Back on September 10, 2001 ... you know the day before "Everything Changed Forever" ... Donald Rumsfeld confessed to Congress that over 2.3 trillions dollars had 'somehow' vanished from the Pentagon:
You would imagine that after disclosing the fact that a sum amounting to U.S. government expenditures for an entire year had simply 'disappeared' that Bush II's incoming administration would want to scrutinize future defense appropriations. Dream Again.
According to the Center for Public Integrity: "the number of defense contracting fraud and corruption cases sent by government investigators to prosecutors dropped precipitously under the Bush administration, even as contracting by the Defense Department almost doubled."
And just to remind us pesky little taxpayers who really was in charge, the Pentagon busted Bunny Greenhouse, the top procurement official at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, for having the nerve to question Halliburton's plump no bid contracts in the run-up to the Iraq invasion.
Major General Smedley Butler warned us eighty-years ago that "War was a Racket". For the world's giant corporations and moneyed elite thanks to the witless American taxpayer investing in our "defense" is the best bet around. And just to be sure, our gallant pols are promised that all good little boys get their share of the pie.
So can we really be outraged or even mildly surprised to learn that NATO contractors are blowing up their own containers over in Afghanistan? In a game this shamelessly rigged what "middle-man" wouldn't 'kill' for a piece of the action.
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