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Welcome back to Political Misfits on Radio Sputnik, where we bring you news, politics and culture - without the red and blue treatment. I am John Kiriakou here with Michelle Witte.
International affairs and security analyst Mark Sleboda
Boy oh boy, big shift on the Ukraine war from this weekend - Politico tells us “Leaked U.S. strategy on Ukraine sees corruption as the real threat.” Huh, not the Russians, who are bent on world domination? It’s corruption? And the way to fight it is with more money and weapons? Gotcha. The story tells us that “Ukrainian graft has long been a concern of U.S. officials all the way up to President Joe Biden. But the topic was deemphasized in the wake of Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion.” Long a concern - how long, exactly? And how much progress has been made? And I have one last point before I let you sink your teeth into this, Mark - this story is based on a “sensitive but unclassified” version of a document that the State Department posted last month, which to me all but screams “please pay attention to our narrative-shaping activities!” I will say, there isn’t anything in this story about elections, so I don’t know if we should see it as explicitly throwing Zelensky under the bus - what’s happening here?
It’s interesting to me that this particular anti-corruption push is all about restoring confidence in Ukraine’s wartime government. We’re told, as I mentioned, that corruption has “long been a concern” of the US, but how long isn’t specified. Haven’t we been “concerned” about corruption in Ukraine and actively helping Ukraine deal with this issue for at least a decade? What is there to show for our efforts?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/01/world/europe/russia-ukraine-war.html
Max Boot, writing in the Washington Post to tell us Ukraine remains a “great investment,” sounds the alarm over what he calls a dangerous milestone - last week, more House Republicans voted against Ukraine aid (117) than voted for it (101). That reflects a broader turn in Republican opinion, with only 39 percent of Republicans saying in a recent CBS News-YouGov poll that the United States should send weapons to Ukraine and 61 percent saying it shouldn’t. And of course, the funding bill that passed this weekend doesn’t contain more money for Ukraine, so he implores Kevin McCarthy to bring a standalone bill to fund Ukraine to the floor as soon as possible. What do you think, watching this fight over Ukraine funding? Is it serious?
Boot says “The war in Ukraine also stacks up impressively compared with other proxy wars that Republicans, under the Reagan administration, did so much to support — from Afghanistan to Nicaragua to Mozambique. In Ukraine, we don’t have to worry about our weapons going to anti-American religious fundamentalists such as the Haqqani network. We are funding a free people fighting to preserve a liberal democracy that will be a stalwart member of the Western community for years to come.” Seems like Max has the power for foresight, to be able to say the fallout from Ukraine will be nothing like what happened in, say, Afghanistan. Care to comment?
Dueling trends in Eastern Europe, perhaps - we have the victory of the Smer party in Slovakia, described as an anti-Western party, the head of which has said he’ll try to start negotiations between Ukraine and Russia and in the meantime will block further Slovak military support for Ukraine and oppose efforts to bring Ukraine into NATO. On the other hand, we have some disgruntlement in Poland with the current conservative government, and a huge demonstration in support of an EU-aligned liberal party. So … maybe we just have a trend of people wanting to shake things up? Anything to read here?
Over the weekend, we saw tweets screaming “British troops are to be deployed to Ukraine”! And then quietly “under a new training program.” But now the UK prime minister is walking back the comments made by his defense minister, saying “What the defence secretary was saying was that it might well be possible one day in the future for us to do some of that training in Ukraine.” What happened here? Overeager reporting, a slip up by the defense secretary, nothing at all?
Navy will begin randomly testing SEALs and special warfare troops for steroids - CBS News.
I wanted to ask you about this story because of your military background, and also because man, there are just so many weird drug and crime stories coming out of Fort Bragg - or Fort Liberty, I guess - where the Army Special Operations Command is. The US Navy, for the first time, “will begin randomly testing its special operations forces for steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) beginning in November, taking a groundbreaking step that military leaders have long resisted.” CBS says military leaders have resisted this step because testing is expensive. Really? That’s the issue?
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/02/biden-admin-ukraine-strategy-corruption-00119237
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