US Omits Neo-Nazi Arms Ban From Ukraine Aid Bill To Avoid Liability - Ex-Pentagon Adviser

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd May, 2022) US lawmakers omitted a ban on supporting neo-Nazis from the massive Ukraine aid package Congress passed this week so Washington can claim innocence if the funds enable the group to commit human rights violations, former Pentagon adviser Karen Kwiatkowski told Sputnik.

The US Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a $40 billion Ukraine aid package, more than half of which is made up of security assistance. The bill was signed by US President Joe Biden on Saturday while on his Asian tour.

Noticeably missing from the supplemental appropriations act is any language prohibiting funds from being used to support the Azov Neo-Nazi battalion (under criminal investigation in Russia). In 2015, the US government imposed a ban on any aid to Ukraine going to the Azov Battalion. Although the ban was lifted in 2016, it was reinstated in a Defense Appropriations bill two years later.

Lawmakers, in justifying the omission in the latest aid package, have cited broadly applicable domestic statutes already in place, referred to as the Leahy Laws, which forbid aid going to any foreign military unit if there is "credible information" of gross human rights violations.

However, Kwiatkowski, casting doubt upon this explanation, said the US has yet to identify the Azov battalion as a human rights violator, so the Leahy Laws do not apply. Besides, she added, the Pentagon has long opposed these laws as too broad and a barrier to its security assistance efforts in South and Central America, Eastern Europe, and the middle East. The State Department has also had issues relating to Leahy Laws vis-a-vis aid to Israel, "a well-documented human rights violator in the eyes of many," the former Pentagon adviser said.

The real reason for the omission, Kwiatkowski argued, is so lawmakers have a handy alibi if trials of Ukrainian neo-Nazis over allegations of human rights violations are widely reported and televised.

"US Congress needs to be in a position of sending aid 'innocently' and pretending to be 'shocked and appalled'... about where their billions of Dollars of aid ended up," Kwiatkowski said.

A more salient reason for the removal of this clause, she added, is that the only effective and most anti-Russian fighting force remaining in Ukraine is the Azov Battalion.

"The Pentagon, in particular, prefers to work with what it sees as winners, long-term survivors, and of course, those they are already training - and that includes uniformed regular Ukrainian Army neo-nazis and Banderites, according to President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy himself in a recent US media interview," Kwiatkowski said.

The exclusion of the ban also comes in the wake of long-voiced apprehensions within Congress about the nature of the extremist group. In 2019, more than forty US lawmakers urged the State Department to designate the Azov battalion as a foreign terrorist organization.

Kwiatkowski observed that in 2018 Democratic lawmakers appeared elated with the attempt to prevent enabling human rights abuses.

"At that time, Democrats lauded this section written the exact same way, forbidding aid to fall into the hands of Nazis, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and presumably Ukrainian Banderites," she said.

Former CIA station chief Phil Giraldi, echoing the ex-Pentagon aide's sentiments, sees two Primary reasons for the absence of the clause.

"First, the prohibition was useless as giving weapons to the Ukrainian army would mean that a certain percentage of the weapons would wind up in the hands of the Azov Brigade," Giraldi told Sputnik. "And, second, Congress really wants to punish Russia and is inclined to put new weapons in the hands of those folks who know how to use them and are willing to fight hard and even die to kill Russians."

California State University Political Science Professor Beau Grosscup cited a classic American security maxim to explain the clause's absence.

"There is a longstanding principle (and) practice in US foreign policy - 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend,'" Grosscup told Sputnik.

Moreover, Grosscup added, the Biden administration and corporate media will help ensure no one notices the change and those that do will be sharply criticized as pro-Russian and anti-NATO/US.