enhanced_deficit
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Corrupt Afghan warlords who fleeced US taxpayers for 20 years in the failed $3 Trillion Afghan war are coming to k-street in effort to pull US back into that bottomless pit of corruption and incompetence. Be Interesting to see how Deep Neocons / Forever Wars lobbies react to this (assuming they are not facilitating this dubious plan).
Some war profiteering lobbies had recently tried to market the necons latest campaign to push US back into Afghan War under the compassionate "For The Women" banner... but that faux lobbying effort sputtered and stopped quickly after shocking 'For The Children' leaks surfaced.
Some war profiteering lobbies had recently tried to market the necons latest campaign to push US back into Afghan War under the compassionate "For The Women" banner... but that faux lobbying effort sputtered and stopped quickly after shocking 'For The Children' leaks surfaced.
“American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.”
twitter.com/abc7/status/1427369418330296324
A Long List Of Corrupt Afghan Warlords
Amrullah Saleh, Massoud and Dostum
Blame cowardly Afghans, not the U.S., for fall of country
For The Baltimore Sun
Aug 25, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dCuSBJtZlk
$6 mn in cash, 15 gold bricks seized from 'acting' Afghan President Amrullah Saleh's house
September 13, 2021
freepressjournal
Afghanistan Vice President fled to Dubai with $51 million in cash
US diplomatic cables revealed one Afghan Vice President flew to Dubai with 38 million pounds ($51 million) in cash, and that drug traffickers and corrupt officials were shifting 170 million pounds ($231 million) a week out of a country where average incomes were scarcely 430 pounds ($585) a year, the report said.
IANS
Kabul Published August 22, 2021
GOP reps ask for probe of ‘reckless and cowardly’ ex-Afghan leader
NYPOST
August 24, 2021
Two Republican lawmakers are pushing for a federal probe into whether deposed Afghan president Ashraf Ghani “embezzled” millions in US aid for his personal use.
Reps. James Comer and Glenn Grothman wrote nearly identical letters Tuesday asking the State and Justice Departments to investigate Ghani, who fled Afghanistan’s capitol earlier this month as Taliban forces closed in.
Ghani “may have been self-dealing with US funds intended for the Afghan people, having fled the country with enormous sums of cash totaling well over a hundred million dollars,” Comer (R-Ky.) and Grothman (R-Wis.) wrote.
Flashback:
WikiLeaks: Afghan vice-president Ahmad Massoud 'landed in Dubai with $52m in cash'
Ambassador in Kabul reports pervasive 'wealth extraction' by establishment and apparent powerlessness of US to stop it
Dec 2, 2010
Palm Jumeirah in Dubai where the Kabul Bank chairman, Sher Khan Farnood, owns 39 properties, according to WikiLeaks cables. Photograph: PA
Rampant government corruption in Afghanistan – and the apparent powerlessness of the US do to anything about it – is laid bare by several classified diplomatic cables implicating members of the country's elite.
In one astonishing incident in October 2009 the then vice-president, Ahmad Zia Massoud, was stopped and questioned in Dubai when he flew into the emirate with $52m in cash, according to one diplomatic report. Massoud, the younger brother of the legendary anti-Soviet resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, was detained by officials from the US and the United Arab Emirates
theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/02/wikileaks-elite-afghans-millions-cash
Struggle for Control of Afghanistan Comes to K Street
Ahmad Massoud, a leading figure in the resistance to Taliban rule, hired a lobbyist to seek military and financial support in the United States.
Sept. 15, 2021
WASHINGTON — A leading figure in the Afghan resistance has retained a Washington lobbyist to seek military and financial support in the United States for a fight against the Taliban, according to a lobbying contract and a representative of the resistance leader.
Ahmad Massoud, the leader of one of the most prominent groups of fighters seeking to oust the Taliban from power, signed the contract this week with Robert Stryk, who built a lobbying practice during the Trump administration working with clients that others on K Street were wary of representing.
While Afghan opposition groups have support from some Republicans in Washington, the Biden administration has made clear that it has no interest in playing any further role in a civil war in Afghanistan.
The administration is also seeking to balance opposition to the Taliban’s rule with the need for cooperation on issues like evacuating remaining Americans and American allies from the country.
And a well-financed Afghan group that has been active in Washington, the Afghanistan-U.S. Democratic Peace and Prosperity Council, could become a vehicle for representing members of the country’s since-disbanded parliament who are discussing the possibility of forming a government in exile, according to a person familiar with the conversations.
The council had retained a handful of Washington consultants before the fall of the Afghan government to lobby the United States to support the country’s military. And, since the Taliban takeover, the council has been promoting protests against the Taliban, as well as messages from former members of parliament opposing Taliban rule and criticizing the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
A representative for Mr. Massoud said that a primary motivation for his lobbying campaign was to stop any move by the United States and other governments to grant legitimacy to the Taliban — or anyone other than Mr. Massoud — as the rightful leader of Afghanistan.
nytimes.com/2021/09/15/us/politics/afghanistan
Spending by defense contractors who have financial stakes in continued conflict dwarfs recent spending by Afghan interests reported in Foreign Agents Registration Act filings.
The Afghanistan-U.S. Democratic Peace and Prosperity Council reported spending around $450,000 on foreign influence efforts in the U.S. and has spent neary $200,000 more in 2021.
The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, the Afghan government’s official name before the Taliban took over, signed a contract enlisting Squire Patton Boggs as its foreign lobbying agent on June 21 to “arrange congressional and other meetings for President Ashraf Ghani’s upcoming trip to Washington, DC.” The contract did not specify a fee arrangement and on July 6 the firm disclosed terminating the contract, effective June 30, with no payments. The firm reported only one contact on behalf of Afghanistan’s government prior to termination: an email to the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on June 21, the day the FARA contract was filed.
Afghanistan’s president and delegation ultimately visited Washington D.C. days later, meeting with Biden at the White House on June 24 and meeting with Pelosi the following day. Diplomatic activities are largely exempt from FARA disclosure. Ghani reportedly fled through Kabul to the United Arab Emirates with $169 million in cash.
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/20...stan-before-the-us-left-taliban-took-control/
Related
Taliban Didn't Win in Afghanistan, the Defense Contractors Did
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