Iraq’s Disappearing Billions

How bad is the corruption in the American System of mercantilist warfare and nation building?

Former DIA/CIA counter-terrorism officer Philip Giraldi reports in the September 12th issue of The American Conservative:

“A Homeland Security Customs Enforcement Department top-secret audit of contracting in Iraq is beginning to reveal a level of corruption and fraud that is crippling both reconstruction and self defense efforts. Water and electricity supplies are at lower levels than one year ago, while the lines at gas stations have become longer. A weapons procurement of more than $5 billion for the Ministries of Defense and Interior under interim Prime Minister Iayd Allawi has reportedly completely disappeared, while a $300 million purchase of 24 military helicopters from Poland bought obsolete aircraft, many of which had already been stripped for parts. Work has never started on hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure-improvement contracts given to military cronies. Several deputy ministers who balked at signing multimillion-dollar fictitious contracts have been fired and replaced by more amenable appointees. Meanwhile, the disproportionate number of Kurds in the Defense Ministry is diverting funds and equipment to peshmerga militia units preparing to seize Kirkuk. On the other side of the Green Zone, the Interior ministry’s police commandos provide cover for anti-Sunni hit teams from the Iranian-supported Badr Brigade and from rogue Shi’ite radical Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army. The Potemkin-villiage Baghdad government is increasingly irrelevant to the future of Iraq.”

How might you have spent the money the state took from you in order that they might kill all those people and make so many criminals rich?

More on the helicopters here.

Kwiatkowski and Giraldi

Saturday on the Weekend Interview Show (6-8pm eastern), I’ll be talking with two ex-employees of the Warfare State. First up will be Karen Kwiatkowski about her observations of the neocons from inside and outside the Pentagon, and in the second hour, Philip Giraldi will return to discuss Sibel Edmonds, the AIPAC spies, the “art students” and corruption in Iraq.

Show’s over
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Bring Them Home Now Bus Tour Begins

On Wednesday, in my hometown of Austin, Texas, I took part in a march of – my best guess – a thousand or so people, from the Texas state capital building to city hall, where we met up with the buses from Cindy Sheehan’s Bring Them Home Now Bus Tour. It was a quite impressive turnout, even for an Austin protest, and there wasn’t much publicity beforehand.

There are 3 separate bus tours: one southern, one central, and one northern. All are headed to Washington DC for the antiwar rally the weekend of the 26th of September. (All the info you need is at bringthemhomenowtour.org)

Many protesters and speakers pointed out, as Paul Craig Roberts has detailed, the disaster in Louisiana would be much less had George Bush not sent the national guard units to Iraq to die. Their job is moving sandbags, rescuing people and suppressing looting in just such situations.

Now he will claim credit for helping.

Local populist rabble rouser Jim Hightower gave an entertaining speech. Though he seems to support every type of welfare/regulatory scheme the politicians can imagine, I give the man credit, he is consistently antiwar.

Turning tables on Bush’s childlike rhetoric, Sheehan said that he could “run but not hide” from her. Now, if I were some lowlife, scumbag, Republican, bootlicking, Smithers type, I would advise my masters to take her seriously. She made it very plain that having lost a son, she no longer has any other passion than the end of this war, and is beyond having any fear of what might happen to her.

In her speech, Cindy attacked the hollow slogans Bush relies on to fool fools into believing in his war:

Complete the mission, honor the sacrifice of those who have lost. Translation: Because we got a bunch of people killed, we have to keep getting them killed.

Fight for freedom and Democracy. The Democracy elected the Ayatollah’s men. No freedom there.

Apparently, not even Bush is stupid enough at this point to cite anything but abstractions. The last time he tried to stick to excuses that exist, he told Israeli TV (remember the “All options are on the table” for dealing with Iran story from a few weeks back?) that Saddam “refused to disarm” and harbored Abu Nidal who was not Al Qaeda, and died in 2002. Someone must’ve pulled Bush’s choke chain, because it’s been pure “finish the mission,” “fight for freedom” crap since then.

Cindy Sheehan has a question for congress now too:

“How many more of our innocent lives and innocent Iraqi lives are you going to be willing to sacrifice for lies?”

Next stop, Tom Delay’s office in Houston. Though he is far too cowardly to go toe to toe with this 100 pound woman, it’ll be worth the trip because they’re taking all the extra food and provisions from Camp Casey, and donating it to Katrina evacuees stranded at the Astrodome.

This stupid war and other factors have conspired to raise gas prices to extraordinary levels. The Cindy Sheehan, “What noble cause?” movement at this point seems to really be gaining steam it would be a shame for them to run out of gas. Go here to donate. Support Cindy Sheehan! She is the lightning rod for the antiwar movement, and needs your help.

Side note – Lawrence of Arabia is playing at the Paramount.

Previous Camp Casey blog entries here and here

What a Weekend!

My radio show has moved to a new time (Saturdays 5-7pm), and my Weekend Interview Show fundraiser is doing rather well so far. (Any help from fans of the show is greatly appreciated.)

Saturday afternoon I went to Dr. Ron Paul‘s birthday party / fundraiser and had a fun time. The barbecue was great, I got to speak with the congressman again briefly, see some old friends and meet a bunch of good folks from Dr. Paul’s congressional office. In his speech, Dr. Paul emphasized congress’s total disregard for the US constitution, the role of the internet in spreading ideas of individual liberty, the warfare state’s dependence on inflationary fiat currency to disguise its true costs and the reason for suicide terrorism: foreign occupation. The best part was that I finally had the chance to meet that “implacable foe of the warfare state,” Lew Rockwell.

On Sunday, I hitched a ride with two local concerned citizens (of which there is no shortage in Austin, TX) up to Camp Casey.

Notes on Camp Casey II

As I set out with my trusty tape recorder in hand (Thanks Mike (in Tokyo)!) among the supporters of Cindy Sheehan’s effort to call Bush out on his lies at the new Camp Casey, I was floored by the scene. Having only been to the first camp on a Monday and Tuesday two weeks ago, I was amazed to see at least 1,500 people of all descriptions set up under giant tents with wi-fi, live radio broadcasts (bradblog was in his 38th hour of coverage when I met him) and professional catering. The protest has come along way in a very short time. Though I didn’t get a chance to speak with Sheehan this time, IVAW, the Iraq Veterans Against the War, was there in force.

David Lewis is an Army Reserve specialist from Binghamton New York. He was in Iraq for 11 months, and still has 3 years left in his contract. He wanted to come down to support Cindy Sheehan, but since he couldn’t afford it, he decided to contact IVAW to see about setting up something to show support in his hometown. They instead flew him out to Texas to take part. David never trusted Bush, and never believed the war against Iraq was legitimate. While briefly home on leave before the war, he did his “homework” and had his suspicions confirmed. Lewis now faces the likely prospect of another tour in a war he has known from the start was based on lies. Though he opposes it, he says he can’t file for conscientious objector status because they might make him pay back the money they’ve already given him for education. Money which he fears he could never pay off.

Perhaps this is why Murray Rothbard called it the “warfare/welfare state.”

IVAW’s Jimmy Massey is a former Marine corps staff sergeant from Waynesville, North Carolina. He was part of the original invasion force in 2003. Massey says he he planned to spend a career in the Marines, but after a short amount of time “in country,” he was honorably discharged as “80% percent disabled.” The man looked in shape, and I had a guess where this was going when I asked him to elaborate. Massey has what they call post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As I learned from the great George Carlin, post-traumatic stress disorder is the third generation euphemism for shell shock – the one they came up with after after “battle fatigue” and “operational exhaustion” had apparently been determined to still be too harsh. As Carlin said, “The pain is completely buried under jargon.” According to Massey, his shell-shock symptoms include: major depression, hyperactivity, nightmares mixed with insomnia, feelings of desperate isolation and fear – all on a daily basis. The worst part he said was the flashbacks. He has nightmares all night, and daydreams all day; flashing pictures in his mind’s eye of the “horrors and realities” and “lack of humanity displayed” by his fellow soldiers against the civilian population of Iraq.

The Department of Veterans Affairs as been helpful to Jimmy Massey, but he says that he is one of the fortunate ones. Fortunate because he had already started showing signs of his condition while in Iraq, and the psych-test questionnaire they had him fill out before leaving reflected that. Every soldier who leaves Iraq must fill out these forms, and, according to Massey, any soldiers who starts having flashbacks, nightmares etc. after coming home are written off by the military. “Oh, now you’re sick? – Tough sh*t pal you’re faking it.” Support the Troops, huh? Obviously, this practice disguises the true numbers of traumatized soldiers, which the state admits is at least a third and now the sick bastards at the DoD want to “review” – that is, deny – the cases they’ve admitted to thus far! Massey said that having seen the things he had over there, it is hard for him to believe that anyone could have been to the Iraq war and not have some of these same problems. And, of course, he reminds me, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, not only from their experience in this war, but dating back to when America started bombing that country in 1991, suffer from the same sort of condition.

So what broke this career marine so thoroughly? It happened, he said, the first time he killed a group of civilians at a checkpoint. They didn’t stop at the right spot, so Massey says, he and his comrades “discharged our weapons.” At the moment he realized what they’d done, Massey says, he “got a conscience,” and all the power the US military’s patriotic rhetoric had over this man’s mind was gone. That was the beginning of the end for Massey’s stay in the Iraq and the marines. The killing of civilians in this fashion at checkpoints in Iraq is, according to this witness and a simple google search, a “common story.” Johns Hopkins University and the British medical journal Lancet have estimated that as many as 100,000 Iraqi civilians have lost their lives due to this war. How many Iraqi humans, whether wounded themselves or having had members of their families wounded or killed deal with the same nightmares as Jimmy Massey? It’s his question, and a good one. Massey now travels the world, speaking out against war, as a true believer in the Greatness of American power, turned steadfast opponent of war and its consequences.

So there I sit near Bush’s photo-op church, hearing stories of men’s lives being risked for no reason, I wonder how the hell Americans ever fall for their politicians lies. How many soldiers have come home from war, knowing the very non-Hollywood reality and uselessness of combat, only to send their sons off to die in the next one?

For all the idiots with your stupid emails, don’t bother unless you have an answer to Cindy’s question: What Noble Cause?

Notes from Camp Casey

For a few days early this week, I had the honor of playing host to my friend Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers, who flew all the way from Japan to Texas to show support for Cindy Sheehan and the other families in Crawford who are demanding a direct answer to the question: “What noble cause?” We went to Crawford on Monday and Tuesday.

The president maintains that he needs to “go on with his life,” and so he still will not meet with her.

As many already know, after having their memorial temporarily ruined by some wacko from Waco, and having some of the lovely people of Crawford rally behind a court petition to ban parking on the public right of ways – an injunction which would have virtually made Camp Casey illegal – a local property owner has invited Cindy Sheehan to move the camp to his property, which is much closer to Bush’s place. Ain’t that America?

While at Camp Casey on Monday and Tuesday, Mike and I were only able to spend a short amount of time with Cindy, who of course, is being questioned from all sides at all times, but she was very kind and quite down to earth, contrary to the impression the War Party is trying to give about her. At Monday’s press conference, she emphasized that with all the people flooding in, and media flying around, the core of her story has been a bit diluted, and that she wanted to get back to it.

My best understanding of the core is simply this: Bush told her that her son died for a noble cause, and now she would like a specific explanation as to what exactly that cause was. Secondly, knowing that there is no honest answer to that question, she wants the war to end immediately and for the rest of the soldiers to be brought home.

While in Crawford, I got to meet many interesting people, including a Master Sergeant from Ft. Hood who was drawing up specific tactical plans for the full scale invasion of Iraq beginning immediately after Bush took office in 2001.

“Go back and see how many generals retired during that time – during the run up to war,” he said. I mean to.

I also met Tim Goodrich from Iraq Veterans Against the War, who told me that he had specific firsthand knowledge of the early start of the air war in 2002, as referred to in this article in The Nation.

I was also able to hear the stories of many other military and gold-star families who are there in support of Cindy and her mission. Although many of them have stories as compelling as Cindy’s, their stories are mostly ignored by the mainstream media.

Unfortunately, Mike took all our audio back to Japan with him, so better descriptions of these stories will have to wait.

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern was there showing support. It was my first opportunity to meet him in person, and I found him to be a very kind man and a very critical opponent of the warfare state, though our conversation was not an interview.

The worst part of the time I spent in Crawford, besides listening to family members tearfully describe the deaths of their sons, brothers and nephews, was hearing so many stories from people whose families have been torn apart over differing views on the war. People have so much invested in their positions, that they let relationships with parents, children, grandchildren, brothers, and sisters be destroyed over it. It doesn’t seem that the pro-war side is any more bull-headed about this than those in opposition. I suppose that this type of thing can be expected when arguing over such matters as life and death, though folks could be a bit more grown up.

It is easy to see why the military culture (though definitely not all soldiers) frowns on dissent about policy from military families. This is a result of at least two major factors. The first is the legal requirement of obedience to ranking officers, but in a larger context this reflects the tradition and constitutional requirement of civilian superiority over military power – tradition and law that are meant to restrain the temptations of military leaders. In this case, however, the generals seem much more restrained than the “intellectual” crazies in the pentagon and Vice President’s office.

It is also easy to understand how no one would want to hear that their loved one had died for a pack of lies, and some military family members have complained that Sheehan is dishonoring their relative’s sacrifice. On Monday, Sheehan said that she understands their grief, and is glad that those people believe whatever they need to believe to “get through the day.” She means them no ill will at all, it’s just that she cannot pretend to believe that the war her son died in was an honorable cause when she knows better. Instead she is standing up for her son and for the sons of others who she wants brought home safely from the disaster they call Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Anyone who can take a couple of days to drive to Texas and lend support for Cindy Sheehan and her vigil should do so.

Mike Rogers came all the way from Tokyo because resisting the warfare state is the most honorable thing a patriot could do. Consider taking part in any small way you can.