We need to shut down the big-spending, irresponsible party that is the Pentagon and the Defense Department

It seems that stories come out repeatedly about either the

• waste at the Pentagon and/or the Defense Department or the 
• overspending or 
• the nefarious person, persons or organizations that are getting Defense Department funds, at least in the millions of dollars, if not billions
• or the horrible theft of money, outright, usually in some foreign country like Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan or wherever. 

This seems like a case of Emily Latella's old SNL late-night skit "If it isn't one thing, it's another."

Well, out today is another, disgustingly enough:

Pentagon Awards $630m Afghanistan Contract to Controversial Supplier

The Pentagon has awarded an Afghanistan fuel supply contract worth a potential $630m to Mina Corp, a highly-secretive company which refuses to disclose its ownership and whose role is under investigation by the US Congress.


The award of the contract to supply the Manas Air Base in Kyrgystan goes directly against the requests of the country's President, Roza Otunbayeva, making it an enormous diplomatic gamble for the US.

And I'm like, "You're kidding me.  Can we NEVER learn?"

Seemingly, the answer is no.

And wait.  It gets better.

No, worse:

Mina Corp and Red Star, which share personnel and operations, have won more than $3bn worth of contracts to supply Manas and the Bagram airbase in Afghanistan since 2003, but have never revealed their ownership.


We're giving money to people and companies and we don't even know who owns the companies.  Brilliant.


Still more:


The award has been made even more controversial by the revelation in the Washington Post over the weekend that Erkin Bekbolotov, one of Mina Corp's partners, met with Atai Sadybakasov, Mrs Otunbayeva's son, in Istanbul in July. Two revolutions in the country in the past five years have been caused in part by public suspicions that the families of the then-Presidents were benefiting from the contracts.


And yet more, of course:


Mrs Otunbayeva has in recent months lobbied Washington to cancel the tender and instead give the contract to a joint venture between Russian state-controlled oil firm Gazpromneft and a state-owned Kyrgyz oil company.


Right, there's a great idea.  Let's give it to the Russians.


So, check this out--our government does have SOMEONE trying to see if the ruling family over there was benefiting from this:


John Tierney, chairman the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which launched its investigation into the two companies in April, confirmed yesterday that his team had discovered no evidence of business links between Mina Corp and the former president's family.


'Cuz, sure, they're not going to try to HIDE any illegality or inpropiety, are they?  If there's anything wrong, I'm sure it will be EASY to find!

This on top of the fact that it was just announced that we are now going to spend five hundred and eleven million dollars (over one-half billion dollars) to expand our Kabul embassy.

Holy cow.  Where does it end?  When do we stop pouring out the money, particularly to far-flung countries and locales, when we need the health care system and infrastructure and schools, etc., etc.

Then there is the debacle that still is Iraq.  We have 50,000 soldiers still in country, with millions of dollars surely still pouring in.  Can you imagine what waste and fraud is there that we're not hearing about.

If you want me, I'll be over here, banging my head against this wall.

Links:  http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/04-6
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SGE6A2087.htm