Musings 53--It's only money!

While the world goes on nicely spinning, the debacle in Iraq continues. The UK Guardian has a nice bit of investigative reporting that is scary reading. If you are an American taxpayer, you should read the article word by word. (See the Link.)

As I have written about before and linked before, there are billions of dollars that is unaccounted for in Iraq. Apparently, the former administrator, Mr. Brimer, handed out truck loads of money to about anyone brave enough show up and get some. There is also evidence that corruption might exist in the U. S. Military. Rumor has it--again see the above link-- that some American military personnel have padded their retirement accounts. When you hand out money with no accounting, it is easy for it to get funneled into private accounts. Large sums of money can corrupt even the best of folks.

Being a taxpayer and footing my share of the bill in Iraq, I want an investigation into where all of this money went. I want to know why no accounting was done. I want to know where the 8.8 billion dollars of missing money went. Just because there is a war going on does not mean that there shouldn't be accounting of funds.

There is also evidence that some of the new Iraqi government officials have tried to sneak out millions of American dollars to private accounts abroad. I guess there is no reason having power if you don't have some lucre hidden somewhere.

If there are individuals--government or military--who are padding their bank accounts while participating in this war, they should be charged with the maximum crimes possible and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. If you get rich while the every day soldier is bleeding, you should be in for a short rope and a long drop.

"The love of money is the root of all evil." That is the biblical quote that we all learned in Sunday school. If there are companies and individuals stealing in Iraq, we need to "root" them out.

I don't want to hear the lame excuse that we can't investigate these things because they hurt the troops. Gee, but that is getting old. If we have officers and officials that are feathering their nests--that is what is really hurting the troops.

The wild west was a place of immense corruption in the late 1800's. Many compare Iraq to those wild and wooly days. Well, if that is the case; then, we need someone to act the role of the U. S. Marshall in Iraq. It has to happen.

Unfortunately, there are those among us who will say that it is only money. Yeah, right. It is always about the money.

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The Karl Rove story about the outing of an American CIA agent has not exactly caught on with the mainstream media. Since I was aware of him being the leak on Friday, it took nearly three days for the TV media to work up much of a response. I suppose, if the O'Rielly's and Hannity's of the world aren't outraged; then, the print media just takes its good old time. No wonder folks don't read newspaper anymore.

This is the story that won't go away. It will build and build until it boils over. Some things just take a little time.