With all the focus being on fuel prices as the Strait of Hormuz crisis expands, it was easy to forget that another war continues to rage and the United States continues to fund it. Washington has approved a bomb deal for Ukraine as it continues to blow through money on its own war with Iran.
The US has approved the potential sale of precision-guided bomb kits worth $373.6 million to Ukraine, following congressional pressure over stalled arms deliveries. This does not mean that these weapons will be delivered, as the details of the transaction are still subject to review by Congress and up for further negotiation, accoridng to a report by RT.
The sale approval comes after former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell – now the chair of the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee – last week accused the Pentagon of freezing $400 million in congressionally approved Ukraine assistance. Following the criticism, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth later confirmed that the $400 million had been released. – RT
However, it does signal that the US is still heavily involved in the Ukraine/Russia war and readily available for weapons transactions with Kiev’s ruling class.
The move was announced by the State Department on Tuesday, greenlighting a possible Foreign Military Sale of 1,532 JDAM-Extended Range (JDAM-ER) tail kits and related support equipment to Kiev. The equipment could be used to convert heavy bombs into GPS-guided munitions that can hit targets dozens of kilometers away. Boeing, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, is listed as the primary contractor.
“The proposed sale will improve Ukraine’s capability to meet current and future threats by providing it with additional means to conduct self-defense missions and enhance regional security,” the State Department said, adding that the package “will not alter the basic military balance in the region.”
If this isn’t meant to alter the military balance in the region, what’s the point? Aren’t all weapons sales or “self-defense” weapons used to change the outcomes of war? It seems that the US is desperately trying to convince the public that war is necessary, as it loses the support of a majority.
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Trump has flip-flopped several times in his military support for Ukraine, but has not objected to selling arms to the war-mongering country. Rather than direct US funding, Washington has routed arms through the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL), which is a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) mechanism under which European nations and Canada finance purchases of US-produced weapons for Ukraine in regular packages.