Nauseating Morning Read

Why have the U.S. and the Afghan government not joined to root out Al Qaeda and the Taliban?

In part because a chief U.S. weapons supplier to Afghanistan was, until recently, AEY, Inc., essentially a two-man operation headed by a 22-year-old man and assisted by a 25- year-old masseuse.

The New York Times put a bunch of reporters on what may turn out to be a war profiteering story that bests Blackwater. The whole 4,000 word piece is well-worth the time, but the most jarring points are these: The Army Sustainment Command gave the Miami Beach-based AEY, Inc. $300 million to supply ammo to the Afghanistan government. The 22 year-old, Efraim E. Diveroli, used the money to buy unusable, discarded artillery from Russia, Albania and other former Eastern Bloc countries. These are the same weapons the State Dept. has spent millions trying to destroy since the Cold War.

AEY, Inc. is no longer doing business with the Army, with the stated reason that it illegally bought weapons from China. Those weapons, apparently, didn’t work either.

How many other AEY, Inc.’s are there?