For people who are knowledgably of how the military industrial congressional complex has institutionalized corruption over the last 60 years in American politics , the recent story that the U.S. military has been charging its allies a 15% handling fee on hundreds of millions of dollars being raised internationally to build up the Afghan army, should not be too much of a surprise. The apparent shakedown by the US military in administering a 15 percent "administration fee" for German funded military projects in Afghanistan highlight how kickbacks and cost plus no bid contracts within the military industrial congressional complex has institutionalized corruption at the Pentagon. First, only a problem undermining the American political process and a lowering of the American standard of living, the latest cable release by Wikileaks reveal that the greed and corruption rampant at the Pentagon is now looking to extort money from some of America’s closest allies.
According to a Wikileaks memo published by The Guardian newspaper,
a protest to the US State Department from Germany's ambassador to NATO this year, Berlin raised questions about the fate of $ 50 million it dispensed last year as the biggest contribution to a "trust fund" for the Afghan national army.
In protests in Berlin, Brussels, and Washington last February the German government demanded to know what was happening to the money, why earmarked projects were not going ahead and why the US military was taking 15%.
A cable to Washington from the US mission to NATO sought instructions on how to respond to the protests from Ulrich Brandenburg, the German ambassador to the military alliance.
Ivo Daalder, the US ambassador to NATO, told Washington that the German complaint raised "serious political concerns".
"The appearance that the US is charging allies an excessive fee for the use of monies they have donated to the ANA [Afghan national army] trust fund may be difficult to explain away during a parliamentary debate. Brandenburg is probably correct in arguing that issues such as this could make it more difficult to encourage nations to donate to the trust fund."
The US ambassador added that the German protest may be "inaccurate" since the 15% was probably a "contingency" rather than an "administrative" fee.
No matter how the US ambassador to Germany tries to classify the "administrative fee" , the policy is wrong.
According to the non-profit, non-partisan group, National Priorities, as of December 2010, the United States has spent over $ 370 billion in Afghanistan. A good portion of that money was spent on highly paid private security guards (mercenaries), private security corporations, and defense companies supplying over priced equipment who have the sole purpose of profiting from a war that has been estimated to have killed over 10,000 innocent civilians, three times the amount of civilians killed in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
In Afghanistan, a country over run with corruption, where bribery, extortion and embezzlement are the norm and the honest official is a distinct outlier, the latest news that the U.S. military is taking a 15 percent cut from German financial contributions demonstrates how institutionalized corruption has become at the Pentagon.
In an era of trillion dollar public deficits and a federal government unwilling to extend unemployment benefits to unemployed Americans, the political, economic, and cultural power of the military industrial congressional complex is evident. The lack of any discussion to hold public hearings asking why Afghanistan’s vice president took $52 million in cash out of the war torn country, further exemplifies how militarism in America is bankrupting the country, undermining American democracy, and lowering the living standards of average hard working honest Americans. Instead of debating the issue of extending Bush era tax cuts, the more essential debate of why America is still engaged in a war that has lasted longer than the Vietnam War and killed over 1,100 military members is being allowed to continue until 2014.
Although the recent Wikileaks release is disturbing and offers another prevailing argument why the war in Afghanistan is nothing more than a corporate welfare project for politically connected defense and security firms, the more tragic aspect of this story is that the news will be downplayed in the press and the war will continue to go on into the indefinite future, with millions of Americans out of work and an economy mired in a never ending recession.
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