Why we love this country

As we all know, the Bush administration has been so innovative in the field of corrupt practices, misprision, and fraud, that it is no longer possible to tell the government apart from a RICO target. So we were amused by the latest incident of malfeasance with the intent to defraud the taxpayer. Also, a few lesser lives without the law, i.e., innocent Iraqi lives, were sacrificed -- but on the plus side, another GOP lobbyist has been rewarded for his inherent love of freedom. Freedom is a good thing. Freedom to mark up your invoices for undelivered goods 400 percent is an even better thing. And having friends in high places in Rumsfeld’s Pentagon is the best thing of all.

A nice little rundown on Custer Battles in Business Week includes the following fun to know and tell facts:

a. Custer Battles is formed in 2002 by “former Army Rangers Mike Battles and Scott Custer … before the Iraq invasion to seek rebuilding contracts. Battles, a GOP campaign contributor and a former CIA case worker, ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2002 as a Rhode Island Republican.”

b.While a more timid government might be afraid to entrust the lives of soldiers in an occupied territory that is filled with arms dumps and hostile forces to a contractor with approximately six months of experience, the Bush White house is anything but timid. Rather, enriching anything connected to the GOP, especially if it is slightly paramilitary and smells of Soldier of Fortune magazine is jut the thing the Bush White House loves best. So in the ‘bring em on’ fashion so beloved of the American electorate, Custer Battles and its fifteen subsidiaries harvest the bounty of war.
c. In a war that is, to all intents and purposes, an incompetent pirate raid on some of the richest oil fields in the world, it is hard to enforce a sense of integrity among the help. So Custer Battles operates much as if it were a division of Haliburton:

“By itself, Custer Battles is already in a great deal of trouble. It is under investigation by the Pentagon for allegedly cheating the U.S. government out of tens of millions during the chaotic months following the Iraq invasion. In September 2004, the military banned Custer Battles and 15 of its subsidiaries and officials, including Morris, from obtaining government contracts while the criminal probe proceeds.

Custer Battles employees have also been accused of firing on unarmed Iraqi civilians, of using fake offshore companies to pad invoices by as much as 400 percent, and of using forgery and fraud to bilk the American government. Two former associates have filed a federal whistle-blower suit, accusing top managers of swindling at least $50 million.”

d. Failing onward and upward is what the American upper class is all about. So the fun guys at Custer Battles, after being formally banned by the Pentagon, operate out of the Custer Battles hq, but under different nomenclature. Clever, eh? “Rob Roy Trumble, who previously was operations chief for Custer Battles,” resuits up a few operations that are just so necessary to our ongoing effort to spread liberty across the plains of Mesopotamia that the Pentagon has to throw money at the guy again. Flowers give pollen to bees, the male peacock spreads its irresistible tail before the weak kneed female, and GOP businessmen make proposals to the War Department. It’s a nature thing.

e. But so clever, so clever, this Custer Battles company! Here’s what they did. They re-baptized themselves as two other companies, Emergent Business Service and Tarheels Training. They affiliate themselves with a Romanian company which seems to be subsidiary of a killers for hire company out of Britain. And the fleet foots at the Pentagon allow them to bid, once more, on contracts. Astonishing, isn’t it.

America. Ruled by the worst. Elected by the ignorant. Plucked like a dead chicken.