I hope the trip is worth it, American taxpayers.
"Afghanistan road project a study in cost, corruption; Highway parable of good intentions gone bad for US" May 01, 2011|By Alissa J. Rubin and James Risen, New York Times
GARDEZ, Afghanistan — Subcontractors, flush with US money, paid Arafat at least $1 million a year to keep them safe, according to people involved in the project and Arafat himself.
Isn't that extortion?
The money paid to Arafat bought neither security nor the highway that US officials have long envisioned as a vital route to tie remote border areas to the Afghan government.
Must be a military supply line of some kind.
Instead, it added to the staggering cost of the road, known as the Gardez-Khost Highway, one of the most expensive and troubled transportation projects in Afghanistan.
The 64-mile highway, which has yet to be completed, has cost about $121 million so far, with the final price tag expected to reach $176 million — or about $2.8 million a mile — according to US officials. Security alone has cost $43.5 million so far, USAID officials said.
The vast expenses and unsavory alliances surrounding the highway have become a parable of the corruption and mismanagement that turns so many well-intended development efforts in Afghanistan into sinkholes for the money of US taxpayers, even nine years into the war.
But we can't leave because (insert bulls*** reason here).
The road is one of the most expensive construction projects per mile undertaken by USAID, which has built or rehabilitated hundreds of miles of Afghan highways and has faced delays and cost overruns on similar projects, according to the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction.
Yeah, somehow the checks still get sent from Congress -- as they whack away at social programs and all the spending America needs.
This as OUR INFRASTRUCTURE is FALLING APART!
After years of warnings that Arafat was making a small fortune playing both sides in the war — and after recent queries by The New York Times about payments to him — US officials said they finally had moved to cut him off in April.
Despite the expense, a stretch of the highway completed just six months ago is already falling apart and remains treacherous.
AmeriKan craftsmanship!
I'm sure the construction contractor simply bought cheaper materials and pocketed the savings.
The unfinished portion runs through Taliban territory, raising questions about how it can be completed.
Completing it wasn't the point; getting war loot into the hands of certain favored interests was!
Cost overruns are already more than 100 percent, all for a road where it was never certain that local Afghans wanted it as badly as the US officials who planned it.
We are here to liberate you; who cares if you don't want our military supply line running through your community?
At their worst, the failures have financed the very insurgents that NATO and Afghan forces are struggling to defeat.
Yeah, it is a HELL of a GOOD WAY to KEEP a WAR and OCCUPATION going, huh?
Some US officials and contractors involved in the project suspect that at least some of the money funneled through Arafat made its way to the Haqqani group, a particularly brutal offshoot of the Taliban.
Oh, the Haqqani group!
"Haqqani.... credited with introducing suicide bombing to the region.... cultivated as a "unilateral" asset of the CIA and received tens of thousands of dollars in cash for his work.... He may have had a role in expediting the escape of Osama Bin Laden.... In July 2008, CIA officials confronted Pakistan officials with evidence of ties between Inter-Services Intelligence and Haqqani. Haqqani has been accused of involvement in the 2008 Indian embassy bombing in Kabul.... The Haqqani Network is based in Pakistan and is believed to have links to Al Qaeda."
Think of Arafat as a middle man and CIA contact.
Critics say that payoffs to insurgent groups, either directly or indirectly, by contractors working on highways and other large projects in Afghanistan are routine.
Translation: This "war" is ALL BULLS***!!!!
It's an EXCUSE for us to BE THERE to GUARD OIL PIPELINES and DRUG PROFITS!!!!
Some officials say they are widely accepted in the field as a cost of doing business, especially in areas not fully under the control of the US military or the Afghan government. As a result, contracting companies and the US officials who supervise them often look the other way.
You read something like that and you realize the "war" is a TOTAL FRAUD!
So we are FUNDING the VERY PEOPLE we are FIGHTING, Americans?
“Does it keep the peace?’’ asked one US military officer with experience in volatile eastern Afghanistan. “Definitely. If the bad guys have a stake in the project, attacks go way down.’’
That thumping you hear is George Orwell revolving in his grave.
The officer, like many of the people interviewed, did not want to be named for fear of retribution for criticizing a project that is considered a priority by the US and Afghan governments.
Some also suspected that Arafat had been staging attacks himself to extort more money for protection, a vicious cycle of blackmail that contractors and US officials acknowledged was a common risk....
Related: The Boston Globe's Invisible Ink: False Flags Flying High in Afghanistan
The possibility that US taxpayers’ money has been going to someone with ties to an insurgency that has killed US soldiers and Afghan civilians is just one of the many problems of the Gardez-Khost Highway.
It is more than just a "problem" it is an OUTRAGE -- especially when you consider ALL the INNOCENT AFGHANS that HAVE BEEN KILLED!!!!!
From the beginning in 2007, no one thought that building the road would be easy. Traversing high, rugged terrain, the road rises to more than 9,000 feet. In winter, it is buried in deep snow. In summer, it is covered by a thick layer of chalky earth that engineers refer to as moon dust, which turns to mud in the rain.
But US officials judged the original price tag of $69 million to be worth the cost.
So which well-connected, war-profiteering corporation got the money?
The highway was seen as an important way to connect two mountainous provinces in southeast Afghanistan — Paktia and Khost —and wrest from the insurgents a route that they had long used to move money, men, and guns into Afghanistan from Pakistan’s tribal areas.
And here is your wad of cash for letting us do this, thank you.
Development officials hoped that the road would better link Afghanistan’s strategic border region to the central government in the capital, Kabul, and encourage commerce. The military hoped it would provide faster access for supplies and fresh troops.
By paving it?
I TOLD YOU this highway was ALL ABOUT AmeriKan SUPPLY LINES!!
You know, the very same ones we pay "Taliban" to attack.
However, interviews with more than 20 current and former US government officials, as well as military officers, private contractors, Afghan officials, and local Afghan tribal leaders, show that despite the lofty goals the highway project was troubled virtually from the start, and problems quickly mounted.
And yet the $$$ is STILL POURED IN!!!
--more--"
Other fellas hittin' the road:
"Prison break highlights Afghan weaknesses; Accounts suggest insiders involved in militants’ plan" April 26, 2011|By Mirwais Khan, Associated Press
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — During the long Afghan winter, Taliban insurgents were apparently busy underground.
The militants say they spent more than five months building a 1,050-foot tunnel to the main prison in southern Afghanistan, bypassing government checkpoints, watch towers, and concrete barriers topped with razor wire.
The diggers finally poked through Sunday and spent 4 ½ hours ferrying away more than 480 inmates without a shot fired, according to the Taliban and Afghan officials. Most of the prisoners were Taliban militants.
Accounts of the extraordinary prison break, carried out in the dead of night, suggest collusion with prison guards, officials, or both.
It's what is known as an INSIDE JOB!
Along with a wave of assassinations, the breakout underscores the weakness of the Afghan government in the south despite an influx of international troops, funding, and advisers. It also highlights the spirit and resourcefulness of the Taliban despite months of battlefield setbacks....
Looks like AmeriKan troops will just have to stay.
Access was denied to the tunnel itself, and it was unclear how the Taliban were able to move so many men out of the prison so quickly. Also unclear was why guards would not have heard the diggers punch through the cement.
A man who claimed he helped organize those inside the prison said he and his accomplices obtained copies of the keys for the cells ahead of time from “friends.’’ He did not say who those friends were....
There was no ignoring that the Taliban had pulled off a daring success under the noses of Afghan and NATO officials....
I'm wondering how many of them are going to pick up payoff checks.
The highest-profile Taliban inmates would likely not be held at Sarposa. The United States keeps detainees it considers a threat at a facility outside of Bagram Air Base in eastern Afghanistan. Other key Taliban prisoners are held by the Afghan government in a high-security wing of the main prison in Kabul.
Related: Afghans Despise AmeriKan Detention Dungeons
Wouldn't you?
--more--"
Update:
"Meanwhile, the Kandahar provincial governor’s office yesterday said troops have caught 71 of the more than 480 Taliban prisoners who escaped through an underground tunnel Monday and killed two who tried to resist. Authorities say they have biometric data on each prisoner, which aids in their identification.
--more--"
Related: The NATO Architects of the NWO
You won't be hitting the road anytime soon, America:
"Afghan war still not over, US warns; Some argue fight has shifted out of weary nation" May 03, 2011|By Deb Riechmann, Associated Press
KABUL — The United States and key allies fighting Taliban-led insurgents in Afghanistan insisted yesterday that the death of Osama bin Laden, who once found shelter there, would not mean a speedy end to the war or a rapid withdrawal of international troops.
Why not? The whole reason for being there was just eliminated. We got him!
Still, there were fresh arguments that the real war against Al Qaeda had shifted to beyond Afghan borders....
Un-flippin'-f***ing-real!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Antiforeigner sentiment is growing among Afghans increasingly tired of the nearly decadelong war and the failure of billions of dollars in international aid to improve their lives.
They are NOT the ONLY ONES!
And US officials could feel pressure at home as well.
Yes, thus ANOTHER "Al-CIA-Duh" FALSE FLAG is in the works (due on July 4)!
Snuffing out the Al Qaeda network has always been the top goal of US involvement in Afghanistan.
And that statement must be true because it is in my lying, agenda-pushing, war-promoting paper. Sure aren't in there to guard oil pipelines or drug profits for money-laundering banks.
Now that bin Laden is dead, calls could increase from war-weary Americans to speed up withdrawal of the nearly 100,000 US troops still fighting the Taliban, years after the Al Qaeda leadership they once harbored fled to Pakistan....
I'm not calling for a speed up of withdrawal; I'm calling for an ABOUT FACE and a FOR'D HARCH!
NOW!!!
Of course, they would only be pivoting and marching into Pakistan because that's for what this load of bin Laden garbage was intended.
Vali Nasr, until recently a senior US State Department adviser on Pakistan and Afghanistan, said bin Laden’s death on Pakistani soil reduces the importance of the Afghan war for US national security. It could make it easier for the United States to wind down the war there and focus more on Pakistan, he said.
“We could come to the conclusion that the sideshow ought to be the main show,’’ he said.
I couldn't agree more there.
For now, the United States is saying bin Laden’s death will not trigger a rapid withdrawal. The Taliban just launched its spring offensive in Afghanistan and deadly attacks still plague many parts of the country.
But I was told we are winning and attacks are down because we are paying them.
“This victory will not mark the end of our effort against terrorism,’’ said US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry in a statement released in Kabul. “America’s strong support for the people of Afghanistan will continue as before.’’
By strong support he means killing and jailing them.
Similarly, NATO said the alliance and its partners would “continue their mission to ensure that Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven for extremism, but develops in peace and security.’’
Orwell thumping around again.
Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said his country’s 1,500 troops in southern Afghanistan will “stay the course until our mission is complete.’’
Afghanistan’s Taliban government hosted bin Laden and Al Qaeda’s training camps until it was toppled in the United States-led invasion triggered by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Bin Laden’s large financial contributions to the Taliban government made him a valuable asset to their regime, and Taliban leaders refused requests to hand him over after he was linked to the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
Speaking of assets: Osama bin Laden, A.K.A. CIA Asset "Tim Osman"
After the start of the US bombardment in 2001, bin Laden and the rest of Al Qaeda’s central leadership slipped into hiding and then across the border to Pakistan, where they found shelter among antigovernment tribes along the border.
But back in Afghanistan, the remnants of the Taliban remained a resilient fighting force, and bin Laden’s death doesn’t change that, some analysts said....
That's weird because the corporate media over here is making it seem like this is a huge turning point and cause for celebration.
--more--"
Update: Calls grow for Afghan pullout
That was not the intended consequence of the propaganda, or was it?
Pulling out of Afghanistan and into Iran and Pakistan?
