logoalt Hacker News

pjc50yesterday at 11:53 AM2 repliesview on HN

Reality of course is the other way around: the US defense industry gets to build gold toilets (for the White House ballroom built on the ruins of the East Wing), while the Ukranians absolutely must build stuff that works and is cheap or they get a missile on their heads.

The US survived spending a trillion dollars to achieve very little in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm sure they'll survive spending another trillion over a decade to achieve nothing in Iran other than hundreds of thousands dead.


Replies

pydryyesterday at 12:21 PM

The reality is that most of the Ukrainian leadership is like Timur Mindich - furiously stashing away cash for the day when they inevitably have to flee to the west like he did. For now they are generally safe in Ukraine as Russia avoids bombing leadership centers for strategic reasons.

The west tolerates nearly all of the corruption in Ukraine but keeps tight control of two political organs in Ukraine - NABU and SAPO.

These "anti corruption agencies" will mostly hear and see no evil until a politican in Ukraine deviates from western foreign policy goals. Then they "discover" how corrupt this one individual turned out to be and crack down on them until everybody is once again on the same page.

Twice they have threatened Zelensky (once when he tried to bring the agencies under his direct control) and twice he has backed down.

show 2 replies
justacrowyesterday at 3:02 PM

What do you mean "achieve very little"? A lot of American oligarchs made boatloads of money!