Hoekstra: U.S. Buys Russian Helicopters, Helps Putin

by JASmius

You know, I'm a pretty knowledgeable World War II history buff, and I can't recall any instance where FDR purchased Panzer IV tanks or Me-109 fighter planes from Nazi Germany.  I lived through and was witness to the pacifistic nonsense of Jimmy Carter that almost cost America the Cold War and much, much more, and I don't ever remember Mr. Peanut buying MiG-25 Foxbat fighters or T-80 battle tanks from the Evil Empire.

So this story, how you say, grabbed my attention:

While President Barack Obama is busy announcing new sanctions against Russia for its continued hostilities in Ukraine, the U.S. government is secretly emboldening the Russian economy through a military contract, former Representative Pete Hoekstra says.

In an attempt to ratchet up pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin, Obama outlined, from his trip in the Philippines, new sanctions against high-technology exports and  wealthy Putin allies.

But Hoekstra, a onetime Michigan congressman and former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told J.D. Hayworth on "America's Forum" on Newsmax TV that while this is going on, the Pentagon is hiding "a dirty little secret" about the price the United States is paying as part of its military pullout from Afghanistan.

"As we're leaving, the Afghan military, they're looking for helicopters," Hoekstra explained. "They want about 90 attack helicopters. All right. You say, 'Hey, great! They're going to be buying 90 helicopters, that's going to be putting a lot of Americans to work.'

"Wrong. They're buying Russian helicopters for the Afghan military, and the interesting thing about helicopters is that they're high-maintenance. So, not only are we buying about a billion dollars' worth of Russian helicopters, but we're also providing the Russian military industrial complex, the people that build these helicopters, we're providing them with maintenance contracts that are multiple numbers of this one billion," he said Monday.

Obama apologists might point out that this Russian attack helicopter deal was in place long before Czar Vlad began his slow-motion conquest of Ukraine - or they may be even more proud of lining up as a loyal client of the Russian military-industrial complex now than they were before - but as with everything perpetrated by The One, there's a tyrannical punchline:

According to Hoekstra, the deal to purchase helicopters from Russia has been in place for some time, and Congress even attempted to stop the deal through the appropriations process because of Putin's support of Syrian President Bashar Assad. But Hoekstra said, "Obama just forgot about those restrictions and went beyond them."

"So now we've got the Russians in Syria, we've got them in Ukraine, they're creating mischief all over the place," Hoekstra said, "and we're buying Russian helicopters to give to the Afghans and the biggest promoter of this is the U.S. Pentagon."

Let's add this up: Putin's invasion of Ukraine is rolling ahead, unchallenged; Barack Obama continues to play his role in it as Vlad's bitch/court jester with these embarrassing "micro-sanctions" instead of targeting Putin's financial and energy sectors on which he lives; and O is enriching and empowering Putin by buying Russian attack helicopters with American taxpayers' money (and Janet Yellen's wastepaper) instead of selling the Afghans American attack helicopters, denying more work and jobs to Americans - and he's doing it illegally and unconstitutionally.

I guess he must be saving American attack helicopters for sale to Vlad personally.  Or maybe he'll just give them to neoCzar.  Red Barry is an awfully generous guy, after all.