Free Republic

Yep. Fat cat northern virginia crony government contractors getting fat off the government teet. I say this as someone who worked for a govt. contractor for 9 years. The games they play to extract money out of the taxpayers pocket to feather their own nests are sickening.

Of course we need national defense, but the amount of pork in the defense industry is MASSIVE. Particularly with government services staff augmentation contracts.

Bring on sequestration. Sometimes you just have to rip off the bandaid.

Max,

You seem to be implying that these guys who were doctors, lawyers, private business owners, etc should have known they could be deployed for an extended period of time, lose their house, their car, their business, their medicine or law practice.

Tell me, given that assertion, why should anyone under those circumstances sign up to be a reservist if it potentially means throwing your career away.

I think you mean to imply that it would be foolish for almost anyone to sign up to be a reservist under the current force structure, legal framework, and compensation package. Is it your intention to advocate the elimination of the reserves all together? Given your statements, that would be the only logical conclusion that anyone wanting to support a family, have a career, own a house, or maintain a business could reach, no?

Regards,
A former reservist who got out because I reached this conclusion: If the reserves will, in fact, be used as a defacto active duty force and yet treated drastically worse with regards to compensation and benefits, then I am making a poor decision to remain in them, regardless of my patriotism. I can support my country in other ways than being a reservist without having to sacrafice a family, a career, and a house.

I've responded to this before, which YOU conveniently ignored. Up-Armoring Humvees does NOT afford the same protection as building armored ones. And higher production rates on NEW armored Humvees was ONLY initiated AFTER the soldier asked the question.

There can be only ONE reason for this - That Rumsfeld's department was not doing what it could to protect the troops he is SUPPOSED to be responsible for. He is trying to fight a war without giving the troops everything they need and without listening to the his senior leadership. He's trying to take a page out of the Robert McNamara school of SecDefs and it's working all too well.

Unfortunately the problem with you guys is that you won't realize how wrong you were until the Muslims strike again and our Army is in such a sad shape from this war that we won't be able to respond properly. You can either keep drinking the Kool Aid, or write letters to your congressmen and Bush asking for Rumsfeld to be sacked. I spent 8 1/2 years as a Marine and a Soldier and confidence in this man among my circle is at an all time low in light of recent events.

FYI - Read my post history. I'm the farthest thing from a liberal you'll find, but I know incompotence when I see it, and far too many of my friends in the military agree with me for me to be comfortable with Rummy. The best decision Bush could make would be to ask Rumsfeld to tender his resignation immediately after the elections.

Wow, I'm blown away by your articulate response :). I'll take that as a tacit admission of your failure to come up with a valid argument. Merry Christmas and keep drinking the Kool Aid.

My American pride hurts - I thought Bush had more fortitude than to keep someone so incompotent.

There was plenty of "Saturday evening" quarterbacking where the experts (aka - Offensive Coordinator) decided what the best way to handle the gameplan would be. Rummy decided to throw out their playbook and decided that he knew better.

Not always a bad thing, but if you take an action like that, you'd better be right. If you're not right, you should be man enough to admit it. And he should definitely be man enough to step down for the good of the Army and the soldiers that he's supposed to be protecting. And, if he's not man enough to step down, Bush should have the balls to sack him.

"Doesn't the fact that Bush thinks Rumsfeld is doing a good job and agrees with Rumsfeld's efforts to transform the Army make you reconsider your pretty strong opinions about Rumsfeld."

No, it actually makes me very disappointed that Bush didn't replace the one person who needed replacing most, in my opinion. As for why Bush can't see what I can see, who's to say he can't. One of his traits is that he's very loyal and demands loyalty of his cabinet. Most of the time, that's a great quality to have. When you back someone who hasn't gotten the job done, however, it's dangerous.

And, up-armoring Humvees with kits does not afford the same protection as building new armored ones from the factory. They are separate issues. And action was not initiated on the second point until AFTER the soldier asked the question.

I was always upset at him for not listening to the Army leadership more with respect to troop levels. I never put the blame directly on him for the armor and equipment issue as Clinton's cuts bear a lot of the blame, but Rummy's response to that question made me furious. And the reaction to that question (only now increasing Armored Humvee production), has made me believe that Rummy was to blame, at least partially, for the lack of armor and equipment anyway.

Then there was the condolance letters incident. That was just the icing on the cake. He needs to go. I stand by that. Many people in the military agree, but are not at liberty to say. You can't just talk to the generals, you have to talk to the soldiers. Almost all of them support Bush and this war, but numerous things that have been handled directly by Mr. Rumsfeld has not made them believe that the SecDef cares about them.

I suppose that's why only AFTER the Soldier asked the question has the Army moved to increase the production of Armored Humvees for the troops, eh?

And, as someone else stated, how many letters of condolance did the Sec Defs in WWII sign?

Yeah, Rummy has done a fine job...right...

Rummy has shown me nothing to indicate that he cares 2 $hits about the soldiers he is supposed to be responsible for.

Wow, you take the word of a retired general, out of the game for 8+ years over the current leadership, eh?

Yes, I do. He knows what it takes to win a war, and he's been there with the soldiers. Rummy declined to accept the advice of his leadership when planning the invasion initially, and our troops have been hurt immensely by his arrogance. He should have listened to the people who knew better than he did. If you make a decision to ignore your military leadership and replace it with a "yes man", you'd better be right. Rummy wasn't.

I guess I'm in the minority here in the respect that I expect compotence to be a prerequisite for a Sec Def. I also expect the commander in chief to demand compotence of his cabinet. For the record, I was a Marine and Soldier for a combined 8 1/2 years and I thought Rummy's flippant response to the Soldier's question was shamelss.

If Norman Schwarzkopf thinks he is worthless, that's good enough for me. Rummy needs to go yesterday.

That's right, blame the soldier. It's not their fault Rummy is incompotent. If Gen. Schwarzkopf thinks he's worthless, that's good enough for me. Rummy is worthless and needs to go yesterday.

True to that! The Japanese could have wiped the floor with the Euros on aircraft had they been able to rig the same type of subsidy arrangement.

No one can convince me that the Japanese wouldn't have made a better product than the French and Germans given a level playing field. Just look at consumer reports: Mercedes, BMW, Audi - what do they have in common? A bunch of terribly overpriced cars that score terribly in reliability ratings. And lets not even mention Renault, which by the way, has the same part owner as Airbus - the French government.

Err...paid, lol.

Yeah, I was thinking, how are thee defining success? How much money has the EU taxpayer payed into what basically amounts to a money losing social jobs program?

End the subsidies!!

I don't think the fall of the dollar is healthy for the US, but in this case, it probably doesn't help the EU much. But because Boeing have so much of the plane design outsourced, it will only make paying for that more expensive for Boeing with the weaker dollar, so in the very short term it might look a bit better on paper, but it won't help in the long term because any gains will eventually catch back up to boeing in the form of greater costs.

The main reason people have chosen Airbus planes, to my knowledge, is price. The other reason could be cockpit commonality, which would facilitate a greater ability to leverage pilot training across multiple airframes. On the first count, Boeing have said, per the new CEO Stonesipher, they will not do an unprofitable airplane deal. Airbus have been rumored to do plenty of unprofitable deals with heavy discount to gain market share, hoping that due to their cockpit commonality, it will make for an easier profitable sale down the road.

On the second count, boeing really should have moved toward cockpit commonality sooner, although now they are on board with it. This is one of the good things about having a second viable aircraft manufacturer.

In terms of performance and pure operating economics, Boeing wins almost every time. The one exception to this is the class currently dominated by the A330-300, hence the 7E7.

you're probably right on that one - or they may just be trying to put more development cost in to A380 to try and dump it into "general research" that will facilitate the A350's design.

EU is just trying to distort the argument. They know they are guilty as hell. BUT, they also know they make an inferior product, and that the only reason Airbus sells as well as it does is because they discount their A/C HEAVILY in the face of the better Boeing product line. And, finally, they know that they would not be able to offer those discounts if it weren't for the subsidies afforded to airbus by the taxpayers.

I am torn because I do think Boeing needs competition to produce better aircraft, but I definitely think it should be fair competition, and Airbus is playing with a dirty deck of cards.

It's ok, it's all european taxpayer money anyway, so why should they care if they are under budget or not. They take no risk by building as aggressively as they can. END THE SUBSIDIES!!