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Afghan War: Where are your tax dollars going?
“I believe in a strong national defense. National defense is one of the essential functions of the Federal government.” – John Dennis
Opposition to the war in Afghanistan is found among American patriots nationwide. Patriots who, like John Dennis, understand and support the “common defense” advocated and called for within the US Constitution.
For the most part, the objections of "anti-war" candidates and representatives aren't due to misunderstanding the importance of such constitutional measures. Instead, their objections rise when news arrives home that the number of innocent civilians dying is only increasing, a corrupt central government is solidifying itself against the will of the people, and billions of tax-payer’s dollars are being sent alongside drug money to financial havens abroad-- as the Wall Street Journal recently reported (excerpt below). And last week Raw Story reported that, in addition to the $1 million per soldier per year, our taxes "are also being used to buy well-connected Afghans posh villas in Dubai."
“A lot of this looks like our tax dollars being stolen,” says a US official.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
OVER $3 billion in cash has been flown out of Kabul in recent years amid fears funds from corruption and narcotics are being stashed overseas.
The sums leaving through Kabul International Airport are so large that US investigators believe top Afghan officials and their associates are sending billions of diverted US aid and logistics dollars and drug money to financial safe havens abroad.
The cash - packed into suitcases, piled onto pallets and loaded into airplanes - is declared and legal to move.
But US and Afghan officials say they are targeting the flows in major anticorruption and drug trafficking investigations because of their size relative to Afghanistan's small economy and the murkiness of their origins.
Officials believe some of the cash, if not most, is siphoned from Western aid projects and US, European and NATO contracts to provide security, supplies and reconstruction work for coalition forces in Afghanistan.
NATO spent about $US14 billion in Afghanistan last year alone. Profits reaped from the opium trade are also a part of the money flow, as is cash earned by the Taliban from drugs and extortion, officials say.
The amount declared as it leaves the airport is vast in a nation where the gross domestic product last year totalled $US13.5 billion.
More declared cash flies out of Kabul each year than the Afghan government collects in tax and customs revenue nationwide. “It's not like they grow money on trees here,” said a US official investigating corruption and Taliban financing.
“A lot of this looks like our tax dollars being stolen. And opium, of course.”
[…]
Mr Karzai, an American citizen, blamed the allegations that he was transferring illicitly earned cash from Afghanistan on political opponents.
“Yes, millions of dollars are leaving this country but it is all taken by politicians. Bribes, corruption, all of it,” he said. “But let's find out who is taking it. Let's not go on rumours. I've said this to the Americans.”
President Karzai addressed the matter at a news conference on Saturday, calling for greater scrutiny of business run by relatives of officials.
“Making money is fine and taking money out of the country is fine,” he said. “The relatives of government officials can do this, starting with my brothers. But there's a possibility of corruption,” he said, without being specific.
