Less than a month after Congress approved and Joe Biden signed legislation providing an additional $40 billion in aid (including weapons) to Ukraine, the Pentagon announced that they are sending another billion dollars worth of rockets and long-range missiles to the former Soviet republic.
That brings the total amount of U.S. aid sent to Ukraine since March to $54.7 billion.
So, how does the amount of aid the federal government has provided to Ukraine’s security match up to that which is being spent on this nation’s security?
Last week, Newsweek reported:
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had a budgetary authority of more than $16.2 billion in 2021 and more than 57,000 full-time employees.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had a budgetary authority of more than $8.3 billion in DHS' 2021 budget and more than 21,000 full-time employees.
While the aforementioned facts and figures may be maddening, our elected representatives have a history of making other nations’ borders more secure than those of our own…
On June 19, 2019, the Democratically controlled House of Representatives passed an appropriations bill for the Department of Defense and attached it to the appropriations bills for the Departments of State, Energy, Labor, Health and Human Services and Education.
The Congressional Budget Office reported this spending measure would cost taxpayers $984.7 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2020.
Also contained in that measure were funds to “enhance the border security” of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Tunisia while denying all funding to enhance our own nation’s border security.
On page 304 of 650, one can find the phrase:
None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act or any prior Department of Defense appropriations acts may be used to construct a wall, fence, border barriers, or border security infrastructure along the southern land border of the United States.
Nor did it allow for the hiring of any new U.S. Border Patrol agents.
So, just how did the Department of Defense get to use the funds?
...$1,295,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2021,” says the bill. “Provided, that such funds shall be available to the Secretary of Defense in coordination with the Secretary of State, to provide assistance, including training; equipment; logistics support; supplies and services; stipends; infrastructure repair and renovation; and sustainment to foreign security forces, irregular forces, groups, or individuals participating, or preparing to participate in activities to counter the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and their affiliated or associated groups.”
-In 2008, the Bush Administration announced that the U.S. would assist Egypt in constructing a high-security fence along the Gaza-Egypt border in order to stop weapon smuggling from the Palestinian territory.
Those weapons are often used against southern Israel.
A cable dated December 20, 2009, sent from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo to the Secretary of State in Washington, D.C., revealed that while the Gaza fence was being constructed with Egyptian money, a tunnel detection system was built and funded by the United States.
The cable, made public by Wikileaks, also detailed how the U.S. provided support for the installation of the tunnel detection system, which was to be completed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by April 2010.
The American taxpayers reportedly sent $23 million to Egypt for the project.
Move along folks...nothing to see here!
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