There is never a shortage of Stupid in American politics, but by normal standards, our recent history has been pretty spectacular. Rep. Anthony Weiner is caught in what could very easily go down in history as the single most absurd sex scandal to ever unfold. The Republican leadership continues to play chicken with the debt limit, making even the titans of the financial industry nervous. Michele Bachmann is being taken seriously by the “mainstream” news media after the first GOP debate…and as far as Stupid goes, really, that's all you need to say.
Sometimes, however, the Stupid skyrockets to new and heretofore unknown heights. It takes a special kind of purebred dunderhead to raise the benchmark, and in that spirit, I give you Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), who opined last week that once Iraq becomes a rich and prosperous country, they should repay the United States for the money spent on the invasion and occupation.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Now, don't get me wrong: it would be awfully nice to have back the hundreds of billions of dollars that were wasted through our blood-soaked exercise in futility in Iraq. Given the current state of the American economy, suddenly having gobs of cash injected back into society would indeed be a boon. We could maybe stop terrorizing elderly people with threats to the continued existence of Medicare. We could stop dunning public-sector employees and actually pay them what they deserve. We could even perhaps fix a bridge or two.
Don’t miss a beat – get Truthout Daily Email Updates. Click here to sign up for free.
But you see, that money is already spent. It did not just dry up and blow away. It was stolen in fistfuls by companies like Halliburton and KBR. It was stolen in fistfuls by private mercenary contractors like Blackwater. Thieving scumbags like Ahmed Chalabi got their slice, and as for the rest? Well…
The Iraqi and U.S. governments have been unable to account for a substantial chunk of the billions of dollars in reconstruction aid the Bush administration literally airlifted into the country. If the cash proves to have been stolen, the heist could represent “the largest theft of funds in national history,” according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
Pentagon officials determined that one giant C-130 Hercules cargo plane could carry $2.4 billion in shrink-wrapped bricks of $100 bills. They sent an initial full planeload of cash, followed by 20 other flights to Iraq by May 2004 in a $12-billion haul that U.S. officials believe to be the biggest international cash airlift of all time.
Iraqi officials say it was the U.S. government's job to keep track of the funds, which were brought in as an emergency measure to keep basic infrastructure going after Saddam Hussein's ouster. House Government Reform Committee investigators found in 2005 evidence of “substantial waste, fraud and abuse in the actual spending and disbursement of the Iraqi funds.”
Witnesses testified that millions of dollars were shoved into “gunnysacks” and disbursed to Iraqi contractors on pick-up trucks, with what seemed to be little financial controls or accounting on the part of the U.S. government.
Think it was an accident? That all this plunder took place because of a lack of “oversight?”
Ha.
The first thing George W. Bush and his people did upon (literally) taking office was to rampage through the Clinton surplus by way of two insane tax giveaways to the wealthiest among us. This was done for one reason: to kill the federal government's ability to spend money on the citizenry. The Grover Norquist “Drown It In The Bathtub” tactic extended to a pair of wars – one in Afghanistan and the other in Iraq – that became the single greatest defense industry payday in human history…while further denuding the federal government's ability to spend money on the citizenry. It was not an accident, but a deliberate plan, and from their perspective, it was executed flawlessly. This was a smash-and-grab robbery writ large, and if you think all that money is just “gone,” well, you must not travel in the “right” circles.
The current crop of Republican leaders still play from the same cheat sheet, as evidenced by their desire to annihilate the remaining shreds and tatters of the American economy by threatening to let the debt limit slip, even as they chortle into their sleeves about getting away with several of the greatest American bank robberies of all time. Why are they daring the economy to implode? So they can eviscerate Medicare and Social Security, of course, not to mention collective bargaining rights and the ability of workers to earn a fair wage.
And after all that, one of their bright bulbs coughs up the suggestion that a nation we literally ground into powder should do us a big favor and pay us back all the money we spent putting boots to their necks and bullets through their bodies.
Hm…I wonder how soon that will happen…
BAGHDAD-In a city where sand clings to everything and the culture permits empty plastic water bottles to be tossed into the street, residents in the city's prosperous Zayuna neighborhood make sure their lawns stay green and their fruit trees are pruned. But when residents step out of their walled-in sanctuaries, they can't escape a city that in many ways still feels ungovernable more than eight years after the U.S.-led invasion.
They see dirt and gravel streets marked by ruts and sinkholes large enough to swallow a tire. Empty lots are garbage pits, and sewage from broken pipes collects in small pools on neighborhood streets amid downed cables and wires. There are a few slides at the neighborhood playground, but nearly as many abandoned cars.
Although security has improved in recent years, the task of overseeing the estimated 250,000 police and army officials who guard the city has also created new management concerns, ranging from gaps in intelligence sharing to frustrations from local officials about who should be contacted to report a suspicious vehicle. Meanwhile, Baghdad's municipal government continues to sputter as different entities jockey for control over reconstruction dollars and grapple over whether American-style local governments can work in the Middle East.
“Baghdad lives in chaos, chaos, chaos,” said Jawad al-Hasnawi, a parliament member.
Yes, friends and neighbors, these are the strokes of genius we have come to expect from our friends in the GOP. And people wonder why the United States of America is down in the ditch.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We’re presently working to find 1500 new monthly donors to Truthout before the end of the year.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy