The Band Marches On: War Profiteers Find Ever More Sickening Ways To Commit Treason

2008-03-22T21:54:31Z

"There is such a thirst for gain [among military suppliers]...that it is enough to make one curse their own Species, for possessing so little virtue and patriotism." -- President George Washington, 1778

George Washington knew a thing or two about war. Unlike a more recent George W, he chose to actually fight in one to defend what he believed, instead of simply paying it lip service while bottom-up in an alley somewhere with a fifth of Scotch in tow.

In fact, when it came to engaging in armed conflict, the Founding Fathers considered enriching oneself through war the lowest form of treason. These days among the GOP donor class it has a different name.

A day at the office.

Adding to what we learned from Robert Greenwald's terrific film on this topic, Iraq For Sale, a number of recent articles have helped shed a light on the sick practice of immensely profiting from unnecessary death, as well as the punishments meted out to whistleblowers for trying to help reign in this traitorous behavior. It is enough to make you wonder if we are still the United States we all grew up learning about, or have become something more akin to the Roman Empire (ask Larry Craig about that).

Matt Taibbi, in a recent piece for The Rolling Stone, describes one typical case this way:

You start off as a well-connected bureaucrat: in this case, as an Air Force civil engineer, a post from which Robbins was responsible for overseeing 70,000 servicemen and contractors, with an annual budget of $8 billion. You serve with distinction for thirty-four years, becoming such a military all-star that the Air Force frequently sends you to the Hill to testify before Congress -- until one day in the summer of 2003, when you retire to take a job as an executive for Parsons, a private construction company looking to do work in Iraq.
....
A few months later, in March 2004, your company magically wins a contract from the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq to design and build the Baghdad Police College, a facility that's supposed to house and train at least 4,000 police recruits. But two years and $72 million later, you deliver not a functioning police academy but one of the great engineering clusterfucks of all time, a practically useless pile of rubble so badly constructed that its walls and ceilings are literally caked in shit and piss, a result of subpar plumbing in the upper floors.

Yes, if this doesn't remind you of the very "military industrial complex" President Eisenhower--a Republican at a time when they were actually a respectable party instead of a collection of self-hating lunatics--warned us about in his farewell speech, you're dumber than Dubya.

This shameful case is but one of thousands: Billions disappear in Iraq, Katrina becomes a money-making venture for those who have already screwed up multiple times in Iraq and no-bid contract has become a household term learned by every American during the corrupt reign of The Decider.

Take our friends at CACI. No, please take them. Would it surprise you in any way to find out that they are up to their necks in piles of naked men at Abu Ghraib:

J.P. London at Brave New Films

The Band Marches On: War Profiteers Find Ever More Sickening Ways To Commit Treason