I don’t agree much with Washington Post’s Dana Milbank. I had a brief talk with him one day a few years ago and he’s a personable enough fellow, but his writing have the liberal left leanings you’d expect from a Post columnist. But he wrote an excellent piece last night in the Post.
It’s about the hearings yesterday in Congress in which Secretary of Defense gates pleaded with Congress to provide money for force protection in Afghanistan;
The money has been held up because it would come from a project benefiting a major contributor to the committee chairman, Bill Young (R-Fla.).
“Mr. Chairman, our troops need this force-protection equipment, and they need it now,” Gates pleaded. “Every day that goes by without this equipment, the lives of our troops are at greater risk.” He urged action “today” on the funds, admonishing: “We should not put American lives at risk to protect specific programs or contractors.”
So how did the committee respond to Gates’ plea? Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) asked Gates’ how the Pentagon felt about his bill to let underage troops drink beer. Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) and Norm Dicks (D-WA) spent their time presenting to the committee the suitability of their respective constituent aircraft companies for a Pentagon contract. Milbank lists other issues more important than Congress’ inability to fund force protection needs;
Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) complained about the war in Afghanistan. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) opined about creating a no-fly zone over Libya. Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) had thoughts about the presidential helicopter.
Gates merely wanted Congress to shift money, not appropriate more money. But, committee chairman, Bill Young (R-Fla.) isn’t listening to Gates.
Why? Because Young objects to the money being taken away from the Army’s Humvee program. Never mind that the Army has more Humvees than it wants. They are manufactured by AM General – which happens to be Young’s third-largest campaign contributor.
The sky is blue. Water is wet. Congresscritters suck.
I’m not surprised. Politics is politics no matter which side of the aisle. That these chuckleheads are more worried about their pet bills and major campaign contributors shows they really don’t give a shit about the troops, until election time. Then they parade out their sorry-assed tired rhetoric about how they fought for the troops in the halls of congress, etc., etc. Fuck them.
Great to see that even the GOP Congresscritters are just as full of shit as the Democrat ones. Bunch of asshat losers.
Shift the money, you clown.
Oh, and memo to Rep. Kingston–if you have a green ID, there should be NO such thing as “underage”. Old enough to serve, old enough to BE served. Period. It would be my one and only exception to a 21-year old drinking law. And yes, there are enough barriers in place to encourage responsible drinking and hammer those who don’t. Trust me, if you think there’s a lot of binge drinking in the barracks on payday Friday/Saturdays, go to any college campus Fraternity Row during the same timeframe.
Asshats, doesn’t matter which side of the aisle, still asshats.
And, as Sparky said, go to any college town on a weekend, watch the “future leaders” burn shit, and throw rocks at cops and turn cars upside down.
Would be nice if Congress passed the FY2011 budget. Can’t let things like force protection get in the way of incumbent protection. Priorities ya know.
I have been working Army resourcing and requirements for AFG and IQ for almost a year. In that time, we have had 3 congressionals come through. In two of the three, the congressperson was pissed that a better product was purchased vice the inferior one made in their district. One was after a CODEL visit to an ARNG unit from his state and they wanted to know why they were disapproved equipment they wanted for which they had no MTOE requirement, no trained personnel, and no maintenance capability.
Not to mention that the Military is getting ride of HUMMVs and giving them to Iraqis and Afghans. The HUMMV is blacklisted going anything more then FOB duties. Why do we need more.
As a Republican, it pisses me off at the large number of Republican politicians that still don’t actually understand what is required to fight this war. Will say that the majority of the Democrat politicians are even more clueless.
As far as the beer question; hell yes, let the underage troops drink beer on base just like in the old days.
If only we could bring back the strippers at the E club and the beer machines in the barracks like in the old days, too.
I happen to know where a whole damn fleet of brand spanking new Humvee’s are parked SecDef Gates, because of AM General’s screwing the pooch and failure to provide blast protection in a key area. Go figure!
Oh yes, Since our troops are old enough to go into combat and vote at eighteen, they are damn sure old enough to drink beer on any base.
Concur with all. Will only add…Fuck’em and let’em eat fish heads!