Afghanistan continues to "drink" US money

"Sopko leads the office responsible for tracking down waste, fraud, and abuse in U.S.-backed projects and helping to reclaim misused taxpayer dollars.The United States has allocated more than $104 billion for reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, and President Obama's fiscal 2015 budget would add an additional $5.8 billion.

Despite the best intentions of the U.S. government, Sopko said that it has helped increase corruption. He pointed to large, rapid investments from the United States and a lack of planning about how Afghanistan would sustain U.S.-led projects.

"They can't afford the government we've given them," he said. "If you go over there, it's like Disneyland, what we bought for them.... It isn't working if you approach reconstruction that way."'  NJ

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Both the Bush and Obama Administrations have turned a blind eye to US/Afghan money corruption in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Huge consulting contracts for development business advising were given to K Street lobbying firms that grew new subsidiaries built for the sole purpose of delivering money to the US participants.  Many of the people involved in such schemes then formed personal partnerships with Afghans whose fathers, uncles, etc.  were central figures in the Karzai government.  This corruption was driven from the top. This continues.  pl  

http://www.nationaljournal.com/defense/ig-corruption-in-afghanistan-getting-significantly-worse-20141118?ref=early_bird

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Corruption in Afghanistan Is Getting 'Significantly Worse'

Comments

[Matthew]

Col: What a great topic for a book: "Unholy alliance: The Untold Story of Foreign Kleptocrats and their Washington Enablers."

[confusedponderer]

Just wait, there's more of that to come:
Biden's has formed personal partnerships with Ukrainians with good contacts to the Kiev government about the exploitation of Ukrainian gas resources.

This corruption will be driven from the top also, but it will not be perceived as corruption by the participants - after all: Spread Freedom™, Free Markets™, screw Russia and cash in - all at the same time! What's not to like? In fact, it is an irresistible opportunity!

[confusedponderer]

Ought to read "Biden's son Hunter Biden has ..."

[Haralambos]

I have been pondering but not that confused about the trail to "follow the money." It has been on for some time now I think (since May 2014) with Hunter Biden: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38486.htm

Col. Lang has very aptly entitled this site.

[Charles I]

Still draining our blood, as well as your treasure.

Major General Harold Greene, leading training efforts, killed on base: http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/05/world/asia/afghanistan-violence/index.html

Friendly fire: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/06/10/nato-troops-killed-afghanistan/10269175/

Canada did get get its containers full of rocks back, all the sensitive kit just fine, nothing to see here.

I return to my wonder about all you kit, so much I might look into any planning. Mebbe the SOFA says okay, send most troops home, but leave all the equipment in these er, pre-position depots, like in Israel etc, and we'll dust it for you until you need it

[Charles I]

You want to read some fascinating history and subsequently waste a whole bunch more time on this, start reading up on the Bank of Nugan Hand:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nugan_Hand_Bank

Jonathan Kwitny wrote the book:

The Crimes of Patriots, a True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA; New York: W.W. Norton, 1987, ISBN 0-393-02387-7.

Start following the leads, cites and bibliography etc. You'll troll through the old dirty CIA coke dealer/money launderers/arms dealers/death squads/Contras accounts, wind back through post WW II fog, through the old Golden Triangle, the Kennedy assassination, the French connection, pop back out in Iran-Contra and the coke boom then on to Africa with of course a detour through Russian shock therapy. Thence on to our own systemic reliance on criminals and their networks and cash flows, tax havens, foreign flags and shady characters.

Such is Empire.

I did it without the internet for decades. I assure you if you start with Kwitny and slog away you will arrive in 2014 Kabul - via Kosovo and Iraq - in due course.

[William R. Cumming]

A cogent argument could be made that the entirety of the US effort in Afghanistan was to secure that nation's role in the international opium trade.

Did you know that historically DoJ employees led the fight against mandatory drug testing of all Executive Branch employees?

[confusedponderer]

The FBI has apparently relaxed drug testing requirements for programmers.

"FBI director James Comey said this week that the bureau may be forced to change its drug policy because the U.S. could not find enough programmers who did not use marijuana to fight cyber crime."

http://tinyurl.com/kwook3v

One of the comments on stuxnet was that the code was so far out as if the coders had been high on acid.

Go connect the dots ^^

[samuelburke]

But the drug (poppy trade) is booming so one branch of the Gov't is getting theirs in spades.

It's like a conveyor belt of a money exchange we send taxpayer money to rebuild a foreign gov't in a country where the poppy's grow protected by U.S troops and thats it noone else profits from that deal. I doubt it.

[Imagine]

Hunter was only hired as Director of Kolomoyski's Burisma the day after Joe Biden came to the Ukraine. I believe the original is more accurate. The Biden family stands to gain perhaps billions if the ethnic cleansing in Eastern Ukraine is successful, and lose it all if it secedes. Do the math.

Seems like every time Joe visits the Ukraine, the genocide kicks up again. He and Ms. Nuland are due to hit ground in Kiev tomorrow or so. I predict another major offensive from Kiev within two weeks.

[Imagine]

BdM's "The Dictator's Handbook" opines that foreign aid is ALWAYS about corruption. It is one of the four major sources of income for despots. It's needed to fund paybacks for second-tier cronies, which keeps the government from being overthrown. Thus it's existential.

A 10% slice may be de rigeur. Some charities apparently simply cost in the expenses of corruption, as that seems to be the necessary price of getting anything done. Otherwise nothing gets done for the country at all.

Autocrats then survive based on how well they can whine to the funding sources. Cf. NATO.

The other sources are Borrowing; Oil/Minerals; and Peon Taxes. When a nation, such as Ukraine, is blessed with excellent foreign aid, good borrowing, and good oil, then the oligarchs can rake it in with both hands. Survival of the peons is then no longer necessary. Statistically, these situations lead to further severe repression. Look for more severity in the Ukraine, not only in the East, but also towards common people in the West. The torches and pitchforks blowback in Kiev before April, I am guessing. Interesting times.

[Imagine]

"A statement available on the U.S. Kyiv embassy website says that Biden will meet with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk on November 21.

'In these meetings, the Vice President will convey his congratulations for Ukraine’s successful democratic elections while also noting the need to quickly move ahead with forming a new government. The Vice President will also discuss Russia’s ongoing violations of the September 5th Minsk* agreement,' it said.

Before departing the country, Biden will take part in an anti-corruption roundtable with Verkhovna Rada and civil society members 'to discuss the challenges of fighting corruption in Ukraine,' it said.

You can't make this stuff up.
-----------------------------
* http://news.antiwar.com/2014/11/16/ukraine-shells-rebel-capital-of-donetsk-predicts-resumed-fighting/

[shege]

Well, we do have a tendency to believe if we throw money at a problem things will auto-magically improve. And it's not limited to problems 'over there'. Look at public schools here. Indeed, the metric of comparison in schools is spending/pupil. No mention of effectiveness of the spend.

[curtis]

The British empire was operated much the same according to the records.

[Matthew]

Curtis: "They created a desolation and called it peace." Despite my affection for Ancient Rome, there never was or will be an Empire that is distinguishable from a criminal syndicate.

[Charles I]

Its now all part of the same Anglo Christian Zionist empire run by about 7,000 elites independent of, albeit adroitly utilizing, national sovereignty.

[Charles Dekle]

Col Lang,

Thank you for the link. I also found some research published by The Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University reports that there is a link between corporate expenditures on lobbying and profits. Here is an excerpt from the article: "Analyzing this dataset of 3,209 firm-year observations, Parsley and his colleagues showed that there is a clear and positive correlation between corporate lobbying expenditures and accounting earnings and cash flows from operations. In fact, on average, company income rose by more than a one-half percent (many millions of dollars for larger companies) for every 10 percent increase in lobbying expenditure." (http://www.owen.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-and-research/vanderbilt-business-inbrief/lobbying-expenditures-yield-big-returns-for-companies.cfm)

Regards,

[Piotr, Poland]

Excuse me, but where do you have "ethnical cleansing" in Eastern Ukraine?

[Imagine]

Ethnic cleansing is by definition the extermination or forced relocation of a people based on who they are.
http://www.unhcr.org/540590ae9.html

A civil war is when you attack the other's army. Ethnic cleansing is when you target civilian populations through strikes on the water supply, energy supply, apartment buildings, hospitals, schools, and cut off funding to the banks & institutions.

"What do we do with eight million Russians who are left on the territory of Ukraine?" Tymoshenko's answer: … "We['ve] got to shoot them.”
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/07/34311.html

"Ukraine executes commands from the West, it has no will of its own. Ukraine is eliminating people who are in the way for the coal and gas production of the Americans. They do not need our people here and destroy them therefore, area-wide. It is not a question of eliminating some of us, it is about to annihilate us comprehensively, using Grad [rocket] launchers, mines, surface-to-surface systems [ballistic missiles]. There are bombs, which leave a crater three metres deep and eight metres wide. Within a radius of 300 meters nothing is left alive. Thus, they destroy cities. Women and children are hiding in cellars and they burn them there with flame-throwers and explosives. They do not 'only' kill families, but inhabitants of entire apartment buildings."..."These are people, among others, who are even willing to pay to be allowed to hunt people. They pay that they may fire on living people with sniper rifles. If there are no insurgents, they shoot civilians. For example, there was a man driving to work with his bicycle and they have shot off his head just for fun. [Ad: 'Safari in the Ukraine, (Running Man style)']"
http://slavyangrad.org/2014/08/18/interview-with-a-rebel-part-1/

also see this column's
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2014/07/ukraine-fired-ss-21-ballistic-missiles-ttg.html
as well as using white phosphorus on towns, a war crime.

One might argue that since main parts of Right Sektor are controlled by Kolomoyski, it is not a state actor doing the ethnic cleansing.
http://slavyangrad.org/2014/10/28/they-are-playing-tennis-three-sets-every-match-to-try-and-kill-us/
I think this would miss the point.

More important than the ethnic cleansing is WHY it is going on. If Mr. Poroshenko were independent, he could freeze the status quo, sit down and talk with the separatists, declare a federation, and end the shooting from Ukrainian-controlled troops tomorrow. Even Russia wants this, and keeps saying "It is an internal matter, that must be discussed and resolved by Kiev + East". However, (a) Ukraine is collapsing and he desperately needs a diversion; (b) war is the only growth industry in the Ukraine; (c) Kolomoyski and Burisma (Biden) will profit from wiping out the people, and wiping out the coal mines; (d) every time he launches a new campaign, he gets promised more foreign aid; (e) Mr. P. is not independent but takes his orders from the powers in Washington, who most want (besides an excuse to fund NATO) to degrade and bring Russia down. Cooperation to solve world problems is incomprehensible.

Thus, the ethnic cleansing will continue as long as it is physically able to.

[Piotr, Poland]

OK. So tell me why Ukrainian state still pays pensions to ALL retired in DNR/LNR areas don't asking about their nationality or whom they support? Why Ukrainians still pump water and natural gas, (if possible and pipelines work) or electricity to Donetsk or Luhansk?

PS. Don't read this Slavyangrad.org site. It's one of the worst Russian propaganda hubs I ever read

[Fred]

Imagine,

He got chased away from a rally be 100 old men and women.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/21/joe-biden-retreats-from-angry-crowd-in-ukraine/
The 'angry crowd' knows who started the war that killed their children.

[Imagine]

Pensions: They don't.

The Republic of Donetsk is stepping up to cover the shortfall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Ty7iVdLt_gY#t=21