Paying for ten years of war in Afghanistan is expensive. But it’s even more expensive when you’re funding both sides of the conflict.
In testimony to the House Oversight and Government Reform National Security Subcommittee, top Pentagon official Brigadier General Stephen Townsend conceded that contractor funding is still ending up in the hands of the Taliban.
The comments come a month after the military estimated that $360 million had ended up in the hands of the Taliban and other criminals in Afghanistan, and Townsend would only say that the military is still working on how to “stem the flow.”
The problem is far from a new one though, and for years reports have kept cropping up that contractors are paying “protection” money to the Taliban out of their US funding. The military may be “working on” a solution, but so far that work has not paid dividends.
This is the exact reason why the "new Paradigm" of contractor participation in wars is wrong wrong wrong!
Only solution is to nationalize our war materials industry, General Electric and the whole bunch. But first we need to nationalize our dominant morality, for an educated middle-class gets to keep 20% of the wealth in Empire USA, they fully well know the full corruption of it, and love having deluxe healthcare plus a second new car in their garage because of it.
This is just beautiful. But then again, let's just get the hell out of Afghanistan that way the Taliban won't be our enemies anymore and let the Taliban run their country.
The US Commission on Wartime Contractingin Iraq and Afghanistan issued their report that showed between $31-60 billion in waste and fraud. "Government not prepared to go into Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003 using large numbers of contractors….and still unable to provide effective management and oversight". It's all boiled down in "The Alltime Worst Military Contracting Boondoggles" (Mother Jones, Sept 2, 1011). If this were China, there would be busloads of our high level military being shipped off to the firing squad.