Our Legacy

When I was a child (and thought like a child), I believed that the most important mission I had was that I left the world a better place than it was when I entered. Now, that shouldn't have been difficult: I was born one year to the day from the detonation of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. Surely this joint would come to its senses and we would never face that kind of madness again.

Wrong.

We, and by that I mean specifically the United States, are still in the warmaking mode. We are still engaged in two wars (actually three, if you count Pakistan, which I think qualifies). There are still those, among them former Vice President Dick Cheney and his followers, that think we should open yet another theater in Iran. We can't have universal health care access because it is too expensive, but we can piss away billions of dollars each month killing people. It's as if that's the only thing we do well.

And if that isn't depressing enough, today I learned that our highly vaunted and much praised free market system has scored another coup. We lead the world in producing and selling the weapons of war. From the NY Times:

Despite a recession that knocked down global arms sales last year, the United States expanded its role as the world’s leading weapons supplier, increasing its share to more than two-thirds of all foreign armaments deals, according to a new Congressional study.

The United States signed weapons agreements valued at $37.8 billion in 2008, or 68.4 percent of all business in the global arms bazaar, up significantly from American sales of $25.4 billion the year before. ...

The increase in American weapons sales around the world “was attributable not only to major new orders from clients in the Near East and in Asia, but also to the continuation of significant equipment and support services contracts with a broad-based number of U.S. clients globally,” according to the study, titled, “Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations.”

Well, hooray for us.

What's even worse is that we are selling weapons to some of the countries that have established that they are just as willing to turn those weapons against their own citizens as they are to use them for defense:

The study found that the larger arms deals concluded by the United States with developing nations last year included a $6.5 billion air defense system for the United Arab Emirates, a $2.1 billion jet fighter deal with Morocco and a $2 billion attack helicopter agreement with Taiwan. Other large weapons agreements were reached between the United States and India, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, South Korea and Brazil.

But, hey! It's ok because it involves jobs and meaningful work for people. We can wait for carriage builders to start on public transportation and tech companies to build cheaper solar panels. What we need is money, lots of it, now, even though that money only passes on to the patricians.

There isn't enough Effexor in the world to tame what I'm feeling right now.

Things That Make You Go, "Say, What?"

You'd think after one disastrous war that military officials would take a long, hard look at what went wrong and determine not to make those mistakes again. You would, of course, be wrong. While Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has promised to get rid of at least some of the private contractors who performed badly and sloppily, causing unnecessary deaths to both Iraqi civilians and US soldiers, the Pentagon is now looking to expand the use of some of those same contractors in Afghanistan, at least according to Washington Post:

The U.S. military command is considering contracting a private firm to manage security on the front lines of the war in Afghanistan, even as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates says that the Pentagon intends to cut back on the use of private security contractors.

On a Web site listing federal business opportunities, the Army this month published a notice soliciting information from prospective contractors who would develop a security plan for 50 or more forward operating bases and smaller command outposts across Afghanistan. ...

"The contractor shall be responsible for providing security services, developing, implementing, adequately staffing, and managing a security program," the notice said, adding that the contractor would have to be available "24 hours a day, seven days a week."

That's right: we're going to hire a private security force to protect our bases because apparently our soldiers can't do that. That's a fine kettle of mackerel, isn't it?

Now, just ten days ago, Sec. Gates seemed to imply that this kind of nonsense was going to stop:

At a town hall meeting at Fort Drum, N.Y., on July 16, Gates said that the military had let contracting "grow without the kind of controls that we should" have had. The purpose, he said, was "to try and free up as many soldiers for actual combat duty, rather than having them do things that civilian contractors could do."

Contractors, Gates noted, have done a variety of jobs, including running dining facilities and doing laundry, cleaning chores and security work. "So, we're kind of going back through all of these roles, at this point, to figure out where military ought to be doing these things and where civilian contractors can be," he said. [Emphasis added]

I guess he's changed his mind. Either that, or he hasn't bothered to mention his plan to the Army officials who placed the "help wanted" ad on the government web site. Regardless, it appears that we will now have an army of mercenaries (Blackwater or "Xe" types) operating alongside the regular military. Parallel armies, parallel commanders? Probably.

Well, if we're going to do that, why not just go all the way? Bring the US military home, hire Xe (or whomever) and let them fight our wars for us. In fact, we really wouldn't need our own military at all, or a Pentagon, or a military industrial complex which sucks our budget dry. States could keep their National Guard troops for emergencies, but they could be kept at home. If we didn't have to send so many dollars to Washington, DC to float the Pentagon, states could afford to equip the Guard and to train them without straining the state budgets.

In fact, why even bother with a federal government at all? I mean, it does seem incapable of doing anything right, right?

Clean cups! Clean cups!

Dysfunctional or Highly Effective

Watching the right wing in congress wield its powers to obstruct the health care restructuring that 85% of the public wants reveals the character of the wingers more than ever. Policy that public interest would dictate is anathema to what remains of the GOP. It's rather scary to see what they do want; war, debt, deregulation, repression of workers/salaries.

Today as the minimum wage rises for the first time since the last Democratic White House, it might be a good time to look at who benefits when the public is slammed.

The facts behind the wars that the previous war criminal administration waged have become clear; the war on Iraq had been determined long before 9/11 which was used to precipitate it. Many believe, and state, that it was a war for oil; I think that the outcome indicates it was a broader pattern. Not just the oil companies that the previous maladministration truckled to profited hugely. The war profiteers that include Cheney's Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater and associated military suppliers also had free reign which included being appointed oversight of their own activities. The wars that impoverished this country enriched the perpetrators of it, something a previous profiteer,, progenitor of the worst president in history, had been rebuked for by Congress after WWII.

There were other methods of impoverishing the country, a major one being the deregulation of financial houses that pushed debt so great onto the country that our households have lost an estimated one-third of total assets. Wages' falling - along with soaring prices of oil and transported goods - has required individuals and families to go deeper into debt than ever experienced before. The service jobs that predominated during eight years of winger policies forced multitudes of wage earners to take more than one job to support themselves and their families.

National debt rose to pay for the extravagance of the free market profiteers. National debt brings to mind a vision of the Treasury, whose bonds have been sold to various investors here and abroad. More than just the Treasury is involved in the transaction, though.

The sellers of those Treasury bonds are for the most part the very financial houses that handle other investments, and can be your bank, your financial manager, even your insurance agent. Few have, as I did, bought their bonds directly from the U.S. Treasury, and it offended my banker to find out that I had not gone through him when I did. The profit in each individual transaction is minimal, but in the multitudinous transactions of sales to get into the immense debt constitution some trillions of dollars huge profits accrued.

Once again, policies that made a mockery of the concept of government, that it serves the public, brought huge profits to the moneyed interest that the right wing serves.

While public office holders who take direct bribes from those they serve by betraying public interest are prosecuted, those who serve their own interests by allowing them to profit off of policies harmful to the public usually are ignored.

The highway robbery, that acquiring huge public debt has been. may not ever be prosecuted. Like the war, though, it has accumulated huge profits for those that committed this crime against the public.

In discussion of the wingnut attacks on health care for the public, more than one commenter I've been talking with has expressed amazement that we aren't taking to the streets and running them out of office. Quite probably, if the full truth of their thefts from the public were exposed, there would be even greater anger against the profiteers from war, debt and the health crisis.

I prefer accumulating anger and using it personally to work for a return to government of, by and for the people. In the sixties, I marched around the White House holding a candle, and against the Pentagon - though I went home before the soldiers advanced against civilians there. It's quite likely that I will be marching again, should the wingnuts succeed in robbing this country of its access to health care, along with the return on its productivity and its right to survive on that production.

Dying in Vain

It was inevitable that the ex-Darth would bark over from the dark side about letting go his dream war. The exit from Iraq which should have taken place long years ago, and which has wasted lives and our economy, just hurts him so much.

Naturally,the ex non-warrior loves his war, and speaks out against letting it go to waste.

A milestone is being reached today in Iraq. U.S. troops are pulling out of 15 Iraqi cities. It is the first phase of an overall departure plan that has American soldiers out (for the most part) of the country by the end of 2011.

The Washington Times radio show "America's Morning News" spoke with Dick Cheney, one of the architects of America's involvement in Iraq,

"What he says concerns me: That there is still a continuing problem. One might speculate that insurgents are waiting as soon as they get an opportunity to launch more attacks," said Cheney. "I hope the Iraqis can deal with it. At some point they have to stand on their own, but I would not want to see the U.S. waste all the tremendous sacrifice that has gotten us to this point."

Waste is the very essence of his war, but of course ex-Darth can't acknowledge that all the lives and the packets of money are his waste. If he had ever actually been involved personally in war, he might have had a better sense of the attitude of soldiers. They are fighting to save lives, not destroy them. In fact, in this assymetrical warfare, they were fighting to save Iraqi lives as well.

Only a total inability to revere humanity and/or life could lead to the attitude that more lives should be thrown into a worthless fray for avoidance of his own regret. One of the most completely evil thugs ever to rise to power in the country is well represented in his statements today, that 'waste' is involved in pulling out to avoid more loss of life.

Only war profiteers like Halliburton gained by this war. For a real indication of ex-Darth's loyalties, the formula is what was true of his former maladministration; "Follow the money".

Your Money At Play

Studies of the contracting 'procedures' in U.S. wars, during the previous maladministration, has shown what seemed probable from the costs as related to production; what procedures? Under a group formed to give close scrutiny to the Pentagon's supply of our troops, staggering expense tracked directly back to staggeringly blasé winging it with public funds and military needs.

The contractors that literally ran rampant through the countries we took over were just one branch that proved profligate with our money. The military showed all the concern for our national treasure usually connected with pigs at a trough.

The bipartisan CWC, commissioned by Senators Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), James Webb (D-Va.), and Susan Collins (R-Maine), took several months to study the multitude of ways in which the government has been scammed. Staffed by employees of the relevant government agencies, branches of the military and the private sector, the group analyzed hundreds of audits and reports before seeking out answers in the field.

Their studies led them to investigate relevant government and contractor organizations in Washington, interviewing various employees. Not content with second hand accounts, the CWC then flew staff to Iraq and Afghanistan, where they observed, interviewed and analyzed contractors, and the government employees supposed to be overseeing them.

What they found confirmed their worst fears. Not only is the weather in Iraq unpleasantly hot, but the contracting system is completely broken.
(snip)
...apathy from politicians towards civil service, combined with a lack of a clear legal definition, has led to staff shortages in some agencies being filled by contractors, even though it is done unlawfully.

With the amount of contractors supporting contingencies in Iraq and Afghanistan outnumbering government personnel, the commission feels that this imbalance should be redressed, in part, by clearly defining what cannot be outsourced, and hiring an appropriate amount of government officials accordingly.

A clear example of something that the commission feels should not be outsourced can be found amidst Afghanistan's system of private military contractors. The administration of a private security oversight committee, the Armed Contractor Oversight Division (ACOD) in Afghanistan, was contracted to a British firm, Aegis, upon the ACOD's establishment in Afghanistan in February of this year.

Yes, that’s right. A government oversight division has been contracted. Not only is it fundamentally wrong that private interests are managing a government watchdog, but there is also the potential for conflict of interest. Should Aegis, or an affiliate of the company, bid successfully for a private security contract, then the company would be supervising itself, while collecting two separate checks from U.S. taxpayers. (Emphasis added.)

The gross maladministration of this country extended in many directions, and reached an apogee in its wars. The former chief of the executive branch who came into office by malfeasance, whose whole career was an illustration of avoiding Hard Work, created a mess that extends to every branch of the government. Cleaning up the mess is a hard job, indeed, and will take dedicated public servants' returning to government and slowly but surely taking back this country for the people.

The billions that the previous maladministration blew in its wars would have paid several times over for the health care system that its leftovers are now fighting maniacally to resist.

Dollars And Sense

Yesterday I praised Defense Secretary Gates for his push to end unnecessary and expensive weapons projects. Today, I've found another costly area that needs his attention.

From the NY Times:

The Pentagon has done little to collect at least $100 million in overcharges paid in deals arranged by corrupt former officials of Kellogg Brown & Root, the defense contractor, even though the officials admitted much of the wrongdoing years ago, two senators have complained in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

The letter also said that the Army had almost completely failed to move away from the monopolistic nature of the logistics contract that has paid the contractor, now called KBR, $31.3 billion for logistics operations in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan.

The letter was written by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), the chair and ranking member of the contracting oversight subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, respectively.

The KBR officials in question admitted that they accepted bribes in dispensing work to subcontractors in Iraq whose bids were much higher than their competitors. The corruption was facilitated by the fact that KBR essentially has a monopoly when it comes to the work in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait. Congress, aware of the problem, ordered the Pentagon to set up a system of bidding with other companies capable of doing the work, but KBR has such a cozy relationship with the Pentagon that it still is receiving all of the work in Iraq, and much of it in the other two countries.

While it's possible that KBR has been passing money or favors to officials at the Pentagon, I think it's more likely that members of the contracting department are just taking the easy way out. They know the people at KBR, they've dealt with them for years: it's just simpler to hit speed dial than to put out a notice requesting bids and going through that complicated procedure.

It's time for Secretary Gates to end the laziness. Those are our dollars. We expect the government to use some sense in spending them.

Things That Make One Scream

I guess I really am naive. Like everyone else, I have been appalled and disgusted by the corruption displayed by the private contractors in Iraq. The war profiteers made millions with shoddy construction so bad that US soldiers were electrocuted while taking showers. Buildings to house schools or prisons were started but never completed, yet the companies were paid as if they were. Billions of our dollars were poured directly into the privateers' pockets because there were few, if any, controls on how the money was spent.

It never occurred to me that some of those war profiteers would turn out to be US soldiers. Apparently handling millions of dollars in cash was just too much temptation for some officers. From the Los Angeles Times:

In a federal indictment last month, prosecutors alleged that [Capt. Michael Dung] Nguyen managed to skim more than $690,000 in cash as the civil affairs officer overseeing millions of dollars intended for reconstruction projects and payments to private Iraqi security forces northeast of Baghdad. The 28-year-old West Point graduate is accused of packing cash into boxes and mailing them to his family's home in Beaverton, Ore.

His indictment is one of the latest in a wave of prosecutions emerging from the tangled and expensive reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Justice Department has secured more than three dozen bribery-related convictions in the awarding of reconstruction contracts; at least 25 theft probes are underway.

The prosecutions reveal the extent to which troops have been tempted by the Pentagon's "money as a weapon system" policy, which has left battlefields awash in cash.

What is so maddening is that the temptation to skim off some of that cash was heightened by the fact that no real system was in place to prevent officers from acting on that temptation, a fact the military didn't really discover until recently.

A Defense Department review of the program -- which gives field commanders an arsenal of cash to help build community relief projects, aid families and pay civilian security forces -- found in 2007 that all 15 pay agents surveyed who handled cash in Afghanistan did not have "appropriate physical security" for storing the money. No instances of theft were found.

The audit also found that disbursement officers did not always use the correct exchange rate when doling out local currency. Manipulating the exchange rate, authorities allege, was how Gilliam amassed cash.

"If people that know the system and how it operates decide to commit a fraud, it is very difficult to detect," said David Warren, audits director for the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. "Because they are the people that are in essence the control system that is in place." [Emphasis added]

Flooding the battlefield with US dollars (rather than Iraqi dinars, which would be difficult to mail home and use) made it easy for Capt. Nguyen to enrich himself at our expense and that of the Iraqis. Whose idea was that? And why aren't they being investigated as well?

And we complain about the corruption of the Iraqi and Afghanistan governments...

Gah!

Defense Snouts Out of the Trough

There has been reason to doubt that the military should be spending the amounts it does for as long as I've been aware of public events, and of course the late President Eisenhower made it absolutely certain in his farewell address. Yesterday's statements of cutting programs, by Defense Secretary Gates, had a great deal reassuring about them.

His cuts of Pentagon programs are one of the most sane decisions we've seen in some time for military procurement.

"We will end production of the F-22 fighter," Gates announced matter-of-factly in the hushed Pentagon briefing room yesterday, dispatching Lockheed Martin's $140-million-a-pop aircraft without even a hint of regret. "For me," he added, "it was not a close call."

The soft-spoken Kansan delivered the news not from a lectern but from his preferred position, in a leather armchair set up behind a table, giving the impression he was on the set of Jim Lehrer's "NewsHour." But the understated delivery obscured the boldness of what Gates was attempting: Calmly and methodically, he posed a direct challenge to the military-industrial complex.

Boeing's Future Combat Systems fighting vehicles -- kaboom!

Lockheed's multiple-kill vehicle: killed.

Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics' DDG 1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer with Raytheon electronics? Gates sunk their battleship.

The Lockheed VH-71 presidential helicopter and Boeing's C-17 cargo plane? SecDef shot them down, too.

It was the opening shot in what is certain to be a long war. In many ways, Gates, in taking on the defense contractors and their many friends in Congress, has invited a fight with an opponent more potent than any he has faced in Iraq and Afghanistan as President Obama's -- and before that President George W. Bush's -- defense secretary.

Obama has already surprised Washington with his ambitious efforts to pump hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy, overhaul health and energy policy, and take command of the auto industry. But when it comes to changing the way this town does business, Obama and Gates have attempted a whole new level of difficulty in challenging the combined might of Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics.

The contractors held fire yesterday -- Lockheed and Raytheon said they were "assessing" while Boeing announced it was "studying" -- and defense stocks rose, either because investors were expecting worse, or more likely, because they suspect Gates's proposal will never get through Congress. To that end, lawmakers' guns were already blazing yesterday, despite Easter recess. Just 24 minutes after Gates finished his announcement, a bipartisan group of senators including Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) fired off a letter to Obama saying Gates's proposed cuts in missile defense "could undermine our emerging missile defense capabilities to protect the United States against a growing threat."

Naturally, some congressional proponents of their area industries will fight for public funding of welfare for military industries. The fight will finally have representation in the fight for the public itself, though.

There was some anticipation of these measures from President Obama's appointments of responsible personnel for military oversight. Particularly the hearings on the nomination of Ashton Carter hailed him as a precursor of cuts to come.

If confirmed as expected, Carter would become under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. He said he would go program by program to "see if there isn't more to that iceberg" of budget overruns, schedule slips and performance shortfalls.

"We cannot change history," he added in reply to advance questions from the Armed Services Committee. "But it is important to assess whether programs that have already experienced cost growth are still out of control and whether they can still be afforded."

It's a refreshing change to have voices of reason in the administration. Quite a change has been recorded from eight years of treating the public trough as a private piggybank. With regard to military procurement, the public has been particularly ill served while no controls were exercised at all.

I really liked this morning's expression of such a dilemma by Professor Wombat, a much appreciated commenter at eschaton. Although he was talking about the medical profession at the time, his words struck me as apt when it came to the unsupervised military procurement system;
It's been two thousand years since the question was posed of who should watch the watchmen. If there's one thing that's abundantly clear, it's that a profession policing itself is a recipe for disaster, be it law, medicine, police forces, any.

Yet another example of the implications of self-reference, which I first came across with Epimenides the Cretan's pronouncement that all Cretans are liars, then with Russell's paradox and Godel, and, the longer I live and think about it, a consistent way people diverge from reality, or limit their assessment of it gratuitously, leading to error, instability and general poopy-headedness...
ProfWombat | 04.07.09 - 8:46 am | #

A sense of relief is growing from the number of instances that show public service returning to the executive branch. It bodes well, and it certainly helps the proverbial consumer confidence to see the end of poopy-headedness. Highway robbery has been so much a part of the wingnut regime just past that just ending that single crime, alone, would be a great service.

Next, can we please have the end to constantly misfiring Star Wars? Thank you.

But They Wear Flag Pins

Today's Boston Globe contains an editorial concerning the war-profiteers at the Pentagon's favorite private contractor, KBR. It also rather quietly notes KBR's history as part of Halliburton, once led by Vice President Cheney.

FOR YEARS, companies more interested in profits than patriotism have registered overseas or used foreign subsidiaries to avoid US taxes. Now a major Pentagon contractor once managed by Vice President Dick Cheney is using Cayman Islands shell companies to help it and its workers escape US payroll taxes.

KBR, the largest private contractor for the Pentagon in Iraq, has two shell companies in the Caymans, that, for bookkeeping purposes, employ about 10,500 Americans in Iraq. Because the companies are offshore, neither KBR nor the workers must pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, allowing the company and its workers to avoid paying about $100 million a year, according to Globe reporter Farah Stockman. ...

When KBR set up the second of its two shells in the Caymans, it was still owned by Halliburton. Halliburton's chief executive then was Cheney. His office referred inquiries into the matter to Cheney's personal lawyer, who has not replied to inquiries from the Globe.

A KBR spokeswoman said the company does not save money by avoiding the taxes, because its contracts call for the Pentagon to reimburse it for all its employee costs. But evading the payroll taxes gives KBR a competitive edge when it bids against other contractors in Iraq. [Emphasis added]

How nice.

Back in the day, war-profiteering was considered treason and a crime. I guess those days are gone.

320 days.

Wanted: Your Unwary, Yearning for a Job

Reminder: the U.S. is conducting a war in Afghanistan.

It's going badly, after a stroke of beginners' luck when we drove out an unpopular, restrictive and authoritarian regime of Taliban religious fanatics. The occupied White House in its enthusiasm for war powers, irrational exuberance, denuded troop strengths and sent everyone off to Iraq where their real ambitions lay.

Now the poppy trade is rebounding, as are the Taliban, and we are facing growing rejection by the population that we unaccountably keep bombing for their own good. We have a wonderful idea, now, to strengthen and ally ourselves with, oh, right, train - the discredited police.

Afghanistan's police are notorious for extorting money from civilians, protecting drug dealers and otherwise acting like "terrorists with badges," as one U.S. officer put it. The police sometimes go unpaid and must fend for themselves.

Until November, the police general in charge of this province had a roster that included more than 1,600 "ghost" policemen – someone was collecting their salaries, even though no one ever saw them. Half the fuel and food allotted to the police force was sold on the black market, according to Maj. Mike Basart, who commands the police training teams at Forward Operating Base Vulcan.

When police ran low on firewood or clothes, they went to the bazaar and took what they needed without paying. Cops would set up roadblocks and demand payments before anyone could pass.

"If police officers don't appear to the people as legitimate or professional, how can the government be regarded as professional or honest?" asked Maj. Gabe Barton, operations officer for the 2nd battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division, which has responsibility for security in Deh Yak and the rest of Ghazni Province.

Does this begin to sound like our story line in Iraq, where our military claims we can't leave because it would mean that the regime we're propping up, and 'training', would dissolve. Without popular support and involvement, we're creating nothing more than a staged production for the purposes of misleading the press and the public.

There's no There there.

The U.S. embed team arrived at the Deh Yak station unannounced recently and found only 15 police officers on the job. Capt. Bailey mustered 12 of them to patrol down the village streets, only to turn back when Sgt. Farrelly reported that the Afghans had left the station unguarded.

In such cold weather, it's harder to persuade the police to stand guard all night in sentry towers. The U.S. team of embedded soldiers brought wood stoves and fuel for the towers but still had to roust guards out of their barracks beds to man the watch. They harangued police sergeants to keep blankets out of the guard towers because the police are prone to falling asleep.

An impromptu inspection of a remote observation outpost found a group of shivering Afghan police living in trenches and sandbagged huts in the grip of an ice fog that etched its white teeth in everything from eyebrows to engine blocks. Three of the police at this camp were fired recently for taking bribes but had yet to turn in their uniforms.

New York National Guard Pvt. Brendan Marino, a 32-year-old Brooklyn native working security for the team, said he guesses training the Afghan police will take many years to complete. But he's intrigued enough that he said he's considering coming back to Afghanistan as a civilian training contractor. (Emphasis added.)

IOW, our guys are there to get a step up into that well-paid job as a Contractor, while the soldiers are trying to get into position to make a living off that same racket - or the drug trade.

Democracy, national pride, freedom, if you remember all those reasons we made a war in the Middle East, forget them. It's a living.

337 days.

Industry's Bird of Prey

Not your usual Thursday bird, the Osprey is surviving in the wilds of fiscal incompetence, flying on with all its flaws intact. As if things weren't dangerous enough, it's migrated to Iraq now.

The Osprey has been under fire from defense industry critics since it first tested badly, and has cost untold millions, in addition to the lives lost, in its many accidents. It has received enough attention in print that it has become an embarrassment to everyone involved - except its supporters in congress from the states that produce it, yep, you read Texas there. In 2001, it served as an early litmus test the occupied White House failed.

DoD manages the captive defense industry with a combination of socialism (inefficient government-owned facilities compete unfairly with the private sector), industrial policy (so called “competition” rarely lives up to its name), and the erection of high barriers to entry through excessive specifications for weapon systems (which discourages non-defense companies from bringing new methods and products into a stagnant industry). The Osprey is a typical product of the creaking defense acquisition system. If nothing else, killing the Osprey would have sent a message to the Congress, the defense industry, and the defense bureaucracy that George W. Bush was serious about radically transforming the nation''s defenses and was not going to tolerate business as usual. The new president has failed his first test as a defense reformer. (Emphasis added.)

In Iraq, it is stumbling along ferrying stuff to and fro, and now is being eased into some combat operations. Its supporters in the defense industry have had to pull several back as they advance its use, though. Just what our troops need, playing nursemaid to another disaster from our military industry.

As of Dec. 28, three months through a scheduled seven-month deployment, the 23 pilots of Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263, known as VMM-263, had logged 1,639 hours of flight time in Iraq, carried 6,826 passengers and delivered 631,837 pounds of cargo without a mishap or even a close call.

That's good news not only for the Marines but also for Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. of Fort Worth and Boeing Co.'s helicopter division, near Philadelphia, which make the Osprey in a 50-50 partnership. About 2,500 Bell employees work on the Osprey in Fort Worth and Amarillo, where V-22s are assembled.
(snip)
"As long as they keep using it like a truck, I think they'll probably be OK," said Philip Coyle, a former Pentagon weapons testing director and a longtime Osprey critic.

In December, VMM-263 began to take on riskier tasks.

On Dec. 6, two of the Ospreys carried 24 combat-loaded Marines and 24 Iraqi troops on a raid near Lake Tharthar, 150 miles north of Baghdad, to look for suspected insurgents.

"It turned out to be a dry hole, there was nothing there," said Capt. Drew Norris, 30, of Dallas, a graduate of Jesuit College Preparatory School and Texas A&M University who was one of the pilots on the raid. As for the flight, he said, "It went off without a hitch."

Two days later, two Ospreys were included for the first time in a well-established mission called "aeroscout," a sort of roving raid in which troops aboard helicopters search for insurgents by air. The ground troops commander scrubbed the mission when one Osprey needed to turn back to base because one of its four generators failed.

The generator failure is symptomatic of one big question hanging over the Osprey in Iraq: Is the $70 million aircraft reliable enough, or does it break too often?

One of the squadron's 10 Ospreys had to land in Jordan on the way into Iraq in October and spend a couple of days there being fixed after a wiring problem led the pilots to make a precautionary landing. Others have been grounded for days at a time for similar problems in Iraq. (Emphasis added.)

Once again, our troops are guinea pigs for the defense contractors. Inadequate armor, humvees that left them sitting ducks, like the war itself are not designed to protect anyone, but to pay off lobbyists. The description of corporate welfare by the Pentagon which I featured above tells us all we need to know about actual 'respect for the troops'.

Guess which chicken hawk absolutely will not use the Osprey? If you guessed the Cretin in Chief, you were right, and a great judge of character or the lack thereof. AWOL has all the care in the world for his own hide, not a whit for those he routinely throws away to keep his friends rolling in public money.

The military industrial complex is all about war profiteering. We need to stop it before it kills again.

Profits From The Fear Factor

The Los Angeles Times has begun a series of investigative reports on the business side of combating terrorism. Today's article in that series called "Fear Inc" describes the activities of a Russian emigre who quickly became the darling of the CIA and Congress.

In the fall of 1992, Kanatjan Alibekov defected from Russia to the United States, bringing detailed, and chilling, descriptions of his role in making biological weapons for the former Soviet Union.

As a doctor of microbiology, a physician and a colonel in the Red Army, he helped lead the Soviet effort. He told U.S. intelligence agencies that the Soviets had devoted at least 30,000 scientists, working at dozens of sites, to develop bioweapons, despite a 1972 international ban on such work. ...

He said that emigrating Russian scientists and others posed imminent threats. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, he said, several specialists went to Iraq and North Korea. Both countries, he said, may have obtained anthrax and smallpox. The transfer of smallpox would be especially ominous because the Russians, he said, had sought to genetically modify the virus, posing lethal risk even to those who had been vaccinated.

His expertise, combined with his dire pronouncements, solidified his cachet in Washington. He simplified his name to Ken Alibek, became a familiar figure on Capitol Hill, and emerged as one of the most important voices in U.S. decisions to spend billions of dollars to counter anthrax, smallpox and other potential bioterrorism agents. ...

Having raised the prospect that Iraq had acquired the ability to wield smallpox or anthrax, Alibek also was outspoken as the U.S. went to war in early 2003, saying there was "no doubt" that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. [Emphasis added]

While Mr. Alibek's contributions on Soviet research and development on biological welfare are apparently still considered reliable, his more recent assertions on the proliferation of such knowledge to other nations are increasingly being called into question for obvious reasons. Furthermore, his own research in the US has not produced any results deemed acceptable by the scientific community.

No biological weapon of mass destruction has been found in Iraq. His most sensational research findings, with U.S. colleagues, have not withstood peer review by scientific specialists. His promotion of nonprescription pills — sold in his name over the Internet and claiming to bolster the immune system — was ridiculed by some scientists. He resigned as executive director of a Virginia university's biodefense center 10 months ago while facing internal strife over his stewardship.

Still, Mr. Alibek has had quite a ride, mostly at government expense:

And, as Alibek raised fear of bioterrorism in the United States, he also has sought to profit from that fear.

By his count, Alibek has won about $28 million in federal grants or contracts for himself or entities that hired him.

Most of that $28 million came in the form of earmarks under the GOP controlled Congress. He had friends in the right places in Congress, and solidifying those friendships cost him less than $15 thousand in campaign contributions.

Huckster and conman? Perhaps not, but Mr. Alibek certainly took advantage of the fear generated after 9/11. He, and others, started a whole new industry that has burgeoned over the years, garnering millions of dollars in government contracts.

And, thanks to that deplorable congressional quirk known as earmarks, it appears that millions more will be made.

As Yakov Smirnoff would say, "What a country!"

LETTER FROM IRAQ

REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP:

DEAR MR. w,

IT IS MUCH CONFIDENTIAL THAT YOU HEAR THIS VERY LUCRATIVE OFFER THAT I MUST FIND APPROPRIATE PERSON TO BUY IN ORDER TO GIVE HUGE GIFT. I HAVE CONFIDENCE YOU WILL FIND THAT KEEPING SECRET IS MUCH NECESSARY AND YOU WILL BE SO REWARDED BIGTIME.

WE ARE TOP OFFICIAL LIVING IN GREAT HAZARD OF BEING HURT AND ROBBED BY NOT NICE LEADER OF GOVERNMENT WHO IS THREAT TO YOU, TOO, MR. SADDAM. OUR FUNDS MUST BE RELOCATED TO SAFE PLACE AND MUCH NEED TO BE IMPATRIATED IN, SAY, PARAGUAY. YOU WILL BE VERY REWARDED IN LARGE MONEY AND OIL TO GIVE SAFE PLACE.

FIRST MUCH HAS TO BE DONE TO FREE UP OUR RIGHTFUL FUNDS FROM THE VERY NASTY GOVERNMENT THAT HAS NOW GOT POSSESSION OF THE SAME. WE HAVE SET UP REVIEW PANEL HERE AND LOCATED MUCH FRAUDULENT MONEY NOW LOCATED IN BAGHDAD BANK WHICH WILL BE VERY RELIEVED TO HAND IT OVER TO YOU IN PACKETS OF $100 BILLS ON YOUR ENTRY TO THAT BAGHDAD BANK. BRING CASH WITH YOU FOR FINDERS FEE AND NECESSARY ARRANGEMENTS TO RELIEVE SUCH BANK OF ITS NECESSARY BURDEN OF HOLDING SAME.

IN ORDER TO ARRIVE IN BAGHDAD BANK, UNFORTUNATELY IT WILL BE NECESSARY TO ARRIVE IN MILITARY STYLE. THIS IS NOT SO HARD AS IT MAY SOUND TO YOU. WE WILL GUARANTEE GREETINGS OF YOU AND YOUR MILITARY WITH CANDY AND FLOWERS, AND MUCH BLESSING BY THE INCAPTIVATED RESIDENTS OF THIS COUNTRY. THIS WILL MAKE REALLY FINE SHOW FOR TV AND YOUR PRESS, YOU WILL WANT TO BRING THEM WITH YOU. THEY CAN BE IMBEDDED IN TROOPS WHO WILL NOT BE FIRED ON MUCH, AS MOST OF OUR IRAQI MILITARY ARE SECRETLY ON YOUR SIDE AND LOVE YOU VERY MUCH. SUCH FIRING AS MAY HAPPEN WILL BE JUST FOR 'SHOW' AND NOT KILL MANY SOLDIERS, JUST RELIEVE YOU OF SOME OVERCROWDING LATER.

THE JUSTICE WHICH YOU WILL DO WILL BE THAT FREE MONEY IS NOT GIVEN TO NATIVE IRAQIS, BUT INSTEAD IS USED TO BUILD CASTLES AND MILITARY STUFF WITH. WE NEED VERY LITTLE ENERGY AND WATER, CLEANLINESS HERE. THE PEOPLE OF BAGHDAD WILL BE GLAD TO EXCHANGE THEIR PROSPERITY AND PEACE FOR A NEW GOVERNMENT.

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YOU WILL BELIEVE US AND NOT BE SUSPICOUS LIKE FRENCH AND OTHER RENEGADES, BECAUSE WE ARE GOING TO BE MUCH IN CHARGE IF YOU MANAGE THIS WAR AND WE WILL GUARANTEE THAT YOU ARE GOING TO BE RECEIVED WITH MUCH SHOW AND POMP LIKE YOU WILL LIKE. NO ONE WILL ASK EMBARRASSING QUESTIONS, ALSO WHICH YOU DON'T LIKE. WE WILL SET UP A GOVERNMENT AND HAND OVER OIL RICHES AND OIL LINES TO YOU. OUR NEEDS ARE MODEST, AND A MERE COUNTRY OF OUR OWN IS ALL WE WANT IN EXCHANGE FOR ALL THESE GOODIES.

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IT WILL BE GREAT PLEASURE TO GREET YOU. BRING CASH WITH, PLEASE. PLEASE REMEMBER ME TO THE FAMILY.

BEST WISHES,

IRAQI NATIONAL CONGRESS, AHMED CHALABI ETC.

P.S. YOU WILL WANT TO BURN THIS LETTER. THANKING YOU MUCH.

Bargain Basement Weapons

There was a time when war profiteering was considered treason. Unfortunately, that time is not now, or we'd have some serious trials being held for those contractors who have provided unsafe water and spoiled food to our troops, who have given used trucks and other vehicles a fresh coat of paint and sold them to the government as new, who have 'built' schools and prisons that have fallen down as soon as they opened, and who can't account for billions of dollars of government money.

We can now add to the list contractors who are outfitting the new Iraqi army and police forces with third rate weapons obtained at the bargain basements of Eastern Europe nations who are upgrading their own military with more seviceable weaponry. From the Iraqi Basaer News:

In closed-door meetings, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the General Commander of the Iraqi Armed Forces, complained about American foot-dragging over adequately arming and improving the capabilities of the Iraqi Army. This is the case because the Americans are providing antiquated weapons produced in Eastern Europe, the quality of which is far inferior to the American weapons, and even recent Russian ones. The Americans purchase these Russian weapons from East European countries trying to get rid of them as part of a program to modernize their armaments and harmonize their armies with the other nations in the European Union.

The American companies who won contracts to supply the Iraqi Amy found these old weapons at rock-bottom prices. They are considered little more than scrap metal by experts. This allows them to pocket what's left over from the massive appropriations designated for the creation of the "modern" Iraqi Army. Consequently, neither the new ranks of the Iraqi Army nor those of the police have received anything but old weapons, which are the object of ridicule by average Iraqis. This is in contrast to the Iraqi resistance, militias, and other armed groups confronting the Army, which carry more advanced weapons that in many cases surpass those of even America's coalition partners in Iraq. Observers of Iraqi affairs believe that the American companies and Iraqi politicians, in addition to corrupting the bidding process itself, have found additional opportunities for obtaining ill-gotten wealth in equipping the Iraqi Army.

How shameful is that? And how dangerous? After all, the President has made it clear that our military forces won't be leaving Iraq until its army and police forces can provide adequate security for the country. How can Iraqi forces provide that security when the insurgents and sectarian militias they face are far better equipped? Or is that the point?

The article suggests that the US doesn't really want a strong, viable army in Iraq because it would be dominated by the Shi'a, thus making Iraq nothing more than a satellite of Iran. Isn't it a little late for that kind of worry?

I think it just as likely that the current administration meant it when it said it wouldn't be leaving on Bush's watch, hence the permanent base and the huge bunker called an embassy. There's still the matter of the oil in Iraq, and the oil in Iran.

I hope that somebody in the next Congress decides to take a long, hard look at this latest bit of malfeasance and then moves to do something about it.