What a waste!!!!!!

[Podunkfla]

Steve... Your absolutely right. War is just "Big Business" these days!
We do it for the wrong reasons... and the young guys that suffer and die
are just "collateral damage" to the big bucks war machine...
Kinda makes you sick, huh.

[sdtripper2]

Steve... Your absolutely right. War is just "Big Business" these days!
We do it for the wrong reasons... and the young guys that suffer and die
are just "collateral damage" to the big bucks war machine...
Kinda makes you sick, huh.

Brick:
In what makes the Katrina debacle seem like so little money ... the
contractors are only in it for the money and the guys and gals in the
outbound areas have to put duck tape on their boots to keep the high temps
from burning their feet as NO boots are getting to them. The protection
they need isn't getting to them cause the contractors are siphoning off big
chunks of money to even the point of choking off armor or night vision equipment.
The book Betraying Our Troops: Talks of one contractor that gets 1/2 Billion
a month to supply the troops. So they go out and get second hand trucks
and charge for new. They don't put spare tires on the trucks
or any tools cause if they break down ... the trucks
are burnt. You see the
contractors have a deal where the more they spend the more they get from
the Government. So an old truck that just got burnt as a new truck lets
them again buy an old truck and the cycle goes on and on. All the while
padding the obscene billing and obfuscating all numbers and always a
relentless pushing to be paid or they just stop all supplies to the military in
a coercive action, that the military caves into every time.

Now back in the very protected zones ... there is soft serve ice cream and
all manner of services .... but the troops in the field say they would give uP
all that if they could be supplied equipment to carry the war effort on.

Again if the American people knew that the contractors are the ones
responsible for more deaths in Iraq because they refuse to move supplies
to the hostile areas, something would change? This puts men that need
ammo in jeopardy more often than we hear on the news. You see the dirty
secret is that the officer corps don't want to rock the boat ... because their
career is more important to them than the loss of soldier lives.
Thus ... keeping the contractor corruption perpetuated.

[GPW]

Thanks for keeping us kosher MJ...we certainly don't want to offend or provoke rational thoughts with our fellow Americans ...The less the sheep know , the more power the shepherd has over them ...

[Alphacarina]

Iraq always brings Colin Powell to my mind

He advised the president way before the decision (well, the official decision anyway) to go to war was made, "You really don't want to do this Mr. President - The sad truth about Iraq is 'if you break it, you own it'"

Good leaders listen to folks smarter than they are

We own it now, to the tune of about 10 billion and a hundred lives a month (a hundred of OUR lives anyway . . . . many thousands of Iraqi lives) and we're going to own it until we can find someone to lead the country - Where is Saddam Hussien now that we really need him?

Surely 95% of all Iraqis would agree that everything was better under Saddam before we mucked it up so badly

Don

[sdtripper2]

Good leaders listen to folks smarter than they are

Well, Don ... We got a double whammy with Bush. Seems most everyone
is smarter, and he listened to the VP Cheney and the throngs of NeOcons
in the Defence Dept. The only problem is we the people were shoved the
wrong information down our throats as intelligence; according to the
NeOcon's Nation building dreams, and we bought it. Just knowing that the
Republicans wouldn't go into a planned war without having the post war
plans set in stone.

Yea... right... screwed are we as Bush ignores all reason
and listens to presumed smarter men than he ~ "NeOcons"

Now one tune Bush keeps on following the now proven wrong NeOcon mantra
as our youth and reserves are whittled away by limb and fatigue.

Our treasury is wasted and will be on the backs of babies not even born yet
for time eternal as our Chinese overlords will dictate.

What a blunder this country has committed by blindly backing one state in
the middle east and through preemptive war and nation building,
with oil company eyes on all the Arab states.

The greed and divided loyalties of our Government leaders will be our downfall
as a country, as the world contracts in the new political and financial order.

[moto403]

The last itme anyone may have liked our Commander-in-Charge was when regan was in office. But even then there were scandels and controversey.
Till the downfall of our gov. and nation as we now know it we will be handed two puppets to chose from every eigtht years, and suffer the choice. good,bad or otherwise.

were we not given the right-to-bear arms so the people as a whole could choose there government and who is running it. the ability to rise up as one and say"NO". we want this.
our history was one of telling brittan we will not be ruled by you, we chose our own people.
but as a whole we have been trained to be sheep for decades.

But i still would rather suffer here than anywhere else on the planet, and reguardless of why our young soldiers are dyeing I STILL LOVE THEM AND THIS COUNTRY !! because it's the best we got.

[Joseph]

“Do you ever get the feeling that at this point Washington is run by two rival gangs that have a great deal in common with each other, including an essential lack of interest in the well-being of the turf on which they fight?” —Peggy Noonan

Joseph

[madjack]

“Do you ever get the feeling that at this point Washington is run by two rival gangs that have a great deal in common with each other, including an essential lack of interest in the well-being of the turf on which they fight?” —Peggy Noonan

Joseph

...now, that is a staement, I can totally agree with!!!!!!!!!!!
madjack

[Toolie]

I'm kind of late on this thread so excuse me for backtracking...
Wouldn't it have been cheaper for FEMA to buy a thousand or so ice machines -- and strategically place them with their emergency response equipment -- than wharehouse the ice for 3 years and 12.? million dollars?

Wouldn't be better to give the trailers to the affected families who want/need them, have them sign a waiver, maybe give them $1,000 for repairs - than to pay the cost of disconnecting, transporting and burning each one?

Who makes these decisions? What world do they live in?

I want to work for FEMA; I think they need some ordinary people on staff, people with plain old horse sense. They need people who care where the money goes and care who's watching.

One last thing: early on the cost of the war exceeded $1 billion per day. Now the war has escalated but someone is quoting smaller figures. Politics and funny accounting are soulmates.