Consider a hypothetical situation where you learn of a friend living in a faraway country who is seriously unwell, and his medical bills have drained most of his savings.

When you decide to help this friend out financially, which fund transfer service would you choose?

A: The service that has a proper tracking mechanism to ensure that each and every penny reaches your friend, or

B: The service that has no tracking mechanism or guarantees that even a small percentage of the amount will reach your friend.

The answer is obviously A, since the goal is to help your friend in desperate need.

According to D.C., this friend in need is Ukraine, and the benefactor is the U.S. government.

Last May, Sen. Rand Paul blocked the Senate from passing a $40-billion aid package for Ukraine because he wanted a provision to be added to the bill that would ensure tracking of billions being dispatched.

The appalling record of corruption in the U.S. under Biden and in Ukraine makes accountability and oversight essential.

But Paul received little support among lawmakers.

Worse, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell dismissed Paul, who is his junior colleague and a fellow Kentuckian Republican, as he belonged to "a tiny percentage" of Senate Republicans who are "isolationists."

Following that, McConnell and Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer led a rare instance of bipartisanship to immediately pass the bill.

Despite the claims in D.C. that defending Ukraine is their "number one priority" and pledges to do "whatever it takes" to defend Ukraine, those who have dispatched more than $111 billion of aid and arms to Ukraine didn't care to ensure that the items they dispatched actually reached their intended destination.

This was a recipe for disaster, and we are seeing proof of that.

Just yesterday, during a House Armed Services Committee hearing, Pentagon inspector general Robert Storch refused to say if the Department of Defense had complied with existing rules regarding end-use monitoring for weapons sent to Ukraine.

Rep. Matt Gaetz asked Storch in myriad ways whether the DOD has complied with the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, meant to make sure U.S. weapons transfers do not fall into the wrong hands.

Storch claimed that his team is conducting "a series of evaluations that look at the controls that DOD has in place to ensure that they are taking the steps that are required."

When Gaetz asked about DOD monitoring in the past, Storch claimed that "some of that gets into the classified report that we issued previously."

This is a ploy used by D.C. to hide wrongdoings.  People classify the evidence, and, if compelled to release classified material documents, they redact most of the text, rendering the exercise meaningless.

Storch claimed that a hotline set up for whistleblowers to report diverted American aid has received "all sorts of types of allegations."  No more specifics were provided.

Also during the hearing, the Pentagon's top policy official, Colin Kahl, first said the DOD was not seeing "any evidence of significant diversion" of weapons sent to Ukraine.

Kahl said that their "assessment is if some of these systems have been diverted, it's by Russians who have captured things on the battlefield."

He added that "there's no evidence that the Ukrainians are diverting it to the black market or some other things."

This is also a standard ploy to falsify when under oath.  The respondent doesn't deny that wrongdoing is occurring, but instead, he claims not to have seen any evidence of wrongdoing occurring.  This gives ample space to change the claim later without perjuring himself.

The other trick is to claim to have "no recollection."

Kahl claimed that Ukrainians were asking for more weapons because "they are using everything that we have provided them."

Regarding tracking measures, Kahl claimed that equipment is scanned before and after being given to the Ukrainians.  He claimed that the DOD provided Ukrainians with scanners that transmit data back to the DOD and NATO's standard inventory and logistics software.

Kahl also added that since Ukraine is "an active war zone," there are occurrences that they "don't know are happening or don't see" — another ploy of concealment and falsification.

Kahl once again used the "no evidence seen" ploy regarding the "systemic diversion of the equipment to the United States."

These cover-up ploys reveal that something fishy is occurring in Ukraine.

The Pentagon has spent over $31 billion in military assistance since the war in Ukraine began.  The weapons systems and ammunition were from its U.S. stocks.

This is a perilous situation.

Recently, a number of top Ukrainian officials were sacked for involvement in corruption linked to food and weaponry supply to the Ukrainian military.

Last year, Breitbart reported that advanced weaponry meant for the war in Ukraine was put up for sale on Telegram channels.  It remains unclear who the sellers were, but given the record of Ukrainian officials, anything is possible.

The war in Ukraine has also attracted over 20 thousand foreign fighters, who obviously haven't been properly vetted.

Breitbart reported that an al-Qaeda sympathizer called the conflict in Ukraine a "divine gift."

Perhaps some among the "fighters" joined the war with the goal to pick up advanced weaponry either for further use or for sale on the black market to the highest bidder.

If some among the "fighters" or the black market buyers turn out to be terrorists, the Biden administration could inadvertently end up funding an attack, perhaps even on American soil.

It is also ironic that the Democrats have no compunction about arming foreign nationals and terrorists but want to confiscate arms from law-abiding citizens.

In a democracy, whenever any nation gets involved in a foreign conflict, it requires a debate. 

Funding the war in Ukraine certainly deserved a debate in Congress and tough questions from the media.  Representatives should have consulted with their constituents.

But nothing of the kind occurred.

The staunch advocacy for the war and the lack of any tracking measures for the funds dispatched make it obvious that all those pushing for this war stand to profiteer from the conflict in some way.

The small number of lawmakers and media people who asked the right questions were dismissed as agents of Putin propagandists by both parties while the mainstream media were and are cheerleading this war.  Politicized government agencies also joined the war-mongers with the utmost eagerness instead of enforcing regulations.

The result of this serious dereliction of duty by all is that the world is coming closer to a third world war.

We revisit the following astute observation that Albert Einstein allegedly made:

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

President Trump is among the very few leaders in the U.S. to demand a peaceful solution.

It is important to not conflate the theatrics during yesterday's hearings with action.  It is still a step in the right direction, but there are many miles to go...

Image: Free image, Pixabay license, no attribution required.