the rix mix

The U.S. military now has more people in its marching bands than the State Department has in its foreign service....
Nicholas D. Kristof, The Big (Military) Taboo

I'm surprised they haven't yet privatized & subcontracted military bands to KBR or Dyncorp, which would pay musicians three times  as much as military personnel, tax free, no union,  if they'll do a year in the Iraq Green Zone or at Bagram Airbase outside Kabul.

Our sacrosanct military budget: "The United States spends nearly as much on military power as every other country in the world combined.."

Two wars, troops & fleets & bases spread around the world, & we don't  have a "Truman Commission"  a WWII Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program that brought the future president into the national spotlight. They investigated waste in the military budget. There's no waste like war waste.

Does it save money to privatize & subcontract so many crucial military support services?  Is it good for morale? 

Some jerk off right wing senator recently tried to stall the START treaty vote  by complaining that Russia took two of our humvees during the Georgia conflict.

We arm & train the national security forces  of South Korea & Saudi Arabia - & they are very well-trained & armed -  & then are expected to fight their battles, too. Which we're currently doing for the Saudi Royal Family in both Afghanistan & Iraq.  You know there's about 20,000 filthy rich Saudi princes & they run everything important in their country, & not one of them  to my knowledge is driving a Humvee in Afghanistan.

Our military-corporate-media establishment manipulates sincere "Support the Troops" sentiment to undermine very broad & real dissatisfaction with  our war policies & aims.

Although we maintain huge, unnecessary bases all over the globe, the Army brass decided it was too expensive to use, reassign, or mothball a small, versatile, irreplaceable piece of prime real estate in Jersey called "Fort Monmouth." So, to be "cost-effective,"  they gave it away.

Labels: bully pulpit. war more war, in the news, Iraq