The price of an Illinois Senate seat shouldn’t be the biggest scandal
The minimal value of the lives of our troops is far more shocking.
This is not about fear of Hussein; it’s about ideology driven by the neocon founders of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). The war planning actively began in the frst month of the Bush presidency, as Richard Clarke and others pointed out.
This revelation comes on the heels of the other most visible equipment problem, the failure to outfit our troops with proper Kevlar vests. And that one wasn’t about availability because families were raising funds to purchase and mail some over.
So from January 2001 till March 2003, there was 25-26 months to ramp up production of troop-saving equipment. And the effort fell far short of the need. As the current economic bailout demonstrates, it wasn’t about lack of purchasing power, either.
It was about terrible planning driven by the twin ideologues: Rumsfeld and Cheney. It was criminal: I think involuntary manslaughter (a result of negligence)would be the proper legal definition such planners could and should be charged with. As many occurences of dishonest intel assessments occurred, it may even be outright manslaughter.
Of course, they aren’t the first to accept the notion that troops are expendable. But because they’re not being held accountable, they won’t be the last, either.
It’s an additionally cruhing blow to the wounded and the families of the deceased to recognize the troops died to achieve questionable results when their deaths and injuries were - in most cases - preventable.
There’s only one ideology that should reign in a democracy: pragmatism. The Bush administration’s war planning and postwar planning should be textbook examples of everything one could possibly do wrong. And the lack of accountability is negligence on the part of much of Congress, making them accessories after the fact.
It’s a sad reality for every member of our military: they die at the pleasure of their Commander-in-chief and our country gains no benefit, except for Big Oil and a number of other war profiteers. Which includes the governments and robber barons of Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia.
December 10th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Yes, but if the troops had adequate body armor and equipment. we wouldn’t have nearly as many “fallen heroes”. And who doesn’t love heroes?
December 10th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Interesting that the Center for Public Integrity included the lack of armored protection for troops in their list of 125 failures of the government released today: http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/broken_government/articles/entry/999