It’s hard to know where to begin to describe the distastefulness of this report::
Retired U.S. Army Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, was paid $100,000 to endorse a veterans charity that watchdog groups say is ripping off donors and wounded veterans by using only a small portion of the money raised for veterans services, according to testimony in Congress today.
Gen. Franks’ involvement was revealed as members of Congress questioned Roger Chapin, who operates Help Hospitalized Veterans and the Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes Foundation, charities that congressional investigators say spend only 25 percent of the money they raise on projects for wounded veterans.
[Via Digby]
I’m disgusted but not surprised: after all this is a man who’s packaged himself and his complicity in an illegal war as though it were a product to be bought and sold like soap powder.
Whether he knew they weren’t much of a charity or not when he took the money seems to have been rather besides the point, which was the money. Otherwise he’d’ve endorsed it for free, it being a charity and all.
But then a measly hundred grand doesn’t seem an awful lot when you look at the amount Franks has to raise to finance his retirement vanity project:
Last year, the general announced plans to build a $15 million leadership institute and museum in Hobart. [Oklahoma0
His vision is to construct a 45,000-square-foot “world-class facility devoted to enhancing decision-making through the critical study of history.”
Shame he didn’t do that before invading Iraq…
Plans call for the institute to also include a 500-seat auditorium, a teleconferencing center, a library and archival holdings for his private papers.
Construction of the institute has been loosely set at three years.
$15 million? That’s a lot of dodgy endorsements.
