Gibbs: Insult or ignorance?

[LiberalAndProud]

It's loud in the news right now -- Iran is funding Afghanistan.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39857273/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

Iran admits funding Afghan government
Says money intended to aid reconstruction, not to buy influence
Karzai: Iranian cash is 'nothing hidden'
By NASSER KARIMI
The Associated Press
updated 10/26/2010 5:40:32 PM ET 2010-10-26T21:40:32
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran acknowledged Tuesday it has been sending funds to neighboring Afghanistan for years, but said the money was intended to aid reconstruction, not to buy influence in the office of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Karzai said Monday he receives millions of dollars in cash from Iran, adding that Washington gives him "bags of money" too because his office lacks funds.

In Washington, President Barack Obama's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, denied that. "We're not in the big bags of cash business," he said Tuesday.

So is Gibbs lying to us because he believes we no longer have the attention span of a gnat? Either he's woefully misinformed, or his short term memory is severely impaired.

http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PCAAC129.pdf
Congressional Research Service
Afghanistan: U.S. Foreign Assistance
Curt Tarnoff
Specialist in Foreign Affairs
March 5, 2010
The U.S. program of assistance to Afghanistan is intended to stabilize and strengthen the Afghan
economic, social, political, and security environment so as to blunt popular support for extremist
forces in the region. Since 2001, about $47 billion has been appropriated toward this effort.
More than half of U.S. assistance—roughly 57%—has gone to the training and equipping of
Afghan forces. The remainder has gone to development and humanitarian-related activities from
infrastructure to private sector support, governance and democratization efforts, and counternarcotics
programs.
Key U.S. agencies providing aid are the Department of Defense, the Agency for International

That's just the official stuff. Then there are some unsanctioned bags of cash.

http://www.thenation.com/article/36493/congressional-investigation-confirms-us-military-funds-afghan-warlords

Congressional Investigation Confirms: US Military Funds Afghan Warlords
Aram Roston
June 21, 2010
Security for key US military supply routes in Afghanistan is in the hands of a small group of powerful Afghan warlords who run a massive protection racket and may be paying off the Taliban, according to a Congressional report being released Tuesday. The report, an advance copy of which was obtained by The Nation, discloses that the Army has opened a criminal investigation into the payoffs, as an Army Criminal Investigation Command spokesman confirmed this evening to the Associated Press.

Note to Mr. Gibbs: We are, indeed, in the "big bags of cash business". Either you need to start paying attention to current events, or you should brush up on your truthiness skills.

[KeepItReal]

1. The previous President didn't mess with bags - he sent it by the planeload.

An armed guard poses beside pallets of $100 bills in Baghdad. Almost $12bn in cash was spent by the US-led authority


How the US sent $12bn in cash to Iraq. And watched it vanish
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1