The latest on Afghanistan and President Karzai

Did you see this? The latest news out of Afghanistan is that President Karzai now wants to "impose rules restricting international involvement in anti-corruption investigations." One of his underlings also said the following: "The management will be Afghan, and the decision-makers will be Afghan, and the investigators will be Afghan," Mohammad Umer Daudzai, Karzai's chief of staff, said in a telephone interview Wednesday. Foreign advisers, most of whom work for the U.S. Justice Department, will be limited to "training and coaching, but not decision-making," he said. And then Karzai will put in his own, hand-picked staff for the agencies, too, I'll wager and they'll share the take. If it were any place but Afghanistan, you can understand why a leader would want to maintain internal control and not let outsiders in. But this is Afghanistan and Hamid Karzai is overseeing millions and billions of American tax dollars flooding into his country, because of this stupid war there. Last month he fired the corruption investigator. The guy was getting too close to the truth. I have said here before and I will say again, Afghan President Hamid Karzai is fleecing his own country by stealing from us, from the US right now. No one's talking about it in our government because they don't want to undermine the average person's support for the war. But years from now, we'll find out this thief took millions of dollars, at least, for himself, his family and friends and supporters, before he left office and that country. He's likely making like a bandit right now, as long as the American dollars flow in. We deserve to know what's going on over there--we can handle the truth--and we need to push this guy to do the right thing for his own people and for us, too. Link to original stories: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/08/AR2010090805935.html?hpid=topnews; http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/world/asia/29afghan.html

Worst. Ever.

The inspiration of tonight's entry is from having just watched a "Frontline" edition on PBS about the recent--and not so recent--past and present of the Afgahnistan war, pointing out where we've been, where we are and where we must go, there and internationally.

Considering the following:

1) How thinly the US military is spread, between our 2 ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

2) What a complete clusterflick the war in Iraq is and has been

3) What a complete clusterflick the war in Afghanistan is and has been

4) How badly planned the Iraq war has been and is

5) How badly planned (or unplanned) the Afghanistan war is and has been

6) How large a deficit the United States already has

7) How badly our current American government is spending money

8) How corrupt our current American government is and has been

9) How incompetent and ineffective our current American government is and has been

10) How badly damaged the American economy is, largely due to the lack of regulation of the banking industry by this administration and its Republican Party

11) How badly damaged the world economies are, again, due largely to the collateral damage set upon the world from the deregulation of the banking and other industries by this administration and its Republican Party

and more, the question rears its obvious, ugly and ominous head:

How can you come to any other conclusion but that this current 7+ year old Presidential Administration of George W. Bush is the most corrupt, incompetent, ineffective and most exposed to graft and cronyism in the entire history of this same country?

In short, how can you not say that this administration of George W. Bush is the worst, literally, worst administration ever, in the history of the United States?

Ulysses Grant and Warren G. Harding or any other president no longer share this title.

Wost. President. Ever.

If you ever voted for George W. Bush, we blame you.

And we're pissed.

Mr. "Big Oil" President, George W. Bush, et. al

Whistleblower: Oil watchdog agency 'cult of corruption' (from CNN news, just now)

HONOLULU, Hawaii (CNN) -- Bobby Maxwell kept a close eye on the oil industry for more than 20 years as a government auditor. But he said the federal agency he worked for is now a "cult of corruption" -- a claim backed up by a recent government report.

Bobby Maxwell, a long-time auditor of the oil industry, says his former agency is corrupt "top to bottom."

"I believe the management we were under was showing favoritism to the oil industry," Maxwell told CNN.

Maxwell is referring to a tiny agency within the Department of the Interior called the Minerals Management Service, which manages the nation's natural gas, oil and other mineral resources on federal lands.

A report, conducted by the Interior Department's inspector general and released earlier this month, found that employees at the agency received improper gifts from energy industry officials and engaged with them in illegal drug use and inappropriate sexual relations. It looked at activities at the agency from 2003 through 2006.

Maxwell said the report doesn't surprise him. The agency, he said, is corrupt "top to bottom." Watch a failure to "protect America's interests" »

"It sounds like they forgot they work for the government," he said. "It's disgusting. ... There's no excuse for that. Those people should not be working in those positions at all.

"They crossed a lot of lines that should never have been crossed," he said. "They lost all objectivity."

Maxwell was in charge of keeping track of the millions in royalty payments owed taxpayers by oil and gas companies who explored and found oil on U.S. government lands.

He estimates he and his team were responsible for saving the government close to $500million in royalties, either underpaid or somehow skipped by oil and gas companies, over the years.

He received the Interior Department's highest award in 2003 for his work. But not long afterward, his job was killed.

He believes it was retribution for his cracking down on Big Oil and blowing the whistle on what he believes was a "cult of corruption" within the agency. The Interior Department denies that, saying his job was reorganized as part of routine restructuring.

Just before he lost his job, he said, one of his superiors in Washington ordered him not to investigate why Shell Oil had raised its oil transportation costs. Maxwell said it jumped from 90 cents to $3 a barrel without adequate explanation. The government paid Shell to transport oil from offshore platforms.

When asked why a government worker would tell an auditor not to investigate, he said: "I believe it started from the top down," he said.

Shell Oil told CNN it "pays the same rate any shipper does" and that it has "never engaged in fraudulent transactions or entered into sham contracts as Mr. Maxwell alleges."

Maxwell, a registered independent, said the shift in attitude at the agency began about seven or eight years ago, about the time the Bush administration came into power. He said he was discouraged from aggressively auditing oil companies.

"Laws and regulations were not applied, also not enforced," he said.

The inspector general's 27-page summary says that nearly a third of the roughly 60 people in Maxwell's former office received gifts and gratuities from oil industry executives.

Two received improper, if not illegal, gifts at least 135 times, the report says. It goes on to describe a wild atmosphere in which some staff members admitted using cocaine and marijuana.

In addition, two female workers at the Minerals Management Service were known as the "MMS chicks" and both told investigators they had sex with oil industry officials they were supposed to be auditing.

One e-mail from a pipeline company representative invited government workers to a tailgating party: "Have you and the girls meet at my place at 6 a.m. for bubble baths and final prep ... Just kidding."

Inspector General Earl Devaney said in a letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne accompanying the report that it details "a textbook example of improperly receiving gifts from prohibited sources."

Maxwell is now retired from the government and teaches at the University of Hawaii. He said it was just a matter of time until the agency's behavior was exposed. He feels vindicated now in the wake of the inspector general's report, but is still disgusted by what he was happening at the Minerals Management Service.

"Their job is to protect United States taxpayers' interest. It's like they completely forgot that, like they just became part of the oil companies," he said.

The Interior Department said it could not comment on Maxwell's specific allegations or removal, saying his former supervisor no longer works for the Interior Department either.

Kempthorne said he was "outraged" by the disclosures in the inspector general's report and that the actions "of a few has cast a shadow on the entire agency."

But the department said there is no evidence taxpayers lost money as a result of unethical behavior between government workers and the oil and gas industry.

Maxwell doubts that.

The former auditor said he'd love to put all the government royalty records under his magnifying glass.

"I think the government should be transparent. We are for the people, by the people. This is the government. We're here to serve," he said.

Maxwell has filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the Kerr-McGee Corp., an energy company involved in oil and gas exploration. In it, he claims the company defrauded taxpayers out of millions in oil royalty payments.

The company denies the accusation. If Maxwell wins, the government would recieve about $40 million in additonal revenue and Maxwell would be entitled to about a third of that.
____________________________________________

I quit putting articles out here I didn't myself write, until this one, today. I couldn't say this any better, or more completely.

It all disgusts me so thoroughly, all I can do is tell everyone I can, all I can about this thoroughly corrupt, self-serving, greedy President, George W. Bush, his administration, his family members, friends and colleagues.

They repulse me.

It's important that we not be so numbed by the corruption and illegality of this administration that we are not shocked by what they've done and what they're still doing. If we are numbed, they win more completely. We have to better and stronger than that, frankly.

We'd have loved to have been wrong

In 2000, there were a great deal of us who were concerned about having George Walker Bush as our President--at all, let alone for 8 full, inglorious years.

And while the same is true of Ronald Reagan, at least with him we survived and he didn't totally ruin the country. Sure, his administration did things that were illegal and unconstitutional, too, like George has done and is doing, but even he didn't have the cajones and outright, outrageous ignorance to take his administration and our country too far.

Then came George.

Before Molly Ivins died, God bless and rest her soul, she warned us what kind of spoiled child/dolt we were dealing with here.

And the family, too--she warned us about them, as did Kevin Phillips.

But now, here we are, at the end of George's 2 crime- and cronyism- and incompetence-ridden terms and the only things we can say are that 1) we'd have loved to have been wrong about him (that he really wasn't that stupid and/or irresponsible) and 2) I told you so.

The only satisfaction and vindication about having suffered this fool for 8 years is that now, the chickens have come home to roost, so to speak.

To wit:

Time Magazine recently ran an article, summarizing this President's tenure and resultant effects on the country. I will only give two paragraphs of the full article (which, as a matter of fact, isn't even all about George, he's incidental):

"It now seems clear that George W. Bush will be remembered for symmetrical disasters. His presidency began with the destruction of the Twin Towers by al-Qaeda terrorists. It is ending with the devastation of the Twin Trillions — the money spent on a foolish war in Iraq ($653 billion and counting) and on the bailout of a financial industry gone hog wild during the Reagan-initiated Era of Deregulation. Bush has revived Big Government in the worst possible way: the middle class will pay, in perpetuity, for the sins of the powerful."

More:

"It is hard to put a smiley face on this stinker. A crash — and this one seems a doozy — usually announces the arrival of hard times. The real economic woe is yet to come, as credit dries up and the economy slips into recession. The power of the next President seems destined to be severely constrained by huge debts and diminishing tax receipts — unless he finds some creative ways out of the morass ..."

(A link to the full article is here:
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1844157,00.html)

So I come back to a question I've posted before and asked many times:

Can someone please tell me what was ever conservative about George W. Bush?

--His administration reached government further into American's personal lives than any other in the history of our nation.

--He spent more money than any other President, again, in the history of this country.

--He used our military, against our Constitution and international law, to go into another country, preemptorily, unilaterally and without cause, to attack them and oust their leader, however much a tyrant he was.

--He has now taken nearly one trillion dollars of this country's tax money--our money--and given it to private business because unregulated banks manipulated us into a nightmare economic scenario.

and so much more.

I repeat: WHAT WAS, EVER, CONSERVATIVE, ABOUT GEORGE WALKER BUSH?

As a last mention: I will also say again, if you voted for George W. Bush, even once, let alone--God forbid--twice, WE BLAME YOU.

I'm not kidding on that last part.

Fantastic Ironies

I've written here before of my strong fondness for irony and ironies. Right now, three whoppers occurred to me so naturally I want to share.

The first is John McCain's pick for his Vice President.

Obama isn't an old white guy so he had to pick one as his VP. McCain isn't a reasonably young person, a minority to boot, with energy who might also have new ideas and creativity so that's what he picked.

How great is that?

The real irony comes in the fact that McCain's been complaining of his rival's relative inexperience and lack of seasoning and testing. So who does he pick as a possible next VP should, God forbid, something happen to him, if he's elected President? (Again, God forbid). He picks a younger person (that isn't the hard part) with EVEN LESS experience than Obama.

How can he now complain of Obama's lack of experience?

It seems he's taken away one of his own talking points.

The second delicious irony comes from quite possibly a really terrible coincidence. I got to thinking how awful it is, right now, like everyone else, that this Hurricane Gustav seems to be headed straight for New Orleans at virtually the exact 3 year anniversary of devastating Hurricane Katrina.

How terrible for the people there.

But the irony here comes from the fact that the Republican Party may have to delay it's national nominating convention that's due to start Monday. Sure, part of it is because some of these party leaders are governors and other legislators who might need to be down there, in case of any emergencies.

But the biggest reason they may need to delay is because it points out how badly this Republican administration--and party, really--mismanaged and mangled the recovery efforts in New Orleans, those 3 years ago.

Can you imagine if there's many problems down there and they go ahead with their convention? The perfect part would be the day this chucklehead President would be giving his speech. Yow. It just couldn't get any better than that.

And then there's my third, final and, I think, best irony of the day/week/month. And that is that the Republican National Convention is being held in Minnesota.

Why, you ask?

Well, because this is the one place that Senator Craig, of Idaho, cannot possibly attend because it was at this airport that he solicited a male policeman for sex in a public bathroom stall and got caught.

One more Republican officeholder, caught in illicit, public, gay sex, when this is the intolerant party that hates gays.


So there you are campers--irony. Delicious, Republican Party irony.

Enjoy.

I know I am.