Despite past objections about multiple requests for defense funds and inadequate justification for parts of the spending request, the defense bill that Congress approved Friday is no different. Either the clamor has not been loud enough or the American public hasn’t quite reckoned with the full consequences of fragmented and poorly justified defense spending not only for the fiscal health of the country, but also the vitality of the forces.

As Comptroller General David Walker testified in July, “neither DOD nor Congress knows how much the war on terror is costing or how appropriated funds are being used.” The Defense Department has ignored two successive pieces of legislation seeking detailed reporting on how the emergency funds have actually been spent. In effect, there is only a minimal effort to scrutinize budget request in advance, or spending, after the fact, for a quarter of the Pentagon’s resources.

Revelations that the US government had been in possession of footage released on Sunday depicting alleged Al-Qaeda hijackers and Osama Bin Laden since 2001 and evidence that the footage itself was filmed by security agencies, went unquestioned by the media - who blindly towed the official line that the tape was released by Al-Qaeda. This is smoking gun proof that the U.S. government is staging the release of alleged Al-Qaeda tapes and it demands an immediate Congressional investigation.

Think of this as part two of Recherche du trillions perdu, my Online Journal article on Dov Zakheim, former Bush appointee as Pentagon Comptroller from May 4, 2001 to March 10, 2004. At that time he was unable to explain the disappearance of $1 trillion dollars. Actually, nearly three years earlier, Donald Rumsfeld announced on September 10, 2001 that an audit discovered $2.3 trillion was also missing from the Pentagon books. That story, as I mentioned, was buried under 9-11’s rubble. The two sums disappeared on Zakheim’s watch.

 

Federal authorities are actively investigating dozens of American television stations for broadcasting items produced by the Bush administration and major corporations, and passing them off as normal news.

If this War on Terrorism is a "good war," wouldn't that be self-evident, with no media manipulation required? Then why is the Bush administration plowing millions into PR campaigns?

Federal authorities are actively investigating dozens of American television stations for broadcasting items produced by the Bush administration and major corporations, and passing them off as normal news.