Thus, although it was weeks ago when revelations of American military contractor corruption in Afghanistan took place, Lynn Woolsey is still speaking about the matter. Why? Congress still hasn’t taken care of the problem: The American military is paying big money to private contractor corporations, who in turn are paying protection money to Afghan warlords, who then give the money to the Taliban, who the American military is supposed to be fighting in the first place.

This week, Representative Woolsey linked the corruption to a fundamentally irrational structure of our nation’s military misadventure in Afghanistan, and renewed her call for a pullout of American soldiers from central Asia:

“At a time when communities here at home are crying out for investment in schools, hospitals, and other infrastructure, it’s galling to think that American taxpayer dollars are supporting the kind of thuggery in Afghanistan that is quite possibly endangering our troops. It’s bad enough, Madam Speaker, that the American people are being asked to pay for our failed war. Now it appears that they’re being asked to pay for the wrong side.

Madam Speaker, we simply cannot sustain a counterterrorism strategy that has us doing business, however indirectly, with the terrorists themselves. It’s illogical and it’s unconscionable. This is just one more piece of evidence that this war is failing the American people, undermining instead of advancing our national security objectives. It’s time for a radical change in our policy. It’s time to bring our troops home.”

Are we really supposed to believe that the “War On Terror”, a fight against Islamic terrorist riff raff, our generation’s equivalent of a war against pirates, costs more than the global struggle against the forces of the Soviet Union and other Communist nations? No, don’t believe that for a second – you’re being asked to believe something even worse.

You see, when they say that the military budget requested for 2009 is the biggest since World War II, they aren’t even including the nearly trillion dollars extra that the Bush White House is expected to request for the military occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Where is the money going this time? It’s going to fund corruption, fraud and waste. It’s going into the pockets of some very well-connected individuals – people in what the charitable refer to as the “defense” industry who have close working relationships with the Bush White House and members of Congress.

The military-linked corruption isn’t only going to the Republican side of the aisle, either. Think about the whopper unloaded upon the good people of Missouri by Democratic Congressman Ike Skelton: The Chicago Tribune cites Representative Skelton as saying that the military budget is necessary to ensure the health of the military.

The health of the military? My foot. The budget increase for the Pentagon ensures the financial health of military contractor corporations, and their investors and executives who are linked to politicians in Washington D.C. It’s a financial scheme for which members of Congress will be rewarded generously in the form of campaign donations. It’s dirty, rotten, stinking corporate pork barrel in the form of bullets and bombs.