Yesterday I banged out a quick piece about the United States’ proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and fired it off to my friends at The American Spectator.

I soon received a call from one of the editors explaining that the AmSpec couldn’t use the piece because it ran counter to their pro-Ukraine, anti-Putin position on the war. He also noted that the article was based on anonymous sources cited by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh who formerly worked for the New York Times. In 1970, Hersh won the Pulitzer Prize for exposing the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War.

According to the editor, the AmSpec considers Hersh’s reporting generally to be highly suspect.

Throughout our discussion, the editor was very reasonable, polite, and a true gentleman. I thanked him for taking the time to tell me why the piece wouldn’t run and assured him that I was not offended. Nobody owed me an explanation, and it’s a privilege to be published by the AmSpec.

The AmSpec has published my other articles raising questions about the war in Ukraine and our role in it. But yesterday’s submission apparently went too far.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, I accepted the media’s reporting at face value. Putin was a thug who wanted to take over Ukraine. End of story.

But, in all honesty, I knew virtually nothing about Ukraine and the events leading up to the invasion. So I began researching the history of the region and learned of the repeated assurances by multiple U.S. administrations to the Russians that Ukraine, which borders Russia, would remain neutral. We also pledged that neither we nor NATO would move troops into the region.

What I learned was sobering. Despite repeated protests and warnings by Russia, the U.S. installed a friendly government in Kiev that proceeded to build an army of approximately 400,000. We simultaneously installed Aegis missile systems in Romania and the nation of Georgia. These missiles can carry nuclear warheads and strike Moscow in a matter of minutes.

Russia, not unreasonably, considered these actions to pose a threat to its security.

Meanwhile, a civil war was being fought in Ukraine between Neo Nazi Ukrainians and the ethnic Russians who have inhabited Eastern Ukraine since the 18th century. By the time Russia invaded, Ukrainian military forces had killed approximately 14,000 of these ethnic Russians.

In 1962, when the Soviet Union installed intermediate range ballistic missiles in Cuba, we went to the brink of nuclear war to have them removed. These missiles were effectively on our border, and we deemed their presence to be an unacceptable threat to our national security.

So, what would we do today if Russia set up a friendly government in Mexico and trained, equipped and positioned an army of 400,000 on the Arizona border? Would we let that slide or would we take military action to eliminate the threat?

None of the legacy media have discussed any of this. Instead it has cheered on the war which has served our supposed interest in weakening Russia without risking American lives. We supply the weapons and funds, and the Ukrainians do the bleeding, suffering and dying.

And, on the flip side, as we deliver aging armored vehicles, weapons systems and other materiel to Ukraine, our domestic military industrial complex is raking in record profits to keep the killing in Ukraine going.

And how’s the fight going? Joe Biden, Secretary of State Tony Blinken and General Mark Milley have said that Putin has already lost the war. But, if that’s the case, why is Russia still in firm control of Eastern Ukraine?

Despite the legacy media’s support of the war, the truth is slowly starting to leak out.

One of the most knowledgable critics of the war is retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor. In the Gulf War, he planned and executed the largest tank assault since the Second World War. He led his armored troopers into action and defeated the Iraqi Republican Guard at the Battle of 73 Easting.

Macgregor is a scholar warrior who later served in the Trump administration as a Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Defense. Trump nominated him to be our ambassador to Germany, but the Senate Democrats squelched that.

I learned of Col. Macgregor by watching Judge Andrew Napolitano’s YouTube show “Judging Freedom”. The Judge has assembled a panel of retired CIA analysts and military officers who appear to have access to inside information about the war and its causes. I urge you to go to go to YouTube and watch these guys analyze what’s happening on the ground in Ukraine.

As for Col. Macgregor, here’s a link to a YouTube video of him being interviewed by conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. In this video, he’s more strident than usual, but it will give you the flavor of what I’m talking about.

Now back to my unpublished article.

The nuns taught me that waste is a sin. They were talking about food (“Think of the starving pagan babies in China”) but it made me averse to waste of any kind.

So, here’s some forbidden fruit for you. It’s my rejected take on what’s happening in Ukraine.

Waste not, want not.

THE UKRAINE RACKET

War is a racket. It always has been. It is the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious…It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

– U.S.M.C. Major General and two time Medal of Honor recipient Smedley Butler,  1935

The United States is fighting and funding an undeclared proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. Although we have thus far provided more than $100 billion in military assistance, there is no end in sight as the much vaunted Ukrainian counteroffensive has dashed itself against Russia’s defensive lines. 

The New York Times reports that the combatants have suffered over 500,000 killed in action and claims that most of the dead are Russian. But many credible retired members of our military and intelligence community have opined that for every dead Russian there are seven dead Ukrainians. They have described the war as a meatgrinder that has brought the Ukrainian army to the point of collapse.

Nevertheless, President Biden is now seeking an additional $40 billion package to prop up the war effort.

But, other than turning Ukraine into a graveyard, what have we gotten for our money? 

Nobody knows, and, if the Democrats in Congress have their way, nobody will know.

In July 2023, forty-five Senate Democrats – including every Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee – voted down a proposal to establish an inspector general’s office to audit our assistance to Ukraine. 

But why shouldn’t we know where our billions are going? Could it be that the truth would embarrass the Uniparty hawks who have likened Russia’s invasion of Eastern Ukraine (which is inhabited by ethnic Russians who have declared independence from Ukraine) to the Nazis invading France? Could it be that the disposition of our tax dollars might undermine the pro-war narrative being fed to us by Washington and its lickspittles in the legacy media?

Let’s start with some basics. Ukraine is thoroughly corrupt. And indeed, Ukraine Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov recently “resigned” amid accusations of corruption. His replacement is  Rustem Umyerov. The Washington Post called this move a step in fighting corruption. According to the Post, as head of Ukraine’s “privatization agency” Umyerov “gained praise for instituting massive audits and weeding out alleged corruption and misappropriation of funds.”

But former New York Times Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh has offered a different take. According to Hersh, an anonymous “intelligence official”  advised him that Umyerov “is even more corrupt [than Reznikov]. He ran the sale of government property and made a fortune. Has a huge villa in Majorca.” 

In April 2023, Hersh – who no longer works for the New York Times – reported in his Substack  column that, based on his sources in the intelligence community,  Zelensky has been using American tax dollars to buy diesel fuel to power the Ukrainian army. 

Hersh reports that “Zelinsky has been buying the fuel from Russia, the country with which [Ukraine] 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; another expert compared the level of corruption in Kiev as approaching that of the Afghan war ‘although there will be no professional audit reports emerging from Ukraine.’”

Another “knowledgeable intelligence official” told Hersh, “Zelinsky’s been buying discount diesel from the Russians. And who’s paying for the gas and oil? We are. Putin and his oligarchs are making millions” on it. 

Hersh reports that  an “American expert on international trade” told him that many government ministries in Kiev have been “competing” to set up front companies to export weapons and ammunition through private arms dealers around the world, “all of which provide kickbacks.”

The expert also stated that “he wouldn’t be surprised to learn” that there are “lots of Americans involved.”

Could these arms sales have anything to do with the Ukrainian army running out of 155 mm artllery shells or the reported appearance of our  high tech weaponry in the hands of the Mexican drug cartels? 

And, if Hersh and his sources are right, why haven’t we, the dupes who are footing the bill to keep the Ukraine meatgrinder running, been told the truth by our government and the legacy media?

Are they afraid that we can’t handle the truth? Or are they afraid that, if the truth got out, all hell would break loose?