Republican Taliban

Another GOP greedhead.

A former Republican congressman from Michigan was indicted Wednesday on federal charges of money laundering and obstruction of justice. The charges involve his work as a lobbyist for an Islamic charity accused of illegally funneling about $130,000 to an Afghan warlord labeled a terrorist by the United States government.

The former congressman, Mark D. Siljander, who was defeated for re-election in 1986 after three terms in the House, was accused by a federal grand jury in Kansas City of accepting $50,000 in stolen government aid money as his lobbying fee from the now-defunct charity group, the Islamic American Relief Agency.

In his defense, Siljander probably isn’t a terrorist sympathizer (but for all I know, he could be). He probably is just so blind with greed that he will do anything for the right price—even doing business with and enriching our nation’s enemies.

Allegedly.

And why not? It’s not like he’s the only Republican in bed with questionable partners. George Bush Sr. was an adviser to the Carlyle Group while members of the bin Laden family had millions invested in the company. As chairman of Halliburton in the late 1990s, Dick Cheney did business in Iran in violation of U.S. law. And George Jr. received an investment of $50,000 in Arbusto, his struggling oil company, from James Bath, his friend from the Texas Air National Guard, at the time when Bath just happened to be the U.S. business representative of Salem bin Laden, brother of Osama bin Laden.

Not allegedly.

So Siljander is chump change, really.