The Washington Post reports on March 4, 2014, that the Obama administration’s pledge of a $1 BILLION aid package for Ukraine has bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate.
Sen. Christopher Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate panel who visited Ukraine in December to meet with opposition figures, said that a proposal combining aid to Ukraine with sanctions against Russian officials “will enjoy broad Democratic and Republican support on the committee.”
Leaving aside the facts that the United States has a national debt more than $17½ TRILLION (more than 108% of America’s GDP) and that the Obama administration wants to reduce the size of the U.S. military to pre-WWII levels due to budget constraints, there is another problem with the proposed $1 BILLION “aid” gift to Ukraine:
IT VIOLATES A U.S. LAW, SPECIFICALLY THE FOREIGN ASSISTANCE ACT OF 1961.
From Voice of Russia, March 11, 2014:
The Russian Foreign Ministry said […] the plans of the US administration to allocate $1 billion to the current authorities in Kiev contradict existing US laws.
‘Indeed, in accordance with the amendments made several years ago to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961,’ it is banned to provide financial aide to the government of any country, whose president elected legitimately has been overthrown as a result of a military coup or unlawful decision, the statement said.
This standard is stipulated in the section 22 paragraph 8422 of the US law code, ‘thus under all criteria allocating funds to the illegitimate regime, which seized the power with force, is illegal and is outside the framework of the US legal system,’ the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Indeed, the lawfully elected president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, was overthrown by a mass insurrection, the Euromaidan, which began as protests in November 2013, after Yanukovych refused to sign an association agreement with the European Union, describing it as disadvantageous to Ukraine. The protesters called for the resignation of Yanukovych and his government. Violence escalated after January 16, 2014, when the government accepted Bondarenko-Oliynyk laws, also known as anti-protest laws. Anti-government demonstrators occupied government buildings in Ukraine’s capital of Kiev. The protests turned into violent riots, which left 98 dead and thousands injured. Opposition members of Parliament moved to vote to impeach Yanukovych; the speaker of Ukraine’s parliament resigned; most of the government’s ministers disappeared; and President Yanukovych himself fled the country.
It is most ironic that the formerly communist Russia is the one to remind the U.S., which prides itself on its “rule of law,” that the $1 BILLION aid to Ukraine violates U.S. law.
~StMA
Courtesy of Consortium of Defense Analysts.
