War profiteers
By Libby
I'm having a hard time getting going today. I didn't sleep well. I had a really weird dream about being on a tour bus on some island with Atrios that kept waking me up every time he hollered at me. Then when I fell back to sleep, the dream would start over again. Weird. Meanwhile, I've been reading for hours this morning but nothing is particularly inspiring me. So while I gather my wits, I'm going to send to Cernig who had a couple of posts yesterday that shouldn't be missed.
He flags a BBC special report that asks "are defense contracts an invitation to abuse?" As he succinctly answers, "Yes. Short answer to a dumb question."
With appropriations for defense contracts amounting close to $800 billion, one can assume fraud and political payola are a given. More disturbing though, is the list of political contributions that the defense industry has made in this season. Of the top 20 recipients, the top four are Democrats and the Dems hold half the list altogether. As Cernig aptly notes, why would anyone think we can trust politicians on either side to clean up the corruption they benefit so greatly from, much less stop perpetrating wars?
On a different note Cernig notes the emerging meme on the fringenut side of the fence that we are 'winning' in Iraq at long last and they're thumping their chests about being right all along that invading Iraq was the best idea ever. For myself, I've been willing to let them claim victory in the hope that it would mean we could all agree to get the hell out of Baghdad, but that doesn't really seem to be the end game they're shooting for. I'm not sure they even know what they want, except never to have to admit they were wrong -- about anything.
And they were surely wrong. Cernig runs down the list of what they said and what really happened. It's a long one but the only reasonable conclusion is they can crow all they want, but the mess in Mesopotamia is not now, and never will be, a victory for anything or anyone except the defense industry that made a fortune from it and our clueless president who apparently will get away with eight years of completely criminal conduct under its cover.
I'm having a hard time getting going today. I didn't sleep well. I had a really weird dream about being on a tour bus on some island with Atrios that kept waking me up every time he hollered at me. Then when I fell back to sleep, the dream would start over again. Weird. Meanwhile, I've been reading for hours this morning but nothing is particularly inspiring me. So while I gather my wits, I'm going to send to Cernig who had a couple of posts yesterday that shouldn't be missed.
He flags a BBC special report that asks "are defense contracts an invitation to abuse?" As he succinctly answers, "Yes. Short answer to a dumb question."
With appropriations for defense contracts amounting close to $800 billion, one can assume fraud and political payola are a given. More disturbing though, is the list of political contributions that the defense industry has made in this season. Of the top 20 recipients, the top four are Democrats and the Dems hold half the list altogether. As Cernig aptly notes, why would anyone think we can trust politicians on either side to clean up the corruption they benefit so greatly from, much less stop perpetrating wars?
On a different note Cernig notes the emerging meme on the fringenut side of the fence that we are 'winning' in Iraq at long last and they're thumping their chests about being right all along that invading Iraq was the best idea ever. For myself, I've been willing to let them claim victory in the hope that it would mean we could all agree to get the hell out of Baghdad, but that doesn't really seem to be the end game they're shooting for. I'm not sure they even know what they want, except never to have to admit they were wrong -- about anything.
And they were surely wrong. Cernig runs down the list of what they said and what really happened. It's a long one but the only reasonable conclusion is they can crow all they want, but the mess in Mesopotamia is not now, and never will be, a victory for anything or anyone except the defense industry that made a fortune from it and our clueless president who apparently will get away with eight years of completely criminal conduct under its cover.
posted by Libby Spencer at 12:54 PM
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