Bill Clinton pointed out something that's been bothering me since the 1980s. Missile Defense is a crock of shit. There, I said it. This terse statement may even lure a troll from a fake think tank over to this blog with a link to some garbage study. Whatever.No one in power has the will to question these people. Credit to Bubba. He did open his mouth, and I don't know what the hell got into him. Hillary must be livid about it. Can't you hear the pundits now? "She's weak on defense! She's weak on defense! Bubba said the missile shield is a massive waste of money! They want us all to die!"
Weak on defense? It's impossible to be weak on defense in America. We spend more than the rest of the world. What we spend it on is often useless scams like missile defense or enough nukes to blow up the world a gazillion times. That kind of redundant spending is how you go out of business quickly.
Even the ice cream man knows this.
Recently John Murtha took a stab at private contractors in Iraq.
We got 126,000 contractors over there, some of them making more than the secretary of defense. How in the hell do you justify that?Murtha was criticised for making the point that so many well compensated, non-military personnel in Iraq might just hurt the morale of the troops who keep getting their tours extended. It hurts the morale of citizens at home who were told the war would last "six days, six weeks, I doubt six months" and would pay for itself with Iraqi oil and wait until you see those cheap gas prices. Instead we see inflated contracts going suspiciously to companies that don't have to bid on them.
A congressional report released this week by Henry Waxman's committee called "More Dollars, Less Sense: Worsening Contracting Trends Under the Bush Administration," revealed that 50.2 percent of Iraq contracts awarded fell short of "full and open competition" to the tune of $206.9 billion. Taxpayers spent $103 billion on contractors in 2006, a 43 percent increase from 2005.
A contractor named Michael Hardiman wrote an op-ed criticizing Murtha. His article is all over the internet as if it's convincing in anyway.
Hardiman makes several astounding claims in his article.
By hiring contractors, the government can bring on experts in their fields, from personal security to linguistics to crop irrigation, without incurring three major long term costs of permanent government employees: pension, medical coverage and job security. When the job is done, the contractors are gone.
So, you contractors don't provide benefits for your employees who are risking their lives--916 contractor deaths since reconstruction began--and that you pass those savings along to the tax payers. Could you maybe help the taxpayers out a little more by bidding before you sign the contracts at the price you just made up. The price that covers your massive overhead. What does your CEO make? What benefits does he or she get?
The role of security contractors in Iraq has been to take the pressure off of our soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen by taking on defensive and protective responsibilities. This has reduced the need for ever longer deployments which keep our troops away from their families, and has saved the taxpayers money.
The length and frequency of deployments is at a breaking point. How can you even consider using that as a positive in your insane little argument?
The military industrial complex has it's foot on the throat of the American middle class and on the throats of billions of other poor people around the world. The redistribution of wealth upward continues and again, they're using fear, and if that doesn't shut you up, they'll frustrate you with endless spin. What these robbers fail to recognize is that soon all the wealth of America will be stolen--shipped off to Halliburton headquarters in Dubai or wherever crooks stash their booty. Then the shell is all that's left lacking anything to protect.VIDEO: The Pentagon's New Map. (Part 2)
Crossposted at Ice Station Tango
TAGS: Defense Spending, John Murtha, Missile Defense, Bill Clinton
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