I’m all for ambition and entrepreneurship. After all, they are supposedly what “Makes America Great”. But occasionally maybe we should step back for a reality check.

For example, do we really want our government buying ammunition from freshly-minted con artists?

“MIAMI - A Miami Beach man says he is not guilty of defrauding the Pentagon under a contract he had to supply ammunition to forces in Afghanistan.
Twenty-two-year-old Efraim Diveroli entered the plea Monday in Miami federal court. Diveroli remains free on bail.
Prosecutors say Diveroli’s company, AEY Inc., provided banned Chinese-made ammunition to forces in Afghanistan and claimed it came from Albania.
AEY was paid more than $10 million for the ammunition.”

So now apparently all you need is ID showing you are over 21 to feed at the Military Industrial Complex hog trough with all of the ADULT criminals. Champagne is mandatory.

Or maybe we should be proud: another budding little war profiteer has just spread his wings, yearning to fly free from the nest.

UPDATE UNO:

Sorry, apparently this is old news and even worse than I first read:

“But to arm the Afghan forces that it hopes will lead this fight, the American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.

With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces.”

Nothing to see here folks, please move along.

UPDATE DOS:

Here is the NY Times quote I like best:

“AEY is one of many previously unknown defense companies to have thrived since 2003, when the Pentagon began dispensing billions of dollars to train and equip indigenous forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Its rise from obscurity once seemed to make it a successful example of the Bush administration’s promotion of private contractors as integral elements of war-fighting strategy.”

Heh, dogs of war indeed.

UPDATE TRES:

But wait! These quotes and the time-line doesn’t make sense!

“With the award last January of a federal contract”

is followed with:

“But problems with the ammunition were evident last fall in places like Nawa, Afghanistan, an outpost near the Pakistani border, where an Afghan lieutenant colonel surveyed the rifle cartridges on his police station’s dirty floor. Soon after arriving there, the cardboard boxes had split open and their contents spilled out, revealing ammunition manufactured in China in 1966.”