Posted on 05/04/2004 1:54:07 PM PDT by churchillbuff
American soldiers today are quite familiar with the military industrial complex and outsourcing. They see inedible food, an extra burden of providing security, and shocking pay inequities. They see inscrutable accountability mysteries.
Some Iraqis held at Abu Ghraib Prison have met the modern American military industrial complex up close and personal. Contractors from CACI International and Titan Corporation, as well as members of our own military, are under investigation for "mistreating" prisoners.
CACI International and Titan Corporation represent numbers 63 and 35, respectively, of the Pentagon's top 100 contractors for 2002. These companies are small fry, as out-sourcing goes.
Rational people may debate whether America's occupation of Iraq is purely defensive, a Republic behaving imperially, or the blueprint for a new kind of empire. But underlying the debate is a fact that by its very existence undermines the Constitution, American traditions of justice, and the laws of armed conflict.
We have today over 15,000 military contractors in Iraq, doing not just the cooking and cleaning, but the fighting, the guarding, the strategizing, and even some of the dying. After the U.S. and the U.K. militaries, this third largest "force" outnumbers the entire remaining coalition of the paid for.
The military industrial complex lobbies Congress on a daily basis, costs the taxpayer billions each year, chips away at the credibility of the United States as a force for justice and good will, exists in a hazy legal wasteland unaccountable to domestic or international law, and serves to embarrass the country periodically with overcharges, technology leaks to other countries, and human rights abuses.
Outsourcing contracts for everything from toilet paper to bullets to guards and interrogators have become the Soylent Green of the military industrial complex, an "artificial nourishment whose actual ingredients are not known by the public." The top 100 CEOs and Vice Presidents cheerfully move from government circles into defense industries, and sometimes back again.
This third-generation spawn of Smedley Butler's racketeers go where we pay them to go and do what they are told. They can hardly complain later that they were forced into anything, or misled by faulty intelligence, or didn't know what they were getting into. You see, it's all in their contracts. This makes them worth far more to Washington than our all-volunteer force of American soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.
(Excerpt) Read more at militaryweek.com ...
Most people would kind of get the hint that folks just are buying into their propaganda and call it quits, but you keep on pounding away like the Energizer Gerbil.
Salon, buchanan, lewcrockwell...hmmmmmm?
Your guest Bush-basher has an interesting background.
Antiwar.com. I haven't thought of that group of losers since justine raimondo got his panties in a bunch and demanded FR never post any of his articles ever again. I guess he wanted to give Pravda exclusive rights to posting his anti-American BS.
I'm sure he's scrutinizing the photos very carefully.
1) None. Haven't visited that site in years - - too much Lincoln-bashing. I'm a big Lincoln fan. If they're also bashing Churchill, more reason not to go there. 2) Articles critical of war on terror? Don't think I've posted any. I support the war on terror. I happen to believe, however, that the invasion of Iraq was a diversion from the war on terror. We went into Afghanistan, as was right and proper, but didn't finish the job before we diverted energies to Iraq, which wasn't involved in 9-11 and doesn't have WMDs. We still haven't found Osama, and Al-Quade is still killing people -- - The war on terror ought to make that murderous organization - which pulled of 9-11 - its top target.
Have a nice day.
My link is to militaryweek.com. Check it out, there are some good articles there.
Are you ignorant, stupid or disingenuous, or all three? We have had military contractors and the complaints of her topic sentence since the Revolution, and every war since then. Her, and your, first stated premise, that "today" these private contractors are new, and unique is patently false. Take this crap to DU. Try posting something informative.
"neocon-hater"? Is it a code word for an antisemite?
Really? What is the opportunistic gain for her? I guess by "honest" you mean docile.
He, he. So you implicitely admit that you do not have better arguments than complaining. This is a public forum - if you do not like replies do not post. "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."
A five stars Birchite goofball Dwight D. Eisenhower:
I guess he is an unpatriotic whimp and a freak in your eyes.
If you heroes are Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz it makes a lot of sense.
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