That the Department of Defense will undergo its first financial audit ever is the kind of news few people can probably relate to, like the discovery of a new terrene planet or the evacuation of a housing development built over a Hawaiian volcano. Okay, so now what? With more than $2 trillion in assets, the Pentagon has been on the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) High-Risk list since 2015, meaning that it is “vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement.” Duh. The year 1947, when DoD was created, would be a far more historically accurate milepost than 2015, but never mind. For generations, no one has known where all the military money goes–hundreds upon untraceable hundreds of millions of dollars swirling down a bottomless drain only to be replaced by billions more every fiscal year. Vulnerable, indeed–a veritable honey pot for swindlers, many of whom have worn uniforms or at least white collars. As iconic as the fighter planes, bombers, warships and ICBMs, massive waste has been the perennial face of the Pentagon, far beyond $43 million proof-of-concept gas stations. An audit is a sick joke at this point, necessary but risible, like requiring home smoke alarms at Leilani Estates.
And the accounting standards are laughable, too.
No secret like a lucrative secret.
