Abusive contractors in Iraq

Rod,

Politicians for the most part are the puppets megacorps like KBR put before us to say soothing things and make sure that the average person doesn't throw a spanner into things. John McCain is part and parcel of the military industrial complex and so he will say nothing. It's pretty bad when the options presented before us for our future are two dystopias, Orwell's 1984 or Bruce Bethke's Cyberpunk.

Rod: Thanks for taking on a new topic. Here's another story I wish would get more coverage, and on which I'd like to hear McCain speak:

"Colonel Davis told Navy Capt. Keith J. Allred, who presided over the hearing, that top Pentagon officials, including Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, made it clear to him that bringing charges against some of the most notorious detainees before elections this year could have "strategic political value."

"Davis said he wanted to wait until the cases -- and the military commissions system -- had a more solid legal footing. Davis also said that Defense Department General Counsel William J. Haynes II, who announced his retirement in February, once bristled at the suggestion that some defendants could be acquitted, an outcome that Davis said would give the process added legitimacy."

"He said, 'We can't have acquittals,' " Davis said under questioning from Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, the military counsel who represents Hamdan. " 'We've been holding these guys for years. How can we explain acquittals? We have to have convictions.'"

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/04/we-cant-have-ac.html

I was explaining to my father today why I wasn't ruling out a vote for Obama despite the Wright controversy, and realized that I am in MAJOR "throw the bums out" mode. I really need a positive reason to vote for a Republican this year, beyond "Obama's worse," and so far I haven't found one.

Bless,
Doug

Rod: "Why is this stuff not getting covered?"

Good question, Rod. Why haven't YOU or YOUR PAPER covered this in greater depth?

Maybe the reason is found in two words: Jeremiah and Miley

As for why McCain isn't mentioning it, why should he take your attention away from the Wrighting of Obama? Face it, you folks have been doing him a huge favor by tearing down his competition. Do you honestly think he would stop that by bringing your attention to a REAL issue?

If you squint real tight and unfocus your eyes like in those stereograms, you can almost see Miley's nipple...oh wait wrong topic!

Goodness gracious, who would've thunk it? KBR bilking the American public? Bringing suffering on the troops by their shoddy practice and equipment? Oh, say it ain't so!

I blame the liberal media.

While we're talking about things not covered by the media, how about the recent revelations about the possibly-illegal propaganda machine the Pentagon was running. It's not being covered at all.

...seriously, it's rather astonishing how people can say 'liberal media' with a straight face at this point. They may, indeed, cover some social issues with a left slant, but they don't even bother to cover massive incompetence in running the military. This is a media that was upset, on Republican cue, when Clinton cut some totally unneeded bases and supposedly had a Army division that wasn't up to snuff or something.

I mean, it took years to get outraged over lack of body and vehicle armor. (Yes, I know a better plan would have been to have actual tanks instead of armored humvees, but you choose to go to war with the army you choose to have, or something.)

And no one's even bothered to mention the dismantling of the National Guard's supplies, which is going to be nice fun surprise when the next disaster hits. One division, under Clinton, not at full strength, huge danger! I mean, the Russians might attack or something! The National Guard missing trucks and medical supplies and whatnot, no problem. I mean, when's the last time we had a national disaster that endangered hundreds of thousands of people? I forget when that was, but surely that went fine.

That missing nine billion dollars isn't getting a lot of airtime, either. Or the incredibly stupid decision to pay for things in cash instead of, first thing, setting up a bank with proper accounting. (But nationally run banks are socialism!)

Oh, and how long did it take to partially bring the story to light about how wounded soldiers were being treated...which was immediately forgotten. One hospital was not the extent of the problems! We've got the military pulling all sorts of crap with wounded soldiers, from not paying medical bills, to ignoring PTSD by claiming a preexisting psychological condition, to repeatedly cutting funding into research into head injury, the major form of casualty in this war. Their treatment of wounded soldiers alone should have resulted in hearings.

There are right ways and wrong ways to run militaries, and there's some sort of magical assumption by the media that when the military is run by a Republican, it's run correctly, and when it's run by a Democrat, it's not. I honestly don't know how well the Democrats would run one in a war time, but I can tell them how they shouldn't. They should just look at how ours is being run and do the opposite.

And there are right and wrong ways to run a media, too. It's not a 'liberal bias' that's causing any of these stories to be ignored.

recently there was a discussion about whether or not Obama had a flag in his lapel--- This reminded me of taxpayer dollars wasted on ONE WHOLE week of discussion in Congress about flagburning--- of course this was going on while war profiteering was never discussed and the definition of a patriot is somebody who fights to give ice to soldiers rather than sell it to the natives who make a mcciver ice balance tips once the ice melts out of the hole and as it tips it sets off an electric current and lobs a mortar bomb into the air while the terrorists are long gone from the spot- patriotism is making sure that ice gets to the soldiers not to the terrorists - caring about each other is what patriotism is and has nothing to do with flags and a lot to do with the rampant war profiteering which is UNPATRIOTIC terristpoover the opswthat dirp ga zascetehre

I consider this an extraordinarily important topic to think about in the coming pre-election months . . . but it's already out-commented by the lesbians, not to mention the "Jeremiah Miley Fest" in its many incarnations. To me this speaks louder than words. The treatment of our own soldiers both in the field and when they come home, as if they are used equipment to be written off, like the buried computers, hardly rates a discussion.

For the love of mercy, at least go to youtube and watch the video in which an outraged father documents the conditions at Fort Bragg that await soldiers returning home from as many as three tours of duty in Afghanistan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4P-camUjjk

This is disgusting. It is outrageous. It made me feel like gagging. But hey . . . I guess it's more important to dither over lapel flags and photo shoots . . . .

"But hey . . . I guess it's more important to dither over lapel flags and photo shoots . . . ."

And coffee machines, and cigarettes, and whatever else the GOP talking points for the day happen to be.

Remember, Sig...as long as this blog bears the GOP logo in its header, you know what to expect.