A SAD COMMENTARY…..PENTAGON’S FRAUD AND WASTE!

A SAD COMMENTARY…..PENTAGON’S FRAUD AND WASTE!

(Reuters, Abby Ohlhiser,THEWIRE.COM)

(Downsize DC, John Markley, Scott J. Paltrow)

(Tom Fernandez, Terry M. Hestilow, Frazer Chronicle)

The Pentagon…..a misnomer, people today routinely refer to the Pentagon as a building that represents the United States military might, an organization that is mandated to make startling and aggressive military decisions. However quite the opposite is true, just because (technically) the United States Department of War is listed as the owner of the building, that of course doesn’t make it so. But that’s just for appearances anyways, actually, like every other building in the United States, or around the world…..that is built with taxpayer funds is owned by…..we the people, that’s right, taxpayers own every single block, brick,  piece of wood, cement or steel that connects these structures.

Construction took a little more than two years to complete (September 11, 1941 to January 15, 1943) at a cost of $83 million dollars or $1.32 billion in 2013 dollars. The structure is seven stories with an overall floor area of 6,636,360 square feet. The parking lots take up 67 acres…..or enough space to build five baseball stadiums with more than ample parking for all.

The Pentagon building is a community in and of itself, with office space, swimming pools, deli’s, department stores, gas stations, a church and a medical dispensary. Anything military that the United States does, originate at the Pentagon. In fact the President get’s his daily briefings directly from somebody from the Pentagon.

So when there are accusations leveled at the United States Department of War…..even though stories will cite the Pentagon as the source, what actually is meant is the U.S. Department of War…..not a building that is slightly more than seventy years old is being brought to task.

WHAT THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF WAR DOES AND DOESN’T DO

Routinely the Department of War knowingly commits accounting fraud in order to balance its books with the United States Treasury. The practice has been standard operating procedure for decades, effectively concealing billions of dollars in waste and fraud from U.S. taxpayers as well as the Federal Government.

What has happened through decades of fraudulent bookkeeping practices is the fact that our military organizations simply can’t keep track of the money that is appropriated for their use. The 2013 budget is at $565.8 billion, and in an investigative report by Reuters, they found that it is impossible to know where the money goes, and even if it (money) was appropriated for a particular task, military maneuver, or equipment.

The problem hasn’t gone unnoticed, the practice is legendary among the big government foes…..but it’s almost impossible to account where the money has gone. That’s because the War Department has never been audited…..despite a federal law that has required an annual report from every federal department since 1996. During this period of time, Congress has appropriated $8.5 trillion dollars to the War Department.

Despite new laws specifically designed to force the pentagon to submit at least a partial audit report in the next few years, Reuter’s investigation indicates that there won’t be a report of any kind…..any time soon. One of the reasons is because the War Department wasted billions of dollars install faulty software intended to make the department audit-ready.

In the meantime there is a patchwork of efforts being undertaken by the department in an attempt to balance the budget against what the United States Treasury says they should have spent. This is a monthly process, and the figures arrived at and submitted require the need for a healthy imagination.

PLUGS

An interesting word…..plug, it can mean several different things like a plug of chewing tobacco, or to plug a hole in a dyke, or unsound old horse, favorable publicity, to fill or cover. There are many more meaning for this word, but I’m sure that you get the idea. However the U.S. Department of War probably took the word plug to a whole new level, pretty much because some of the thousands of plugs that have been used so that the department would appear to be doing business under the rules of the laws which are supposed to govern it…..are still in place, it’s impossible to ascertain which financial figures are plugs and others are actual real and competent accounting figures.

Between 2003 and 2011, the Army alone lost $5.8 billion dollars in equipment and supplies sent between reserve and regular units. In addition it has been discovered that various military departments signed contracts for new orders of supplies that the War Department already had stored in excess of at least three years of the supplies already on hand.

I’ll tell you whose getting plugged here, the American taxpayer…..estimates range from $5,000 to $6,500 dollars that every family in the United States is going to have to come up with to pay the operating budget that the War Department is going to need.

Here’s what the American families of the country are getting for their tax dollar…..defense, and an overabundance of military supplies that’ll last us for up to three years. Actually I’m guessing, because if pressured, neither the United States Congress or the Defense Department itself knows what is being gotten for over half a trillion dollars.

Despite dramatically increased spending, the Navy and Air Force have less hardware than they did in 1998. $1.3 trillion dollars of taxpayer money has been spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and these wars have probably made more enemies than friends. And neither Iraq nor Afghanistan is every going to practice a democratic way of life.

DOCTORED LEDGERS, A RUNNING TALLY OF EPIC WASTE AND FOR WHAT

Without a doubt the United States military is the strongest, the best equipped and the most feared in the history of the world. The U.S. can put a round of munitions down the pickle barrel from miles away from a target.

Each and every month the plugs and the phony numbers in the United States Department of Defense are inserted to square the books with what the U.S. Treasury’s needs to insure that things are being run on the up and up. Every month the Defense Department’s check-book is balanced…..which takes much maneuvering and jerry-rigging to a degree that even I can’t imagine…..and I have trouble with my checking account every month…..I just didn’t think that our government had those problems.

People in accounting for the Department of Defense on a monthly basis corrected as many entries as they possibly could, and what they couldn’t, they left on the books and sent to the Treasury Department until it was kicked back to be reworked and corrected. A review of multiple reports from oversight agencies in recent years shows that the War Department has systematically ignored warnings about their accounting practices.

These types of adjustments, made without supporting documentation masks much larger problems in the original accounting date, the Government Accounting said. This fraudulent system has a trickle-effect and affects payroll, utility bills and phone service.

Reuters found that the War Department is largely incapable of keeping track of its vast stores of weapons, ammunition and other supplies; thus it continues to spend money on new supplies that it doesn’t need because they already have it someplace in a warehouse…..either in the United States or some other country.

The consequences of faulty record keeping aren’t only financial, but bad bookkeeping can affect the country’s defense. Because of its bookkeeping practices the War Department is the only federal agency that has not complied with the law that requires annual audits.

And according to retired U.S. Army Captain Terry M. Hestilow sent a letter to Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas, warning that the Department of Homeland Security is preparing to go to war with…..the citizens of the United States.

“It is with gravest concern that I write to you today concerning the recent appropriation of weapons by the Department of Homeland Security that can only be understood as a bold threat of war by that agency, and the Obama administration, against the citizens of our country.”

Conspiracy freak, a nut job…..I’m not a betting man…..but if I was I’d have to call the former captain both a freak as well as a nut job.  But bad practices opens up all kinds of doors to all sorts of weirdo’s to step forward with their theories.

We actually need to clean up our war department, fire some nincompoops and establish and maintain proper accounting etiquette…..it ain’t brain surgery…..or for that matter open heart surgery, which I know something about.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!