Friday, June 20, 2008

The Military Draft ...

We recently viewed an old movie that was set in the dangerous days where forts and muzzle loading rifles were vital in protecting the American West from native peoples who resented our taking their lands from them. People on both sides were killed, of course, but the good guys (us) did win in the end.

An unrelated but interesting thought came to me concerning the need we have today to recruit troops for present and future conflicts. It all goes back to political propaganda that historically has been used to justify attacks or undermining other countries to the point that we have no option except to 'correct their behavior', moving them to a democratic society. The thought runs like this:

A Military Draft. Something similar to that imposed during World War II ~~ with some major
modifications such as
1. a clear definition of the requirements necessary (without exceptions) to maintain high
standards in all parts of the military.
2. all US citizens, male and female, are required to have in hand a Draft Notice, indicating
their abilities and their draft status as reviewed by a Draft Board at least annually.
3. persons of wealth or status of any kind will be subject to the Draft if they meet the
requirements defined. There will be no exceptions, even to offspring of a President.
4. failure to answer your country's call would be viewed as treason.

I could go on with this dream making the point that in the event those in power know that those in their own family ~ and them ! ~ could be 'sent to the front', we might just have less war and more negotiations. (We know that many 'in power' have and do volunteer their loved ones. Most do not.)

Back to the movie noted above ~ just before the battle started, the local Preacher spoke words like this during his church service: "... all men between the age of 16 and 60 will report to the fort
by dawn. Those who do not report shall be promptly hanged..."

We do sometimes need incentives.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Blackwater Mercenaries

Among the numbers of probable crimes our Congress and Administration have created ~ or allowed to be created ~ is the reliance upon mercenaries to fight in our wars. The Blackwater mercenaries are the best known and among the least to be held accountable for their many murders of civilians, among other reported acts.

These are things we Americans do not want to know about ... we need to know and we need to act. Contact your Congress person.

Please take a few moments to read:

Sunday, June 8, 2008

PART II FACTS ABOUT OUR WARS: LEARNING FROM OUR MISTAKES

Part II is a summary continuation of excerpts of the recent work of the Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz in his THE THREE TRILLION DOLLAR WAR:

LEARNING FROM OUR MISTAKES

* Wars should not be funded through "emergency supplementals" except in the first year of a conflict;

* The administration should create a comprehensive set of military accounts, which include the expenditures of the Department of Defense, the State Department, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Labor, as well as Social Security and health care benefits that arise from military service;

* The Department of Defense should be required to present clean, auditable financial statements to congress, for which the Secretary of Defense and the Chief financial Office are held personally responsible;

* The administration and the CBO should provide regular estimates of the micro and macroeconomic costs of a military engagement;

* The administration should be required to notify Congress of any procedural changes that might affect the normal bureaucratic checks & balances on the flow of information. The Freedom of Information Act (which enshrines the basic principles of citizens' right to know what their government is doing) should be strengthened, with a more narrow carving out of exceptions, and with congressional oversight on these exceptions.

* Congress should review the heavy reliance on contractors in wartime. In particular, the use of contractors for "security services" should be limited, both in number and in duration, with a detailed justification provided for why the military itself cannot provide these services. Careful attention should be paid to hidden costs borne by the public, of the kind uncovered in this book, such as payment for disability and death through government-provided insurance.

Contractors have landed lucrative contracts to rebuild infrastructure and to feed American troops. Much of this work has been poorly managed and inadequately monitored, and yet private contractors have become indispensable to the war operation. There are serious fundamental flaws with this reliance on the private sector.

The GAO and other government watchdogs have repeatedly documented cases of over-billing, over payment, and outright profiteering during the Iraq war. This has increased to operational costs. A large percentage of military contracts have been awarded without full competition. Giant contractors have become adept at gaming the system.

* The military should not be permitted to call upon the National Guard or the Reserves for more than one year, unless it can demonstrate that it is not feasible to increase the requisite size of the armed forces.

* There should be a presumption that the costs of any conflict lasting more than one year should be born by current taxpayers, through the levying of a war tax. The financial costs of running the war should be borne by its current citizens, not simply transferred to the next generation. This means that current revenues must cover current spending; a war tax should be levied to fund such expenditures.

End of Excerpts from THE THREE TRILLION DOLLAR WAR by Joseph Stiglitz who was given the Nobel Prize in Economics.

PART ONE: FACTS ABOUT OUR WARS!

Perhaps few will pay attention to facts, being bound to a political party or other beliefs ~ still, what follows are facts:

1. The price in treasure has, in a sense, been financed entirely by borrowing. Taxes have not been raised to pay for it - in fact, taxes on the rich have actually fallen. Deficit spending gives the illusion that the laws of economics can be repealed...The costs of the war are real even if the have been deferred, possibly to another generation.

2. Operating costs for 2008 are projected to exceed $12.5 billion a month for Iraq alone, up from $4.4 billion in 2003, and with Afghanistan, the total is $16 billion a month.

3. The use of "emergency" funds to pay for nearly all of five years of war makes a mockery of the budget process.

4. When we add the present discounted value of interest through 2017 alone, the total, with interest, comes to $3.5 trillion. These are just the budgetary costs.

5. The full tally: The numbers are staggering. In the realistic-moderate scenario - the numbers that we believe conservatively best capture the cost of the Iraq venture, even without counting interest - the total for Iraq alone is more than $ 4 trillion; including Afghanistan, it increases to $5 trillion.

6. American's standing in the world has never been lower.


SOURCE: All of the above are excerpts from THE THREE TRILLION DOLLAR WAR,
THE TRUE COST OF THE IRAQ CONFLICT by Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize in Economics.
New York: W.W. Norton @ Company, 2008.