I HAVE been noticing it since the US global war on terror. Just three days after September 11 2001, Congress took up a short Bill, the 2001 Authorisation for Use of Military Force, which gave the president the power to use all “necessary and appropriate force” against virtually anyone, anywhere, at any time; and its initial intended use was to launch the invasion of Afghanistan.

The Democrats supported this Bill, with the one exception of Congresswoman Barbara Lee from Oakland, California, who faced death threats as the only lawmaker voting against military conflict.

More recently, the Democrats have lent unanimous support for what was to be a $33 billion war package ostensibly with an eye toward funding Ukraine, but what in reality are funds that will go into the coffers of weapons manufacturers such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and the usual suspects and the CIA.

US lawmakers increased this package from $33bn to just over $40bn. 

And all this has been brought to us through the very same architects of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, with conservatives like David Frum, Nicolle Wallace, Bill Kristol, Max Boot and Matthew Dowd.

Only this time they are doing the bidding for the Democrats. Wallace, who now works for MSNBC, spent the early years of the war on terror, accusing those who objected to George W Bush’s mantra —“You are either with us or you are a terrorist” — of being a traitor, a supporter of al-Qaida. 

Wallace is now doing just this for the Democrats where al-Qaida is simply replaced with Russia.

Or, as journalist Peter Beinart wrote: “It’s an old story: The closer the US gets to war, the more likely anti-war voices are to be called traitors. Now that Russia has invaded Ukraine, the accusations of disloyalty have returned. This never ends well.” 

And here we are in bizarre reality, a sort of political Strangers on a Train where these same Democrats who have unanimously voted for this war package have spent their political careers critiquing this very type of war funding while posturing their Republican rivals as the war hawks!

And many Democrats since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have expressly opposed funding weaponry into Ukraine like Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) who underscored the dangers of “flooding Ukraine” with billions going to “paramilitary groups w/out accountability.” Yet, two months later and Omar voted for just this.

On May 10, the Democrat-led House of Representatives passed the $40bn aid package for Ukraine, the Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act 2022, with bipartisan support by a vote of 368 to 57.

All fifty-seven No votes came from Republican House members. Except for two missing Democrat members, all House Democrats voted for this unprecedented war package.

And the story grows more bizarre as 20 members of Congress have personal investments in top weapons contractors that will directly profit from the $40bn Ukraine aid package.

This in addition to the current Secretary of Defence, Lloyd Austin, who, prior to being chosen by Joe Biden to run the Pentagon, sat on the board of directors of Raytheon.

Among these members of Congress who have invested in the weapons industry and who stand to benefit from the $40bn war package are Republican Representative John Rutherford of Florida who purchased between $1,001 and $15,000 worth of Raytheon stock on February 24 (the day Russia invaded Ukraine) and Democratic Representative Lois Frankel of Florida who sold up to $15,000 in Lockheed Martin stock while retaining shares in the company. 

There’s also Senator John Hickenlooper, a Democrat of Colorado, who held between $100,001 and $250,000 in Raytheon shares, according to his most recent annual disclosure and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat of Rhode Island, who held $15,001 to $50,000 in Lockheed Martin stock.

Sheldon also held between $50,001 and $100,000 in stock in United Technologies, which was acquired by Raytheon. And this is just a partial list.

On May 19, the US Senate passed the war package to buttress Ukraine with weapons and other military aid in an 86-11 vote. The 11 senators led by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky who voted against the measure were all Republicans who embrace the non-interventionism promoted by former president Donald Trump.

The investments of the politicians who speculated in the arms trade together with the data of arms exports can be easily tabulated by artificial intelligence, a virtual assistant, or a virtual secretary to reveal the hypocrisy afoot within the US political system.

Even the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute keeps tabs on the Trend Indicator Values (TIVs) of arms exports internationally.

But you don’t have to even do much work as there are already publications like Sludge and research groups like Open Secrets that are keeping tabs on these conflicts of interest within US politics. It’s almost as if the US public doesn’t want to hear about this recent war package aimed at Ukraine. 

The United States is a country whose foundation lies upon a system of checks and balances where each branch of government — the legislative, the executive, and the judicial — prevents the other two from becoming too powerful.

Paradoxically this same country lacks a system for checking the imbalance of political hypocrisy whereby lawmakers are allowed to vote for financial packages that benefit both the weapons industry and their own private investments in this same industry. 

We need conflict of interest policies within government today.