Vast sums of aid continue to be stolen in Afghanistan

[unhappycamper]

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchannels/2012/1211/Vast-sums-of-aid-continue-to-be-stolen-in-Afghanistan

Vast sums of aid continue to be stolen in Afghanistan
By Dan Murphy, Staff writer / December 11, 2012

In the summer of 2010, the US decided to do something about the enormous sucking sound being generated by the bulk cash shipments funneling through Afghanistan's Kabul airport and on to Dubai, Zurich, and London – every point of the compass, really.

With Afghanistan's two principal cash crops being opium and slicing chunks off the top of international aid, there were no prizes for guessing where the tens of billions of dollars transferred from Afghanistan since the US-led war began in 2002 came from, or how the luxury villas of so many Afghan officials in the United Arab Emirates had been paid for.

So, the US embassy in Kabul created a "bulk cash flow action plan" and the Karzai government said it was on board. The results since? Well, around $4.5 billion flowed out of Afghanistan in 2011, according to the Congressional Research Service, the vast majority of it unmonitored and unregistered. That's about 22 percent of gross domestic product, an astonishing amount of capital flight.

How is the plan doing this year? About the same as last year, according to a report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a US government auditor, released today.

[think]

1. The war whores in Washington need to go.......