Outsourcing The War Revisited

[CrimsonKairos]

I posted this reply in another thread, but felt more people should read it and would read in the general discussions forum.

It's all well and good to report that the USA uses alot of private contract "soldiers" (if you will) worldwide, but I've yet to see one single journalist have the kahoonies to point out why we need to use so many private contractors.

Two words: Bill Clinton.

His "peace dividend" was a joke. Here's an interesting chart tracking how much taxes are allocated for defense spending. Notice the dip under Clinton's name? Yeah, no liberals want to talk about that.

Here's something else worth noting:

Clinton's loathing of the American military led to his failure in his primary responsibility: the protection of the American people. His actions with regard to military preparedness speak for themselves. In less than three years, deployments increased while manpower decreased from 2.1 million to 1.6 million. That decrease was the foundation upon which stood Al Gore's purported "reinvention" of government. Of the 305,000 employees removed from the federal payroll, 286,000 (or 90%) were military cuts.The statistics for America's defense during the Clinton years reveal the deep-seated animosity of the administration toward those who served in the military. The Army was cut from 18 divisions to 12. The Navy was reduced from 546 ships to 380. Air Force flight squadrons were cut from 76 to 50.

While the U.S. military was used as a 'meals on wheels' service by the Clinton administration in its nation building adventures, the military had its own humanitarian crises at home on its own bases. The pay freeze instituted by Clinton was imposed on a military in which 80 percent of all troops earned $30,000 per year or less. Food stamp applications soared and re-enlistment rates dropped.

[...]

Along with the lack of respect for the military went a failure to understand its purpose. One of Hillary Clinton's staffers remarked, during a drive through South Africa, that the First Lady was appalled by the poverty and wondered aloud whether the country did not have a military to do something about it. The Clintons saw the military primarily as a humanitarian organization, not as a professional force to defend the country.

[...]

Clinton had an opportunity to capture [Osama bin Laden] in the fall of 1998, but was unavailable. When he was finally reached, further consultation was needed with various secretaries. The two-hour window in which bin Laden could have been caught was lost. Says Patterson, "This lost bin Laden hit typified the Clinton administration's ambivalent, indecisive way of dealing with terrorism. Ideologically, the Clinton administration was committed to the idea that most terrorists were misunderstood, had legitimate grievances, and could be appeased, which is why such military action as the administration authorized was so halfhearted, and ineffective, and designed more for 'show' than for honestly eliminating a threat."

[...]

Clinton dismantled the Energy Department's Russian Fission monitoring program which had kept tabs on Russia's nuclear arsenal - at a time when CIA reports showed that Russia's alarmingly poor control over its 21,900 nuclear warheads made it more possible than ever that an accidental Russian strike could occur. Colonol Robert Bykov, a career strategic missile officer and member of the Russian parliament, candidly lamented that Russia "could launch an accidental nuclear strike on the United States in the matter of seconds it takes you to read these lines."

[...]

In 1998, U.S. intelligence reports warned of China's rapid progress in developing missiles capable of hitting targets 7,500 miles away. Clinton mandated that no official White House spokesmen tell the public about the menacing Chinese buildup. A military analyst at the Heritage Foundation eventually discovered it and went public with the information. Another dismal chapter of Clinton administration foreign policy was the growing crisis in North Korea, whose military had already amassed enough plutonium to build nuclear weapons as early as 1994. When Korean leaders denied outside inspectors access to suspected weapons-production sites, Clinton negotiated a plan giving them ten years to dismantle their weapons program and five years to surrender their existing plutonium stockpile. He thereby shifted to a future President's administration the burden of eventually dealing with the potentially horrific consequences of a Korean buildup. In the spring of 1997, U.S. intelligence satellite photographs showed some 15,000 Korean workers building an immense underground nuclear facility in an area called Kumchangni. Clinton waited for more than a year, until July 1998, before informing Congress about the Kumchangni construction.

[...]

Then there was the case of Iraq, which Defense Secretary William Cohen estimated to have "produced as much as 200 tons of VX [nerve gas], theoretically enough to kill every man, woman, and child on the face of the earth." Notwithstanding Cohen's sobering estimate, Clinton assented to a U.N.-brokered deal in the mid-1990s that greatly restricted inspectors' access to Saddam Hussein's "sensitive presidential locations" that were suspected of housing nuclear and biological weapons production plants. Afraid of being cornered into a potentially embarrassing public showdown with Saddam, Clinton elected to pacify the Iraqi dictator by intervening to dissuade U.N. inspectors from making surprise visits to the suspected weapons sites. (read the full article here)

So next time anyone talks about how our military is stretched to the breaking point, and morale is low, and re-deployments have reached a ridiculous level of occurences...reflect warmly that our dear beloved Bill Clinton was the cause of our current shortage of defense forces and equipment through his castration of our armed forces and defense spending.

Another interesting quote to end with, from a CNN report:

Military chiefs call for tens of billions more in defense spending

September 27, 2000

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- America's top military leaders told Congress on Wednesday that the U.S. military needs tens of billions of dollars in additional funds to reverse its recent decline in readiness, and to replace aging weapons and equipment.

Testifying before the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, [Clinton's] Joint Chiefs of Staff presented a unified front, saying budget cuts in the mid 1990s 'mortgaged the future' of the military."

This was a full year before 9/11 and our current military confrontations worldwide!

[LukeAir2006]

Thought: Maybe Clinton cut US defense staff and budget because he had no intention of going against the constitution, and against the Founding Fathers, and against the Prophets by attacking foreign nations. The US has no mandate to be the worlds police. Joesph Smith warned that it would be the United States undoing. Oh, but then CK, you don't believe the words of the Prophets unless they're in the 'Standard Works' so I guess you can ignore that. The US does have a mandate to protect itself from attack. The last attack on US soil by a foreign nation was Pearl Harbor. The terrorists who attacked NYC and Washington, if it was terrorists that were responsible, were residing within the US.

[JcDean78]

Luke that is a twisted point of view.

We were not attacked by individuals but rather by a group of people who share a hatred for our way of life. These people get aid and support from all over the middle east and we did the right thing to take the fight to them. 911 was not the first time that these cowards drew blood and have sworn to destroy us, out way of life, and our allies. This is not a new war but rather a very old war that goes back over 1000 years.

Our Republics first war outside of the USA was against these thugs which caused us to form a permant navy and Marines. We kicked their butts then and we continue to do so today.

Their factions are made up from nations all over the middle east who hate us and out values. To say they are residing within the US would be like saying our troops reside in Iraq.

We should not be the world police and that is why we are not in Darfur but we still are policing many parts of the world which we should not be. However in situations like the middle east, China, and Korea, we must be in those areas because a war there would end up here and affect us all. It is naive to think otherwise.

[FrankJL]

"if it was terrorists that were responsible"

What on earth is that supposed to mean??

Please tell me your not one of those Alex Jones kook followers?

[Dr T]

[CrimsonKairos]

Thought: Maybe Clinton cut US defense staff and budget because he had no intention of going against the constitution, and against the Founding Fathers, and against the Prophets by attacking foreign nations.

You may be right, he was too busy committing adultery in the oval office, selling sensitive technology to the Chinese (who largely funded his campaign), telling Lady Liberty to grab her ankles, and letting Osama bin Laden slip through his fingers even when Sudan offered him to us on a platter.

Thanks for the laugh, Luke, I needed that.

[Dr T]

...telling Lady Liberty to grab her ankles...

[CrimsonKairos]

Of course I was speaking metaphorically... B)

[Dr T]

Still made me blush, CK.

[CrimsonKairos]

Me too...it just infuriates me the way these America-hating liberals treat the greatest country and greatest military on earth.

[Dr T]

I'm with you. It is amazing how we take for granted the freedoms that we enjoy in the U.S. Many become complacent and often complain and often desire more.

[Guest mamacat]

the point of the article is to show why the war might be extended because of and for the sake of corporate profit and non-accountability. those same corporations are now profiting because of the actions that Clinton instated. so perhaps it is good to look at the present condition of using private, corporate mercenaries, and the very great disservice this does to both the government and the military. there are a great number of people who love the U.S., conservatives as well, who believe that the premise for this war is questionable.

Members of Congress tell me they have been stonewalled in their attempts to gain detailed information about the activities of these companies. I think it is a disturbing commentary that I have received phone calls from several Congress members asking me for government documents on war contractors and not the other way around.

In the current discussion in the Congress on this issue, what is seldom discussed is how this system, the privatization of war, has both encouraged and enabled the growth and creation of companies who have benefited and stand to gain even more from an escalation of the war.

In closing, while I think this Congress needs to take urgent action on issues of oversight, accountability and transparency of these private forces operating with our tax dollars and in the name of the United States, there is a deeper issue that often gets overlooked. This war contracting system has intimately linked corporate profits to an escalation of war and conflict. These companies have no incentive to decrease their footprint in the war zone and every incentive to increase it.

http://www.ldstalk.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8845

[CrimsonKairos]

I think it is a disturbing commentary that I have received phone calls from several Congress members asking me for government documents on war contractors and not the other way around.

Sounds like those congress members are idiots if they don't know how to FOIA or use their staff to track down the appropriate documents. This journalist makes too much of himself...it's not like he discovered some long, lost vault of government records. Anyone who knows how to do research can find what he found.

In the current discussion in the Congress on this issue, what is seldom discussed is how this system, the privatization of war, has both encouraged and enabled the growth and creation of companies who have benefited and stand to gain even more from an escalation of the war.

The solution is a larger military, which conservatives have been saying forever! Is the current situation with an over-stretched military finally enough to prove to liberals that a strong military is essential?

This war contracting system has intimately linked corporate profits to an escalation of war and conflict. These companies have no incentive to decrease their footprint in the war zone and every incentive to increase it.

So? If we enlarge our military the private contractors won't be needed, so what does it matter whether they have an incentive to stay or not? If we make private contractors redundant with enough U.S. military forces (which we don't have enough of right now thanks to Clinton), then the contractors will become a non-issue.

[FrankJL]

On the downsizing and contractors issue.

Before Clinton's downsizing, the Army had 10 heavy engineer battalions, and all 10 of those battalions did vertical (building, buildings, and structures), and horizontal(made roads, earthmoving, building/repairing airstrips). After Clinton's downsizing only 6 battalions where left. Of those 6 left, 3 are vertical only, 2 are horizontal only, and only one is both horizontal and vertical.

Keep in mind though this is only heavy engineers (construction type), not light engineers, which are considered combat arms, they blow up bridges, sweep for land mines, and setup fornications.

If we still had all 10 of our engineer battalions we wouldn't need to depend so much on contractors.

The only reason I know this is because that one horizontal and vertical unit that is still left, is the 92nd engineers in Ft. Stewart GA, the unit I was with while I was on active duty.

[LukeAir2006]

Glad that I made you laugh. Its reassuring for me to know that you can laugh CK.

I don't know if anyone saw it on You Tube, but in the run up to the last election, the Utah Constitution Party did a comparison between George Bush and Bill Clinton to see who is the lesser of two evils. They compared everything they had said and done during their terms of office: how many lies they had told, how pro abortion they were, how they had hiked taxes etc. Bill Clinton came out on top as the lesser of the two evils.

I questioned whether it was the terrorists who were responsible for 911 because according to the BBC and other respected news agencies, some of those same 'terrorists' who should technically have perished with the impact of the aircraft, are alive and well in the middle east. Amazing. Maybe they parachuted out just before impact and then got a taxi to the WTC and had time to place explosives to finish the job off, yeh? That will account for why the New York Fire Department said there were explosions going off all over the buildings and the floors just started popping out one by one.

[CrimsonKairos]

No, no, no, you've got it all wrong! It was Pres. Bush flying the airplanes into the WTC towers. He had a special-super-duper transporter-thingy-bob so he could bail out of one plane as it crashed and fly the next one, and when he was finished, a black helicopter running in silent mode whisked him back to read books to children so he could have an alibi.

[pam]

Thought: Maybe Clinton cut US defense staff and budget because he had no intention of going against the constitution, and against the Founding Fathers, and against the Prophets by attacking foreign nations. The US has no mandate to be the worlds police. Joesph Smith warned that it would be the United States undoing. Oh, but then CK, you don't believe the words of the Prophets unless they're in the 'Standard Works' so I guess you can ignore that. The US does have a mandate to protect itself from attack. The last attack on US soil by a foreign nation was Pearl Harbor. The terrorists who attacked NYC and Washington, if it was terrorists that were responsible, were residing within the US.

"if it was terrorist that were responsible" I find that line the most idiotic thing written. What is more of a terrorist act than flying plane loads of people into buildings and into the ground than what happened 9/11. So what if they were "residing" withing the US. For one thing they weren't permanent residents. But that is beside the point . It was still a terrorist act. So just because they lived on US soil we don't have rights to defend or protect ourselves from attack? Oh please.

[CrimsonKairos]

I can't let this go unaddressed.

The US has no mandate to be the worlds police. Joesph Smith warned that it would be the United States undoing.

Please provide me with the precise quote from Joseph Smith you speak of so glibly. Thanks in advance.

[Guest kilobravo]

Well said Luke. Couldn't agree more. No country attacked the US. Most, if not all the terrorists were Saudi Arabian. Afghanistan was the first target Bush attacked because the month before the government had failed to come to an agreement with the Taliban (who were then being romanced by the Bush administration and being chauffeured around town) over the oil rights there and the propose oil pipeline through Afghanistan and Iraq.

Hopefully when the Democrats win, the filth in the Whitehouse can be flushed away, and the US can return to a democracy, rather than a corporate backed police state.

Last thought:

A poll conducted in Britain named Bush the second biggest "threat to world peace" after Bin Laden, topping North Korean president Kim Jong-Il.[149] According to a poll taken in November 2006, Finns also believed that Bush was the biggest "threat to world peace" after Bin Laden. Kim Jong-Il came in third in the poll and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hassan Nasrallah came joint fourth.[150]

Source: George W. Bush - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Address : <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush#Afghanistan>

[pushka]

light engineers, which are considered combat arms, they blow up bridges, sweep for land mines, and setup fornications.

The only reason I know this is because that one horizontal and vertical unit that is still left, is the 92nd engineers in Ft. Stewart GA, the unit I was with while I was on active duty.

Well, I'm sorry if I'm disrupting this serious thread, but Frank, I just can't ignore your quote above, I just hope it wasn't a freudian slip stating the light engineers were setting up 'fornications', and if that's what they really were doing, I hope you were a good LDS soldier and didn't get involved in this immoral act! LOL

[BenRaines]

I believe that the terrorists are waiting for the Democrats to be in charge and then they too will be tested and see what their non response is in the US when we are attacked and Democrats are the ones who have to respond.

I am prepared, are you?

Ben Raines

[LukeAir2006]

I can't let this go unaddressed.

<div class='quotemain'>

The US has no mandate to be the worlds police. Joesph Smith warned that it would be the United States undoing.

Please provide me with the precise quote from Joseph Smith you speak of so glibly. Thanks in advance.

CK you're such an actor. Whats the point of me providing the actual quote. You dont accept prophetic statements unless theyre in the 'Standard Works' do you ? I take it you dont watch General Conference?

[Guest mamacat]

I think it is a disturbing commentary that I have received phone calls from several Congress members asking me for government documents on war contractors and not the other way around.

Sounds like those congress members are idiots if they don't know how to FOIA or use their staff to track down the appropriate documents. This journalist makes too much of himself...it's not like he discovered some long, lost vault of government records. Anyone who knows how to do research can find what he found.

In the current discussion in the Congress on this issue, what is seldom discussed is how this system, the privatization of war, has both encouraged and enabled the growth and creation of companies who have benefited and stand to gain even more from an escalation of the war.

The solution is a larger military, which conservatives have been saying forever! Is the current situation with an over-stretched military finally enough to prove to liberals that a strong military is essential?

This war contracting system has intimately linked corporate profits to an escalation of war and conflict. These companies have no incentive to decrease their footprint in the war zone and every incentive to increase it.

So? If we enlarge our military the private contractors won't be needed, so what does it matter whether they have an incentive to stay or not? If we make private contractors redundant with enough U.S. military forces (which we don't have enough of right now thanks to Clinton), then the contractors will become a non-issue.

the corporations are backed by the U.S. government. halliburton, kbr, et al.....are part and parcel of the government, esp the current one. please recall ken lay...california....power gouging....private consultation with cheney on energy policy......

they profit from democrat policy...and from republican, who back the corporations, and give them the hugely lucrative contracts.

it would be entertaining indeed to see the response of the current government to the idea of making the private contractors redundant.

[LukeAir2006]

Thanks kilobravo, I would expect such wisdom from a Jedi. You've probably realized what you're up against here.

Joseph Smith, the founder of the LDS Church, gave up his life for the cause of truth. The people who now fill the church don't want truth. They want the fables and propaganda of the very criminal conspiracy that the Book of Mormon warns of.

The UK Prime Minister summed it up nicely: To be truthful about it, there was no way we could have got the public consent to have suddenly launched a campaign on Afghanistan but for what happened on September 11."

Tony Blair. July 17, 2002 [Guardian]

A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week's attacks.

Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.

Mr Naik said US officials told him of the plan at a UN-sponsored international contact group on Afghanistan which took place in Berlin.

Mr Naik told the BBC that at the meeting the US representatives told him that unless Bin Laden was handed over swiftly America would take military action to kill or capture both Bin Laden and the Taleban leader, Mullah Omar.

The wider objective, according to Mr Naik, would be to topple the Taleban regime and install a transitional government of moderate Afghans in its place - possibly under the leadership of the former Afghan King Zahir Shah.

Mr Naik was told that Washington would launch its operation from bases in Tajikistan, where American advisers were already in place.

He was told that Uzbekistan would also participate in the operation and that 17,000 Russian troops were on standby.

Mr Naik was told that if the military action went ahead it would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.

He said that he was in no doubt that after the World Trade Center bombings this pre-existing US plan had been built upon and would be implemented within two or three weeks.

And he said it was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if Bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taleban. [bBC]

Has the penny dropped yet? The invasion of Afghanistan was planned a long time before 9/11. Bush/Cheney/Enron and friends wanted to build a gas pipeline through Afghanistan. The Taliban were invited to the US and offered a carpet of gold if they co-operated; and a carpet of bombs if they didn't.

They wanted nothing to do with it. Cue 9/11.

In 1998, ###### Cheney remarked: "I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian." But the oil and gas there is worthless until it is moved. The only route which makes both political and economic sense is through Afghanistan. [Guardian]

This is from the US Congressional Hearing on February 12, 1998. Mr. John J. Maresca of Unicol is addressing the Chairman: Mr. Chairman, the Caspian region contains tremendous untapped hydrocarbon reserves. Just to give an idea of the scale, proven natural gas reserves equal more than 236 trillion cubic feet. The region's total oil reserves may well reach more than 60 billion barrels of oil. Some estimates are as high as 200 billion barrels. In 1995, the region was producing only 870,000 barrels per day. By 2010, western companies could increase production to about 4.5 million barrels a day, an increase of more than 500 percent in only 15 years. If this occurs, the region would represent about 5 percent of the world's total oil production.

One major problem has yet to be resolved: how to get the region's vast energy resources to the markets where they are needed. Central Asia is isolated. Their natural resources are land locked, both geographically and politically. Each of the countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia faces difficult political challenges. Some have unsettled wars or latent conflicts. Others have evolving systems where the laws and even the courts are dynamic and changing. In addition, a chief technical obstacle which we in the industry face in transporting oil is the region's existing pipeline infrastructure.

I'll now let Mormon have a word with you Slumbering Saints: (CK pay attention, this is from the STANDARD WORKS!) Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this secret combination which shall be among you; or wo be unto it, because of the blood of them who have been slain; for they cry from the dust for vengeance upon it, and also upon those who built it up.

For it cometh to pass that whoso buildeth it up seeketh to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries; and it bringeth to pass the destruction of all people, for it is built up by the devil, who is the father of all lies; even that same liar who beguiled our first parents, yea, even that same liar who hath caused man to commit murder from the beginning; who hath hardened the hearts of men that they have murdered the prophets, and stoned them, and cast them out from the beginning. Ether 8:24-25

CK you can go back to sleep. This is from Pres. Ezra Taft Benson at General Conference, November 1988:

I testify that wickedness is rapidly expanding in every segment of our society. (See D&C 1:14–16; D&C 84:49–53.) It is more highly organized, more cleverly disguised, and more powerfully promoted than ever before. Secret combinations lusting for power, gain, and glory are flourishing. A secret combination that seeks to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries is increasing its evil influence and control over America and the entire world. (See Ether 8:18–25.)

[LukeAir2006]

No, no, no, you've got it all wrong! It was Pres. Bush flying the airplanes into the WTC towers. He had a special-super-duper transporter-thingy-bob so he could bail out of one plane as it crashed and fly the next one, and when he was finished, a black helicopter running in silent mode whisked him back to read books to children so he could have an alibi.

No, no, no...thats not quite right. Pres. Bush was in Florida, there was no way he could have been part of it. He said that as he left the hotel he saw the first plane hit the WTC on TV, and he thought what a bad pilot! Oh, er, that actually wasn't on TV....he must have seen it in his sooper-dooper-look-into-the-future-tv-thingy-bob-machine and seen things that weren't actually on TV until the following day. Or maybe he didn't trust that French TV crew who were filming the NYFD and had their camera bugged so he could see what was happening. Yeh that was it. And by pure chance saw 9/11 as it actually happened. Amazing. Dubya's a real Super hero!!