Kabul, We Adore You!

And so we will build one of our fanciest palaces, uh, I mean embassy/compound/secret government complex thingies for us, uh, I mean for you. Us/you....hey, we're all in this together. Please take over Half a Billion Dollars form our indebted taxpayers (via our loan shark China), and we will build the palace to ensure all future safety in Iraq. Oops, I mean Afghanistan. I smell jobs:

"The project started earlier this year and currently employs about 500 Afghans. Once construction gets under way, more than 1,500 Afghan workers will be employed, Eikenberry said.

Over the last two years, the U.S. has signed contracts to expand American diplomatic facilities in Kabul and consulates in Mazar-e Sharif and Herat provinces that total $790 million, he said. The figure includes the embassy expansion, which should be completed by June 2014."

2014? Hey.... aren't we supposed to be out of there by then? Boy, that Billion could have come in handy for debt reduction.... right Tea Baggers?

Update: Tom Engelhardt finds this palace disturbing as well:

“$790 million is more than ten times the money the federal government allotted for the State Energy Program in FY2011. It's nearly five times the total amount allocated for the National Endowment for the Arts (threatened to be completely eliminated by the incoming Congress). If that sum were applied instead to job creation in the United States, in new hires it would yield more than 22,000 teachers, 15,000 healthcare workers, and employ more than 13,000 in the burgeoning clean energy industry."

More Contractors Killed Than Soldiers

This year, more private contractors have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan than soldiers. Congratulations, we have privatized our military.

"More private contractors than soldiers were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent months, the first time in history that corporate casualties have outweighed military losses on America’s battlefields.

More than 250 civilians working under U.S. contracts died in the war zones between January and June 2010... In the same period, 235 soldiers died, according to Pentagon figures.

This milestone in the privatization of modern U.S. warfare reflects both the drawdown in military forces in Iraq and the central role of contractors in providing logistics support to local armies and police forces, contracting and military experts said."

We're outsourcing our military. Jobs that used to be for military folks are now for "contractors". I wonder what a strict reading of the Constitution would say about that? Maybe a Tea Partier can help me out here?

Update: A Republican friend asks:
"And the problem here?"

Well, I don't think we should be hiring private companies to act as our military. If we're going to do that, maybe we should hire a bunch of cheap labor to act as our soldiers? Why should we have to fight at all? Let's pay "them" to do it. That may be all well and good until "they" decide they want the power. I guess that's when we're supposed to defend ourselves using "2nd Amendment Guarantees".
I've written about this before...