Not so fast, bucko:
Attacks by militants crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistan have tripled since September along portions of the border, a senior American intelligence official said Tuesday, prompting calls for a greater effort by Pakistan to curb the influx and a larger deployment of American and other NATO soldiers here.
Of particular concern, officials said, has been a rise in attacks by Taliban and other militants from remote and largely ungoverned tribal areas in Pakistan in eastern Afghanistan, where most of the American combat forces in the country are based.
“The border area is a problem,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told reporters after meeting on Tuesday with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. Mr. Gates said more attacks were coming from across the border and from “Al Qaeda networks operating across the border.”
Across the border? You mean in PAKISTAN, Mr. Gates? You know, our "ally in the war on terror" Pakistan? Across THAT border?
Apparently so:
A senior American military intelligence officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said cross-border attacks had tripled in that part of the border region.
Staff Sgt. Ronald Locklear, one of the 120 American soldiers at the base, said fighters based in Pakistan “cross the border on a regular basis.” He said the base was being hit by rocket and mortar fire at least once a week. Officials said they had evidence that Pakistani border guards ignored infiltration of Taliban fighters.
The senior American commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, told reporters after meeting with Mr. Gates that he was hopeful that the Bush administration would seek a much larger aid package from Congress for the training of Afghanistan security forces and for reconstruction projects.
Other officials said that the total budget request was likely to be at least twice last year’s level of nearly $3 billion, but that the exact number had not been determined.
"Reconstruction projects"? What the hell has the money for Afghanistan been used for, then? Oh yes, silly me -- lining the pockets of contractors, like a certain Texas-based company, perhaps?
Given this Administration's focus on commerce over security, it shouldn't surprise us, then, that the Pentagon has been selling surplus military hardware, including F-14 parts, to arms brokers who in turn sell them to countries like - wait for it - IRAN.
Yes, really:
The U.S. military has sold forbidden equipment at least a half-dozen times to middlemen for countries — including Iran and China — who exploited security flaws in the Defense Department's surplus auctions. The sales include fighter jet parts and missile components.
In one case, federal investigators said, the contraband made it to Iran, a country President Bush branded part of an "axis of evil."
In that instance, a Pakistani arms broker convicted of exporting U.S. missile parts to Iran resumed business after his release from prison. He purchased Chinook helicopter engine parts for Iran from a U.S. company that had bought them in a Pentagon surplus sale. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, speaking on condition of anonymity, say those parts made it to Iran.
The surplus sales can operate like a supermarket for arms dealers.
"Right Item, Right Time, Right Place, Right Price, Every Time. Best Value Solutions for America's Warfighters," the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service says on its Web site, calling itself "the place to obtain original U.S. Government surplus property."
Federal investigators are increasingly anxious that Iran is within easy reach of a top priority on its shopping list: parts for the precious fleet of F-14 "Tomcat" fighter jets the United States let Iran buy in the 1970s when it was an ally.
In one case, convicted middlemen for Iran bought Tomcat parts from the Defense Department's surplus division. Customs agents confiscated them and returned them to the Pentagon, which sold them again — customs evidence tags still attached — to another buyer, a suspected broker for Iran.
That incident appalled even an expert on weaknesses in Pentagon surplus security controls.
"That would be evidence of a significant breakdown, in my view, in controls and processes," said Greg Kutz, the Government Accountability Office's head of special investigations. "It shouldn't happen the first time, let alone the second time."
A Defense Department official, Fred Baillie, said his agency followed procedures.
"The fact that those individuals chose to violate the law and the fact that the customs people caught them really indicates that the process is working," said Baillie, the Defense Logistics Agency's executive director of distribution. "Customs is supposed to check all exports to make sure that all the appropriate certifications and licenses had been granted."
The Pentagon recently retired its Tomcats and is shipping tens of thousands of spare parts to its surplus office — the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service — where they could be sold in public auctions. Iran is the only other country flying F-14s.
Let me see....customs officials confiscate some parts and equipment from an arms broker, and returns them to the Defense Department, which then turns around and sells them AGAIN to OTHER arms dealers, who turn around and sell them to Iran.
When you think about the way this Administration has eviscerated the Constitution; the way they say they need to monitor your phone calls, your e-mail, and your financial transactions, all in the name of fighting terrorists, you seriously have to evaluate whether you want to sell your freedom to a government that is selling military hardware to a country at which it's rattling its sabers and is likely planning to invade before the first quarter of 2007 is over. If Americans are going to be foolish enough to give up their liberty for temporary security, it at least ought be to a government that's at least trying to keep them secure, instead of selling your security to the highest bidder without heed to the consequences.
Hell, at least when Reagan sold arms to Iran, we got hostages in return.
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