AS AMERICAN TAXPAYERS REEL from the twin blows of Tax Day and the coordinated insurgent attacks in Afghanistan, do they know their taxes are helping to bankroll the Taliban? When I was embedded with American troops in insurgency-wracked eastern Afghanistan, soldiers began telling me that the U.S. government wastes tens of billions of taxpayer dollars each year on scandalously mismanaged aid and logistics contracts connected to the war. The soldiers told me there was a toxic system that links distracted American officials, private U.S. corporations, powerful Afghan insiders—and the Taliban. One way or another, everyone was in on the take.