With the president busy doing victory laps for caving into the idea of exchanging a few favors for the poor for huge tax cuts for the super-rich, and Washington all aglow in its usual holiday splendor, it's hard to recall that there are those who will be spending Christmas in a bunker.
From Afghanistan, where more than a hundred thousand U.S. troops, and tens of thousands of NATO allies, will be waiting out the inevitable on Dec. 25th, there's a new report out this week about the rate, and the waste, of reconstruction spending that throws some light on the real reason we're there, and the real obstacles facing any kind of breakthrough in the mission...
Arnold Fields, the special inspector general appointed by Congress to look into waste and fraud allegations in the funding of reconstruction and aid projects in Afghanistan, revealed on Monday that "well into the millions, if not billions, of dollars" have gone missing in what he called a "confusing labyrinth" of public and private entities used to funnel money from Washington to Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan.
Since the war in Afghanistan started nearly ten years ago, the U.S. alone has sunk more than $56 billion into the country, much of it during a time when economic stress at home has left governments to make tough choices between funding unemployment and healthcare subsidies or slashing social programs across the board. About $29 billion has gone into building Afghanistan's military and police forces, and Fields said that this is the area where most of the waste and missing funds got spent--or didn't.
Due to the extensive use of private contractors in the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, it has been difficult for investigators like Fields to find out where funds are going, and when they're being diverted to feather a corrupt official's nest. Or to pad a corporation's profits. Or, in fact, when they're being diverted to the enemy. Previous investigations of Afghanistan funding found that some money ended up in the hands of Taliban fighters and Taliban-supporting groups. Fields emphasized the difficulty in his report of discovering the final destination of much of the funds he tried to track, due to the fact that private firms are not under the same stringent reporting requirements as government agencies.
And this is the whole point, isn't it? The vastly increased use of private contractors under the Bush administration, which has been continued almost without pause (and in some cases with huge increases in funding, like the company formerly known as Blackwater, and currently called Xe), makes it much easier to simply abscond with taxpayer funds.
Fields, a retired Marine Corps major general, made it clear in his report that the system seems designed to be purposely confusing, and most of this is on the part of private companies who often don't even provide invoices and shipping receipts for materials, don't keep business plan and execution records, and have few if any internal controls. Many of the companies, especially those involved in providing security, sprang up overnight after 9/11 and were never constructed to provide data to their sole funding source--the federal government--and often seem to have been built from the ground up to frustrate all efforts to find out the truth.
With the war in Afghanistan about to go into its second decade, and investigators like Fields raising similar questions in allied European states, even the money machine in Washington will find itself under increasing pressure for early withdrawal. The continued use of private firms to provide everything from food services to actual boots-on-the-ground protection for American and NATO troops, parallels the rising power of the security industry in national domestic politics. Security companies have more power now over a wide spectrum of Washington agencies, from the TSA, to customs, immigration, and even the EPA, IRS and NASA. The tentacles of the Department of Homeland Security, and its growing army of private capital allies, are constantly busy trying to draw more and more government business, and more and more government funding, under its discretion, and its strict rule of secrecy on the private companies it deals with.
Fields bemoans the fact in his report that in Afghanistan, a country where the average lifespan is only 45 years, and where less than a third of the people are literate, the situation after a decade of U.S. efforts is still one of severe poverty, with no functioning judicial system, very little respect for a violently corrupt police force, and a crisis in both clean water resources and agriculture led by misguided, failed, and just plain fraudulent privatised reconstruction projects. By the way, the 45-year life expectancy is down considerably since the country was dragged into the weird, irrational games of geopolitcal affairs in the form of the Soviet invasion. The other problems have emerged during the subsequent upheavals and invasions. Prior to that, and after the period of colonialism, the country had a functioning, well respected and well liked, leftist secular government.
But nobody seems to remember that last fact. Not even Fields.
__________________________
CBS News report on Dana Priest's series in the Washington Post, on the rapid growth of security firms, redundancy, waste, and the involvement of the private security industry in tragic events like the Fort Hood shooting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr-iZ3bI8tc
AP story on Fields' report:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101220/wl_nm/us_usa_afghanistan_reconstruction
The full text of Arnold Fields' testimony before Congress:
http://www.sigar.mil/Testimony.asp
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
green_glass_buddha
Deborah Méndez Wilson
havlin
Sean Fenley
Heidi Herron
Robert Greenwald
Salon.com
Comments
In your opinion, what should the US have done after 9-11, rather than invade Afghanistan?
And be sure they'd get another one, and another, and another. That's why we've been there for ten years. It's measured out in fiscal cycles for the same damn thieving companies year after year.
RATED
It causes other problems, too. I think it adds to the labyrinth. Little companies that used to specialize in renting out construction equipment, for instance, become big outfits flush with government money practically overnight. They expand, spin off subsidiaries, which are also involved in the bidding process, sometimes independently of their parent, sometimes not, but they already have their foot in the door. It becomes a self-generating labyrinth that's hard to stop, even once the conflict is over. It's the Military Industrial Complex 2.0.
Well... not quite ~ ¿¡Dónde están los reales Señor Presidente!?
Afghanistan was always slim pickings by comparison, that is until Obama ordered the surge there. The more troops, the more protection, services they need from private contractors. So while the no-bid, non-transparent process in Iraq under the Bush administration got it going, you're right, this administration has taken it to a whole new level. Now troop levels seem to be tied to a need to increase profits for the beast created under Bush. And this undermines the military effort--commanders on the ground have not been shy about criticizing private contractors and their screw ups.
No they haven't, at least the ones with any courage. There have been many such screw ups, but one of the most egregious was in 2004 when either KBR or Blackwater (I can't remember which) sent an SUV full of employees into Fallujah without notifying anyone they were doing so, and knowing full well it was an idiotic move. The employees were then slaughtered, and that action led directly to the first and second battles of Fallujah, which though it ultimately resulted in a military victory (of sorts) was a huge PR disaster and cost the lives of thousands of Iraqis and dozens of American personnel. Not that our actions before and after did much for us on the PR front, but it's illustrative of the dangers of putting civilian personnel who aren't accountable to government oversight in a fucking combat zone. Another example was the very public massacre perpetrated by Blackwater several years ago on Iraqi civilians. There are many such cases, and each of them, far from advancing U.S. policy, subvert it. The attitude seems to be that maximizing profits for those corporations with the right contacts is something which outweighs the harm and waste generated by said corporations.
This is not a war so much as a slaughter. Seems like the idea that we had to invade in the first place just because Osama and Co. were there was pretty weak. They weren't there, as you point out, they were in Pakistan by a few days after the fact. We wanted to invade to MAKE MONEY. Or rather to have a bunch of glue-sniffing corporate pencil pushers make money. I haven't seen any of it. Have you? Have you, Mr. Joe Everyguy? Didn't think so.
rate
"The other problems have emerged during the subsequent upheavals and invasions. Prior to that, and after the period of colonialism, the country had a functioning, well respected and well liked, leftist secular government."
Yep. There is a myth that goes something like "Afghanistan is full of barbarians who like to kill each other, it's a hopeless place. They've been that way for millenia and will always be that way." That is, of course, nonsense. People in Afghanistan are no different than people anywhere else; they want a modicum of security in which to raise their families and to at least have a chance for a little prosperity, nothing more. To blame their current circumstances on some supposed inherent flaw within their culture or gene pool rather than on policies which for decades have used Afghanistan as a pawn in a postmodern version of the Great Game is the height of hypocrisy.
nana - Most of the modern history of Afghanistan was peaceful up to the invasion by the Soviets, and the subsequent American involvement through the mujadeen fighters. It was becoming a chess-piece in the cold war struggle that ruined the country. And our inability to let go of that dynamic once it was finished and the enemy had vanished. For the life of me I can't figure out who our enemy is supposed to be in Afghanistan. Sometimes it's the Taliban mentioned on the news, sometimes al Qaeda (even though they haven't operated in the country in years), and sometimes we seem to be at loggerheads with Karzai's government. In fact the situation is one of competition between various gangs for control of the country's drug trade, a consequence of years of there being no other economy to speak of. That's due to the chaos caused by the involvement in geopolitics.
older - The Russians (actually the Soviets at the time) may have started some of the mess in Afghanistan, but we're the ones there now.
Dr Bramhall - Funny. Not ha ha funny, but a funny spoof. My favorite site lately though is msfraud.org. It follows the ongoing fraud that is the U.S. mortgage servicing industry. Another issue. Perhaps another post. The site is a great source for news, resources to fight back etc.
grif - You're right about privatisation. It's failed on every front. Just ask the people of Atlanta, the domestic "model" for privatising city services. An absolute disaster. One would be crazy to think it would work any better in Iraq, or Afghanistan, but then there are a lot of lunatics in Washington lately.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html
It's a tremendous game the Old Glory Elites are playing with the world and with their own "constituency" . A curious problem has arisen after several decades~with many manifestations~how to pass the torta on to the next generation. Generation Xe. The greyheads have only to weather a few more storms before they are too old and senile to even realize they are sitting in the dock at the Hague. Not bad for a lifes work... In the footsteps of Pinochet come Kissinger, Papa Bush, Baby Bush, Cheney, Clinton xx or Clinton xy , Madeleine Albright and the numerous seemingly invisible "titans" of "industry" and "finance" in all their permutations (all scare quotes). The long (insert adjective) list.
Justice? Freedom? Dead linguistic memes, yearnings reduced beyond the level of morpheme, sense extinguished, extinct?
I was just talking about this in my classes yesterday. I had my students read, and respond to, an excerpt of Sebastian Junger's "War". I wanted them to think about these (increasingly forgotten) service members as they left for the holidays.
I highly recommend "War" and the brilliant documentary film "Restrepo" (also by Junger). Junger gives voice to regular soldiers struggling in Afghanistan--voices the American public likes to pay lip service to, but not necessarily listen to.
Good on you for writing this. And good on OS for promoting it.
What else can one say? Thank Dana Priest.
Thank Truth Seekers.
Field's may check mail?
Barak Obama sent card.
Politicos send Valentine.
That former politician `
Linsey Graham. UGH.
He has a guttural tone.
Some politicos have that disgusting voice from Dark-Abyss-Hell Pit-Street @ Evil Leviathan.
They pray to Theft gods.
Fallen dark forces. That!
Yes. They go to snake pit!
Pew.
Sit.
Sit means go pew. pew sit.
Demon guts go ho hah ho.
Oy.
War mongers sit on a pot.
Read EDgar Allen Poe`Pot
Boy @ bar for Bar Mitzvah.
They steal opium and `Pot.
K`Street loves blood money.
Look at their red-blood lips.
Woe unto warmonger Scribe.
Voices sound shit-full-flops.
They chew Camel Dung`Pot.
to send or not to send. puke.
The troops over there do appreciate the love and support we show over here, and I can think of no better present than to try to bring them home.
But I will go further than the current critiques and pointout something is know to people of my generation. One of the reasons why WWll was won and so relatively quickly, compared with everything we have gotten involved since then (Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan) is that the whole country made sacrifices at every level, personal, physical, cultural, financial. etc.).
Had there been a draft, plus taxes and bond drives to pay for these wars, they might not have happened at all, and the outcome might have been different.
Yes, Dollars = Violence, Indifference = More Dollars
There's a cycle here.
By the way, SIGAR's work continues.
For those interested there's a story on the front page of the New York Times today about American corporations that have been doing billions of dollars in business with blacklisted countries and organizations that sponsor terrorism over the past decade. This includes Iran, North Korea, and of course Pakistan, which is not officially listed as a terrorist-sponsoring state--since it's an ally of ours, of sorts--but which should be. This gives the last lie to the idea that any of the steps taken since 9/11 have had anything to do with "making America safer." And they certainly haven't made America any richer, not unless you consider America to be the upper 2% of income earners and nobody else.
Here's the story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/24/world/24sanctions.html?_r=1&hp
Or rather, we sort of knew it all along, but got sucked in anyway. That's often how foreign policy works.
but the dubya gang had bigger goals, many of which have been accomplished already, and many still in progress. the centerpiece is lacking, and may be called a failure, but the massive transfer of taxes to private hands is a soothing recompense.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/27/karzai-releasing-drug-tra_n_801587.html
Wow, what a remarkable distillation of disinterest for the people who live in that country.
And comments like, "War is terrible". Holy hell, so, ah, deep. Yeah, baby, war is terrible, and some wars may be the wrong ones, but without some war, some time, all the Anne Franks die and, probably, you too. Grow up, learn a little history, and try pretending to some compassion for the people you so blithely consign to a "shit hole", which, by the way, is two words and, I suspect, a place you're more than familiar with.
God, what a lover of death you are.
Stu and Cousin - In a bad mood are we?
The USA was founded by the wealthiest men in the colonies for the purpose of protecting their wealth, along with slavery which made so much of that wealth possible, especially since the British Empire had outlawed slavery, to go into effect within a few years. We are the most controlled citizens on the planet (see my series of posts on this topic), as for example, the current lies we're being fed: no more oil in the gulf, we're winning in Afghanistan, there's no global warming, inflated prices are inevitable, etc.
The irony of all this is that the Wealthy Ruling Class believes it can move jobs overseas where the poor are more easily exploited, fail to raise wages for the last 30-40 years, pay most workers $8/hour, and still make huge profits selling us gas at $5/gallon, continue to raise medical costs, etc., continue to engage us in war for their personal profit, but at taxpayer expense, and somehow this nation will continue as before, except of course, for the rich always getting richer....but they're wrong......this is all coming to an end...and soon!!
And, to get back to the post, there is serious doubt as to the long term viability of any mission in Afghanistan. It's already been changed several times--as it was in Iraq, from preventing terrorism, to spreading democracy, to just plain getting out in one piece--and it's also getting more expensive all the time. The recent addition of armored brigades, which did nothing to help the situation on the ground since we're engaged in a guerrilla war, was very expensive. There is a point of honor here, yes. But the lynchpin argument for continued engagement being used in Washington--that if we withdraw we will have experienced two bruising failures in a row--is not sufficient to justify the expense, and the destruction. Only corruption at the highest levels, both here and in Afghanistan, keeps this war afloat. For now.
On a side note, the suspension of a naval commander this week for making indecent videos reveals where this conflict has gone in recent years. There is not only a moral drift that occurs in battle, but a drift toward arrogance as well, at least at the top, in military echelons.
For those into conspiracy theories, the company that John P. Wheeler III, the veterans advocate whose body was recently discovered in a dumpster, consulted for--Mitre Corp.--may have done business in the past with both of the suspended firms. The knowledge of the wrongdoing by B-F and K5 supposedly came from the subcontractors reports, but whether or not any additional information was provided by other sources remains uncertain. Mitre Corp. is a military contractor on a different level than the other two companies--having received more than $177 million in fed money in the last reported cycle of 2009, with Bennett Fouch having gotten a tiny half million in the same time. K5's figures were unavailable, but their services are similar to B-F's. Amongst other services, Mitre Corp provides advice on data mining including ways of improving intrusion detection. Meaning they help the government to find out when their own computer systems have been broken into. Sound familiar to the news?
http://www.petitiononline.com/IndictSP/