Your Tax Dollars At Work

From the AP:

AP IMPACT: US wasted billions in rebuilding Iraq
By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer Kim Gamel, Associated Press Writer 17 mins ago

KHAN BANI SAAD, Iraq – A $40 million prison sits in the desert north of Baghdad, empty. A $165 million children's hospital goes unused in the south. A $100 million waste water treatment system in Fallujah has cost three times more than projected, yet sewage still runs through the streets

As the U.S. draws down in Iraq, it is leaving behind hundreds of abandoned or incomplete projects. More than $5 billion in American taxpayer funds has been wasted — more than 10 percent of the some $50 billion the U.S. has spent on reconstruction in Iraq, according to audits from a U.S. watchdog agency.

That amount is likely an underestimate, based on an analysis of more than 300 reports by auditors with the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. And it does not take into account security costs, which have run almost 17 percent for some projects.

There are success stories. Hundreds of police stations, border forts and government buildings have been built, Iraqi security forces have improved after years of training, and a deep water port at the southern oil hub of Umm Qasr has been restored.

Even completed projects for the most part fell far short of original goals, according to an Associated Press review of hundreds of audits and investigations and visits to several sites. And the verdict is still out on whether the program reached its goal of generating Iraqi good will toward the United States instead of the insurgents.

Col. Jon Christensen, who took over as commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region District this summer, said the federal agency has completed more than 4,800 projects and is rushing to finish 233 more. Some 595 projects have been terminated, mostly for security reasons.
...

You know, I remember how many on the Left were s-c-r-e-a-m-i-n-g at the time -- citing one news report after another -- that in addition to lying us into Iraq to begin with, and then catastrophically botching the war once they'd gotten their way, the Bush Administration was literally pissing tens of billions of American taxpayer dollars away into the sands of Babylon.

How virtually every critic from the Left included phrases like "blood and treasure", "breaking the bank", "impoverishing the nation", "looting the treasury", etc. in their critique.

I remember how vigils were held; how tens of thousands of dirty fucking hippies were busily protesting here, there and everywhere. But without a cool name like "Tea Party" and tits-a-poppin' leaders like Sister Sarah, I guess we didn't rate the obsessive, 24/7/365 coverage of our every itch and sniffle that real patriots deserve.

Funny, how during this entire period, I also can't seem to recall a single protest from the Right.

Not one AstroTurf "Take Back American" rally organized by Fox and funded by the Koch family to protest the inanely profligate spending of the Bush Administration. Not one gun-waving, third-rate Republican radio turd or Rand-spewing has-been rock star yawping on and on about taking Their Dang Freedomses Back! In fact, as far as anyone can tell, during the entire clusterfuck that was the Age of Bush (at least until he got the loser stink on him and the rats starting fleeing the garbage scow) history does not record one, single tea-bag being tied to one, single, tri-corner hat by one, single, pasty, white lard-ass Patriot.

I do, however, clearly recall how the Left earned many a colorful nickname for its desperate, and desperately-unpopular attempts to call attention to the serial, and pan-dimensional fuck ups and treason of the Right; all those cute little sobriquets like "Bush-deranged, America-hating, French-loving, cut-and-run, white-flag-waving, surrender-monkey, 'Moran'."

I guess these millions of flag-waving, Fox-watching, Beck-worshiping, Limbaugh-quoting, Constitution-spouting, Town-hall-meeting-storming Heroes of Conservatism were off doing other Very Important Things -- working their way though some decade-long Tantric orgasm , or inventing cold fusion, or curing the Hanta virus or something -- during the whole Cheney Administration.

I guess they were all just too darned bury to notice that the Dear Leader they had elected and re-elected was razing their beloved country and taking a big, steaming dump on the rubble of their future.

Or maybe they


Their noble leaders






and their stalwart Ministry of Information


were all


busy


doing


something

else.