Top Secret America and the Huge Blank Checks Of

We are given figures in the multi multi billions spent on the wars of choice and the so called 'homeland security', but there are huge amounts, in the multi billions, not known or labeled top secret and blacked out in government reports on the rapid growth of intelligence within government and the added private contractors and the costs of that growth. As pointed out in the 'PBS Frontline' report, below, what has it accomplish over all these years, especially as to the main mission after 9/11 and finally getting bin Laden, with all the now known evidence of what the bush administration ignored before 9/11, found through intelligence of a small group and carried out by a small group of 'special forces'. I'm still wanting to know how much we paid for the 'coalition of forces' of countries in supporting the invasion of Iraq, especially those who only sent a few soldiers or none at all but fell in line with the false pretenses given and not related in any way to 9/11.

9/11 led to spending binge on homeland security grants

September 2, 2011 - The U.S. government has doled out more than $35 billion in homeland-security grants to state and local governments over the past decade. Yet even as questions persist about how effective the spending has been, officials are bracing for belt-tightening cuts.

The grants built up a network of capabilities in states, urban areas, and other regions since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Tens of thousands of first responders trained for dealing with terrorist attacks and natural disasters. At 73 "intelligence fusion" centers, analysts sift through data and share classified information over secret networks. Local police and fire departments have pricey radios, robots, and armored vehicles.

But reports over the years have revealed problems involving no-bid contracts, equipment that didn't work as planned, and poor coordination of resources. For example, emergency-response officials in California - by far one of the largest recipients of homeland-security money - used sole-source contracts to spend about $6.2 million on license-plate readers, $4 million on public-safety radios, and $1.2 million for intelligence-analysis software, according to an audit by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general. State officials acknowledge no-bid contracts were a problem and say they are reforming their procurement policies.

Officials in one California area spent more than $74,000 on 55 large-screen digital televisions for training but didn't purchase the actual training system, the IG found. "On the day we visited, all the televisions were being used to monitor the same television station," the IG wrote. read more>>>

Program: FRONTLINE
Episode: Top Secret America

FRONTLINE reveals 9/11's unprecedented yet largely invisible legacy: the creation of a vast maze of clandestine government and private agencies designed to hunt terrorists and prevent future attacks on the U.S.

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

The 'Top Secret America' Created After Sept. 11

September 6, 2011 - Thousands of government organizations and private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence. Last December, The Washington Post reported that this "top-secret world ... has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work."

On today's Fresh Air, Washington Post national security reporter Dana Priest, the co-author of both the Post's investigative series and the book "Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State", joins Terry Gross for a discussion about how the "terrorism industrial complex" created in response to the Sept. 11 attacks grew to be so big.

"The government said, 'We're facing an enemy we don't understand, we don't have the tools to deal with it, here's billions ... of dollars and a blank check after that for anybody with a good idea to go and pursue it,' " she says. "Not only does the government find it difficult to get its arms around itself, [but now] it doesn't know what's inside, it doesn't know what works, it doesn't know what doesn't work. And nobody still, 10 years later, is really in charge of those questions." read more>>>

Add this to above, especially explained in the beginning, and all done on the countries credit card
Sept. 6 2011: With Mitt Romney threatening to literally bring back the architect of of the George W. Bush economic disaster, Bob Herbert, distinguished senior fellow at Demos, talks with Rachel Maddow about what needs to be in President Obama's jobs plan.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Price of 9/11

September 11, 2001

6 September 2011 - The September 11, 2001, terror attacks by Al Qaeda were meant to harm the United States, and they did, but in ways that Osama bin Laden probably never imagined. President George W. Bush’s response to the attacks compromised America’s basic principles, undermined its economy, and weakened its security.

The attack on Afghanistan that followed the 9/11 attacks was understandable, but the subsequent invasion of Iraq was entirely unconnected to Al Qaeda – as much as Bush tried to establish a link. That war of choice quickly became very expensive – orders of magnitude beyond the $60 billion claimed at the beginning – as colossal incompetence met dishonest misrepresentation.

Indeed, when Linda Bilmes and I calculated America’s war costs three years ago, the conservative tally was $3-5 trillion. Since then, the costs have mounted further. With almost 50% of returning troops eligible to receive some level of disability payment, and more than 600,000 treated so far in veterans’ medical facilities, we now estimate that future disability payments and health-care costs will total $600-900 billion. But the social costs, reflected in veteran suicides (which have topped 18 per day in recent years) and family breakups, are incalculable.

Even if Bush could be forgiven for taking America, and much of the rest of the world, to war on false pretenses, and for misrepresenting the cost of the venture, there is no excuse for how he chose to finance it. His was the first war in history paid for entirely on credit. As America went into battle, with deficits already soaring from his 2001 tax cut, Bush decided to plunge ahead with yet another round of tax “relief” for the wealthy.

Today, America is focused on unemployment and the deficit. Both threats to America’s future can, in no small measure, be traced to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Increased defense spending, together with the Bush tax cuts, is a key reason why America went from a fiscal surplus of 2% of GDP when Bush was elected to its parlous deficit and debt position today. Direct government spending on those wars so far amounts to roughly $2 trillion – $17,000 for every US household – with bills yet to be received increasing this amount by more than 50%. read more>>>

Terror: A War Gone Badly Wrong - 9/11 and the Paths Not Taken

International Security Monthly Briefing – August-September 2011
Press Release: New Report Offers Fresh Appraisal on the Eve of the Ten-year Anniversary of the Attacks

London, 6 September 2011. The ten-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks presents a crucial opportunity to reflect on the catastrophic mistakes of the last decade of the ‘war on terror’, argues a new report from the respected British think tank, Oxford Research Group.

The report, A War Gone Badly Wrong - The War on Terror Ten Years On, assesses the consequences of the response from the United States and its coalition partners. It questions whether the response was either appropriate or wise and whether the results so far have been counterproductive – and may even indicate the need for an entirely new security paradigm.

The response to the 9/11 attacks: read more>>>

A WAR GONE BADLY WRONG: 9/11 and the Paths not Taken

New VA Program: NIMBY‏

Yep them flag wavin citizens and their 'Support for the Troops' magnetic ribbons, lapel flag pins, purple heart bandages and oh they are so patriotic, until those they sent to 'Sacrifice' come home!!

“Everybody’s concern is we’ll have one-legged veterans like in that Tom Cruise movie wheeling their wheel chairs up and down the street swigging out of a bottle,” McCartney said. “Whether there is any truth to that or not, that’s their concern.”

New VA program divides Oakland park civic groups, veterans

The Veterans Administration wants to build an innovative facility in Oakland Park that would help integrate veterans back into the community. Residents, however, fear it will attract “undesirables.’’

5 September 2011 - A unique proposed treatment program for veterans has run into a firefight in Oakland Park as upset residents fear their neighborhood will be overrun with drunks, drug addicts and mental patients.

Community pressure helped prod the city’s Planning and Zoning Board to reject the building that would house the project.

The fate of the pilot program by the Veterans Administration — one of only four in the nation — is now in the hands of city commissioners.

They are set to vote Wednesday whether to overturn the Planning and Zoning Board ruling and approve the redevelopment of a long vacant building on East Oakland Park Boulevard to accommodate the VA program. The project is supported by congressmen and veterans and opposed by the city’s own planners and community groups.

Home owners are worried, said Oakland Park Commissioner Shari McCartney.

“Everybody’s concern is we’ll have one-legged veterans like in that Tom Cruise movie wheeling their wheel chairs up and down the street swigging out of a bottle,” McCartney said. “Whether there is any truth to that or not, that’s their concern.” read more>>>

No Revenues = Still No Sacrifice = That's Called That 'Support' For The Troops!!
Now a decade plus, added to the previous decades since Korea, especially ours Vietnam!!
Already known through decades of our brothers and sisters living those false patriotic? meme's and cheap phony symbols of including their 'purple heart bandages'!

Wartime Contracting: Afghanistan and Iraq

The All-Time 10 Worst Military Contracting Boondoggles

Sep. 2, 2011 - After three years, the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting completed its business this week. In its final report to Congress, it estimates that the federal government has lost between $31 and $60 billion to contractor fraud and waste since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq started. "The government was not prepared to go into Afghanistan in 2001 or Iraq in 2003 using large numbers of contractors, and is still unable to provide effective management and oversight of contract spending," said commission co-chairman Michael Thibault.

Beyond its bureaucratic title ("Inattention to contingency contracting leads to massive waste, fraud, and abuse"), the most interesting chapter of the commission's 248-page report reads like a greatest-hits list of expensive bloopers that make that famous $600 Pentagon toilet seat look like a bargain. In ascending order of egregiousness, here are the top 10 war-contractor boondoggles detailed in the report: read more>>>

Wartime Contracting: Afghanistan and Iraq

Afghanistan: A Decade Of Promises

In Afghanistan, Reviewing A Decade Of Promises

September 2, 2011 - People living in Afghanistan 10 years ago had little electricity, few radios and almost no televisions to alert them of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington. The news didn't really reach across the country until the American bombing campaign and invasion began a month later. The fall of the Taliban regime at the end of 2001 and the flood of international aid raised hope in Afghanistan.

With a U.S.-sponsored government setting up in Kabul, President George W. Bush spelled out America's pledge to Afghanistan in a speech at Virginia Military Institute in April 2002. Bush invoked America's patron saint of nation-building, George Marshall, the World War II general who oversaw the reconstruction of Germany.

"By helping to build an Afghanistan that is free from this evil and is a better place in which to live, we are working in the best traditions of George Marshall," Bush said.

To Afghans, this Marshall Plan for their country sounded like a promise underwritten by the most powerful nation on Earth. Bush listed how the U.S. would help; below, along with each pledge, NPR assesses progress in each area, 10 years on.

Building Security Forces

Bush: "Peace will be achieved by helping Afghanistan train and develop its own national army."

snip

But she admits that in some ways, Afghanistan is still behind where it was decades ago, before three successive wars destroyed the country.

"Sometimes I am disappointed. Because when I was in 5th [grade], the war start in my country. Now I am 43 years old, still the war is going on. I wish that my country become secure. No more than that," she says.

Afghanistan has hundreds of kilometers of new roads, but fewer of them are safe to drive. On the day Burhani spoke with NPR, an insurgent suicide bomber leveled a health center in Logar province, killing dozens of patients, doctors and nurses.

The United Nations reported over the summer that civilian deaths from the war are at their worst level since the invasion — the vast majority from insurgent bombs. listen to and read more>>>

This week on War News Radio: Learning Experience

02 Sep 2011 - This week on War News Radio: Learning Experience. We hear about issues associated with foreign aid administration in Afghanistan. Then, We talk to a US Army Special Forces Major about his book, Lions of Kandahar. But first a roundup of this weeks news.

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Day of Destruction, Decade of War

Greatly enhancing, ten a hundred fold, the already grown hatreds for the policies of the previous decades, creating more who seek blowback from the terror, death and destruction waged on them and their neighbors, walking away from not only the main mission after 9/11 but also once again the promises of help in rebuilding a long devastated society and country, turning it instead into the quagmire of death and destruction ten years later and still waged!!

Part 1 A military deployed
Sept. 1 2011: NBC chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel looks at the extent to which the U.S. military was deployed into combat in Iraq and Afghanistan in response to the attacks on 9/11.

Part 2 The costs of war
NBC chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel examines the costs of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both in terms of money and human loss, and how those costs have been justified.

Part 3 The new terror threat obsession
Rachel Maddow reviews the concern about the threat of further terrorism following the attacks on 9/11 and how those concerns were represented in both real and imagined terror attempts and the national fear that painted everything as a terror target.

Part 4 Fears of an enemy among us
Rachel Maddow looks at how elevated fear about terrorism in the years following 9/11 led to intrusive security measures, the Patriot Act, and America spying on Americans.

Part 5 Preaching fear
NBC chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel profiles the rise of the "terrorism expert" following the attacks of 9/11, and the fervent interest in anti-terror tactics among local police in the U.S.

Part 6 Al Qaeda recruits against U.S. resentment
NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel looks at how al Qaeda is able to use resentment of the United States, particularly its aggressive response to 9/11, as a recruitment tool.

Part 7 Al Qaeda as a global brand
NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel investigates the importance of winning hearts and minds in the Middle East to keep America safe, particularly as al Qaeda becomes more of a brand, capable of recruiting even Americans to its cause.

Part 8 War as for-profit business
Rachel Maddow examines the multi-national corporations granted massive contracts under dubious terms to run an increasing amount of U.S. military operations, and the interwoven, conflicting interests of former Vice President Dick Cheney in the industry.

Part 9 US military increasingly privatized
Rachel Maddow exposes the lack of transparency and accountability as private, corporate contractors take on a greater responsibility for U.S. military endeavors.

Part 10 Torture and abuse become American weapons
Rachel Maddow reports on how America's rules for prisoners of war as untrained soldiers were put in charge of prisoners and torture gained a new acceptability in the decade following 9/11.

Part 11 US adopts the tactics of its enemies
Rachel Maddow examines how torture and "enhanced interrogation" techniques that were formerly the sole domain of America's enemies have become sanctioned practice by the U.S. military.

Part 12 NYPD as international anti-terror force
NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel reports on the remarkable extent to which the New York City Police Department has incorporated anti-terror tactics and technology to keep New York City safe.

Part 13 NYPD keeps watchful eye on city's streets
NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel takes a closer look at the powerful and elaborate surveillance system the NYPD has set up to monitor the city for threats of terrorism.

Part 14 Loose nukes a threat of global scale
Rachel Maddow shows the danger of loose nuclear material on the international black market and al Qaeda's ambitions to acquire a nuclear bomb, or at least a dirty bomb.

Part 15 US races to prevent nuclear terror
Rachel Maddow reports on the efforts by the United States to secure loose nuclear material around the world before it falls into the hands of terrorists or malevolent rogue states.