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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (91245)	12/18/2004 10:13:10 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793789

Our 'Best Equipped' Army? Baloney! By Mark Shields Saturday, December 18, 2004; Page A27 In the three years immediately after Pearl Harbor, the United States, a nation of 132 million people with a gross domestic product of less than $100 billion, produced the following to win World War II: • 296,429 aircraft. • 102,351 tanks. • 87,620 warships. • 372,431 artillery pieces. • 2,455,694 trucks. Compare those heroic achievements with the current dismal supply record as the U.S. war in Iraq is fast approaching its third year and the United States, now a nation of nearly 300 million with defense spending in excess of half a trillion dollars: • Only 5,910 of the 19,584 Humvees that U.S. troops in Iraq depend on are protected with factory-installed armor. • More than 8,000 of the 9,128 medium and heavyweight trucks transporting soldiers and supplies in that war zone are without armor. Because of the incompetence or indifference of this nation's civilian leadership of the war, Americans in Iraq are living with an increased risk of death. All the official transcripts of White House signing ceremonies for every defense spending bill, all the presidential proclamations for Veterans Day and every prepared statement by the secretary of defense before a congressional committee include the same stock phrase. U.S. troops are invariably referred to as "the best trained, best equipped" ever. Best equipped? To call today's American troops in Iraq the "best equipped" is more than an exaggeration; it is bilge, baloney and cruel. An America coming out of the Great Depression somehow found the leadership and the will to build and deploy around the globe 2.5 million trucks in the same period of time that the incumbent U.S. government has failed to get 30,000 fully armored vehicles to Iraq. The Bush administration has appropriated $34.3 billion on a theoretical missile defense system -- which proved again this week to be an expensive dud in its first test in two years, when the "kill vehicle" never got off the ground to intercept the target missile carrying a mock warhead -- but has been able up to now, according to congressional budget authorities, to spend just $2 billion to armor the vehicles of Americans under fire. Nobody has been more persistent in holding the Pentagon and the White House accountable than maverick Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), who serves on the House Armed Services Committee. "When I visit Iraq," says Taylor, "I ride around in an armored vehicle, and I am sure the secretary [of defense] does as well. That should be the single standard: If it is good enough for the big shots, it is good enough for every American soldier." The armor is truly a matter of life and death, as the Mississippi congressman explains: "Half of all our casualties, half of all our deaths and half of all our wounded are the direct result of improvised explosive devices [IEDs, or homemade bombs]." But when Washington officials visit Iraq, their traveling security includes not only heavily armored vehicles but also radio-signal jammers, which can disable the IEDs. What makes Taylor authentically angry is the inexcusable failure of the U.S. brass -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, he names -- to provide radio jammers (which cost $10,000 each) to the fewer than 30,000 U.S. military vehicles in Iraq. How many U.S. vehicles are now equipped with jammers? The Pentagon insists the figure is classified. According to Taylor, the number is "minuscule." But because he is offended by visiting corporate chief executives and deputy assistant secretaries of weights and measures getting better protection than Marine lance corporals and Army privates, Taylor would not appreciate the fact that funds for the jammers have probably already been dedicated to underwriting the next failed missile defense test. "A jammer costs about $10,000, and it probably costs about $10,000 to bury a dead GI. I believe Americans would rather spend the $10,000 to prevent the GI's funeral being held." Gene Taylor is right. Every American has a moral obligation to make certain that the nation's troops truly are the world's "best equipped."

To: Lane3 who wrote (91245)	12/18/2004 11:05:29 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793789

i thought soc sec was a forced savings plan.. i didn't volunteer to have the money taken out of my pay. No, it's a tax. <g> The Annie Oakley and the Lone Ranger days are over. Get used to it. You can't go it alone. You live in an interconnected world. You can't billow foul air and smoke from your little homestead without polluting other people's air. The trick however is to do some things together (do it in a smart way) and not have to do everything together. National Security is probably something everyone agrees that we should do together - but even there - we have to be smart about. If we do stupid things with our military, the remedy is not to do away with the military but to manage the military better. The Super Bowl is something else that we do together as a nation. I don't even like football, but I participate anyway. With the Super Bowl, you have a choice. If you do not participate, you will not be missed. However, Social Security is one of the few things we do together as a nation. You are required to participate. If you can opt out, the system will not work. The Social Security program is an insurance policy the we must take out to guarantee that we do not have a lot of elderly in dire financial straits. Social Security is a a good thing. But just because it is mismanaged does not mean we have to get rid of it - we just have to make it work. If you do away with a mandatory social security plan, the Annie Oakleys and the Lone Rangers can probably do okay, but a lot of elderly would be in trouble and we would have to have some other plan to take care of that mess. Of course Annie Oakley and the Lone Ranger can always say, I worked hard and managed my finances, if you screwed up - that's your problem - screw you. The reality is that the days of Annie Oakley and the Lone Ranger are over and are not coming back. Get used to it.