At Least 43 Reconstruction Contracts Going to Terrorist Groups
by Dr. Stuart Jeanne Bramhall
It’s extremely ironic for the US State Department to be issuing travel alerts for US citizens in the Middle East and North Africa the same week we learn that the Pentagon is contracting with Al Qaeda and Taliban supporters to carry out Afghan reconstruction projects.
Tony Capaccio of Bloomberg News cites a quarterly report to Congress by Special Inspector for Afghan Reconstruction John Sopko.The report reveals Sopko asked the US Army Suspension and Disbarment office to cancel 43 contracts to known Al Qaeda and Taliban supporters. They refused. The reason? The Suspension and Disbarment Office claims it would violate Al Qaeda and Taliban “due process rights.”
Curious, isn’t it? Official terrorist groups have due process rights, but not whistleblowers, Guantanamo detainees, or ordinary Americans subject to continual surveillance by NSA.
The intelligence community has been quietly leaking evidence for more than a decade that the US is secretly funding Al Qaeda to promote political instability (and justify continued military intervention) in the Middle East. In the last two years the CIA has been caught red-handed funding and training Al Qaeda militants in Libya and Syria.
Based on Sopko’s report, Pentagon support for Al Qaeda and the Taliban is official as of August 1.
Let me see if I can think this through: the Pentagon is giving Al Qaeda and the Taliban funding, even though Al Qaeda and the Taliban are planning to carry out attacks on US citizens. How can this be happening? It would appear the US government is at war with their own people.
The 236 page quarterly report Sopko submitted to Congress also raises grave concerns about Obama’s request for $10.7 billion in 2014 for Afghan reconstruction projects. All would be carrying out by civilian contractors, of which 30-40% would be local Afghan businesses.
Sopko argues the Pentagon already fails abysmally in monitoring an existing $32 million program to install bars or gratings in culverts to prevent insurgents from planting roadside bombs in them. He thinks at bare minimum the Department of Defense should now how many contracts they have issued under this program. They don’t. Thus it seems pretty obvious they aren’t vetting the contractors, much less monitoring where the money is going.
photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com via photopin cc
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Dr. Bramhall is a retired American child and adolescent psychiatrist, activist and political refugee in New Zealand.
Her first book The Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an American Refugee describes the circumstances that led her to leave the US in 2002. She has also published two young adult novels about political activism: The Battle for Tomorrow: A Fable
View All Books by Dr. Bramhall >>>
She is involved in the national leadership of the New Zealand Green Party and has a political blog at StuartJeanneBramhall.com
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