It's not just Britain that has hemmorhaged cash into the Afghan kleptocracy. And in a debt crisis on both sides of the pond, we're told our governments can't find anything to cut. What could your state do with $360 million? How many hours last year did you work to line the pockets of some well connected resident of Kabul through your taxes?
That is what is at stake, along with the always-popular concept of not carelessly funding jihadists who want to kill our troops in Afghanistan and the rest of us at home. "$360M lost to insurgents, criminals in Afghanistan," by Deb Riechmann and Rich Lardner for the Associated Press, August 16:
WASHINGTON (AP) — After examining hundreds of combat support and reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan, the U.S military estimates $360 million in U.S. tax dollars has ended up in the hands of people the American-led coalition has spent nearly a decade battling: the Taliban, criminals, and power brokers with ties to both. The losses underscore the challenges the U.S. and its international partners face in overcoming corruption in Afghanistan. A central part of the Obama administration's strategy has been to award U.S.-financed contracts to Afghan businesses to help improve quality of life and stoke the country's economy.
But until a special task force assembled by Gen. David Petraeus began its investigation last year, the coalition had little visibility into the connections many Afghan companies and their vast network of subcontractors had with insurgents and criminals — groups military officials call "malign actors."
Charlie Sheen did it?
In a murky process known as "reverse money laundering," payments from the U.S. pass through companies hired by the military for transportation, construction, power projects, fuel and other services to businesses and individuals with ties to the insurgency or criminal networks, according to interviews and task force documents obtained by the AP.
"Funds begin as clean monies," according to one document, then "either through direct payments or through the flow of funds in the subcontractor network, the monies become tainted."
The conclusions by Task Force 2010 represent the most definitive assessment of how U.S. military spending and aid to Afghanistan has been diverted to the enemy or stolen. Only a small percentage of the $360 million has been garnered by the Taliban and insurgent groups, said a senior U.S. military official in Kabul. The bulk of the money was lost to profiteering, bribery and extortion by criminals and power brokers, said the official, who declined to provide a specific breakdown.
The official requested anonymity to discuss the task force's ongoing investigation into the movement of U.S. contract money in Afghanistan. The documents obtained by AP were prepared earlier this year and provide an overview of the task force's work.
Overall, the $360 million represents a fraction of the $31 billion in active U.S. contracts that the task force reviewed. But insurgents rely on crude weaponry and require little money to operate. And the illicit gains buttress what the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, referred to in a June report as a "nexus between criminal enterprises, insurgent networks and corrupt political elites" in Afghanistan....
The entire Middle East is rife with corrupt officials. An audit of all those in positions of power would divulge the extent of the corruption. If these countries want our dollars then they must accept that every dollar must be accounted for at the end of the day. Anyone and everyone in the cities and towns where your tax dollar is sent knows who is corrupt - yet we don't, or don't bother to do anything about it.
From the top down everyone is pocketing your tax dollars. It is endemic in this culture.
I do wonder how many officials in these recipient countries have been charged with corruption and stealing. About zero is my estimate. The guilty would more than likely be charged with over-stealing or not sharing the spoils.
Stop wasting your money and spend it on those in our countries who really need and appreciate the help.
'A fool and his money are soon parted'...
How long will the taxpaying citizen play the fool?
Nearly everyone in the US from locals to government is having problems with budget short falls...Yet Rasool Obama and Hillary 'gave' the terrorist Abu Mazen, also known as Abbas of the PA, $150,000,000 to help him with his 'budget shortfall'...
Ron Paul has glaring deficiencies, but at least he would put a stop to jizya payments...Hopefully the new POTUS, whoever she is, will take Paul's advice about that...
Yes, the U.K. and the U.S. have Taliban contracting scandals but also the U.N....
This is off-topic but does anyone know who to call to try to stop a mosque being built. This is happening near me.
http://www.ajc.com/news/gwinnett/lilburn-gives-in-approves-1115496.html
The title should have been "US losses ANOTHER $360 million to corruption in Afghanistan."
Why do we continue to be hoodwinked? Muslims have told us they will lie, will never truly be our friends, and that they intend to kill or subjugate every one of us.
Fool me once...
Paying them to kill us. War doesn't get much crazier than this.
" who to call to try to stop a mosque being built."
Well, this being the US, you can't prevent people from building on their own property.
I have a mosque about 3 blocks from me, and it's no big deal. Like any other building or organization, mosques have to maintain the noise and maintenance ordinances.
The fight is, in my opinion, against Islamization and the immigration of more Muslims, not against Muslims who are law-abiding US citizens.
Apropos to the story, we are far better off protecting our own borders, and not trying to naively bring democracy into primitive, tribal cultures, who are actually better off without foreign intervention.
Is this some surprise to anyone???? We have been throwing millions (billions?) of dollars at Palestinian terrorist organizations for decades now... even (especially!) after they were dancing in the street on 9/11. The idea that we are somehow promoting peace, when the recipients of our largesse are committed to wholesale destruction of Israel and hatred of the U.S., is patently absurd.
Recent studies show that the US and other Western countries grossly over-give when it comes to charity towards third world Islamic countries, while oil-rich Islamic countries trail far behind in taking care of their own.
Now, our idiot president has embroiled us in a new war in Libya. (And YES, it IS a war!) But there are no "good guys" here. This is a war between Al-Queda connected terrorist rebels and a terrorist supporting dictator. We should have had no involvement with either side, and should have let them fight each other out while weakening all parties concerned.
We should have left it to Saudi Arabia and the OIC to use their petro-dollars to fund whatever side they wanted instead of wasting our own military and resources in a fight we CANNOT possibly benefit from.
And please don't tell me it was for "humanitarian" reasons. There are many better places in the world to turn our humanitarian interests to. And the rebels have done more than their share of attacking, murdering, and raping the civilian population to totally destroy that argument.
I won't even begin to discuss our duplicitous pseudo - "allies" in Pakistan (where we SHOULD be concentrating more on developing friendships with its enemy INDIA!)
But we never saw an Islamist enemy that wasn't worth throwing money at!
Deceit runs deep in the ROP. Our vanity to appear as world saviors has turned into in-sanity of paying an un-repentent enemy. We can't afford this anymore, spent it all on Arab gas, as debt ridden over-outsourced, banking scandal-challenged economy grinds down to a halt. US AID RIP.
'A central part of the Obama administration's strategy has been to award U.S.-financed contracts to Afghan businesses to help improve quality of life and stoke the country's economy.'
Where do you think that money goes towards? Let me take a quick guess....!
Again, with the recession in the US, we have to stop this nation-building concept. How long will it take for the US G'ovt to stop this nonsensical policy.
Imam Hussain Obama wants to win the hearts and souls of his lost Muslim brothers at any cost,and he is prepared to shell down any amount (tax payer's money ofcourse)to repair the loss. So Amercians-put up with your President.
RE mosques.
Call ACT for America. They might have some ideas.
At the very least, you can use it as a consciousness-raising opportunity among your fellow Infidels in the neighbourhood, to spread awareness about what Islam *really* teaches in its 'sacred' books and about Jihad and dhimmitude as documented in the past 1400 years and counting.
Mosques are not benign. Mosques have served and serve as advance bases/ forts/ recruiting centres for Jihad/ arms factories/ arsenals and magazines/ safe houses for criminals and active jihadis on assignment. Mosques are not like churches or synagogues; they are more like the HQ of a branch of the Mafia or of an outlaw biker gang, or like a Neonazi or KKK hangout, or a Thuggee temple.
Take careful note of where exactly this mosque will sit and how big it is, vis a vis any significant/ symbolic non-Muslim buildings in the vicinity, such as a church or synagogue. Will it have minarets? How many Muslims actually live in the neighbourhood where it is proposed? Often, in places like India or Africa, a mosque will be deliberately placed in a mostly non-Muslim neighbourhoods and then the Muslims will swarm in and settle around it and gradually drive out the local non-Muslims by various forms of low-level to high-level harassment. In a little country in Africa - a country in which the vast majority of people are, at present, Christian - a huge mosque was deliberately built right opposite the Catholic cathedral, and whenever services were being held in the Cathedral the Muslims would broadcast amplified Muslim 'prayers' through their loudspeakers.
Mosques are usually placed aggressively vis a vis the non-Muslim Other; rather like the guy in the bar who sits down inside another customer's personal space and dares him to do something about it.
Look up the documentaries 'Undercover Mosque', 'Undercover Mosque, II: the Return', and a Czech documentary 'I, Muslim' (all of which have been discussed in this forum).
Here are four classic articles on the nature and function of the mosque, which you may like to read, and then print off and circulate around the neighbourhood.
First, here is Seth Frantzen, Jewish geographer, writing in the Jerusalem Post:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1239710820237&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
Apr 29, 2009 20:29 | Updated Apr 30, 2009 18:09
"More than a coincidence: Minarets, geography and power"
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
Now, an apostate from Islam, discussing the mosque, in 'Inside the forbidden fortress':
http://pedestrianinfidel.blogspot.com/2006/02/inside-forbidden-fortress.html
Then, an article featured here at jihadwatch, Vijay Kumar's essay, 'The Muslim Mosque: A State Within a State".
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/07/vijay-kumar-the-muslim-mosque-a-state-within-a-state.html
And apostate-from-Islam, Sam Solomon, interviewed by Vlad Tepes on the subject "what is a mosque?"
here
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/28331
with transcript here:
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/28874
Saturday, 31 July 2010
"What is a Mosque? An Interview with Sam Solomon"
by Jerry Gordon.
Here's the opening two paragraphs, just to give you an idea:
Gordon: Greetings Mr. Solomon and thank you for consenting to this interview. Let us start with the simple question,
what is a mosque and what is its basic function in the Muslim community?
Solomon:
"A mosque, totally unlike a church or a synagogue, serves the function of orchestrating and mandating every aspect of “life” in a Muslim community from the religious, to the political, to the economic, to the social, to the military.
"In Islam, religion and life are not separate. They are indivisible
In Islam religion is not just a part of life, but “life” is absorbed and regulated to the tiniest detail by religion (See Figure 1).
In other words every aspect of a man or woman’s life must be defined and governed by religion.
So there is no concept of personal choice whatsoever, or in theological terms, there is no “free will,” but only limited preferences between prescribed courses of action.
"In addition, there is no concept of a personal relationship between the person and the entity being worshiped, so “worship” itself, is of a different nature than that performed in a church or synagogue.
{Note: this is a very important point that must be stressed by you to any naive Christians or Jews in your immediate neighbourhood who may be conned by the Muslims into fuzzy ecumenical feelgood support for having a mosque built. Muslims do not and cannot have a relationship with 'allah' in the way that practising Jews and Christians conceive of their relationship with the Holy One, YHWH. Apostate from Islam, now Christian clergyman, Patrick Sookhdeo, has spoken very clearly about this: in his opinion, at the core of Islam is a void whereas at the core of Biblical faith is a person-to-person relationship, summed up in phrases like 'friend of God' and 'walked with God'. - dda}.
So we see that a mosque is a seat of government. A mosque is a school. A mosque is a court. A mosque is a training center. A mosque is a gathering place, or social center.
It is not a place of “worship” per se as understood and as practiced in Western societies."
Solomon discusses the importance of the Sunnah - specifically, in the case of mosques, the function of Mohammed's first mosque at Medina. As that mosque, so all others.
And so he points out that "the first mosque, was a place where he [Mohammed] gave judgments, where he decided who would be executed, where he instituted policy—domestic and military— where Jihad war strategies were designed.
Consequently, it was a storage place for arms, a military training base, and was where troops were blessed and dispatched...
This explains and establishes beyond doubt why arms have been found in mosques in various countries, and in different capital cities.
In addition to the undisputed significance of the Medina mosque as the role model for all Mosques, there is also the Islamic policy of establishing strategic Mosques as beachheads with interconnected networks. "
And so on. (In connection with this last point, you should perhaps play around with google maps and see whether there is a developing network of mosques into which the mosque proposed for *your* area is being fitted, or which it is extending.
Patrick Sookhdeo discusses mosques, and the territoriality of the Muslim mindset, whereby *any* piece of turf once 'Islamised' is meant to remain Muslim turf - and that includes a city block on which a mosque is built - in a book called "Faith, Power and Territory'. Worth getting hold of: solid and scholarly, full of useful observations.
It might be worthwhile trying to find out how much your local church or other religious and community bodies - schools, too - know about Islam.
Get hold of a few things from The Barnabas Fund - they have nicely-presented easy-to-read fully-referenced information booklets on 'Islam and Truth' (includes a discussion of Islamic deception, taqiyya), 'What is Sharia?', and 'Islam and Slavery' which might be worth sharing with your neighbours. You could pay a visit to your local church and accidentally-on-purpose leave a few of these on the literature shelf, or offer them to the priest or parson.
I observe from the link that there is a mosque there already - what is happening is that it is expanding massively - the design includes two towering minarets - to cater for a 'growing' Muslim population.
This in..Georgia.
I would dearly like to know how high those minarets will be in relation to the surrounding streetscape - especially the spires of any churches.