It's stranger
than fiction, a tale bizarre beyond belief: The Army that helped
conquer Iraq in three weeks doesn't have enough cash to keep the lights
on at Fort Sam Houston.
Last week the Appropriation Committees of the House and Senate
reached a deal on the supplemental appropriations bill to fund the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan. The new bill is expected to make it to the
floor this week for debate and is expected to pass. Originally there
was a provision in this bill to ban any of the money being spent on
permanent bases in Iraq, a provision which was silently removed by the Republicans.
Congressional Republicans killed a provision in an Iraq
war funding bill that would have put the United States on record
against the permanent basing of U.S. military facilities in that
country, a lawmaker and congressional aides said on Friday.
The $94.5 billion emergency spending bill, which includes $65.8
billion to continue waging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is expected to
be approved by Congress next week and sent to President George W. Bush
for signing into law.
As originally passed by the House of Representatives, the Pentagon
would have been prohibited from spending any of the funds for entering
into a military basing rights agreement with Iraq.
While this is already a horrible move by Republicans, things get
worse. Today we learn that Bush is planning on keeping a force of about
50,000 troops in Iraq for years to come.
So we are seeing that Bush’s misadventure of removing Saddam is going
to cost us even more money, but what impact will this have on the
US and the Middle East?
Whenever a Democrat speaks out against the Iraq war, the right wing
pundits and politicians are quick to jump on the same talking point of "what kind of message is this sending to our enemies?" Now that
question is more important than ever and must be used against the
Republicans. "What kind of message is building permanent bases in Iraq
and retaining a troop level of 50,000 for years to come going to send?"
This could provide to be a key recruiting tool for al Qaeda and provide
great propaganda. What we have done is made Osama’s preaching’s of Wahhabism (a branch of Sunni beliefs) come to life.
So not only are we facing a new recruiting tool for al Qaeda, handed
to him on a silver platter by the Republicans, but we are also facing a
crisis mode in our military bases here at home. This is beyond belief
that the richest nation in the world can not afford to keep the lights
on at its own military bases. But wait – it gets even worse. That
supplemental appropriations bill I started this article talking about –
well it doesn’t look like that is going to even help out that much:
Fort Sam is grappling with a $26 million budget
shortfall partly because of congressional wrangling over a measure to
fund wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But problems at Fort Sam and many of
the Army’s 179 posts worldwide won’t be over even if Congress approves
a $94.5 billion supplemental appropriations bill next week as expected.
The war, rising military health care costs and Pentagon efforts to transform the armed services will make sure of that.
[SNIP]
He (spokesman Ned Christensen) said the Pentagon is asking Congress
for $722 million in supplemental funding for posts worldwide. Of that,
IMA’s southwest region would get $105 million, Fort Sam spokesman Phil
Reidinger said.
So that $65.8 billion earmarked for military spending that was past
last week isn’t even enough – now we need more money just to keep the
lights on at our military bases? Now we must ask how much building a
military base in Iraq will cost and if we did not spend money on that
would we be able to keep our bases here at home running.
This
is what we get for allowing an incoherent narcissistic messianic venal
helium-head into the White House. He’s bankrupting the nation in every
way possible — including the moral.
This is what we get for allowing an incoherent narcissistic messianic venal helium-head into the White House. He’s bankrupting the nation in every way possible — including the moral.