The US recently spent $12,000,000,000 in cash.

Yes, twelve billion dollars. In cash. Hundred dollar bills.

How and where did they spend this money, you may ask. Was it on our failing school systems? Promoting the arts? Anti-poverty movements? Nutrition? Health care?

Of course not.

What they did was this: Filled a bunch of military cargo planes with piles of cash. Flew said planes to Iraq. Handed out cash.

Oh, but surely they must have kept good records and carefully investigated who they were giving the money to, asking probing questions about the identities of the recipients, their ties to unsavory organizations we normally do not hand cash to, and what they intended to do with the cash, right?

Psh. This is the American Department of Defense, not some pansy-ass pencil pushers! (Please do ignore the fact that we spend billions of dollars on clerks, engineers, lawyers, secretaries, and other desk-jockeys who are paid at least, if not more, than people who actually need military training [ie, soldiers]).

Choice excerpt from the memo revealing this:

One official was given $6.75m in cash, and was ordered to spend it in one week before the interim Iraqi government took control of Iraqi funds.

I try to maintain decent language and an acceptable level of civility here, but seriously, the only reaction I have to this is: WHAT. THE. FUCK?!

This pisses me off. Forget "terrorists" and "insurgents": the most dangerous thing to our safety are the unspeakably idiotic people we give not only guns, but extremely high-ranking positions from which they command thousands of other idiots with guns.

As soon as the veins in my forehead stop throbbing I'm going go A) wonder why I'm just hearing about this now and what happened to real investigative journalism, and B) find a way to move to Canada.