Left Coasting

Sorry for the slowpost yesterday. Work was busy enough, and I really needed to knock out some house chores. Also, considering the outdoor temps were the hottest in four years (according to the local forecast), sitting by the a/c at times wasn't such a bad idea. Hell, even my cat, who normally steps inside for food or sleep only, decided to beat the heat.

Anyway, my home PC is strategically placed close to said a/c, and I managed to get some reading in last night in between tasks. Somewhat late in the evening, I came across this post by pessimist over at The Left Coaster.

Pessimist cites six separate articles in making the claim that Bush either has no clue or doesn't give a shit about the damage he's causing. This one, an editorial in the St. Petersburg Times, is on its own enough to make the time spent reading worthwhile. Entitled "A Reckless Claim," it rips apart Bush's latest causus belli for the Iraq war, namely, that the mere possibility of Hussein becoming a threat was enough to justify immediate invasion. Now, we all know that Bush has, well, a certain contempt for history. That said, he might still want to consider the Treaty of Westphaila, which managed to end the Thirty Years War--interestingly, a conflict based in religion (ahem...). The central thesis of the treaty is the concept of sovereignty of nations--an idea which, as the St. Pete Times points out, Bush tosses into the ashcan like so much old vellum.

Pessimist goes on to note this from the Detroit News. It explains why I, for one, never really accepted the whole "Clinton's army sure did do a good job in Iraq" argument. The piece is an in-depth look at the weaknesses of Humvees, and the ways soldiers are dealing with them.

A Humvee apparently makes an excellent vehicle for a lightning offensive with a highly mechanized force. However, in an urban guerrilla environment, its canvas doors and roof turn it into a pretty easy target for RPG's. Soldiers are dealing with this in several ways, like tying sandbags to the exterior or retrofitting armor plating, the latter requiring some units to solicit donations from businesses. Still, this is a lot like the body armor debacle.

Our military budget is topping out at $400 billion dollars (not including the "supplementals" to cover the Iraq and Afghanistan wars). For the last twenty five years military spending has held steady as a percentage of GDP (and previous drops in spending simply reflected the wind-down from the Vietnam war), yet we aren't providing BASIC EQUIPMENT. Whether or not you support Operation Go Fuck Ourselves and its evil little brother in Afghanistan, this should be a cause for outrage. Where the hell is all the money going? (hint).

Pessimist goes on to cite this piece about Traumatic Brain Injury in The San Francisco Chronicle (which reports on a unique method the military is using to keep soldiers in the army), an Indianapolis Star article about Guard personnel no longer re-enlisting, and this from Intervention Magazine, which shows Bush's "Compassionate Conservatism" in action--he's throwing a bone to the fiscal conservatives of his party by limiting spending on veterans' affairs. How charming. Send em off to war, stiff em when they get back.

Six articles is a lot to plow through; however, pessimist does a damn good job of pulling together separate sources to make a valid point, and one that needs to be considered in light of the upcoming election. We've got a chance to pull back from the brink of a disastrous experiment undertaken by Dubya, namely the reduction of the United States from world leader to basically a banana republic on steroids. He's got to be stopped--unless you think Texass is a model for the rest of the nation.