Throwing Money At The Problem

You're likely to see a lot of Republican commentators today saying that the death of Benazir Bhutto shows how radical Islam represents a dire threat, and how we must intervene in several more countries in an effort to stop this from spreading. An example:

No good answers to any of that yet. I have a very bad feeling about all of this. The potential for critically destablizing a flank that was difficult enough as it was, is huge. I’d feel slightly better if Rumsfeld had doubled the size of the Army, and wish Bush and Congress would crank that up. This war is far from over. This war is no artificial Bush creation or figment of anyone’s imagination, and should still be very much part of our own election, wishful thinking notwithstanding.

It's critical to understand how this plays out in practice rather in the abstract theories of "promote democracy and kill the terrorists!", which in the case of Pakistan at least the Cheney Administration has done the exact opposite. Here is a very important story of how "protecting freedom and democracy" actually works.

More outrageous tales from the State Department car dealership: it turns out that contractor DynCorp didn't have to even prove that it in fact purchased dozens of SUVs for which it charged the government. Try to follow the money on this one.

[O]ne Civilian Police task order [on which DynCorp is the contractor] included a requirement for 68 armored Ford Excursions at a fixed price of $113,064. The [State] Department was billed for 68 "armored vehicles" at a unit cost of $123,327. The property list contained 61 Ford Excursions, of which some were described as armored, others uparmored, and others had no notation of armoring. The costs shown on the property list for these 61 Ford Excursions ranged from $43,990 to $150,000 with nine at $122,190, seven with higher costs, and the remaining 45 with costs of $77,000 and below. Thus, OIG could not conclude that the 68 "armored vehicles" in the vouchers were the 68 armored Ford Excursions specified in the task order.

Let's just assume for a minute that they are. To do the math: 68 Excursions at the State Department contract's fixed unit price works out to $7,688,352. But 68 Excursions at the price DynCorp billed the department is $8,386,236. So that's an overcharge of almost $698,000. Nice.

But what the report's saying is that it has no way of knowing if DynCorp really spent the $8,386,236.

This is part of a series of reports obtained by Spencer Ackerman as part of an FOIA request. The sad truth is that our government continues to use the spectre of terrorism to throw enormous amounts of money at defense contractors and corrupt foreign entities in a completely unaccountable way, indirectly profiting major benefactors to campaigns across the country. This is how Iraq has been "won" in 2007 (actually, as Juan Cole will tell you, it hasn't) - by paying off Sunni tribal leaders and former insurgents to form these Awakening groups. The war on terror is the stamp on top of which a giant war machine slush fund operates.

There are certainly ways to get serious about terrorism, like declining to support dictators who work in a practical alliance with radical Islamists, for example, that don't involve blindly filling the coffers of defense contractors. But that isn't the American way, I guess.