Pasgt the Ammunition and Praise George W. Bush

(Tip o' the tinfoil hat to Bob Jellison and his Direct Newsletter. Otherwise I would’ve missed this.)

What would you call an Indian-owned government contractor that just got awarded a contract that could swell to up to $74 million plus a 5% incentive program for being owned by Native Americans?

In a word, “disadvantaged.”

Now, what would you call it when that same company, twelve days later, got slapped on the wrist by the DOJ to the tune of two million dollars for cheating the troops on Kevlar for their helmets?

In a word, “Fraud.”

Now, what would you call it when the manufacturer, Sioux Manufacturing (SMC, whose company logo resembles a jackass who just pissed off Zeus) fires the two whistleblowers for secretly recording conversations that prove their case?

In a word, “Coverup.”

In light of the Justice Department extracting two million dollars that will just go back into the national treasury to be put back into the pockets of assholes like Sioux and David "Fitty Cent" Brooks (who, you may recall, was recently arrested and charged with conspiracy, securities fraud, insider trading, tax evasion, and obstruction of justice, although not for making shitty armor that the DoD forced the troops to wear instead of the superior Dragonskin armor on pain of losing their death benefits), the DOJ that had been investigating Sioux since last August basically guaranteed that the helmet reinforcement manufacturer still made a $72 million profit on their shoddy product.

To add insult to quite possibly fatal injury, US Attorney Drew Wrigley, who covers North Dakota, called this an “appropriate settlement.”

Well, isn’t that nice? As long as Uncle Sam gets a kickback on an already bloated contract, then who cares if troops get killed? Besides, the Pentagon pointedly makes a point of not compiling such statistics just as our government refuses to compile stats on journalists and other civilians killed in war zones such as Iraq. And, with this Republican government, lack of evidence plus an unverified, undocumented sampling of 200 helmets at random passing muster equates with innocence.

All the same, the government announced that it’s just now begun inspections of said shoddy product. Gee, not a moment too soon. So, how is this contractor guilty of fraud? Well, companies like Sioux add Kevlar armor reinforcement to helmets or pasgts (Pronounced pass-get, for Personal Armor System for Ground Troops). To ensure that it meets DoD safety standards, the weave must meet a 35 by 35 strand standard. The whistleblowers, Jeff Kenner and Tamra Elshaug, said they’d gathered evidence that the weave was as low as 32 and that the weave count was massaged and rounded off so it would look as if the count averaged out to 35 strands. But what about the lighter cumulative weight? You can't massage that without outright putting your thumb on the scale.

Well, Sioux has a solution for that, too. In order to compensate for the lower weight of the reduced thread count (they had an unexpected surplus of 30,000 pounds of Kevlar), they made up the missing weight by using more resin, which is used to glue the armor in and isn’t, to mine or anyone else’s knowledge, bulletproof (the company has an equally unexplained shortage of resin).

So what about the two million dollar judgment? Well, that also is not indicative of guilt, says the company’s president, Carl R. McKay (Didn’t Michael Jackson make a similar statement when he’d awarded a multi-million dollar judgment to a "disgruntled" family?). McKay had also blown off the two terminated whistleblowers by poo-poohing “any and all of the allegations originally brought to the attention of the Department of Justice by disgruntled ex-employees.” (Of course, what McKay neglects to remind the press is that they’re “disgruntled ex-employees” because he fired them for telling the truth about his cheapness and treachery.)

In other words, we’re supposed to believe that companies that get $74 million contracts routinely hand out two million dollar judgments to “disgruntled ex-employees” who make irresponsible allegations of fraud because it’s “a prudent business decision.”

So does that mean I can sue Blackwater USA for dozens of wrongful deaths or Halliburton for bilking the taxpayer for fuel distribution costs and get millions so Eric Prince and Dick Cheney can save money on a lawsuit?

I’ll bottom-line it for you: A defense department contractor that’d been investigated by the Justice Department since August ’06 got a $74 million contract less than two weeks before getting a two million dollar “tut tut”. The same DoD carried out an unverified field test testifying to the high quality of the product even though they deliberately do not keep records of casualties involving penetrated helmets. The manufacturer in question is cheating the troops of armor and is picking up the slack by sticking more glue in their helmets. The only people in the company who care about this get fired for telling the truth despite getting excellent performance reviews.

We the taxpayer pay the price to investigate this fraudster that obviously doesn’t give a shit about the troops and the Republican US Attorney who’d “prosecuted” the case is “satisfied” that justice was served.

Now, remind me again why not a single person has bothered asking any of the presidential candidates what they’re going to do regarding crooked defense contractors who pull shit like this at the expense of the safety of our troops?