that date before stealing their family homes and destroying their livelihoods. I am referring to Florida’s governor and presidential aspirant Ron DeSantis’s groveling performance in bowing to Jewish power and money during his own trip to Israel. His abhorrent crawling before his masters culminated in his signing a new state law that will inter alia exploit the “hate” mechanism to criminalize nearly all criticism or even skepticism regarding Israeli apartheid, of the co-called holocaust narrative, or of the behavior of Jewish groups and individuals.
At the signing, DeSantis boasted how “We are doing what we can do in Florida to enhance the ability to hold people accountable when that really crosses the line into threatening conduct. We are fighting back.” He also made clear that the legislation was as much about Israel as about Judaism, arguing that rejecting “Israel’s right to exist is antisemitism” and adding that the non-violent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is “DOA” in his state. He also bizarrely described “Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons” as an “existential threat to the state of Israel and to the United States of America.”
Perhaps DeSantis should have checked with the CIA and even Mossad before commenting on Iran as both have confirmed that the Iranians do not currently have a nuclear weapons program. Unsurprisingly DeSantis claims that “Florida is the most Israel-friendly state in the country and as long as I’m Governor, we will continue to stand with the Jewish community.” In that he is no doubt correct. Twenty-six other states have penalized anyone seeking to either boycott Israel or promote doing so, sometimes to include denial of government jobs or benefits, but there is no doubt that Florida is currently number one in its deference to the Jewish state and its claimed interests.
The bill (HB 269/SB 994), which passed unanimously in both chambers of the Florida legislature, attempts to criminalize what it perceives as anti-Semitism. Even though its language avoids identifying Jews as the protected class, the clear intent of the document is to do just that. It accomplishes that by transforming what would have once been seen as trivial incidents into hate crimes, which are felonies. It includes “to litter a yard with a flier, harass people, disrupt schools or religious services, deface graves and certain buildings, or project images on someone else’s property” as possible actions rendered felonious based on racial or ethnic prejudice, making them hate crimes. It might mean, for example, that if someone laughs at another person’s clothes and if the attire is considered “ethnic or religious” that person can be arrested and charged with a third-degree felony as a hate crime. Or if a student in a college history class disputes the standard largely fabricated narrative relating to the founding of Israel, a Jewish student can feign distress and demand that the offender be arrested.
One of the bill’s co-sponsor’s State Representative Randy Fine, who was present at the signing in Jerusalem, explained how “There is no First Amendment right to conduct. If you graffiti a building, it is a crime now, but if your motivation is hate, it will be a third-degree felony and you will spend five years in prison. If you want to litter, it’s a crime right now, but if you litter and your motivation is a hate crime, it will be a third-degree felony and you will spend 5 years in jail.” After the bill passed the Senate, Fine tweeted that the bill was “the strongest antisemitism bill in the United States” adding “To Florida’s Nazi thugs, I have news: attack Jews on their property and you’re going to prison. Never again means never again.” Another co-sponsor Mike Caruso warned “If we do nothing, we are going to have 1933’s Nazi Germany all over again.”
DeSantis, who is seeking Jewish money and media support for his run at the presidency, turned in something of a repeat performance of his inaugural trip to Israel back in 2019. At that time, he boasted, like Kevin McCarthy, that his first foreign trip was to good friend and perpetual ally Israel. He took his entire gubernatorial cabinet with him to celebrate his election and theatrically signed an earlier bill (HB 741) in Jerusalem that sought to “criminalize ordinary political speech” by making religion as a “protected class” similar to “racism” to be included in “hate crime” legislation. The new designation specifically included attempts to “demonize Israel.”
The Florida bill also included the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism, similar to that which is favored by the office of the US Department of State’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, maintaining that “anti-Semitism” is “a certain perception of Jewish people, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jewish people, rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism directed toward a person, his or her property, or toward Jewish community institutions or religious facilities.” Under the bill, the BDS movement was defined as a terrorist “hate” group no different than the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) or the Islamic State in Syria (ISIS), which at that time prompted some civil libertarians to question if criticism of the behavior of the Jewish state could be deliberately mischaracterized as being an “anti-Semitic hate crime” that should or might be construed as criticism of the Jewish people and their religion.
HB 741 amended Florida’s “hate crime” statute to include such “antisemitic” acts as:
- “Calling for, aiding, or justifying violence against Jews.
- “Alleging myths about a world Jewish conspiracy or that Jews control the media, economy, government, or other institutions.
- “Accusing Jewish people as a whole of being responsible for real or imaginary wrongdoing by a single Jewish person, group, or the state of Israel, or for acts of non-Jews.
- “Accusing the Jewish people of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
- “Accusing Jewish citizens of countries other than Israel of being more loyal to Israel than their own nations.
- “Demonizing, applying a double standard to, or delegitimizing Israel.”
DeSantis has long nurtured political ambitions and, recognizing the power and wealth of those who are passionate about Israel, he harbors a particular “sensitivity” to Jewish and Israel issues as a means to help him move onwards and upwards. When he was a congressman, survivors from the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty that killed 34 American seamen who lived in his district in Florida report that they sought to meet with him to discuss the possibility of opening a new inquiry into the incident. Even though DeSantis is a former Navy officer, he refused to meet with them.
The power of international Jewry has been most observable in the largely successful attempts to silence criticism of Israel by making such activity describable as motivated by anti-Semitism. Former Israeli government minister Shulamit Aloni has even described the practice of labeling all critics as anti-Semites as “It’s a trick. We always use it… the suffering of the Jewish people” is routinely used to “justify everything we do to the Palestinians.” A number of European countries have also criminalized what is described as “holocaust denial” and in Germany and France have imprisoned those who violate the laws, even when that denial only consists of questioning some of the facts that are employed in the standard accepted narrative of the event. The most recent country to climb onto the “hate speech” express is Ireland, where new legislation is being considered by the country’s parliament. Interestingly, the debate over what one is allowed to say without criminally offending someone else has largely focused on transexuals and gender identity, but it has also been observed that the law would impact on supporters of the Palestinian cause who would perforce criticize Israel, the Jewish state. That might easily be construed as anti-Semitism and lead to heavy fines or even prison time. Interestingly, the bill even criminalizes the mere possession of material considered to be “hateful.”
In any event, the domestic war dedicated to stamping out what is referred to as anti-Semitism continues and grows in the United States, even when it is trivial, largely imaginary, or even fabricated by hate groups like the ADL headed by the hideous Jonathan Greenblatt. And if free speech and honest inquiry have to be sacrificed along the way, so be it. On May 10th the Biden Administration used its United Nations Security Council veto to block a report on Israel’s war crimes in targeting civilians while bombing Gaza, which has killed 25 Palestinians, mostly women and children. Unsurprisingly, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan responded to the development by declaring their unwavering support for “Israel’s right to defend itself.”
Clearly, for the vast majority of politicians in Washington and even at the states level, allegiance and subservience to Israel and its interests are more important than protecting constitutional rights or managing a sane and responsible foreign policy. One wonders whether Ron DeSantis, if elected president in 2024, just might hold his inauguration in Jerusalem, just as he did when he became governor. It would actually be something of a relief – at last the ultimate acknowledgement of who is really in charge back here in America.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Up to 4.5 Million Dead in ‘Post-9/11 War Zones’ – Study

By Will Porter | The Libertarian Institute | May 16, 2023
The far-reaching effects of America’s War on Terror may have contributed to the deaths of some 4.5 million people, according to new research by Brown University’s ‘Costs of War’ project. While many of the fatalities were the direct result of violent conflict, indirect causes such as economic collapse and food insecurity have taken a far greater toll.
Published on Monday, the study examines the long-term impact of the “post-9/11 wars” and the “devastating indirect toll” inflicted in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Somalia – all nations subject to US military intervention since 2001.
“Some of these people were killed in the fighting, but far more, especially children, have been killed by the reverberating effects of war, such as the spread of disease,” the paper said. “These latter indirect deaths – estimated at 3.6-3.7 million – and related health problems have resulted from the post-9/11 wars’ destruction of economies, public services, and the environment.”
Though the researchers acknowledged that the true total figure remains unknown, the study reviews a wide range of factors contributing to mortality. Those include economic collapse and the resulting loss of livelihood for local residents, the destruction of health infrastructure and public services, environmental contamination, as well as other cultural effects of war that can lead to further violence down the line.
“While this research does not ascribe blame to any single warring party or factor, and neither does it suggest the full death count is quantifiable, a reasonable and conservative estimate suggests that at least 4.5 million people have died in the major post-9/11 war zones,” the study concluded.
It went on to stress that “body counts are complicated and controversial,” and that tallying deaths from indirect causes is even more difficult, suggesting its figures are merely a tentative estimate based on a variety of sources.
The researchers found staggering levels of child malnutrition in some of the affected countries, with Afghanistan and Yemen topping the list. In the wake of Washington’s two-decade military occupation, more than 3 million Afghan children are now experiencing wasting, a symptom of severe, potentially life-threatening malnutrition.
Last year, Doctors Without Borders warned of a “worrying increase” in Afghanistan’s malnutrition rates, citing “the suspension of international aid” as among the primary causes. A special representative for the United Nations, Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov, described the situation as “almost inconceivable,” adding that up to 95 percent of Afghans were “not eating enough food, with that percentage rising to almost 100 percent for female-headed households.”
UN emergency aid coordinator Martin Griffiths has also attributed the crisis in Afghanistan, in part, to international sanctions and the seizure of government bank accounts following the Taliban’s sudden rise to power in the summer of 2021.
The study found that more than 2 million children in Yemen were also suffering from wasting following eight years of brutal bombings by Saudi Arabia and its allies, which have all but crippled the country’s healthcare sector. Riyadh has received indispensable support from the United States throughout the conflict despite countless reports of attacks on civilians and infrastructure, including hospitals, clinics, homes, factories, farms and bridges. A UN estimate in late 2021 suggested some 377,000 people had been killed in Yemen since the war erupted in 2015, with 70 percent thought to be children under the age of 5.
The Costs of War authors said the study aimed to “convey the scale of the suffering” in the war-torn nations, stating the “urgent need to mitigate the damage” inflicted by US military interventions and their long-term and indirect consequences. They added that additional research is needed on the subject, voicing hopes such work could “prevent further loss of life,” as America’s post-9/11 wars “are ongoing for millions around the world who are living with and dying from their effects.”
‘Entire Investigative Team’ Removed From Hunter Biden Tax Probe
By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 16.05.2023
Since 2018, Hunter Biden has been under a series of investigations into tax-related crimes, drug use, money laundering and illegal business dealings in foreign countries, including Ukraine and China.
On Monday, the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) removed the investigative team from their protracted tax fraud probe of Hunter Biden, in an apparent retaliation against a whistleblower who raised concerns about the handling of the case.
The whistleblower’s lawyers Mark Lytle and Tristan Leavitt wrote to Congress that the IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent they represent “was informed that he and his entire investigative team are being removed from the ongoing and sensitive investigation of the high-profile, controversial subject about which our client sought to make whistleblower disclosures to Congress. He was informed the change was at the request of the Department of Justice.”
The two also recalled that on April 27, 2023, IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel appeared before the House Committee on Ways and Means to testify “without any hesitation there will be no retaliation for anyone making an allegation or a call to a whistleblower hotline.”
“However, this move [by the IRS] is clearly retaliatory and may also constitute the obstruction of a congressional inquiry,” the lawyers added.
They added that they “respectfully request that you [the IRS] give this matter your prompt attention” and that “removing the experienced investigators who have worked this case for years and are now the subject-matter experts is exactly the sort of issue our client intended to blow the whistle on to begin with.”
This comes a few weeks after insiders revealed that US District Attorney of Delaware David Weiss is close to making a decision on whether to charge Hunter Biden with a crime over tax and gun-related offenses.
The First Son is reportedly being investigated by Weiss for two misdemeanor tax filing charges, one pertaining to a felony tax evasion and other – to a false statement about a gun purchase.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland — appointed by former President Bill Clinton in 1995 and blocked as a Supreme Court nomination in 2016 by Senate Republicans — said his office would respect the outcome of Weiss’ investigation. “I stand by my testimony and I refer you to the attorney for the District of Delaware, who is in charge of this case and capable of making any decisions that he feels are appropriate,” Garland said.
The federal probe into Hunter Biden’s “tax affairs” is said to have been partly based on Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) detailing fishy foreign transactions, with another insider claiming that these SARs were linked to money exchanges with “China and other foreign nations.”
The probe was launched by US Attorney’s Office in Delaware as early as 2018, but Hunter Biden said in December 2020 that he had learned about the investigation into his business deals only that month.
The son of then-president-elect Joe Biden said at that time that he was taking the matter “very seriously” and was “confident” that he had always managed his affairs “legally and appropriately.”
Apart from “tax affairs”, Hunter Biden is being probed over a drug use, money laundering and illegal business dealings in foreign countries including Ukraine and China, with investigators specifically looking into the content of Hunter Biden’s so-called “laptop from Hell“.
“TREASON!”: Trump Responds To Report Concluding FBI Russia Probe Was Unfounded
By Steve Watson | Summit News | May 16, 2023
President Trump has called for everyone involved in the Russian collusion ploy, including Hillary Clinton, to “pay a heavy price,” after a report from Special Counsel John Durham concluded that the FBI investigation into the 2016 Trump presidential campaign was totally unfounded.
“After extensive research, Special Counsel John Durham concludes the FBI never should have launched the Trump-Russia Probe! In other words, the American Public was scammed, just as it is being scammed right now by those who don’t want to see GREATNESS for AMERICA!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
Trump added “The Durham Report spells out in great detail the Democrat Hoax that was perpetrated upon me and the American people. This is 2020 Presidential Election Fraud, just like ‘stuffing’ the ballot boxes, only more so. This totally illegal act had a huge impact on the Election. With an honest Media, we are looking at the Crime of the Century!”
Trump also called for Hillary Clinton, James Comey and the Democrats to be punished for “treason”.
In a further interview with Fox News, Trump said “I, and much more importantly, the American public have been victims of this long-running and treasonous charade started by the Democrats, started by Comey.”
“Public anger over this report is at a level that I have not seen before…there must be a heavy price to there pay for putting our country through this,” Trump added.
The Durham report notes that “Based on the review of Crossfire Hurricane and related intelligence activities, we conclude that the Department and the FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report.”
It adds that “Our investigation also revealed that senior FBI personnel displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor towards the information that they received, especially information received from politically affiliated persons and entities,” presumably a reference to the infamous Clinton campaign-funded Fusion GPS “pee dossier.”
Responding to the findings, Republicans have called for a complete overhaul of the FBI, with Senator Josh Hawley declaring “we need to end the FBI as we know it.”
“People need to be prosecuted for this,” Hawley asserted, adding “The Clinton campaign and Hillary Clinton herself — is it any coincidence that she is tweeting about collusion at exactly the same time her campaign operatives are feeding this BS to the FBI? I don’t think so. There needs to be consequences for her and also for the FBI.”
“FBI leadership has clearly got to be changed,” he continued during an interview with Jesse Watters, adding “I’m of the mind we need to end the FBI as we know it. It needs to be broken up. I mean, clearly, it has become corrupt. The leadership is corrupt… This leadership has become totally radically politicized, and we have got to change it.”
Meanwhile, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz declared that the FBI agents involved should be fired and prosecuted, stating “This report is an insufficient consequence for the malfeasance and corruption that we have seen here.”
“We need to defund and deauthorize government entities that are converted from the just cause of defending our nation into enforcement wings of political parties,” Gaetz also asserted.
Rep. Jim Jordan also called for FBI funding to be cut, declaring that “This report reinforces the importance of ensuring the FBI continues to do its work with the rigor, objectivity, and professionalism the American people deserve and rightly expect.”
Special Counsel John Durham Exonerates Donald Trump of “Russiagate”
By Paul Craig Roberts | Institue for Political Economy | May 16, 2023
Durham’s long awaited Justice Department report concludes that the FBI investigation was politically motivated and that the FBI should never have investigated Trump. Durham concludes that The Justice Department and FBI “failed to uphold their mission” when they created a false narrative for the purpose of discrediting the President of the United States. But Durham didn’t indict the criminals who “failed to uphold their mission.”
In other words the FBI’s creation of a false narrative in order to severely influence an election is “devastating to the FBI,” but there is no accountability for the FBI criminals.
In his investigative report, Special Counsel Durham said: “the government possessed no verified intelligence reflecting that Trump or the Trump campaign was involved in a conspiracy or collaborative relationship with officials of the Russian government. Indeed, based on the evidence gathered in the multiple exhaustive and costly federal investigations of these matters, including the instant investigation, neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”
What, then, explains the “investigation”? Durham’s report concludes that there was “a predisposition to open an investigation into Trump.” Among those predisposed to get Trump, Durham mentions Peter Strzok, who was deputy director of the counter-intelligence division of the FBI, and Andrew McCabe, who was Deputy Director of the FBI and CNN’s senior law enforcement analyst.
There you have it. As I reported, Russiagate was an organized plot to destroy the President of the United States who was disapproved by the ruling establishment.
Even CNN’s Jake Tapper, who I regard as among the most corrupt of the presstitutes, said that Durham’s report was “devastating to the FBI” and “does exonerate Donald Trump.” Well, has Tapper apologized for hyping the fake narrative?
Have any of the presstitutes apologized for the lies they repeated over and over and over? No.
Will the presstitutes apologize? No. The way they see it, it is OK to lie in order to get Trump.
No real American believes one word about the failed impeachment charges, the false narrative “insurrection” charges, the Documentgate charges,” the false narrative NY prosecution charges, or the false rape charge.
Americans need to ask how they can survive as a people when their political system and media organizations can consistently mount false charge on top of false charge for the sole purpose of influencing US elections by lying about Donald Trump, a President twice elected by the American people who had their chosen leader stolen from them.
Special Counsel John Durham’s Report Released
New York Times especially revolting in perpetration of massive and ridiculous fraud
By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | May 16, 2023
On Sunday, June 12, 2016, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in an interview on the British political show, ITV Peston: “We have upcoming leaks in relation to Hillary Clinton … We have emails pending publication, that is correct,” Assange said.
Just two days after Assange made this statement, the Washington Post published a report titled “Russian government hackers penetrated DNC, stole opposition research on Trump.”
As soon as I saw this Washington Post report, I suspected it was a fraud perpetrated by Hillary Clinton’s friends in the U.S. government and mainstream media. Prima facie, it was pretty clear that the “Russian DNC” hack story was a way to distract attention away from the embarrassing content of the leaked DNC E-mails.
One of the oldest dirty tricks in the political playbook is to speak of the treachery of foreigners whenever a country’s rulers perceive that their power if threatened. As James Madison put it:
The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended.
The E-mail correspondence of Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager, John Podesta, contained numerous expressions of a duplicitous, cynical, and Machiavellian nature. Clearly they felt threatened by the publication of these documents that showed their true colors. They therefore felt compelled to take strong action to change the subject. And what better way to change the subject than to speak loudly about Russian perfidy?
And so the Russian-Collusion Hoax was born. At the time I was astonished that such a huge swath of the permanent political class and mainstream media were all—in a perfectly coordinated fashion—talking such patently mendacious nonsense. I remember thinking that such orchestrated lying revealed extraordinary centralized control of our institutions. I also remember thinking that if this network of power could get away with telling—for months on end—such a whopper about President Trump, there was no telling what other colossal, organized frauds were going to be committed in the years ahead. “Wow, what’s next?” I asked my younger brother in one of our conversations about the hoax.
I am about 1/3 through reading the just-released report by Special Counsel John Durham titled REPORT ON MATTERS RELATED TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES AND INVESTIGATIONS ARISING OUT OF THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN.
The first 100 pages contain nothing particularly surprising. Mostly it provides the meticulous details of what I already knew to be the case in the summer of 2016. However, on page 104, I ran across the following section:
iii. What the FBI knew from its intelligence collections as of early 2017. As the record reflects, as of early 2017, the FBI still did not possess any intelligence showing that anyone associated with the Trump campaign was in contact with Russian intelligence officers during the campaign. Indeed, based on declassified documents from early 2017, the FBI’s own records show that reports published by The New York Times in February and March 2017 concerning what four unnamed current and former U.S. intelligence officials claimed about Trump campaign personnel being in touch with any Russian intelligence officers was untrue.
These unidentified sources reportedly stated that (i) U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted communications of members of Trump’s campaign and other Trump associates that showed repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election; (ii) former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had been one of the individuals picked up on the intercepted “calls;” and (iii) the intercepted communications between Trump associates and Russians had been initially captured by the NSA. However, official FBI documentation reflects that all three of these highly concerning claims of Trump-related contacts with Russian intelligence were untrue. Indeed, in a contemporaneous critique of the Times article prepared by Peter Strzok, who was steeped in the details of Crossfire Hurricane, all three of the above-referenced allegations were explicitly refuted. Strzok’s evaluation of the allegations included the following:
• The FBI had not seen any evidence of any individuals affiliated with the Trump team in contact with Russian intelligence officers. He characterized this allegation as misleading and inaccurate as written. He noted that there had been some individuals in contact with Russians, both governmental and non-governmental, but none of these individuals had an affiliation with Russian intelligence. He also noted previous contact between Carter Page and a Russian intelligence officer, but this contact did not occur during Page’s association with the Trump campaign.
• The FBI had no information in its holdings, nor had it received any such information from other members of the Intelligence Community, that Paul Manafort had been a party to a call with any Russian government official. Strzok noted that the Intelligence Community had not provided the FBI with any such information even though the FBI had advised certain agencies of its interest in anything they might hold or collect regarding Manafort.
• Regarding the allegation that the NSA initially captured these communications between Trump campaign officials and Trump associates and the Russians, Strzok repeated that if such communications had been collected by the NSA, the FBI was not aware of that fact.
In other words, in its Russian-Collusion reporting, the New York Times published assertions from “four unnamed current and former U.S. intelligence officials” that were entirely false. Thus, the practice of using “unidentified sources”—a practice that was once heavily frowned upon by respectable journalists—enabled the commission of a giant deception that inflicted untold damage to our political system.
Even at that time (in early 2017) I told anyone who would listen that if it was possible to take down a sitting President of the United States by publishing the assertions of anonymous sources from within the state bureaucracy, then our government by elected officials was over, and our true masters were the “unnamed intelligence officials.”


On October 27 — two days before the crisis was resolved — Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev wrote a letter to Kennedy stating the following: