I’ve finally found the one true reason we are still in Iraq.
We aren’t there for the weapons of mass destruction, because there aren’t any. We aren’t there to bring democracy to the Middle East because we haven’t done a thing to accomplish that (in fact we may have set it back a 1000 years). We aren’t there for the oil (at least not yet) because the Iraqis won’t pass an oil law turning over most of their profits to our “friends” at Big Oil. We aren’t there to rid Iraq of Saddam, because, well, he’s dead. And we aren’t there to stymie Iran, because by all accounts Iranian influence has increased since we invaded Iraq.
So why are we still there accomplishing nothing other than death (thousands of Iraqis, Americans and assorted others each month) and destruction (in the billions of dollar), and the wargasm said death and destruction engenders in right wing bloggers (priceless)? So “free marketeers” can continue to make easy money from their Big Government contracts, that’s why, even when (or should I say especially when) they don’t provide what those contracts require of them:
The [USA Today] found that, through October, more than two-thirds of contracts flagged by auditors as “inflated, erroneous or otherwise improper” eventually found their way to approval, representing over $1 billion.
(Cont.)
Of course, that only represents the “wasteful” contracts the auditors catch. Considering that its highly likely the number of auditors on the job in Iraq are woefully insufficient to monitor all of the contracts that the Bush administration has seen fit to so “liberally” dispense to our needy contractors and defense companies in America, I doubt we catch even a fraction of the fraud and waste that goes on there. Which means that the true number of wasteful, fraudulent or purely bogus contracts is probably much higher. Yet, even when caught stealing from the till, as it were, these contractors know they stand a 66% chance they’ll still get to keep the government’s money along with the chance to steal even more. What a country!
In short, Iraq is the world’s greatest boondoggle. A gold rush of a boondoggle, in fact. Money is tossed around (literally) like lettuce at a produce market, and if a few billion goes missing here or there, so what? It’s not like the ideologues in charge of dispensing this largesse care, so long as its going to a good cause (i.e., a past and/or current contributor to the GOP). It’s not their money their handing out to their pals, after all. It’s yours and mine. And if you’ve ever had the good fortune to go to a casino with someone else’s money in your pocket, well, I think you can get a handle on the psychology involved here. No wonder Bush liked the “surge” strategy so much. More troops cost more money. And where does that money go?
That last question is rhetorical, folks. Supply your own answer.
