Talk Radio News Service: News, Politics, Media

Last July I wrote an article titled "Is America Cleveland?" I went to my hometown and described how the stores were empty, the infrastructure was falling apart and how there needed to be a massive investment in America if the rest of the country was not going to look like downtown Cleveland. Cleveland was once a busy and wealthy city, filled with shoppers, hope and promise. No more. "Halas," as they say in Arabic, it is finished. Well, not quite. I still have hope that it will recapture part of its former glory.

Now, I am beginning to wonder if America is becoming Afghanistan. Richard Miller, our military correspondent, spent some time with the U.S. military last year in Afghanistan. He saw the work of our troops close up and made a minor investment in the local economy by bringing some gifts home for his family and our staff. No antiques, nothing special, just things bought at the local market. What happened next is what is extraordinary. It cost him about $250 in U.S. dollars to get out of the country by paying "fees" to individuals at the airport. As Americans we expect to go to the airport, perhaps pay a baggage fee or even in some countries a visa fee and that is the end of it. No graft, no corruption, only transparency and a feeling that we live our lives with laws and rules.

Some recent revelations, however, begin to beg the question as to who is really invested in how America runs and operates. Four events this week are enough to make you wonder if America is going the way of some poorly run third-world country. On Wednesday, the Department of Justice resolved a criminal complaint with KBR, Inc., a subsidiary of Halliburton. It pled guilty to conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by making improper payments to government officials in Nigeria to do big business. How much do they have to pay into the federal kitty for this? Approximately $402 million in criminal fines was paid back to taxpayers. That's a lot of admitted corruption.

On Friday, the Department of Justice was able to collect another $26.3 million to resolve fraud allegations for inflated shipping costs to military in Iraq and Afghanistan. What did they do to bilk the taxpayer? They inflated invoices billing above the contractual rate and also billed for non-reimbursable services.

Sunday's New York Times ran with a front-page story on the $125 billion for rebuilding Iraq. No, this wasn't the money that somehow got lost with the Iraqi locals; this money allegedly found its way into the pockets of our military leaders. Two United States colonels! The New York Times says this possible graft was worthy of a crime novel with "tens of thousands of dollars being stuffed into pizza boxes."

Also, heading up this week's news is the Treasury Department's inspector general who opened an audit of the first $350 billion of TARP funds to bail out the banking industry. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, is one of the politicians screaming the loudest about what might be lobbying and influence peddling. There are people in Washington in wonderment as to how banks that did not ask for money under the Bush administered bailout got it. But no one knows who got all the money and how much. Also, this week there were seven-hour hearings about how several of the banks were using more than $40 billion dollars in TARP
money. The hearings were fascinating, and a blogger for the Wall Street Journal said they were "like a Saturday Night Live skit."

We discovered all this information in the last seven days – behind-the-scenes deals, payoffs to foreign government officials, possible payoffs to members of our military and overbilling.

It doesn't sound like the America we teach our children about. It doesn't sound like the America that makes me proud; it sounds like Afghanistan, and I don't like it.