Archive for the 'Politics' Category

Iran is attempting to move to higher Uranium enrichment, and Ambassador John Bolton is warning us to get ready for a nuclear Iran.  The CIA has already warned us.  Unless Israel acts unilaterally, the Obama administration will be in the difficult position of trying to explain why so much energy was invested in the prevention of a nuclear Iran, when it was acceptable all along for Iran to possess a nuclear weapon.  In other words, it must explain why containment would have worked all along, thus making fools of those who tried to forestall that otherwise acceptable condition.

In a stark testimony to the fact that the Middle East has no confidence in our stomach for doing whatever is necessary to contain Persian hegemony, Kuwait and France have signed agreements on nuclear cooperation, and Saudi Arabia has established a new national agency to take the lead role in nuclear activities.  These countries do not need commercial nuclear power for purposes of energy infrastructure.  Commercial nuclear power is the first step to having the infrastructure, QA, training and protocols to control a weapons program.  Even the UAE is planning a nuclear site with four reactors.

Iran has made no attempt to hide its lack of fear of U.S. presence in the region.  Iran has been at war with us in Iraq since the inception of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and there are dead U.S. servicemen whose lives were sacrificed to the altar of avoiding the necessity of addressing the regional conflict.  Just recently an Iranian reconnaissance aircraft buzzed the U.S. aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower, coming within 1000 yards of the ship.  This kind of aggression has become fairly routine.  During the 2008 deployment of the 26th MEU, an Iranian helicopter all but landed on the deck of the USS Iwo Jima.  The Marines could almost touch it from a standing position on the deck, but no actions were taken.  The Navy refused to allow the Marines to fire on the aircraft.  Iran has made its presence known in the recent Iraqi elections, and Moqtada al Sadr is trying to emerge as a legitimate political power after having been trained in Iran for the last several years.

Things don’t look much better to the North.  In spite of recommendations to seriously engage the Caucasus region, we have snubbed our allies in Georgia (in spite of their having sent the Georgian 31st Infantry Battalion to assist us in Afghanistan)  and most recently it appears that we are losing Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan’s long-standing alignment with the United States is rapidly unraveling in the wake of Washington’s recent policy initiatives. As perceived from Baku, those US initiatives fly in the face of Azerbaijan’s staunch support over the years to US strategic interests and policies in the South Caucasus-Caspian region.

Current US policies, however, are seen to favor Armenia in the Karabakh conflict resolution negotiations, curry favor with Armenian advocacy groups in domestic US politics, split Turkey and Azerbaijan from one another over the Karabakh issue, isolate Azerbaijan in the region, and pressure Baku into silent acquiescence with these policies.

Key actors in the region tend to share Azerbaijan’s perceptions in this regard. During last week’s nuclear safety summit in Washington, Georgian President, Mikheil Saakashvili, and Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, spoke frankly in this regard. They told US interlocutors at every step that the refusal to invite Azerbaijan’s President, Ilham Aliyev, to the summit was a mistake, counterproductive to US interests in the region, and confirming perceptions that Washington was attempting to isolate Baku.

US President, Barack Obama’s, meeting with his Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sargsyan during the Washington summit (while failing to invite the Azerbaijani president) confirmed perceptions that Armenian issues in US domestic politics distort Washington’s policy on the Karabakh conflict and toward Azerbaijan.

Ankara had cautioned Washington against such moves ever since Erdogan’s December 2009 visit to the US. At least from that point onward, Turkey has closed ranks with Azerbaijan, instead of distancing from it and opening the Turkish-Armenian border promptly and unconditionally at the Obama administration’s urging. The administration insists on de-linking the border opening from the continuing Armenian military occupation of seven districts beyond Karabakh, deep inside Azerbaijan. The administration had, instead, hoped to link the border opening with the April 24 US anniversary of the 1915-1918 Armenian events in Ottoman Turkey.

Washington’s summit miscalculation is the latest in a year-long series of blows to US-Azeri relations. This trend continues amid an apparent US strategic disengagement from the wider region (rationalized as a “strategic pause” to assuage pro-US governments there). In Azerbaijan’s case, Washington seems unable even to fill the long-vacant post of US ambassador in Baku. The vacancy deprives the United States of steady high-level access to Azerbaijan’s leaders (which had never been a problem previously), while making it more difficult for Washington to grasp the crisis in US-Azerbaijan relations and its region-wide implications.

Addressing an April 14 cabinet meeting in front of TV cameras, President Aliyev criticized the US policy of pushing Turkey to open the border with Armenia, despite the latter’s occupation of seven Azeri districts beyond Karabakh. This move pulls the rug from under Azerbaijan’s carefully constructed negotiating position for a stage-by-stage peaceful solution to the conflict. It also seems designed to separate Turkey from Azerbaijan. Accordingly, Aliyev complained about “certain countries that believe that they can meddle in everything…by exerting pressure and blackmailing. This is how we see it. This policy clearly runs against Azerbaijan’s interests, and the Azeri state is taking appropriate steps.”

It isn’t clear if the U.S. policy regarding Azerbaijan is malicious or merely inept.  What is clear is that we are still witnessing the collapse of U.S. foreign policy, a fact both easy and sad to catalog.

Prior: Rapidly Collapsing U.S. Foreign Policy

As I have said before, En loco protestari or something like that.

The final words from the podium at tonight’s Tea Party at the Georgia state capitol were simple:  “We’ll remember in November.”  As I thought about those words on the way home, I was struck by how appropriate and well chosen they were.  Those words encouraged the crowd to do two things.  First, remember why they were there in the first place.  Remember what the current administration in Washington has done over the last 15 months to diminish our freedoms, weaken our standing in the world and push our nation deeper and deeper into debt.  Second, take action in response to that memory. Vote in November for a new direction.

The opposite of rememberance that results in action is forgetfulness that results in complacency.  Unfortunately, it is human nature to forget and to grow accustomed and accepting of the world around us.  It is human nature to forget and to accept, even if the reality that we left behind is far better than the new reality that we are living with.  So, in case you are tempted to a forgetfulness that results in complacency, let me remind you of a few things.

The founders of our country who wrote our Constitution and crafted our form of government brilliantly understood human nature.  They understood the danger of concentrating too much power in the hands of any one person or any one branch or level of government.  For that reason, they spread the powers of the national government across 3 co-equal branches of government, so that each branch could exercise checks and balances over the others.  We all know these things.

But what we often forget is that the founders also spread the powers of government across two different levels, the federal level of government and the state level of government.  They designed a government where the states had original and complete powers in most matters that affect the day-to-day lives of citizens.  As for the federal government, it was to be a government of limited powers.  So, the level of government that is the closest, and most accountable, to the people would have the greatest impact on their lives, and the level of government that is the farthest, and least accountable, to the people would have the least impact on their lives.  True to the original design of the founders, when George Washington became the first President of the United States, he had more people under his direct supervision at his home at Mount Vernon than he had under his direct supervision in the federal government.

Today, the federal government is the largest employer in the United States, and the overwhelming majority of those federal employees are un-elected bureaucrats who ultimately answer to one person, the President.  A few weeks ago, Congress and the President enacted a healthcare bill that puts the federal government in control of an ADDITIONAL 16% of our economy, matters where the states or individual citizens historically had been in charge, intimate and important matters that impact us on a personal level on a daily basis.  That power over intimate and important matters was taken away from us and from the states in which we live, pushed UP to the federal level of government, and concentrated IN to the branch of government filled with un-elected bureaucrats who answer to one President.  This is a concentration of enormous power in the Presidency and the un-elected bureaucracy that would have been unthinkable to our founders.  Prior to 18 months ago, it would have been unthinkable to me.  But November 2008 changed all of that.

I have not fogotten about that, and because I have not forgotten about that, I am motivated to do crazy things like take MARTA downtown after a long, stressful day at work and stand there in front of the capitol applauding and cheering with a crowd of people who, like me, remember.  And because they remember, they showed up to applaud and cheer, too.

It is true that our culture shapes our government.  It is especially true that the brilliance of our Constitution is a reflection of the exceptional individuals who crafted it and the exceptional culture from which they came.  BUT, that power to shape works in both directions.  Actions of the government can actually bring about changes in our culture.  In particular, the government, by its actions, can create dependencies.  By taking a larger and larger bite out of our earnings and promising us benefits in return, the government can make us into its dependents.  It is the maturation process in reverse.  We go from being independent adults to being children who are dependent upon a distant parent.  This kind of dependency is what will result from the enormous monstrosity that was enacted into law a few weeks ago.  (Never mind the fact that it almost certainly will be far more expensive than promised and will add to our already staggering national debt.  That is a topic for another night.)  All of these things I fear will happen, UNLESS, we do two very important things.  First, REMEMBER.  Second, ACT in response to that memory.

This is an election year.  For everyone reading this message, you have the opportunity at the very least to vote for a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.  For most people, you also have the opportunity to vote for state officials and perhaps a U.S. Senator.  You also have the opportunity to inform yourself about the issues and the candidates, to share your opinions with others, to become involved in a campaign, to vote in a primary and, most importantly, to vote this November.

The final, and most imporant, way that our founders spread power was to spread the primary, the greatest and the most foundational power as broadly as possible.  They gave that power to us, the citizens.  Collectively, we can weild awesome power.  But it requires each of us, every one of us, to do our part.  What can make that happen?  The answers are simple:  REMEMBER and ACT!!!

Respectfully submitted,

Keith W. Smith, Esquire, Atlanta, Ga.

This video has surfaced on Representative Bart Stupak’s position back in October of 2009.

While on the one hand claiming that life had become a living hell because of his pro-life position, his plan from the beginning was to go along with the crowd.  Since this is primarily a military blog, I am usually loath to take on social issues.  I am pro life, but have no idea what position most of my readers take.  It isn’t important for our understanding of Bart Stupak.  Occasionally it pays to understand just who leads our great country.

We all knew that he was duplicitous after he made such a commotion about his beliefs and then caved for no gain whatsoever.  But he apparently wanted to be the hero of the pro life movement.  He is not only a weasel – he is is an egomaniac too.  Or is this the end of it?  Is there something else to the account?

I was heard muttering to those around me several days ago that this was all carefully choreographed by the administration to give the appearance of having made provisions for pro life democrats and independents even though the Hyde Amendment was absent from the bill.  So with Stupak now telling us that he intended to vote in favor of the bill months ago, and with the carefully coordinated display of unction by Stupak and the resultant meaningless executive order by the administration, the question redounds to this: how much of this was part of an overarching plan set into motion before most of America was even thinking about it?

From Mark Steyn:

Well, it seems to be in the bag now. I try to be a sunny the-glass-is-one-sixteenth-full kinda guy, but it’s hard to overestimate the magnitude of what the Democrats have accomplished. Whatever is in the bill is an intermediate stage: As the graph posted earlier shows, the governmentalization of health care will accelerate, private insurers will no longer be free to be “insurers” in any meaningful sense of that term (ie, evaluators of risk), and once that’s clear we’ll be on the fast track to Obama’s desired destination of single payer as a fait accomplis.

If Barack Obama does nothing else in his term in office, this will make him one of the most consequential presidents in history. It’s a huge transformative event in Americans’ view of themselves and of the role of government. You can say, oh, well, the polls show most people opposed to it, but, if that mattered, the Dems wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing. Their bet is that it can’t be undone, and that over time, as I’ve been saying for years now, governmentalized health care not only changes the relationship of the citizen to the state but the very character of the people. As I wrote in NR recently, there’s plenty of evidence to support that from Britain, Canada, and elsewhere.

More prosaically, it’s also unaffordable. That’s why one of the first things that middle-rank powers abandon once they go down this road is a global military capability. If you take the view that the U.S. is an imperialist aggressor, congratulations: You can cease worrying. But, if you think that America has been the ultimate guarantor of the post-war global order, it’s less cheery. Five years from now, just as in Canada and Europe two generations ago, we’ll be getting used to announcements of defense cuts to prop up the unsustainable costs of big government at home. And, as the superpower retrenches, America’s enemies will be quick to scent opportunity.

Longer wait times, fewer doctors, more bureaucracy, massive IRS expansion, explosive debt, the end of the Pax Americana, and global Armageddon. Must try to look on the bright side . . .

I think that Mark is basically right.  You will see a gradual waning of the ability to project force abroad.  It will have at its root the health care fiasco we witnessed tonight – the socialization and nationalization of the greatest health care system on earth.  I may as well take my car in for minor maintenance, only to watch the mechanics beat up my engine bay with sledge hammers, hand the car keys back to me, and tell me that the problem is fixed.  Indeed, very consequential days we live in.

From Keith Smith:

I am writing this message to you from the parking deck of a Metro station just outside Washington, DC.  I just witnessed one of the most incredible sights I have ever seen in my life.  By my estimate, there were more than 50,000 of average Americans like me gathered on the west side of the Capitol, yelling and screaming, because we feel that our elected representatives in that very building are ignoring us. The most popular sign that I saw today simply said, “Listen to Me!”  What were we yelling about?  A terrible piece of legislation, and a terrible idea known as ObamaCare.  50,000 people is not a bad turn-out, considering that the event was planned less than 48 hours in advance.  I found out about it late Thursday night.  And on Friday evening after work, I started driving, and kept driving.

Why did I do it, and was it worth it?  I did it because after having written my Senators and Congressman (multiple times), after having researched the policy issues and forwarded to many of you the results of my research, after having been to Tea Parties and Town Halls, after having contributed to organizations fighting this terrible legislation, well, after all of that, attending today’s protest was the only thing left for me to do.  Will our efforts today pay off, and will Congress do what we asked them to do, “Kill the Bill”?  I honestly don’t know.  Did my presence today make a difference?  I honestly believe it did.  At the very least, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I have now done everything that I can do to stop this.  Was it worth it?  Absolutely!!!

Many of you have talked to me, or emailed me, or even called me on the phone, to express your frustration and helplessness and to ask me what can be done to stop a tone-deft and tyrannical President and Congress.  I have several ideas, and I promise a long answer in the future.  But for now, the short answer is that we all need to be more INFORMED, ENGAGED, VOCAL and ACTIVE than we have ever been before.  It’s up to us to make a difference.  I saw today, first hand, what a difference ordinary citizens can make.  There’s nothing like seeing a line of Congressman exiting a House office building with voters on both sides cheering their demands.  Go America!  Go democracy!

Other interesting things I saw today:  I saw Congresswoman Michelle Bachman literally sprint up the Capitol steps . . . in high heels!  I thanked John Voigt for coming.  Congressman Tom Price thank ME for coming and wished me a safe drive back home to Georgia.

TCJ Editorial Comment: Thanks to Keith for being there when I couldn’t.  En loco protestari, or something like that?

As a Milblog I don’t often weigh in on matters solely political, but in instances where I have predicted it right, I like to brag to readers (even if I have to go back some four years ago to find my prediction).

I had told my oldest son, Josh, a while back after he predicted a total debacle for the health care bill that it didn’t matter.  Obama’s aims are much more nefarious than just a socialization of our health care system.  He knows that he doesn’t have the soul of the American people with this scheme, but that is America as it is currently constituted.

America could change with “immigration reform,” with more of the votes going democratic.  And despite the current political difficulties, Obama is going for broke, sooner rather than later.

Despite steep odds, the White House has discussed prospects for reviving a major overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws, a commitment that President Obama has postponed once already.

Obama took up the issue privately with his staff Monday in a bid to advance a bill through Congress before lawmakers become too distracted by approaching midterm elections.

In the session, Obama and members of his Domestic Policy Council outlined ways to resuscitate the effort in a White House meeting with two senators — Democrat Charles E. Schumer of New York and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — who have spent months trying to craft a bill.

According to a person familiar with the meeting, the White House may ask Schumer and Graham to at least produce a blueprint that could be turned into legislative language.

The basis of a bill would include a path toward citizenship for the 10.8 million people living in the U.S. illegally.

If this succeeds, 10 – 15 million new voters will be added to the roles, most of them voting democratic.  The current objections to socialization of our society and nationalization of our industries won’t matter.  It will be an artifact of history, and Obama will have thus ensured that his party remains in power in perpetuity.

One final note.  With people like Lindsey Graham in the Senate, Obama doesn’t even need total control over the legislative process.  The GOP will apparently help him do it.  Maybe the GOP is on a suicide mission for some reason or other?

Glenn Reynolds links Ann Althouse, who after the SCOTUS decision on McCain-Feingold, questions Obama’s intent to formulate a forceful response.  Ann asks, “Why would a law professor oppose a Supreme Court decision on a matter of constitutional law and not respect the authority of the Court and honor our system of separation of powers?”

Taking a quick detour, I have always been a fan of John and Abigail Adams.  John is in my opinion in many ways the singular father of our republic.  The strength of Abigail Adams is a story with its own merit, and worthy of study by any woman who aspires to greatness.  Without her, John wouldn’t have been the man he was.  Watching the HBO series John Adams made me even more a fan of John and Abigail.  Quite simply, it is stunning, and if you’re like me, you intended to watch a DVD, put it aside, watch another next week, and so on.  I ended up watching all of them in a single day.  I couldn’t help myself.

Now back to Ann’s question.  Ann has smart commenters, and kent offers this brilliant summary.  “Because, so far as President Present is concerned: this is a nation of men, not laws.  He is, at his core, the anti-John Adams.”

That’s it.  I find a whole host of reasons to dislike Mr. Obama, but this sums the issue up as nicely and succinctly as I can imagine.  If you haven’t watched the HBO series on Adams, you must do so as soon as possible.  After completing it, sit back and ponder the proposition that Obama is, at his core, the anti-John Adams.

Media Matters analyzes reactions on the so-called right to Coakley’s Afghanistan remarks (that Afghanistan is terrorist-free).  Distort Coakley’s comments, the right does, from the Weekly Standard to Foxnews and others.  Then they marshal evidence from McChrystal to Jim Jones and then Petraeus to show that at most there may be 300 “al Qaeda” fighters in Afghanistan proper.  Even Charles Krauthammer gives her the benefit of the doubt.  Media Matters ignored my own post on Coakley showing that the Marines in Helmand were battling fighters from both sides of the border (although I occupy first page on a Google search).

Alas, the issue is not that complicated, but it does require a bit of attention to detail.  It’s important in that it matters from the perspectives of both national security and the lives of sons of America who are fighting in Afghanistan as we speak.  Thinking of the enemy in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a name (such as al Qaeda) is dangerous because of its oversimplification of the problem.  To be sure, there are Arabs, Chechens, Somalians, and other foreign fighters (e.g., German) who currently take sanctuary in the Hindu Kush.

But as I have noted before, the Taliban (including the indigenous Pashtun population) has evolved into a much more radicalized and globally committed group after at least eight years of exposure to this thinking.

… they have evolved into a much more radical organization than the original Taliban bent on global engagement, what Nicholas Schmidle calls the Next-Gen Taliban. The TTP shout to passersby in Khyber “We are Taliban! We are mujahedin! “We are al-Qaida!”  There is no distinction.  A Pakistan interior ministry official has even said that the TTP and al Qaeda are one and the same.

Admiral Mullen explains the same thing in slightly different words.

The Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, is expressing concern about the growing ties between Afghan and Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaida.

Admiral Mullen told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that President Barack Obama’s new strategy in that country is aimed at creating an environment that will not permit al-Qaida to return to Afghanistan.

“There is a strategic goal the Taliban have, to move back and take over the country, and secondly, in that goal, in that environment, that that is fertile ground for al-Qaida, who continues not to be just in Pakistan, but is now moving into Yemen, is connected very well in Somalia, and in other parts of the world,” said Admiral Mullen. “Their strategic objectives remain the same – to threaten us, to threaten the west, and that fertile ground to do that would be Kandahar and Kabul again, if we do not get this right.”

Mullen underscored his concern by noting growing ties between Afghan and Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaida.

“While al-Qaida is not located in Afghanistan, it is headquartered clearly in Pakistan, what I have watched over the last couple of years is this growing integration between al-Qaida and the Taliban, and the various networks of the Taliban, whether it is [Jalaluddin] Haqqani, or [Baitullah] Mehsud or [Gulbuddin] Hekmatyar, and that has alarmed me in its growth and integration over the last couple of years,” he said.

Asking the question whether al Qaeda and the Taliban are in Pakistan or Afghanistan is like asking whether the water is on the right or the left side of a swimming pool.

The conversation on Pakistan versus Afghanistan presupposes that the Durand Line means anything, and that the Taliban and al Qaeda respect an imaginary boundary cut through the middle of the Hindu Kush.  It doesn’t and they don’t.  If our engagement of Pakistan is to mean anything, we must understand that they are taking their cue from us, and that our campaign is pressing the radicals from the Afghanistan side while their campaign is pressing them from the Pakistani side.

Advocating disengagement from Afghanistan is tantamount to suggesting that one front against the enemy would be better than two, and that one nation involved in the struggle would be better than two (assuming that Pakistan would keep up the fight in our total absence, an assumption for which I see no basis).  It’s tantamount to suggesting that it’s better to give the Taliban and al Qaeda safe haven in Afghanistan as Pakistan presses them from their side, or that it’s better to give them safe haven in Pakistan while we press them from our side.  Both suggestions are preposterous.

This is why Coakley’s misunderstanding is critical.  Reasonably intelligent people must be engaged in assessing the facts on a rather detailed level in order to arrive at a reliable understanding of the issues.  Catch phrases, buzz words and bean counting is no replacement for scholarship.  And that’s why Coakley’s comments are no mere gaffe.  They are honest comments that betray a stolid understanding of national security.

Martha Coakley has given us some good news.

“I am not sure there is a way to succeed.  If the goal was and the vision in Afghanistan was to go in because we believe the Taliban was giving harbor to terrorists, we supported that, I supported that goal. They are gone, they are not there anymore, they are in apparently Yemen and Pakistan.  Let’s focus our efforts on where Al Qaeda is.”

Maybe someone should tell the U.S. Marines who would like even more troops to stop the flow of terrorists into Afghanistan.

KHAN NESHIN, Afghanistan — Only a few hundred American troops are policing the southern border of one of Afghanistan’s major smuggling areas, leaving open a vast expanse of desert that the Taliban use to shuttle in weapons and fighters from Pakistan.

This dusty hamlet 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of the border in Helmand province was the Taliban’s key transit point from Pakistan before the Marines arrived in July. Since then, the Marines have set up a series of patrol bases east and west of Khan Neshin to disrupt the Taliban’s supply lines.

But the battalion deployed at only about 50 percent of its authorized strength, and one of its three companies is posted in central Helmand. That leaves several hundred Marines to cover roughly 6,000 square miles (15,000 square kilometers) — an area larger than Connecticut.

As a result, the Marines may have trouble curbing Taliban supply lines as thousands of fresh troops pour into the province as part of President Barack Obama’s surge.

“I would like to push closer to the border, but I can only go as far as I can support,” said Lt. Col. Michael Martin, commanding officer of 4th Marine Division, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion.

“Like Napoleon, you don’t want to overextend your capabilities, or you will get your butt handed to you,” said Martin, whose troops are spread out among a handful of patrol bases along the Helmand River, marking the coalition’s most southern presence in the province.

Some 8,500 additional Marines are slated to arrive in Helmand by mid-2010 as part of the 30,000-troop buildup. But any decision to send more Marines south to patrol the largely uninhabited border area would leave fewer troops for the major population centers farther north.

Many Taliban fighters fled to Pakistan following the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and found sanctuary in the mountainous belt that runs between the two countries. Obama has pressed Pakistan to target the militants, but many analysts believe the government has resisted because the Taliban could serve as useful proxies if the coalition effort in Afghanistan fails.

That leaves the Marines with the difficult task of disrupting the flow of Taliban fighters into Afghanistan largely without Pakistani help.

“We are trying to make it as difficult as possible for the Taliban to stay connected to their sanctuary in Pakistan,” said Capt. Timothy Newkirk, executive officer of 4th LAR’s Bravo Company, which is based in a 200-year-old mud fort in the town of Khan Neshin.

They (the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistan Taliban, both of whom harbor AQ and other transnational insurgents) are sharing resources, just as they said they would.

So I spent most of the weekend with several Marines (not an uncommon occurrence), one of whom isn’t re-enlisting and has been trained extensively as Scout Sniper and Force Recon.  What are his intentions, you ask?  Military contractor.  It doesn’t matter which one, DynCorp, Aegis, or what was once Blackwater.  They’re all the same, in my estimation.  They pay more for services, they issue better body armor, they issue better weapons, and they do little to no real training of their hires.  They rely on the training done by the U.S. military.

Regardless of what one might think, the use of military contractors is still ongoing in Iraq, and increasing in Afghanistan to the point that they are being used to conduct force protection at some Forward Operating Bases.  This all raises several important observations.

The Captain’s Journal isn’t opposed to the use of military contractors for the normal reasons.  We have no moral objection to their existence, and similar to their pay scale and outfitting, we believe that the U.S. military should be given the best weapons and gear.

But the cost of recruiting and training Marines (who have deployed multiple times) is astronomical, and the military contractors get the benefit of that investment.  So the U.S. pays to recruit them, pays to train them, pays to deploy them and gain combat experience, and then pays a much higher rate to hire them as military contractors when they leave the service because we refuse to fund the U.S. military so that they can retain its own warriors because of budgetary constraints within the Congress.

It is stupid in the superlative degree, and much more costly in the long run.  It is also very destructive of morale in the U.S. military.  Is my life not worth it, they ask?  Larger pay raises are being called for in 2010, but even these pay raises are a pittance compared to what is required to retain the best, and what – in the long run – would make the U.S. military more cost effective.

The very existence of military contractors is evidence against the decision-making in Washington and in favor of larger pay increases for the military.  The bean-counters be damned, there is a better way to do things.