Pentagon
Obama Reality Check - Pentagon Waste Edition
Obama says he’ll go line-by-line to cut federal spending. He could start by killing a $65 billion Pentagon boondoggle. But he’ll have to beat back bought-off members of Congress to do it.
December 11, 2008 | Read More
Pentagon Blood Suckers
Once again, the Pentagon proves it is the most evil bureaucracy on the planet.
November 25, 2008 | Read More
Where’s Our Harry Truman?
During World War II, then Senator Truman waged a nonstop battle against defense contracting fraud and saved the country $15 billion (in 1940s dollars). In honor of Veteran’s Day, we thought we’d ask: are there any Harry Trumans in Congress fighting today’s war profiteers?
November 11, 2008 | Read More
Don’t Worry, We Won’t Invade Your Country Without Good Reason
A story out in today’s NY Times reveals that back in 2004, the Bush administration gave the Pentagon the green light to breach the borders of sovereign countries in pursuit of suspected terrorists. But, never fear, the government says it has “high standards” for the intelligence it uses to justify these attacks. Gee, that’s reassuring.
November 10, 2008 | Read More
Pentagon’s Media Meddling Under Investigation
The FCC is finally going to look into a Pentagon propaganda program. The investigation was announced a couple of days ago, but I didn’t hear about it until now. Why? Because, as with the original story, the media completely ignored it.
October 17, 2008 | Read More
Redraft the Draft?
A couple of years ago, New York Congressman and Korean War veteran Charlie Rangel proposed that we reinstate the draft. Rangel wanted to bring shared sacrifice back to the nation. If the war in Iraq was really worth fighting, he said, then all of our young people should have the opportunity to help the cause.
Not surprisingly, the idea didn’t get very far. The Pentagon and the Bush Administration boasted about the power of our “all-volunteer military.” But the problem with an all-volunteer fighting force is that a small percentage of the population winds up doing all the country’s dirty work.…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
Really Support the Troops - Give Them a Raise!
Our soldiers risk their lives and spend years away from their families. Yet they earn a pittance. Meanwhile, private contractors and mercenaries take home fat, taxpayer-funded salaries. This is disgraceful. No private contractor in a war zone should make more than our troops. Period.
If the Pentagon and other government agencies like the State Department insist on hiring private companies to do work that our soldiers used to do themselves, congress should pass laws mandating that our GI’s earn at least as much, or, better yet, more than the private contractors working in the same overseas area.
August 28, 2008 | Read More
Loose LOGCAP and Other Privatization Boondoggles
For centuries, our GIs did a perfectly fine job of feeding, housing and equipping themselves. But that didn’t stop career politicians from handing those jobs to their cronies - and past and future employers - in the private sector. This mad rush to privatize war-making has not only been extremely inefficient and expensive, it’s given some of our largest corporations a perverse incentive to see our country locked in bloody quagmires overseas.
Profit should have no place in our national defense. It’s bad enough that one of the few thriving industries left in America is arms manufacturing. We shouldn’t make matters…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
Scrub the CIA
Contrary to popular opinion, the CIA has done valuable, even critical work for our nation. Its predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), helped us win World War II. And during the Cold War, someone had to counter the ruthlessness of the Soviet KGB. That kind of work is dangerous, and often messy. But early on in its existence, the CIA strayed from what it was chartered to do: gather intelligence.
The agency has had many low points. George Tenet’s WMD “slam dunk” in Iraq was just the last in a long line of criminally incompetent actions. I believe the beginning…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
Reason #94: War on a Credit Card
When you’ve got a half trillion dollar annual budget like the Pentagon does, it’s easy to squirrel away a few billion here and there.
As of this writing, the official cost of our disastrous invasion of Iraq is over $500 billion and counting. To put it in perspective, that’s almost $20,000 for every man, woman, and child in Iraq and almost 2,000 bucks for every American citizen. But the sad reality is, we’re paying way more than that for this tragic blunder.
Since the invasion, congress has been writing checks on credit to pay for the war. (That’s right, we’re borrowing hundreds of…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
