Fraud & Bribery are the way of life in Africa, Eurasia, Middle East & Asia
“US Poured More Money Into Afghanistan Than Economy Could Stand”
“$12 Million Every day for 10 years h as
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Fraud and Bribery are the Way of Life in Africa, Eurasia, Asia, and the Middle East!
been lost in Fraud and Waste”
“American Funds are being Diverted to the Insurgents and Warlords”
“With the US facing great Financial Challenges, This Is An Outrage”
Fraud and Bribery has been with US since Beirut Barracks Killings
Terror Attacks in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon shall Increase
October 30, 2011
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Our troops are indeed doing a great job in Afghanistan, but Obama and his Executive Departments are not! Today’s events in northern and southern Afghanistan made me think of the greatest loss of US Marines to terror in a single day in the Middle East..
Begin Excerpt 1 – from DVIDS
Begin Courtesy Story on Terror Bombings in Afghanistan on October 29, 2011
ISAF commander condemns terrorist attacks
ISAF Joint Command
Courtesy Story
Date: 10.29.2011
Posted: 10.29.2011 12:53
News ID: 79262
KABUL, Afghanistan – Gen. John R. Allen, commander of International Security Assistance Force, condemns today’s terrorist attacks that killed and injured several Afghan and coalition forces as well as innocent civilian men, women and children.
I am both saddened and outraged by the attacks that took place today against coalition forces and the people of Afghanistan,” said Allen. “The enemies of peace are not martyrs, but murderers. To hide the fact that they are losing territory, support, and the will to fight, our common enemy continues to employ suicide attackers to kill innocent Afghan fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, as well as the coalition forces who have volunteered to protect them.”
The three incidents today included a vehicle-born improvised explosive device detonating in Kabul, causing a number of coalition and civilian casualties; an individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform apparently turned his weapon on Afghan and coalition forces in southern Afghanistan, killing three ISAF service members and wounding several others; and a teenage girl carried out a suicide attack on a National Directorate of Security building in the eastern province of Kunar, killing herself and wounding several NDS personnel.
“My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those killed and injured in today’s attacks,” Allen added. “Their sacrifices will be honored and the enemy will be held to account.”
Begin Excerpt 2 from THE JERUSALEM POST
This Week in History: The 1983 Beirut barracks bombing
By MICHAEL OMER-MAN
10/28/2011 12:09
Attack was one of first massive bombings by elements that later formed Hezbollah, led to withdrawal of US armed forces from Lebanon.
Early in the morning of October 23, 1983, a Mercedes truck arrived at the Beirut International Airport, which was housing a battalion of United States Marines at the time, blew up the barracks and killed 299 US service members. A second attack minutes later killed 58 French paratroopers across town.
The bombing, taking place in the midst of the Lebanese Civil War, was one of the first carried out by elements of what would soon become Hezbollah.
The yellow truck that slammed into the ground floor of the Marine Corps barracks that day was packed with gas canisters and explosives creating a blast with the equivalent explosive power of 20,000 pounds of TNT. The bed of the truck was lined with concrete, a design intended to direct the blast upwards into the building, which was literally lifted off the ground before falling back upon itself and its inhabitants.
The attack represented the single deadliest day for US Marines since the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. The French had not seen such devastation since the Battle of Algiers two decades earlier.
|——-|
Although no group has ever made a serious claim of responsibility for the attack, perpetrators were later fingered. The actors that carried out the deadly bombings were elements that two years later would be central and founding mem
bers of Hezbollah, a group well-known to be funded, armed and trained by Iran.
One of the central actors in the bombing, Imad Mughniyeh, was secretly indicted
several years later in the United States for his role. Mughniyeh, who would later become known as an arch-terrorist of sorts, has been tied to and indicted in relation to some
of the largest terror attacks on Jews and Americans carried out prior to September 11, 2001.
The Hezbollah terrorist was indicted in relation to the 1992 bombings of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in the city, two attacks that killed over 100 people. In addition, he was tied to the 1996 bombing of another US military barracks, this time at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 US military personnel.
In 2008, Mughniyeh was assassinated in Damascus by a bomb placed in the headrest of his car, an attack attributed to Israeli intelligence by foreign media.
Begin Excerpt from Florida Times-Union
|——-|
Begin Excerpt 3 from Florida Times-Union
Breathtaking fraud in Afghanistan
Posted: October 28, 2011 – 12:00am
Defining fraud
Here is the sort of fraud that is commonplace in Afghanistan:
Quotable
“Fraud undermines programs, diverts money and undermines public confidence in the U.S. government’s fiduciary duty to spend taxpayer dollars wisely.”
“In Iraq and Afghanistan, bribery and kickbacks are a way of doing business.”
Source: Commission on Wartime Contracting
Corruption is part of the culture in Afghanistan, and the United States has been the great enabler.
That is the only conclusion that can be reached by an impressive report from the Commission on Wartime Contracting, the result of three years of work.
A total of $12 million every day for 10 years has been lost in fraud and waste.
In an era when the United States is facing great financial challenges, this is an outrage.
At least $31 billion has been lost in waste and fraud, perhaps as much as $60 billion. Why the great disparity? Because the financial controls are basically nonexistent. And the actual documents of
the investigation have been sealed for 20 years as if this is the investigation into the assassination of a president.
This must be really bad.
The real question is not what contractors have failed to do but how they succeed at anything. There is a lack of planning, oversight, competition and follow-up at nearly every turn.
In fact, the commission said American funds are being diverted to the insurgents and warlords, and we don’t even know how much.
The commission identified three general kinds of fraud and abuse:
– An ill-conceived project that does not fit the cultural norms.
– Poor planning and oversight by the U.S. government, combined with poor performance by contractors.
In many cases, the U.S. did not have the capability of overseeing so much work.
– Criminal behavior and blatant corruption.
Most contract employees come from Third World countries, not the U.S. or Afghanistan. But the U.S. has poured more money into the Afghanistan nation than the economy can support.
Therefore, villagers have been paid to do what they used to do voluntarily, for instance.
The commission calls for sweeping reform, but it must be admitted that the challenge of reforming the Afghanistan culture is a job that looks impossible to Americans exhausted by a 10-year war.
The mob
This is like doing business with Tony Soprano.
For instance, the U.S. pays Afghan contractors to provide trucking services. Then they hire subcontractors. The subcontractors then pay insurgent groups for protection because insurgents either control the roads or have the ability to attack.
This did not happen as much in Iraq, where the U.S. provided most of the protection.
The commission reported that one USAID program in Kumar Province paid up to 20 percent of total contractor value for insurgent protection. Could the Mafia shake down any better?
Little competition
Often, it was a matter of awarding work and then giving continuing renewals.
One contract to Kellogg Brown and Root had one base year followed by nine option years. Nice work if you can get it. The contract was worth $36.3 billion.
In a classic understatement, the commission reported, “Afghan subcontractors have proven to be unreliable, while agency oversight has been especially difficult to implement.”
Perfect crimes
To make matters worse, few cases of fraud are prosecuted.
A big part of the problem is that Afghanistan culture includes bribes and kickbacks as part of doing business.
Part of the cost of doing business is subcontractors using forced labor, slavery and sexual exploitation.
All this waste is more than financial.
It is wasting the reputation of the United States.
Frankly, reading this report is painful.
How could the generation that saw the disaster that was Vietnam wind up in this situation?
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