RANT: A BILL BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD STILL REEK TO HIGH HEAVEN

 

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson (ret.) is a Viet Nam War vet. He was chief of staff to the American Sec of State Colin Powell in the early 2000s and has for years taught Government and Public Policy at the venerable College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Recently, he was interviewed by Glen Diesen on his go-to eponymously-named podcast where the Colonel expressed concern over a piece of legislation, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that is currently winding its way through congress. The grossly inflated military budget bill (nearly $1.15-trillion!) for fiscal year 2027 comes with additional provisions 

 

“…labeled Section 219 or Section 224 in respective drafts, that seek to structurally integrate the U.S. and Israeli defense industrial bases and shift the bilateral relationship from traditional direct military aid to joint co-development and co-production.” (Bloomsbury Intelligence)

 

👉WILKERSON calls the provisions anathema for those who would preserve the sovereignty of the United States and keep its national interests at the forefront of policy-making and legislative initiatives. In effect, NDAA provisions such as the United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative*  allows for “bilateral research, development, and co-production of military equipment, artificial intelligence, and autonomous systems”. In other words, Israel will have access to new weapons technologies as if it were part of the U.S. government and it would have a say about where and how new weapons should be produced and distributed.¹ It works both ways, of course, but clearly Israel would be the main beneficiary if the NDAA bill is ratified by the Senate.

👉It’s no coincidence that Israeli PM Netanyahu quipped some days after the Bill was before the House of Representatives that Israel wouldn’t need the $3 billion it receives annually from the U.S. in cash and war materiel if the Bill passes in the Senate. Ever-the-expert in three-card monte, Netanyahu neglects to inform the American public that this Bill simply hides the aid money and weapons transfer to Israel within opaque War Department budgetary statistics.² Essentially, the NDAA makes Israel part of the U.S. government in ways those pesky Russkies or inscrutable Chinese can only dream of!³  

 

👉While Israel has become, arguably, the most loathed country on the planet—a rogue, apartheid and genocidal nation whose security is ensured by making its neighbours insecure with all its warmaking—you would think the U.S. would want to take a step or two back from its unwavering support of the place. This NDAA bill, if it becomes law, will make separating American national interests from Israel's more difficult and will further erode American sovereignty, along with adding another layer of opacity between the government and the people it purports to serve.😕   

 

CHEERS, JAKE. _____________________________________

 

* Same goes for provisions labelled: “Missile Defense”; “Counter-Unmanned Systems”; “Subterranean Operations”; “Emerging Technologies” and “Intelligence Sharing”.    

1. The proposed budget of the Department of War for fy2027 includes additional expenditures totalling an eye-watering $2.5trillion!

2. Note: Since 2018, when annual audits of federal government departments became mandatory, the War Department has failed every single attempt to account for the money it is given by U.S. taxpayers. Round and round she goes! Where the money stops, nobody knows!

3. Trump’s slavish backstopping of Israel’s military adventures in the Levant to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, and his supine acquiescence for its genocidal actions in Gaza and assorted war crimes in Palestine and elsewhere that clearly do not benefit the United States in the court of world opinion, is puzzling. Along with billions spent defending Israeli interests, to the detriment of America’s own, Trump has opened the proverbial can of worms in his standoff with Iran—a war done at the behest of Israel. With such misadventures in West Asia and elsewhere during the Trump administration, the ‘glow’ is definitely gone from the nation that once saw itself as that “shining city on the hill” and a model for countries everywhere to emulate.

👉The issue of Trump’s kowtowing at every turn to Israel’s Netanyahu may come down to ‘kompromat’ stemming from Trump’s association with Jeffry Epstein. [We’ll only have to wait 60-80 years for those files to be released! Ed.]