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America is Unaccountable
I have a working idea for a new book, titled “America is Unaccountable.” The book will detail chapter-by-chapter how what we say and what we do as a nation diverge.War is Peace, Hate is Love, that kind of thing. Drone killings of wedding parties are for our freedom. NSA reading our Facebook stops terrorism. Congress cutting food stamps versus the Pentagon not being held even mildly accountable for trillions.
What? Here’s a report from Reuters:
The Pentagon is largely incapable of keeping track of its vast stores of weapons, ammunition and other supplies; thus it continues to spend money on new supplies it doesn’t need and on storing others long out of date. It has amassed a backlog of more than half a trillion dollars in unaudited contracts with outside vendors; how much of that money paid for actual goods and services delivered isn’t known. And it repeatedly falls prey to fraud and theft that can go undiscovered for years, often eventually detected by external law enforcement agencies.
There’s more:
Because of its persistent inability to tally its accounts, the Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not complied with a law that requires annual audits of all government departments. That means that the $8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996, the first year it was supposed to be audited, has never been accounted for. That sum exceeds the value of China’s economic output last year.
It will be a pretty big job to sort things out and account for the odd misplaced trillion or two. Reuters tells us:
No one can even agree on how many accounting and business systems are in use. The Pentagon itself puts the number at 2,200 spread throughout the military services and other defense agencies. A January 2012 report by a task force of the Defense Business Board, an advisory group of business leaders appointed by the secretary of defense, put the number at around 5,000.
But it’s OK, taxpayers, because in 2009 Congress passed a law requiring that the Defense Department be audit-ready.
By 2017. We’re doomed.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
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Rich Bauer said...
1When all those pension checks for retired soldiers start bouncing, then you will see some real fighting.
10/12/14 12:47 PM | Comment Link
Kyzl Orda said...
2Oh, didnt that happen after World War One? There rioting on the Mall here in DC because vets of WWI had not been paid
http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/bonusm.htm
So there’s precedence
10/12/14 2:36 PM | Comment Link
Kyzl Orda said...
3Dear Peter, your article is very timely —
Today’s NY Times released this story “Investigation into missing Iraqi Cash Ended in Lebanon Bunker”
Gist: CPA had $14 billion (official amount (what is the unofficial amount??)) be sent to Iraq by plane. About $5 billion was sent by wire.
Apparently Treasury was opposed to the idea, which had provided an initial cash infusion for the new government for about $1.7 billion, but had no idea Mr Bremer was demanding all that money be flown there – or that the money was actually sent to IRaq. During his own investigation, IG Bowen would be denied permission to travel to Lebanon to investigate after receiving tips part of this money and gold had been transferred without official permission to Lebanon.
These sums could fund alot of summer homes in the Caribbean.
There had been a prior investigation of arms we had sent to Iraq being then transferred sub rose to Lebanon too. Guessing part of the same game?
Gonna guess Hezbollah got some of this largesse.
Meanwhile states like Texas refuse to fund healthcare, preferring people with highly contagious illnesses like Ebola sit for hours in an ER waiting room. It’s better Hezbollah gets that funding, right or someone buys their GFs mink coats?
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/world/investigation-into-missing-iraqi-cash-ended-in-lebanon-bunker.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSum&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
10/12/14 2:53 PM | Comment Link
Kyzl Orda said...
4Wonder what happened to those Treasury people who opposed the transfer of billions of US dollars, mostly in hard cash, to Iraq? Are they now working out of government too for speaking up?? The NY Times mentions Bowen being out now as well
10/12/14 2:56 PM | Comment Link
Kyzl Orda said...
5Or could that money that was sent to Lebanon have been meant for the Syrian insurgents? The neo-cons were blathering just before we invaded Iraq about the need to bring down the Syrian government. Being a neo-con baby, it’s not surprising things failed to go according to their foreign policy crystal ball
10/12/14 3:00 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
6Peter said:
“I have a working idea for a new book, titled “America is Unaccountable.”
War is Peace, Hate is Love, that kind of thing. Drone killings of wedding parties are for our freedom. NSA reading our Facebook stops terrorism. “unquote
Well then, I suggest you sit down, read this and use it to open the first chapter. Frankly, it astounded me to the point I am shaking in absolute outrage. Just happen to discover this thanks to a link on another comment section. This is beyond unaccountability. This document describes the NSA’s culpability to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution..based on their typical sleight of hand gimmicks, misdirection, obfuscation, doublespeak and outright lies. In essence, the fucking NSA is responsible for the Vietnam War and the murder of 58,000 American lives. If this isn’t living proof of NSA’s criminal intent, I don’t know what is…..
https://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_quarterly/Skunks.pdf
bartender, leave the bottle. I need to get fucking drunk.
10/12/14 3:07 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
7ps..Skunks indeed. The stench of the NSA will NEVER BE WIPED CLEAN UNTIL IT IS PROSECUTED..AND DEFUNDED. PERIOD
10/12/14 3:12 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
8ps..that document needs to be spread as far and wide as humanly possible.
10/12/14 3:13 PM | Comment Link
wemeantwell said...
9I just skimmed it and it is amazing. I had never seen that information before. Thanks Pitch, I’ll see what I can do with it.
ALSO: We’re so screwed.
10/12/14 3:33 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
10ps..here’s more on it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident#NSA_report
10/12/14 3:15 PM | Comment Link
bloodypitchfork said...
11Peter said:
quote”I just skimmed it and it is amazing. I had never seen that information before.”unquote
Peter.. read it. Were not screwed. We’re just two human beings that took the time to find the truth.
I’ll leave it at that.
10/13/14 12:23 AM | Comment Link
teri said...
12A long time ago, Sept 10, 2001, to be precise, Donald Rumsfeld announced that the Pentagon had “lost” $2 trillion. Didn’t know where it went, couldn’t account for it. The Pentagon records/financial computers were kept in the Twin Tower complex. This might have been a big scandal and resulted in an audit of some sort (we can dream, right?), but 9/11 happened the next day.
Wonder what they’ll have to blow up this time.
The end.
10/13/14 1:54 PM | Comment Link