It seems year after year after year we keep hearing these kinds of stories about how our government treats our soldiers.
We've seen the extremes of fiscal conservatism applied to the military, at least to the men and women on the ground by this administration. We've seen how they tried to cut combat pay not long after the war began in Iraq. We've seen cuts in veterans services. We've seen how soldiers were forced to buy their own body armor while hundreds of billions were wasted on fat defense contracts buying more sophisticated long-range bombers and other equipment that is of little use in the kind of guerilla war we are now fighting. We've seen how little our soldiers are actually paid, and yet forced to stay in by 'stop-loss' programs. We've seen how much effort has gone into making it difficult for soldiers who have become disabled in Iraq and Afghanistan to apply for and get disability payments. We've seen the deplorable conditions that existed at Walter Reed Army hospital.
And through it all, the phrase 'support the troops' has been bandied about by this administration as a buzzword for 'support the President's foreign policy,' while the above situations make it clear that they have no concept for what 'support the troops' actually means.
So I'm almost not surprised at the video that's surfaced on U-tube, shot by the father of a soldier from the 82nd Airborne unit of the barracks the unit was housed in at Fort Bragg.
According to the local paper
RALEIGH --A video shot by the father of an 82nd Airborne Division soldier that shows poor conditions such as mold in a barracks at Fort Bragg near Fayetteville has gotten attention from a U.S. senator and high-ranking Army officials.
Ed Frawley, a dog breeder from Menomonie, Wis., posted the narrated video on YouTube.com last week after traveling to North Carolina to welcome his son, Sgt. Jeff Frawley, home from a 15-month tour in Afghanistan.
The video shows peeling paint, mold, a bathroom drain plugged with what appears to be sewage and a broken room door lock, conditions that Frawley described as disgusting and embarrassing.
"The instant you walk through the front door, you know you are in a building that should be condemned," he said.
The army's excuse is that the unit returned three weeks ahead of schedule. What kind of excuse is that? That's an excuse for not doing anything about the mold or about the feces that appears to be backing up into the shower stall? What exactly was the maintenance crew doing that was more important than making sure our own troops had better conditions to return to than what you'd find in a Baghdad slum?
What's more, is this is five years into the Iraq war (and six and a half into the Afghan war.) You'd think by now the army could have figured out that these kinds of things happening are not good for our troops and taken steps to stop them from happening.
It's too bad that the American soldier doesn't have any lobbyists on Capitol Hill or at the White House, like all those fat defense contractors that get most of what's in the military budget.
Showing posts with label military. Show all posts
Showing posts with label military. Show all posts
Monday, April 28, 2008
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
The size of the army
During the recent discussion on Iraq and Afghanistan, we are being confronted again with a hard, cold reality-- that we simply do not have enough ground troops to fully cover the manpower needs of both wars (and you can forget about the idea that our military, at least in terms of being able to invade and occupy yet another country, is an effective deterrent anymore to Iran or anyone else who wishes to pull our tail.
Republicans often love to point out that the military was downsized after the end of the Cold War during the early 1990's and blame Democrats. That is at best an oversimplification however and at worst an outright revision of history. Following the end of the Cold War, the idea of a 'peace dividend' in which less would be spent on the military in the absence of the Soviet threat was widely bandied about Washington by politicians on both the left and the right. In hindsight, it may have been naive to suppose that there would not be other threats, and to fail to anticipate the threat from Islamic extremism, but it is certainly not anything that our friends on the right warned us about back then any more than anyone on the left assumed this would be a problem moving forward. And further, the military of the 1990's was plenty big enough to handle minor crises and wars in places like Haiti and the Balkans.
Since 2003, when we put Afghanistan on the back burner and invaded Iraq though we've had a consistent manpower shortage. The army has struggled to meet recruiting goals, tours have been extended, we've sent national guard units to fight in frontline combat operations in much higher numbers than we ever had before, we've 'stop-lossed' thousands of soldiers who were due to leave the army and some people are back in Iraq on their third and fourth tours. And recently it has become even clearer, as the administration has all but admitted that we don't have enough troops for Afghanistan because of how many are tied up in Iraq.
There was also a mini-scandal of sorts that came out this week in that it turns out the number of new recruits who have 'waivers' allowing them to join the army despite juvenile convictions or other issues has jumped from about 5% of all new recruits in 2004-2005 to a rate so far this year running at around 13%. For the record, that doesn't bother me at all since I believe that many young people make mistakes when they are younger and I don't believe that getting busted for underage drinking, drug use or some other petty crime in high school should disqualify someone who wants to turn his or her life around from doing so in the military.
We can still bomb the heck out of anyone who gets in our way but in the kinds of guerilla wars we find ourselves fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, overwhelming air superiority is at best only a minor benefit. In fact, this points out one of the basic problems we've had. We still spend as much as twenty times as much on our military as any other country in the world. So funding isn't the issue. But we've bought far too much expensive military hardware that has little use in today's wars, while neglecting the most basic of resources-- the 'boots on the ground.' We still have thousands of nuclear warheads, including those in storage, but not enough feet with boots on them. Some of this has to do with the structure of Washington itself-- makers of expensive planes and other high-tech equipment have a whole lot more lobbying muscle in Washington than does anyone whose priority is simply to make sure that we have a military tuned to the demands of the present and foreseeable future.
It is also true that during the 2004 campaign John Kerry promised that if elected he would authorize and expansion of the army to include the creation of two new combat divisions. George Bush was asked about it once during the campaign and said he'd 'consider it.' Unfortunately Bush won that election, and whether for reasons of pride (because the idea originated with his opponent) or because he is too dumb to realize the urgent need for a larger ground army, he never followed up on the proposal. Of course it takes time to authorize, pay for, recruit, train and equip a larger army (not that much time though-- in WWII we trained, equipped, won the war and had them back home in less than four years.) But had the President borrowed a good idea from his opponent and asked for the two divisions back when he began his second term they would be well on the way towards being usable and giving us the capability to fight two ground-intensive wars that we now lack.
I don't believe that we have to spend any more money to get a larger military either. I believe that instead of spending over a billion dollars on a single bomber, we should maybe look at reprioritizing our military budget and prioritize towards having more ground troops available and fully trained and equipped.
Republicans often love to point out that the military was downsized after the end of the Cold War during the early 1990's and blame Democrats. That is at best an oversimplification however and at worst an outright revision of history. Following the end of the Cold War, the idea of a 'peace dividend' in which less would be spent on the military in the absence of the Soviet threat was widely bandied about Washington by politicians on both the left and the right. In hindsight, it may have been naive to suppose that there would not be other threats, and to fail to anticipate the threat from Islamic extremism, but it is certainly not anything that our friends on the right warned us about back then any more than anyone on the left assumed this would be a problem moving forward. And further, the military of the 1990's was plenty big enough to handle minor crises and wars in places like Haiti and the Balkans.
Since 2003, when we put Afghanistan on the back burner and invaded Iraq though we've had a consistent manpower shortage. The army has struggled to meet recruiting goals, tours have been extended, we've sent national guard units to fight in frontline combat operations in much higher numbers than we ever had before, we've 'stop-lossed' thousands of soldiers who were due to leave the army and some people are back in Iraq on their third and fourth tours. And recently it has become even clearer, as the administration has all but admitted that we don't have enough troops for Afghanistan because of how many are tied up in Iraq.
There was also a mini-scandal of sorts that came out this week in that it turns out the number of new recruits who have 'waivers' allowing them to join the army despite juvenile convictions or other issues has jumped from about 5% of all new recruits in 2004-2005 to a rate so far this year running at around 13%. For the record, that doesn't bother me at all since I believe that many young people make mistakes when they are younger and I don't believe that getting busted for underage drinking, drug use or some other petty crime in high school should disqualify someone who wants to turn his or her life around from doing so in the military.
We can still bomb the heck out of anyone who gets in our way but in the kinds of guerilla wars we find ourselves fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, overwhelming air superiority is at best only a minor benefit. In fact, this points out one of the basic problems we've had. We still spend as much as twenty times as much on our military as any other country in the world. So funding isn't the issue. But we've bought far too much expensive military hardware that has little use in today's wars, while neglecting the most basic of resources-- the 'boots on the ground.' We still have thousands of nuclear warheads, including those in storage, but not enough feet with boots on them. Some of this has to do with the structure of Washington itself-- makers of expensive planes and other high-tech equipment have a whole lot more lobbying muscle in Washington than does anyone whose priority is simply to make sure that we have a military tuned to the demands of the present and foreseeable future.
It is also true that during the 2004 campaign John Kerry promised that if elected he would authorize and expansion of the army to include the creation of two new combat divisions. George Bush was asked about it once during the campaign and said he'd 'consider it.' Unfortunately Bush won that election, and whether for reasons of pride (because the idea originated with his opponent) or because he is too dumb to realize the urgent need for a larger ground army, he never followed up on the proposal. Of course it takes time to authorize, pay for, recruit, train and equip a larger army (not that much time though-- in WWII we trained, equipped, won the war and had them back home in less than four years.) But had the President borrowed a good idea from his opponent and asked for the two divisions back when he began his second term they would be well on the way towards being usable and giving us the capability to fight two ground-intensive wars that we now lack.
I don't believe that we have to spend any more money to get a larger military either. I believe that instead of spending over a billion dollars on a single bomber, we should maybe look at reprioritizing our military budget and prioritize towards having more ground troops available and fully trained and equipped.
Friday, March 07, 2008
If we are going to spend this much on defense then we should invest in human resources first.
We've heard all the arguments about how we need a secure America in justifying bloated defense budgets, which are many times more than any other nation in the world spends on its military.
Yet, we read all the time about proposed cuts in veterans programs, the attempt a few years ago by the Bush administration to cut the extra pay troops get when they are in combat, and (this affected my brother in law) when they flew troops home from Iraq on a short furlough, they dumped national guard troops off in cities on the east coast and they had to buy their own tickets home if they wanted to see their families (his Colorado national guard unit was flown to if I remember right either Atlanta or Baltimore). We've seen that our army has been stretched to the limit in Iraq, with tours of duty increased and rotation time back home cut as the only way to create the 'surge.' Four years ago, John Kerry said he would if President ask Congress to provide the funding for the creation of two new combat divisions. He lost the election, and the result is that they have not yet been created. We've seen that the chronically low pay in the military has meant that some military families have had to go on food stamps or other means of public assistance, especially during the times when one parent is deployed overseas. We've heard gut wrenching stories of veterans who have been left seriously injured by war, but who have not been given the support they need or have been denied the benefits that disabled veterans have been given in previous conflicts.
So this begs the question: In a military budget that runs into the hundreds of billions of dollars, why can't we find more to pay and otherwise support our men and women in uniform, and why can't we find the relatively smaller amounts it would take to support the veterans administration which is now dealing with its own surge-- in Iraq and Afghan war veterans who need help when they get back home? Even things that they need right now-- like better body armor and up-armored humvees, have been slowed down by bureaucrats who apparently think that those items aren't important enough to put it in the 'urgent' box.
Yhe answer is the same as it always has been, but exaggerated by the twisted 'compassionate conservatism' of the Bush administration, in which individuals often have to deal with the effects of cuts in any kind of services, but there is no limit on the generosity of this government when it comes to corporate welfare.
For example, the biggest story right now involving military contracts is that a European company, Airbus, have been given a contract over Boeing to make air refueling tankers. It is true that one could argue that there are some security concerns regarding background checks, but I would think this would be a relatively minor concern, especially for a European company (we have more sensitive military components than that manufactured in China, for heaven's sake!) What this story has really exposed is that it is all about money. The Airbus model was superior to the Boeing proposal in five out of five criteria, so there is no question that it is a better product, but a lot of people are objecting because of the billions of dollars that will be spent on it (and which therefore won't go to Boeing.) Let me ask it this way: If you are an American pilot, wouldn't you want to have to depend on a more reliable fueling tanker? But somehow this never even has been brought up. We've heard about the money this will cost investors and the company, we've heard about the 44,000 jobs this will cost Americans, which is a legitimate concern, but let's face it-- these employees are being used as pawns for Boeing to hide behind; the real issues is the money. If you want proof, consider that this is actually a rebid contract-- the government official who shepherded through the initial, inflated contract which went to Boeing without a serious bidding process was subsequently hired by the company as a consultant and paid a lot more than any of those 44,000 workers would have earned.
We know the Pentagon is in love with high-tech gadgetry. And as far as developments like laser guided missiles and computer drones etc. have helped with efficiency and reduced casualties that is great. But it has also become an Achilles heel. As I mentioned earlier, many crucial components of our military weapons are manufactured abroad, including some in China. And today we saw a story about how Chinese hackers (who claim they are sometimes paid by the Government, a claim Beijing denies have penetrated the most secure of Pentagon websites In fact, it does not matter whether they are paid by the government or not. The point is that if there were ever a military conflict they could at a crucial time shut down most or all of our computers. If that happened it would depend on the American soldier, and not on all the high tech gadgetry.
I have faith that in such a situation the American soldier would still be able to prevail. But in that context, we have to ask why we are pouring so much money down an endless drain of fat military contracts to build ever and ever more expensive and ultimately more vulnerable weapons systems, while at the same time we spend less and less on the most important and fundamental weapons system we have-- the American serviceman.
Yet, we read all the time about proposed cuts in veterans programs, the attempt a few years ago by the Bush administration to cut the extra pay troops get when they are in combat, and (this affected my brother in law) when they flew troops home from Iraq on a short furlough, they dumped national guard troops off in cities on the east coast and they had to buy their own tickets home if they wanted to see their families (his Colorado national guard unit was flown to if I remember right either Atlanta or Baltimore). We've seen that our army has been stretched to the limit in Iraq, with tours of duty increased and rotation time back home cut as the only way to create the 'surge.' Four years ago, John Kerry said he would if President ask Congress to provide the funding for the creation of two new combat divisions. He lost the election, and the result is that they have not yet been created. We've seen that the chronically low pay in the military has meant that some military families have had to go on food stamps or other means of public assistance, especially during the times when one parent is deployed overseas. We've heard gut wrenching stories of veterans who have been left seriously injured by war, but who have not been given the support they need or have been denied the benefits that disabled veterans have been given in previous conflicts.
So this begs the question: In a military budget that runs into the hundreds of billions of dollars, why can't we find more to pay and otherwise support our men and women in uniform, and why can't we find the relatively smaller amounts it would take to support the veterans administration which is now dealing with its own surge-- in Iraq and Afghan war veterans who need help when they get back home? Even things that they need right now-- like better body armor and up-armored humvees, have been slowed down by bureaucrats who apparently think that those items aren't important enough to put it in the 'urgent' box.
Yhe answer is the same as it always has been, but exaggerated by the twisted 'compassionate conservatism' of the Bush administration, in which individuals often have to deal with the effects of cuts in any kind of services, but there is no limit on the generosity of this government when it comes to corporate welfare.
For example, the biggest story right now involving military contracts is that a European company, Airbus, have been given a contract over Boeing to make air refueling tankers. It is true that one could argue that there are some security concerns regarding background checks, but I would think this would be a relatively minor concern, especially for a European company (we have more sensitive military components than that manufactured in China, for heaven's sake!) What this story has really exposed is that it is all about money. The Airbus model was superior to the Boeing proposal in five out of five criteria, so there is no question that it is a better product, but a lot of people are objecting because of the billions of dollars that will be spent on it (and which therefore won't go to Boeing.) Let me ask it this way: If you are an American pilot, wouldn't you want to have to depend on a more reliable fueling tanker? But somehow this never even has been brought up. We've heard about the money this will cost investors and the company, we've heard about the 44,000 jobs this will cost Americans, which is a legitimate concern, but let's face it-- these employees are being used as pawns for Boeing to hide behind; the real issues is the money. If you want proof, consider that this is actually a rebid contract-- the government official who shepherded through the initial, inflated contract which went to Boeing without a serious bidding process was subsequently hired by the company as a consultant and paid a lot more than any of those 44,000 workers would have earned.
We know the Pentagon is in love with high-tech gadgetry. And as far as developments like laser guided missiles and computer drones etc. have helped with efficiency and reduced casualties that is great. But it has also become an Achilles heel. As I mentioned earlier, many crucial components of our military weapons are manufactured abroad, including some in China. And today we saw a story about how Chinese hackers (who claim they are sometimes paid by the Government, a claim Beijing denies have penetrated the most secure of Pentagon websites In fact, it does not matter whether they are paid by the government or not. The point is that if there were ever a military conflict they could at a crucial time shut down most or all of our computers. If that happened it would depend on the American soldier, and not on all the high tech gadgetry.
I have faith that in such a situation the American soldier would still be able to prevail. But in that context, we have to ask why we are pouring so much money down an endless drain of fat military contracts to build ever and ever more expensive and ultimately more vulnerable weapons systems, while at the same time we spend less and less on the most important and fundamental weapons system we have-- the American serviceman.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
New student aid law a huge step forward.
Today President Bush signed a landmark piece of legislation that was sent to him by the Democratic Congress. The legislation, called the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, does what the Republican Congress failed to do: help financial aid keep up with the skyrocketing costs of college that have made it unaffordable for millions of would-be students.
The bill will expand the PELL program by $11.4 billion over the next five years and increase the maximum PELL grant from $4,310 in 2007 to $5,400 by 2012. While this is not everything that it could be (with many students even at state universities having to pay upwards of $25,000 annually for tuition, fees, books, room and board, and other expenses), it does represent a realization of how fast college costs have been increasing as state and federal budget cuts force college boards to increase tuition and fees by large amounts and on a yearly or almost yearly basis.
Beyond that, the bill does a lot of other things. For example, it allows active duty members of the military to defer their payments while they are in the service, and even for a year after they leave. It is amazing to me that with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this had not been attended to earlier, but I guess it takes a Democratic Congress to do more for our servicemen and servicewomen than just say nice things about them and wave a flag around. It also cuts the interest rate on Federally backed student loans in half, making repayment easier for students who leave college with a mountain of debt and then have to pay it back while they are just starting on their careers.
In fact, if those careers involve teaching, the bill goes even farther-- it gives students the option to actually have student debt forgiven if they teach for at least a few years after college. Local school districts are limited by their budgets and often cannot afford to compete for the best talent from universities because they can't pay as much as they could earn in the private sector. But this provision in the law amounts to a huge strengthening of the hand of school boards, as a teaching job will now be much more competitive with private sector jobs even though the school board may not have to spend a dime more than they would have. More to the point, this represents a real and concrete investment in education.
The President issued a terse signing statement in which he expressed his displeasure with certain aspects of the law (though he did sign it) but nevertheless it is a law today.
And don't let anyone lie to you-- this was a huge achievement by Congress with the reluctant agreement of the President. It is a very big step forward.
The bill will expand the PELL program by $11.4 billion over the next five years and increase the maximum PELL grant from $4,310 in 2007 to $5,400 by 2012. While this is not everything that it could be (with many students even at state universities having to pay upwards of $25,000 annually for tuition, fees, books, room and board, and other expenses), it does represent a realization of how fast college costs have been increasing as state and federal budget cuts force college boards to increase tuition and fees by large amounts and on a yearly or almost yearly basis.
Beyond that, the bill does a lot of other things. For example, it allows active duty members of the military to defer their payments while they are in the service, and even for a year after they leave. It is amazing to me that with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this had not been attended to earlier, but I guess it takes a Democratic Congress to do more for our servicemen and servicewomen than just say nice things about them and wave a flag around. It also cuts the interest rate on Federally backed student loans in half, making repayment easier for students who leave college with a mountain of debt and then have to pay it back while they are just starting on their careers.
In fact, if those careers involve teaching, the bill goes even farther-- it gives students the option to actually have student debt forgiven if they teach for at least a few years after college. Local school districts are limited by their budgets and often cannot afford to compete for the best talent from universities because they can't pay as much as they could earn in the private sector. But this provision in the law amounts to a huge strengthening of the hand of school boards, as a teaching job will now be much more competitive with private sector jobs even though the school board may not have to spend a dime more than they would have. More to the point, this represents a real and concrete investment in education.
The President issued a terse signing statement in which he expressed his displeasure with certain aspects of the law (though he did sign it) but nevertheless it is a law today.
And don't let anyone lie to you-- this was a huge achievement by Congress with the reluctant agreement of the President. It is a very big step forward.
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