Earl Bockenfeld's Radio Weblog : America's real drug problem, is called television. --Greg Palast
Updated: 7/1/2006; 10:41:40 AM.

 

 
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Monday, June 12, 2006



Spending Like A Drunken-Sailor Costs Everyone

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.



categories: Outrages
Other Stories according to Google: Apple spending like drunken sailor - The Unofficial Apple Weblog | ProfessorBainbridge.com: Elephants in LaLa Land: A RINO? Or a | OpinionJournal - Peggy Noonan | America's deficits | A flood of red ink | Economist.com | INSIGHT on Freedom | Naked Villainy: Still Out of Gum | Say Anything: Bush And Compassionate Conservatism - North Dakota's | Crikey Website - The drunken sailor cranks it up | Obsidian Wings: You can't please everyone | Pretty soon we’re talking real money | Cosmic Variance

12:02:11 PM    


© Copyright 2006 Earl Bockenfeld.



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