While it won’t restore the limbs and lives lost in vain, I’m glad President Bush finally got things right. His refusal of Sec. Rumsfeld’s resignation for so long, and his listening to political generals instead of reality being told by junior officers, have damaged this country immeasurably (devaluing our dollar as we print and borrow so much to pay the bills). What remains to be seen is whether we truly recover from it or if it will all be a blip.
The cost of the war pales compared to the bad loans/losses from the housing bubble. The dollar was devalued to save the banks from much of these losses, in affect spreading the pain from the banks to the population in general.
In other words, the normal, expected outcome of having a civilian commanding a vast military-industrial-political complex.
Everyone from the Joint Chiefs to the pfc on KP duty thinks they know how to win the war from their perspective. The CINC has to pick the right needle (Petreas) out of the haystack without setting the barn on fire.
Twas ever thus. We didn’t know of problems with the prosecution of WWII for many years. There are always problems ‘on the ground’ and Iraq is no exception. Thank goodness the President was strong enough to buck the onslaught from the media, and even some conservatives, to do what he knew was the right thing. He grieves for every soldier lost,and has met with the families of most of them. He visits those who have been severely injured and are at DC area hospitals, and has had quite a number of soldiers who are recovering from their injuries to the White House. No one can fault him for his treatment of the troops.
“I’m glad President Bush finally got things right.”
One of the things that were done right is to provide small injections of funds for locally relevant and handled projects. I worked for 3 years as the administrative secretary for something called Small and Impact Projects at an NGO. These were some 600 projects ranging from $100 to $10,000 around 1965, which were developed by the people themselves and funded by us. This is far different from having major corporations like Halliburton or Bectel come in throwing huge amounts of money around that can so easily disappear into the wrong hands.
Another experience I had back then was when taking an official from a small African country to the Science and Technology Museum. We were going through the 19th Century farming exhibit and he became very excited. He pointed to various nonmechanized farm implements and said “This is what we need in my country. These are things our own blacksmiths could make and our people can easily use and repair.” Of course, this would not make the big farm implement companies happy. I was surprised to see all the huge billboard ads for such companies when I went to Nicaragua in 1964. This, of course, was before the dictator Somoza was overthrown. Incidentally, this was partly because after the terrible earthquake they had in Managua, his monopoly cement company was profiteering like mad on the devastated peoples need to rebuild.
To get funding for the war effort Bush had to deal with pork barreling spending in the House and Senate.
Pelosi has interest in pork barreling spending.
Some defense contracts are in San Francisco.
Teddy Kennedy has interest in pork barreling spending.
Some of our body armor comes from Massachusetts.
All around the country every congressman and senator wanted some that pork.