President Biden has informed the G7 allies here that the United States has agreed to
allow Ukrainian pilots to begin training to fly American made F16 fighter jets.
This move represents a major reversal for Biden and a wish fulfilled for
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who has pleaded for F16s for months.
>> Goody, an escalation of war.
Now, in this case, as you heard in that report, the Biden administration will now
allow our European allies to transfer American made F16 to Ukraine,
something that was considered a red line by the Biden administration previously,
especially when we're dealing with another nuclear power, Russia.
And, of course, Vladimir Putin has responded to this by threatening nuclear
war with the United States, which is unsurprising.
It's not the first time he's done it, but
maybe sending over offensive weaponry to Ukraine not the best idea.
And there is no end in sight for this war.
In fact, the idea of sending F16 to Ukraine makes it abundantly clear that
the United States and its allies intend to continue engaging in this war for
at least 18 months, possibly more, because there's some training necessary in
order to ensure that members of Ukraine's military are able to operate F16s.
We'll get to all those details in just a moment.
Now, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has been asking for
F16 since the beginning of this war in the United States,
under Biden's leadership had refused to do so, they saw it as an escalation of war.
The next video has some more details on this.
>> The F16, the backbone of the US air fleet can travel twice the speed of sound,
drop bombs on ground targets, and fire air to air missiles.
Ukraine believes these planes provide a distinct advantage in the skies,
enabling them to shoot down incoming cruise missiles and fighter jets,
fending off Russia's punishing aerosols.
But up till now, providing F16s has been a red line for
President Biden reluctant to provoke an unpredictable escalation from Russia.
Still, in a February interview with David,
Biden did leave the door open just a crack.
>> We know President Zelensky continues to say what he really needs are F16s,
will you send F16s?
>> Look, we're sending him what our seasoned military thinks he needs now.
>> You don't think he needs F16s now?
>> No, he doesn't need F16s now.
>> That was what he said in February, but clearly, he has now changed his tune.
Now, for the moment being, there's no indication that the United States
is gonna transfer its F16 to Ukraine, it's just that our allies will be doing so.
But let's keep it real.
Eventually, the United States will be doing so as well,
because it's an opportunity for, we know what it's an opportunity for.
Send them more weapons, that creates a need for
the United States to replenish its weaponry.
And that means more money for the defense contractors who are absolutely salivating
over this war that is now quickly becoming an endless war.
And I'll explain more of that in just a moment.
But Jenk, I wanted to give you an opportunity to jump in.
>> Yeah, so guys,
the administration is partly worried about it because it's an escalation.
I would say that's the minority concern, they're not really talking about
the majority concern, which they mentioned in some articles, but
they mentioned it in passing as if it's the smaller concern.
I don't think so at all, for reasons I'll explain here.
The larger concern is they don't want the technology to fall into the wrong hands,
mainly the Russian hands.
Because it's one thing for the Ukrainians have an F16,
it's another thing for an F16 to get shot down in area controlled by Russia,
where they could then just take the F16 and reverse engineer it, right?
And so now you might think, well, okay, that's a real national security issue for
us, because F16s are excellent, and
it's a rare thing we do right in the US Military in terms of technology.
And so that could be a national security problem for us.
Yeah, maybe that's a little bit of a concern too.
But the larger concern is the people that sell the F16 don't
want anyone else to be able to produce cheaper F16s without
going through them, i.e, the defense contractors.
>> You know what? That is the most important
part of this story, guys.
>> Yeah. I mean, God forbid that these defense
contractors, these military grade weaponry manufacturers have some competition.
I mean, that's the real war we should be concerned about, Uger.
>> Exactly, but isn't it interesting that the media doesn't mention that?
>> No, it's not interesting, it's the most expected part of the story, imaginable.
Yeah, by the way,
we went through the same thing with the M1 Abrams tank earlier in this war.
And so the defense contractors are super nervous about their beloved technology,
which they have now taken billions, if not trillions of dollars off
the hands of US taxpayers and taxpayers in Northern Europe, etc.
That technology falling into hands that would allow them to not have a monopoly on
those weapons, okay?
And so that's the iceberg of this story that no one else is talking about.
By the way, also true of the so-called pending on accounting error that you
might have heard about, we're gonna talk about that later in the show.
>> Now, John Kirby who's a spokesperson for the White House, sat down for
an interview about this new decision to allow for F16 to be sent to Ukraine.
And the big question is,
doesn't the Biden administration see this as an escalation of war?
Why the 180 on this topic?
Well, he claims no, not at all.
Let's watch.
>> Just a short time ago, the Kremlin responded, calling this a, quote,
colossal risk.
President Biden's concern from the very beginning with providing
F16s was that it could potentially escalate this war.
What assurances does the US have from Ukraine that they won't use these F16 to
fire into Russia that could widen this war?
>> I will tell you, Peter, we have had multiple conversations with the Ukrainians
about the risk of escalation here.
Nobody wants to see World War III and we have made it clear that we're
not gonna encourage or enable Ukraine to strike inside Russian territory.
Now, the Ukrainians have been very honest with us, and very forthcoming, and
quite frankly, very responsible when it comes to the kind of support we're giving
them not using that to go inside Russia.
>> Cool, I'm sure Ukraine would never do any type of offensive attack or
would never even consider attacking Russia except here's a story that broke today.
Ukrainian official confirms group of Ukraine allied
Russians crossed into Russian territory and attacked town.
Let me give you some more context.
But before I do, Jenks, maybe you have some thoughts on this.
>> I do. Listen, guys,
the Ukrainians are not going to want to violate an agreement with America because
America could cut off further weapons, etc, that they need.
So would they attack the Russians right away?
No, unlikely with the F16s, but it depends on how desperate they get.
So let's say they think that we're not going to send them any more aid,
which is a possibility at some point they think, well, we already have the F16.
And understand why they might wanna use them inside Russia,
because Russia is firing missiles at Ukraine from inside Russia, and
the only way to stop those is to bomb them inside Russia.
So it only depends on how desperate the Ukrainians are.
Once they have them, they have them.
>> So can we just at least be blunt about how this is an escalation of war?
Come on, Jenk.
Really, you really think Ukraine is under the impression that if they violate
any agreement with the United States that the United States would stop sending them
weapons?
Are you insane?
No, come on.
>> And look, there's a reason why we would care and
we don't want instability because that could affect the stock market.
So it's not like we have any pure motives, but we do have motives for
not escalating past this, but this is definitely an escalation.
And by the way, don't get me wrong, will we escalate even further?
It's enormously possible.
>> This is a disaster.
But guys, there's the theater as always and the real world as always.
And the theater is, my God, we care about those brave Ukrainians and
is there some truth to that?
Yeah, I think there's some truth to that for some people, right?
But that's mainly the theater.
When you get to the real world,
the real world is how much are people gonna make off of it?
And so it's not just the defense contractors, it's also the oil and
gas industry, and we cut off the Russian's gas supply into Europe,
now we're replacing their supply.
And then there's the banks who gambled on the gas, and
there's the banks who gamble on the defense contractors.
So there's probably hundreds of billions of dollars here on that part,
definitely on the line for all those different industries.
And they're constantly sending lobbyists to talk to politicians,
including the White House, lobby, lobby, lobby to make themselves more money.
They don't care about our interests, the Ukrainian interests, etc.
And that is what's driving a lot of these decisions while the press puts on
a play about humanitarian this, America is worried about escalation that.
When in reality, most of the decision makers are worried about how much
money everybody's gonna make.
>> Let's discuss the decision maker, shall we?
Namely, the national security adviser who played a key role in
persuading Joe Biden to allow for the transfer of the F16 to Ukraine.
And that person's name is Anthony Blinken.
Now, what was Anthony Blinken up to after he was advising the Obama administration
on foreign policy in Afghanistan, the same foreign policy that extended and
expanded upon Bush era trash foreign policy.
What did he do after that, right?
That little space and time where it was between Obama and
now the Biden administration -.
>> Humanitarian work is my guest.
No. >> Guests.
>> No, no.
>> Working with the homeless.
>> No interest in that.
In fact, he was part of a consulting group specifically having to do
with getting defense contractors in the same room as government officials.
>> No, really.
In essence, lobbying for
defense contractors between government jobs at state department.
Well, golly gee, I bet this is giant news to the people in Washington, and
the reporters are gonna clamor to cover this obvious conflict of interest.
>> So, as Washington Post reported, let's go to graphic five here.
Blinken played a similar role when NATO was
at an impasse over whether to provide modern tanks to Ukraine.
At the time, Germany was hesitant to approve the transfer of Leopard 2 tanks,
a roadblock that was overcome when Blinken pushed the White House to approve
the transfer of M1 Abrams tanks over Pentagon reluctance.
Now, prior to Blinken serving as Secretary of State for Biden's administration,
Blinken ran a defense related consulting firm known as WestExec.
In fact, when Biden tapped him to be part of his administration,
I remember researching this and writing a piece on this because I thought that there
was some conflicts of interest here.
And surely with the development of this war in Ukraine,
the conflicts of interest are pretty brazen and pretty obvious.
So WestExec did not respond when asked for a list of its clients.
But according to people familiar with the arrangement, they include Shield AI,
a San Diego based company that makes surveillance drones and
signed a contract worth as much as $7.2 million with the Air Force to deliver
artificial intelligence tools to help drones operate in combat missions.
Blinken and Michelle Flournoy, another person who is close with Biden,
have served as advisors to Pine Island Capital,
which raised $218 million for a new fund to finance investments in military and
aerospace companies, among other targets.
So Blinken has a history of working on behalf of defense contractors and
getting them sweet, sweet deals with the federal government.
And that's exactly what I see here.
I see this as an opportunity to make money for these defense contractors.
It's pretty disgusting, because I don't trust, I mean,
do we really trust the Pentagon when they can't even pass a single financial audit?
They haven't passed one.
Do we really have trust and
faith in them in regard to where the military weaponry is ending up?
Do they have a full accounting of it?
>> No, of course not.
Don't be ridiculous.
[LAUGH] >> Okay.
>> And so all this is to enrich those folks.
But guys, at the same time, the Ukrainians should get our help.
And the Russians definitely invaded them, and they were definitely wrong, and
it is definitely an imperial exercise.
And so we're stuck in the middle ground here where we wanna help good people like
us who wanna help the Ukrainians.
>> Okay, then we should have peace talks.
>> Without getting robbed in the process.
>> Yeah, peace talks.
The United States government isn't actually interested in ending the war.
Let's be 100% honest about that.
>> Well, that's definitely true, because they're not encouraging peace talks,
because that is not in the Ukrainian interest, if you ask me.
And the reason is that the US has a separate interest is because the longer
the war goes, the more Russia is depleted.
And from our national security interest,
the people in charge want Russia as depleted as possible.
>> It's a proxy war.
>> So since it's a proxy war and we're not the ones that are directly involved,
Russia is.
They're the ones that are getting weaker, and weaker, and
weaker as their military gets depleted and run into the ground.
And even if they, quote, unquote, win and get parts of Ukraine,
still their military will have been devastated.
Their pipelines will have been shut down or sanctions will be -.
Or blown up. Yeah, or blown up, and that literally
happened and it's probably one of our allies, if not us directly.
We will take advantage of all of the things that happen because of the war.
But that puts good people in the same basket as people who have no interest in
humanitarian issues and are just trying to make a buck off this, and
it's an uncomfortable basket to be in.
>> And keep in mind that this is solidifying the alliance between Russia
and China.
So while this is a proxy war, and the thinking among the State Department is
that this is weakening Russia, it is also strengthening its relationship with China.
I should also note that China happens to be one of the countries that is pushing
for peace talks.
But the United States, because of its interests in wanting to weaken Russia,
is really unwilling to push for that.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that the United States intends to
continue this war for at least 18 months, if not longer.
If you don't believe me, take a look at this final video.
>> President Zelensky has been begging for them for more than a year,
President Biden has resisted until this point.
So what changed?
>> Nothing changed. I mean,
we have been evolving our support for Ukraine as the war has evolved.
And when we're talking about fighter aircraft, that's really not designed to
help us in the immediate future here with the counteroffensive.
>> The training alone, John, could take 18 months to Secretary of Defense.
>> That's an initial estimate.
As the war has evolved, we've also started to have conversations with the Ukrainians
about long term defense needs.
Because when this war is over, whenever that is, and under what conditions,
they're still gonna have a long border with Russia,
they're still gonna need significant defense support.
>> So at least 18 months just to train the soldiers in Ukraine how to use the F16,
at least 18 months.
So no end in sight, let's just be absolutely clear about that.
And in those 18 months, I'm just curious, how many times
does the Biden administration intend to tap Congress to appropriate
hundreds of billions of dollars more to assist in the war effort in Ukraine?
Well, by the way, simultaneously nickel and diming the American people, right?
Right now,
Biden is engaging in negotiations with Kevin McCarthy to raise the debt ceiling.
And he is seriously considering work requirements for Americans who are so
poor, who are so poverty stricken that they would need to prove that they're
looking for work or engaging in work in order to get welfare benefits that they
clearly need because they're struggling financially.
So nickel and dime, the American people,
continue this now new endless war with Russia.
It's a proxy war, I don't know.
I think that the way the US has now decided to handle this is pretty
disastrous and continues to get worse.
>> So some estimates have them being trained by the fall,
it's impossible to null.
But the bottom line is Ukraine is doing a spring and summer offensive,
the F16s will definitely not be ready by that offensive.
But I also wanna temper your expectations there
because I see a ton of BS in the mainstream media.
Honestly, nothing but BS in that regard, why?
If you are new to politics and news and
you didn't follow what happened during Iraq war, Afghanistan, etc, you might not
know that whenever The New York Times starts writing about a new offensive and
around the corner after that, we're gonna win the conflict.
That is untrue 100% of the time.
I heard that same story in Iraq, I don't know, 80 times.
A new offensive, and then we're gonna end the insurgency right after that.
It never ends, it just goes on and on and on forever, for decade after decade.
And every time the Pentagon says us or our allies are doing a surge and
we're gonna win right after the surge, it is literally never, ever true, okay?
So don't buy that load of crap.
And then the last point is, so as you saw them there, well, even after the war,
we're gonna have to keep sending them weapons.
In other words, we found a nice little piggy bank here, and we're gonna turn this
into one way of looking at it is Israel, where we're just gonna give them billions
of dollars in defense spending paid for by the American taxpayer.
>> Great. And going straight to defense contractors
who one day will probably hire me for millions of dollars.
That's the part of the sentence he didn't complete, but is also definitely true.
>> Which is great, because the US economy is dealing with a surplus right now, just
a wonderful surplus, and we have unlimited resources to spend on forever wars.
Great.