US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko has revealed that since 2008, the US government has granted more than $150 million in reconstruction contracts to known supporters of the Taliban and other insurgent factions.
Scandals surround this have been going on for years, with both SIGAR and Centcom warning that large sums of money from various contracts were ending up in Taliban hands, a significant source of income for the insurgency for the past several years of the occupation.
Sopko says that despite several high profile warnings, there has still been little to no effort that the Army or anyone else to get a handle on the problem, saying it was troubling that the US was willing to put so much effort into killing terrorists but seemed resigned to the idea that there was no way to keep them from winning contracts.
The law also seems to be a serious obstacle, as a ban on giving terrorists government contracts only applies on bigger contracts from the military, and doesn’t apply to the State Department or USAID at all.
How else can the US Government keep the terrorist threat in vigor? They have penalized contributions from everybody else in the world, so they must pay for their war on terror themselves; their enemies must be kept in business or there will be no business for their friends.
"…law…serious obstacle, as a ban…only applies on bigger contracts from the military, and doesn’t apply to the State Department or USAID…"
This is easy to fix…and something the "Do Nothing" Congress should be able to do non-partisan…just change the law to include any US agency using US Taxpayer funds.
On the other hand, if the underlying intent is to make sure the terrorists stay in business and a viable boogeyman, then leave things as they are because what the USG is doing now is working. Gotta have that bad guy to keep the American people afraid…or they just might take notice of what the USG is doing behind the curtain.