The US military involvement in the Middle East is like a perpetual war machine. For every enemy it kills, it creates five replacements and then accidentally funds them.
After examining hundreds of combat support and reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan, the U.S military estimates $360 million in U.S. tax dollars has ended up in the hands of people the American-led coalition has spent nearly a decade battling: the Taliban, criminals, and power brokers with ties to both.
Only a small percentage of the $360 million has been garnered by the Taliban and insurgent groups, said a senior U.S. military official in Kabul. The bulk of the money was lost to profiteering, bribery and extortion by criminals and power brokers, said the official, who declined to provide a specific breakdown.
Given that the price of an AK47 in Afghanistan is probably around $50-100, even if just ten percent of those $360 million ended up funding insurgents that means they could buy at least 100,000 AK47s, tons of ammo and all other kinds of cheap war toys. Which is pretty cool if you’re a member of the Taliban, but the worst possible news if you’re a US soldier.
But even terrible news such as this can have a positive side to it. In this case, the positive side is that I live in Europe so I
