Taxpayers Bilked by Military Contractors

In an article, titled New report finds big problems in war spending, the Associated Press writes about an 111 page report by the Wartime Contracting Commission that will be presented to congress on Wednesday. Here are a few excerpts from it:

• Construction of a $30 million dining facility at a U.S. base in Iraq is scheduled to be completed Dec. 25. ... The project is too far along to stop, making the mess hall a future monument to the waste and inefficiency plaguing the war effort, according to an independent panel investigating contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• More than 240,000 private sector employees are supporting military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• The Pentagon has failed to provide enough trained staff to watch over them, creating conditions for waste and corruption, the commission says.
• In Iraq, the panel worries that as U.S. troops depart in larger numbers, there will be too few government eyes on the contractors left to oversee the closing of hundreds of bases and disposal of mountains of federal property.
• One commander in Afghanistan told the commission he had no idea how many contractors were on and off his base on a daily basis.
• Despite the huge size and importance of the contract, the main program office managing the work for both Afghanistan and Iraq has only 13 government employees. For administrative help, it must rely on a contractor.
• The commission says billions of dollars of that amount ended up wasted due to poorly defined work orders, inadequate oversight and contractor inefficiencies.

240,000 contractors.. did I read that right? This kind of waste is simply nauseating but.. for anyone who has ever worked for the government or served in the military.. it is not surprising. Let's hope that congress and the Pentagon will take note of the report.. did I really say that? Oh well lets just hope for the best.

Shaving Your Head for the Troops

Yesterday comedian Stephen Colbert, from Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" got a military style haircut from General Raymond Odierno, Commander of the Multinational Corps in Iraq. Note his camo blazer.

So.. tell the truth.. would you shave your head for the troops?

Send me a photo if you do :)

Another Reason to Leave Iraq

From the New York Times:

The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is systematically dismissing oversight officials who were installed to fight corruption in Iraqi ministries by order of the American occupation administration, which had hoped to bring Western standards of accountability to the notoriously opaque and graft-ridden bureaucracy here.

The dismissals, which were confirmed by senior Iraqi and American government officials on Sunday and Monday, come as estimates of official Iraqi corruption soar. One Iraqi former chief investigator recently testified before Congress that $13 billion in reconstruction funds from the United States has been lost to fraud, embezzlement, theft and waste by Iraqi government officials.

I will be glad when we don't have to read about Iraq anymore.. at least in the context that we do now.

New Surge in Iraq

According to a Reuters article titled:

Baghdad bourse booms as Western stocks go bust

Worried about the global financial meltdown? Here's a tip: try Iraq.

Stock markets across the globe may be tanking, but the Baghdad bourse is booming, with the general index of Iraq's stock exchange up by nearly 40 percent last month. The floor of Baghdad's stock exchange was heaving with investors and brokers on Thursday, many glued to their phones and eager to snap up bargains on the second day of trading after a national holiday. Read more here.

Not sure about you but this story really intrigues me. There just seems to be something amiss here. I wonder if American tax payers should be benefitting from this new kind of "surge" in Iraq?

Beau Biden

Joseph Robinette "Beau" Biden III (born February 3, 1969) is an American politician, soldier and lawyer from Wilmington, Delaware. He currently serves as the Attorney General of Delaware and a Captain in the Delaware Army National Guard. He is a heading to Iraq with his Guard unit in October.

I was moved by his introduction of his father (veep candidate) Joe Biden last night at the Democratic national convention. It was a touching and heart warming account of a son's love and admiration for his dad. Take 5 minutes and watch the video - you will be glad that you did.

Iraq Withdrawal Horizon

Just in case you hadn't heard about it. Whether you call it a timeline, timetable or time-horizon I am just glad that there is agreement that it is time to put a plan in place to withdraw our troops!

Iraqi Christians in Peril

This 2 minute video (once you get past the commercial) is an excerpt from the CBS TV Show 60 Minutes that aired last night. In this video a clergyman in Baghdad tells the reporter that the situation for Iraq's Christians is worse now than under Saddam Hussein's reign, and possibly the worst since Christians have lived in the country.

I posted about this last year and got one response.. I think that many of us are sad beyond words when we consider that our fellow believers in Jesus are suffering in Iraq because of an ill-advised war that has resulted in Iraq becoming a full-fledged Muslim country hostile to Christian faith and our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Please take 2 minutes to watch the video.. it will inform you and maybe inspire you to pray for these in Iraq.

McCain: Straight Talk on Iraq?

Honoring Veterans

I really wish that this picture showed John McCain saying this words. Unfortunately Senator McCain's support of our soldiers seems to only extend to lifer-soldiers and not those who leave the military after fighting several tours in Iraq. Consider this excerpt from this article:

The Arizona senator opposes the scholarship measure, as does the Pentagon, because it applies to people who serve just three years. He fears that would encourage people to leave the military after only one enlistment even as the U.S. fights two wars and is trying to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps.

Instead, McCain and Republican colleagues proposed a bill to increase benefits in conjunction with a veteran's length of service. Senate Democrats blocked that measure.

Sadly Senator McCain has forgotten that the GI Bill was originally intended for veterans of World War II.. veterans who, like our Iraqi War veterans, risked all they had - for a season but not a lifetime. This is one of the reasons that I will not be supporting McCain this fall. We need a president who will give more than lip-service for our veterans.. a president who will vote for our soldiers and not our generals.. a president who will chart a new course in Iraq.

300,000 Troubled US Troops

Accordng to this Reuters article:

About 300,000 U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, but about half receive no care, an independent study said on Thursday. The study by the RAND Corp. also estimated that another 320,000 troops have sustained a possible traumatic brain injury during deployment. But researchers could not say how many of those cases were serious or required treatment.

Anyone out there still feel that this Iraqi War is worth the cost - both in American lives and dollars?

The War and The Economy

An interesting brief interview with Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz who has recently authored The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the US Invasion and Occupation of Iraq. The national deficit and current financial crisis seem to be tied back to this presidential blunder.. enough to make a Democrat of me.. maybe :)

Stop-Loss

Not sure that we will catch this movie at the theaters. Here is an excerpt from Christianity Today's review of the movie:

In Stop-Loss, it is a reality that Army Sergeant Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) knows all too well. After two combat tours, one in Afghanistan and another on the killing streets of Baghdad, the decorated squad leader returns home to Texas. Haunted by the friends he's led to gory deaths and the civilians who have inadvertently fallen into his crosshairs, King, who is due to get out, wants nothing more than to retreat to the sanctuary of his parents' ranch and begin purging the bile of the past several years from his life.

But home is far from the respite that soldiers like King expect. No matter where in the world they go, they cannot get away from their own memories. Shattered by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), King and his fellow soldiers find adjusting to stateside life impossible. Likewise, their families no longer recognize the boys they sent off to war. The soldiers' wives and lovers can no longer relate to men who live teetering on the edge of profound brutality and who, like Lady MacBeth, cannot seem to wash the ever-present blood from their hands. Iraq, for all of its carnage, made sense; home is a land of foreign customs and alien peoples.

Everything comes to a head for King when, based on a contractual loophole, he is ordered back to the front lines. The controversial technicality, which prohibits servicemen and women from getting out of the military once their required term of service is complete if their loss is deemed too grave to America's war effort, is known euphemistically as the "Back Door Draft" or, more officially, "Stop Loss." It is estimated to have affected more than 100,000 men and women in uniform.

This story is way to familiar for my family. My son is scheduled to be released from his four and a half year service to our country a week from Monday. His release was originally scheduled for last October but was extended so that he could be deployed for another tour of Iraq. I hope that he will be released and not recalled.

Iraq War Story

It is hard to believe that the war has lasted 5 years. Here is a sad story of a family that has made the ultimate sacrifice:

Laura Youngblood clutched her husband's photo as she drove alone to the hospital. She'd become pregnant nearly nine months earlier, the day he'd left for training for Iraq. Hours later, after the baby was born, she placed the photo in the bassinet next to the infant he'd named Emma in his last letter home. He would never hold her.

Petty Officer 3rd Class Travis L. Youngblood, 26, had died two months earlier, killed by an improvised explosive device.

Laura Youngblood is just 29 years old, but she insists she will not remarry. Her life is her children, now ages 2 and 7. One day, she says, she'll be buried in the plot with her husband at Arlington National Cemetery.

"I tell people I'm a happily married woman," she says, crying.

LA Judge against Military Enlistment

According to this Los Angeles Superior Court commissioner foster children should not be enlisting in the military because she doesn't approve of the Iraq war, didn't trust recruiters and didn't support the military.

The judge said she didn't support the Iraq war for any reason why we're over there," said Marine recruiter Sgt. Guillermo Medrano of the Simi Valley USMC recruiting office. "She just said all recruiters were the same - that they `all tap dance and tell me what I want to hear.' She said she didn't want him to fight in it."

Shawn Sage, 17, said he begged for Mackel's permission. "Foster children shouldn't be denied (an) ability to enlist in the service just because they're foster kids," he said. "Foster kids shouldn't have to go to court to gain approval to serve one's country."

This action seems to be an abuse of power representative of left-wing-whacko thought.

Sniper Hung Out to Dry

In another sad episode from the Iraqi front US Army sniper Seargant Evan Vela was sentenced to 10 years in prison for killing an unarmed Iraqi civilian and planting evidence on his body. Here are a few excerpts from the court martial:

Vela, who is from St. Anthony, Idaho, wept on the witness stand Saturday as he described shooting al-Janabi after he stumbled upon the snipers' hiding place near Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad.

"I don't remember pulling the trigger. I don't remember the sound of the shot," Vela said in a near whisper, thumbing the hem of his camouflage jacket and looking straight ahead. "It took me a few seconds to realize that the shot came from my pistol."

He testified that after he shot al-Janabi, he tried to shoot him again because "he was convulsing on the ground and I thought he might be suffering."

"I just didn't want him to suffer. It was something I've never seen and I got a bit scared," Vela said. The second shot missed the man.

James Culp, Vela's attorney, had unsuccessfully argued that Vela was too sleep deprived to know what he was doing.

"This was an accident waiting to happen," Culp told the jury of seven men and one woman in his closing argument Sunday. "What happened on May 11 is clear: These men were extremely, extremely sleep deprived and nobody was thinking clearly."

Vela and his sniper team had hiked through rough terrain and slept less than five hours in the 72-hours leading up to the killing, the defense said.

Culp also called two medical experts who testified that Vela was suffering from acute sleep deprivation and exhaustion. They said he later lied about the events in part because he suffers from post traumatic stress syndrome.

On Friday, Vela's commanding officer testified that he ordered Vela to kill al-Janabi, saying that was the only way to ensure the safety of his men in hostile territory.

I read the whole article with much sadness in my heart for Seargant Vela and our men who are fighting in Iraq. Sleep deprivation is an issue that these men deal with. They consume cases of Red Bull just to keep awake and alert because they can come under attack from insurgeants at any time. They live under the dread of death 24x7.. and when they make a mistake of war they are hung out to dry by the same government that sent them into battle. I find it sad how politcal this war has become.. how spineless leaders hang our guys out to dry just to appease the Iraqi politicians.

Iraq: Military Perspective

A few excerpts from this article titled
Military Families Question Iraq War as Support for Bush Slips

Kent Fletcher, an Iraq war veteran, says he enthusiastically voted for President George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. Now, he is a registered Democrat who questions the need for the war, the way it has been managed and the treatment of returning veterans.

"Saddam Hussein wasn't a threat and the culmination of my career was that war and it wasn't necessary," says Fletcher, 32, a financial analyst in Bluffton, South Carolina, who served almost 10 years as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps.

A Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll shows that Fletcher's skepticism about the war reflects a growing disenchantment within the broader military community, long a bastion of support for the Bush administration and Republicans. Among active-duty military, veterans and their families, only 36 percent say it was worth going to war in Iraq. This compares with an Annenberg survey taken in 2004, one year after the invasion, which showed that 64 percent of service members and their families supported the war.

In 2005, Fletcher, the Marine who switched party affiliations, published an editorial in the Huntington, West Virginia Herald-Dispatch newspaper scolding critics of Bush, who he said were also insulting the U.S. fighting forces.

"You don't have to spit on an Iraqi war veteran physically to spit on one metaphorically," he wrote. "We are part and the same with the president's administration."

Fletcher is now a member of Votevets.org, a group that promotes political candidates, particularly veterans who are critical of the Bush administration's Iraq war policies.

That shift in Fletcher's view may reflect a broader trend in the military about dissent. The Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll finds that 58 percent of military families -- the same margin as the overall population -- believe it is appropriate for retired military personnel to criticize Bush even in a time of war.

The Iraqi Surge

Professional talk show guest Ann Coulter recently wrote:

"We know the surge in Iraq is working because it is no longer front page news."

Crazy Ann got me to wondering.. so I found this Bill Kristol article titled The Democrats' Surge Problem. Here are a few excerpts from it:

But now the surge is succeeding. Any serious person has to be rethinking his position going forward in that light. No Democrat is doing any such rethinking, however. What Democrats are doing now is, in effect, denying evident success. And, by continuing to push for a withdrawal timetable, they are trying to prevent further success...

And the Democratic party, and its presidential candidates, are in the ridiculous position of being more anti-war now that we're winning than they were when we were losing...

The Democratic candidates have, as Joe Lieberman said last week, "emotionally invested in a narrative of defeat and retreat in Iraq."

My son says that things have settled down over in his section of Iraq.. I have been rethinking my anti-surge position.. I just hate to agree with Crazy Ann L

Veteran Perspective

This moving video reminded me that Veteran's Day is just a few days away. It brought back memories of leaving the Army in 1971 and feeling that I really didn't do anything special. It reminded me of how unappreciated I felt for several years and how I began to feel honored when, after I started going to church, I was asked to stand because I served our country.. the applause I received at church was the first time I ever felt honored for serving my country.

The video also reminded me of my son serving in the infantry on the Iraqi front lines.. of how deeply he was wounded in his heart when his friends died.. how hard it was for him to attend memorial services for his fallen comrades in Iraq. It reminded me of the great heart that my son has.. how he volunteered for a second tour of duty in Iraq so that he could fight side-by-side with his comrades.. how proud I am to have a son that serves with honor and courage.

I wonder.. when my son leaves the Army next spring after four and a half years of service.. will employers remember and honor his sacrifice by giving him a chance to earn a living.. will anyone else be there for him to help ease his way back into society.. will those of faith seek him out?

If you do nothing else on Veteran's Day please watch this video and remember to pray for our troops.. especially those in harms way.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

A Washington Post article says that
Most PTSD Treatments Not Proven Effective

Here are a few excerpts from it:

The majority of treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder that are used to treat hundreds of thousands of veterans lack rigorous scientific evidence that they are effective, according to a report issued yesterday by a panel of the federal government's top scientists. The report by the National Academies emphasized that the therapies might not be useless. Rather, it said, the evidence is weak when it comes to drawing any kind of conclusion about most of them. The findings of the panel, widely considered the nation's most influential scientific arbiter, will have far-reaching consequences. The report comes when awareness of PTSD has risen as a result of its incidence among veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
...
"A very high percentage of people who have been diagnosed with PTSD are on medications," said Larry Scott, the founder of the advocacy group VA Watchdog dot Org, which serves as an information clearinghouse for veterans. Most of the evidence supporting the use of medications and psychological therapies for PTSD has been assembled by pharmaceutical companies that make the drugs or by researchers with conflicts of interest in the outcome of the studies, and lack independent and rigorous proof, the report said.
...
Edna B. Foa, a professor of clinical psychology in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, and one of the pioneers in developing exposure therapy as a PTSD treatment said the technique was based on the insight that many victims of trauma do all they can to avoid being reminded of traumatic events. A rape victim might avoid going out in the evenings, while someone injured in an auto accident might avoid getting into any kind of vehicle. Soldiers might avoid movies or TV shows about war.

Two things happen in this process, Foa said. Patients come to replace actual recollections of trauma with other perceptions -- taking on blame and guilt, for example, for being afraid. Second, by avoiding situations, patients can fail to see that much of life is not dangerous -- the movie is only fiction. Foa said she has patients recount traumatic events aloud with their eyes closed. She records the patient, and then has the patient listen to the tape repeatedly.

"People don't recover because they avoid thinking about the trauma," Foa said. "Every time the trauma comes to the mind, they push it away. They don't allow themselves to process and digest the memory, so it keeps on haunting them with nightmares, flashbacks."

Foa also has patients make lists of situations that trigger anxiety and encourages them to deliberately expose themselves to the least-frightening situation. As people realize that many situations are harmless, Foa said they replace images of self-doubt and helplessness with a more healthy outlook.

Blackwater

10/11 Update: Looks like the Iraqi's may soon be eating cake!

10/9 Update: Accordng to this article Iraqi authorities want the U.S. government to sever all contracts in Iraq with Blackwater USA within six months. They also want the firm to pay $8 million in compensation to families of each of the 17 people killed when its guards sprayed a traffic circle with heavy machine gun fire last month. To which I say:

You can't always have your cake and eat it too!
Maybe the Iraqi government protesteth too much and too late.
9/21: This 2 minute video says that Blackwater Mercenaries are funded to the tune of $100 million by our US government. I guess that is the cost of not having enough US troops to wage the war. I have said it before that it is sad how our military is becoming a mercenary organization ... like Blackwater ... of course our soldiers don't receive $100,000 salaries like their mercenaries do.