Monthly Archives: April 2013

Well, don’t I feel like an idiot.

For at least a year or so, I’ve been railing about corruption in Afghanistan under President Hamid Karzai and the need for us to withdraw our troops. Like now.

Turns out the situation was even worse than I ever dreamed. Or even the rest of America or Congress believed.

In fact, it turns out the biggest corrupting influence in Afghanistan was our very own CIA, who monthly dropped off suit cases of cash right at the offices of President Karzai.

And, nope. This isn’t a joke. Karzai confirmed the story just hours after it broke in The New York Times.

The biggest irony is this: Congressman Jason Chaffetz, a Republican from Utah, had literally headed up a House subcommittee to investigate corruption in Afghanistan.

“I thought we were trying to clean up waste, fraud and abuse in Afghanistan,” said Chaffetz. “We have no credibility on this issue when we’re complicit ourselves.”

Want to know what big, bad country used similar tactics? Nope. Not Russia, but a good first guess. Try Iran for the Daily Double. (See first link that mentions suit cases, and you’ll see this tidbit in the story.)

But you’re still not incensed yet, right? I see a few of you out there with skeptical looks on your faces. This is war, things aren’t black and white, you say, blah, blah, blah.

Well, get this, from the first link: “there is little evidence that the payments bought the influence the C.I.A. sought. Instead, some American officials said, the cash has fueled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington’s exit strategy from Afghanistan. ‘The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan,’ one American official said, ‘was the United States.'”

More so than ever, we need to get out of Afghanistan, like now.

And boy does it suck to know that part of those taxes you just paid a couple of weeks ago did more than help deadbeats and fat cats with bullshit defense contracts… Yep, part of that money you sent into the IRS went straight to Afghanistan, to one of the most corrupt leaders in the world. Of course, thinking back just a bit. I guess Karzai isn’t the first piece of shit to get our tax dollars.

We can add Saddam to the list and a whole host of others, but at least in most of those cases, Congress knew. And my final point before I close. I’m seriously skeptical that any investigations will take place on this.

Why? Because the program started under Bush, so Republicans will want to leave it alone. And Democrats won’t embarrass Obama, since he likely continued it. Sigh. (Please consider sharing this post on your blog, twitter, and  facebook accounts. Everyone needs to know about this, and everyone needs to start working to get us out of Afghanistan sooner rather than later. Even retired Four-Star General Colin Powell thinks it’s time.)

Stan R. Mitchell

Oak Ridge, Tenn.

P.S. Please accept the greatest gift I can give, a book I believe to be worth $10,000.

P.P.S. Thanks to all who continue to make my novels a success. I seriously couldn’t have done it without everyone’s support. Please continue to talk about them, share links to them, and review them where you can. Oh, and don’t forget to follow my blog — you can do so by email up at the top right of the page.

We all know that when you need something done, you send in the Marines.

The Department of Defense decided this week to forward deploy 550 Marines (along with plenty of air-lift support) to Spain. The Department wants the Marines staged near Africa and other hot spots so that the next time an attack happens against an embassy or consul (such as what happened at the compound in Benghazi, Libya), forces are already staged nearby.

My readers know I’m not much of a fan of all these alliances and interventions overseas, but if we’re going to be involved, then we need rapid-action forces nearby.

Sound move by the Defense Department in my opinion.

Stan R. Mitchell

Oak Ridge, Tenn.

P.S. Please accept the greatest gift I can give, a book I believe to be worth $10,000.

P.P.S. Thanks to all who continue to make my novels a success. I seriously couldn’t have done it without everyone’s support. Please continue to talk about them, share links to them, and review them where you can. Oh, and don’t forget to follow my blog — you can do so by email up at the top right of the page.

I’ve been enjoying Twitter more of late, but it’s taken me almost six months to get to where I even like Twitter.

I also still vastly prefer blogging, and the longer comments and discussion.

As such, I thought I’d share with you some of the interesting stuff I saw on Twitter last. Love to discuss any of it with you below in the comments!

The failed gun vote was obviously big news. Here are a few tweets on that worth seeing.

Finally, I saw this eyebrow raiser worth noting…

I wrote about the proposed new medal for cyber warriors and drone pilots back in February, and how I agreed with the VFW that it should in no way be ranked higher than a Bronze Star.

I mean, really? Someone in a chair gets an award higher than someone who actually gets fired at? (Note: I am not saying drone pilots don’t do important work. Increasingly, in fact, their work exceeds in importance that of ground pounders like me. But that does not mean they are braver or should be rewarded as such.)

Anyway, yesterday the idea for the medal was canceled. See here.

Thank you, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, for showing some common sense.

Here’s reason number 101 for why we shouldn’t stick our noses in everyone’s business.

The U.S. Army just wrapped up shipping its last tanks home from Germany. That’s right, almost 70 years after World War II, we’ve finally pulled the last of our tanks out of Germany. (Story here.)

On the bright side, at the height of our troop deployments there, we had right at 6,000 tanks in Germany.

Nothing like defending a country that we spent millions of dollars and years and years to defeat. Speaking of which, this seems to sound like our situation in Japan. Oh, and in South Korea. Oh, and in Kuwait.

Since I’ve almost given up on convincing my fellow Americans to become okay with a more British-like, post-World War II situation where we downsize our forces and leave everyone alone, I’m wondering if I can get people on board with charging these countries for providing for their defense?

After all, we’ve got to be one of the only countries in history who hasn’t used their military for conquest. (Hat tip on this story goes to Brandon Friedman.)