IMHO anyone who stands up and says that the DOD cares about the Geneva Convention is either totally uninformed or a god damn liar. When I went to work for the DOD, one of the first things that they asked me was if I was willing to design weapons that were in violation of the Geneva Convention and if I agreed to doing that, they would provide me with a special secret security clearance for that purpose. I declined. Now if the DOD has a special security clearance for an activity that is, without a doubt, against international law then they are without a doubt, guilty as charged for any violations there of. DOD committed many violations of the Geneva Convention in Vietnam and now they are doing it again. They just don't like to get caught. The fact that this crap is still going on today simply illustrates how slimy our political system really is.
Battlefield of Dreams By PAUL KRUGMAN - NY Times Published: May 4, 2004 Last November the top economist at the Heritage Foundation was very optimistic about Iraq, saying Paul Bremer had just replaced "Saddam's soak-the-rich tax system" with a flat tax. "Few Americans would want to trade places with the people of Iraq," wrote the economist, Daniel Mitchell. "But come tax time next April, they may begin to wonder who's better off." Even when he wrote that, the insurgency in Iraq was visibly boiling over; by "tax time" last month, the situation was truly desperate. Much has been written about the damage done by foreign policy ideologues who ignored the realities of Iraq, imagining that they could use the country to prove the truth of their military and political doctrines. Less has been said about how dreams of making Iraq a showpiece for free trade, supply-side tax policy and privatization â dreams that were equally oblivious to the country's realities â undermined the chances for a successful transition to democracy. A number of people, including Jay Garner, the first U.S. administrator of Iraq, think that the Bush administration shunned early elections, which might have given legitimacy to a transitional government, so it could impose economic policies that no elected Iraqi government would have approved. Indeed, over the past year the Coalition Provisional Authority has slashed tariffs, flattened taxes and thrown Iraqi industry wide open to foreign investors â reinforcing the sense of many Iraqis that we came as occupiers, not liberators. But it's the reliance on private contractors to carry out tasks usually performed by government workers that has really come back to haunt us. Conservatives make a fetish out of privatization of government functions; after the 2002 elections, George Bush announced plans to privatize up to 850,000 federal jobs. At home, wary of a public backlash, he has moved slowly on that goal. But in Iraq, where there is little public or Congressional oversight, the administration has privatized everything in sight. For example, the Pentagon has a well-established procurement office for gasoline. In Iraq, however, that job was subcontracted to Halliburton. The U.S. government has many experts in economic development and reform. But in Iraq, economic planning has been subcontracted â after a highly questionable bidding procedure â to BearingPoint, a consulting firm with close ties to Jeb Bush. What's truly shocking in Iraq, however, is the privatization of purely military functions. For more than a decade, many noncritical jobs formerly done by soldiers have been handed to private contractors. When four Blackwater employees were killed and mutilated in Falluja, however, marking the start of a wider insurgency, it became clear that in Iraq the U.S. has extended privatization to core military functions. It's one thing to have civilians drive trucks and serve food; it's quite different to employ them as personal bodyguards to U.S. officials, as guards for U.S. government installations and â the latest revelation â as interrogators in Iraqi prisons. According to reports in a number of newspapers, employees from two private contractors, CACI International and Titan, act as interrogators at the Abu Ghraib prison. According to Sewell Chan of The Washington Post, these contractors are "at the center of the probe" into the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. And that abuse, according to the senior defense analyst at Jane's, has "almost certainly destroyed much of what support the coalition had among the more moderate section of the Iraqi population." We don't yet know for sure that private contractors were at fault. But why put civilians, who cannot be court-martialed and hence aren't fully accountable, in that role? And why privatize key military functions? I don't think it's simply a practical matter. Although there are several thousand armed civilians working for the occupation, their numbers aren't large enough to make a significant dent in the troop shortage. I suspect that the purpose is to set a precedent. You may ask whether our leaders' drive to privatize reflects a sincere conservative ideology, or a desire to enrich their friends. Probably both. But before Iraq, privatization that rewarded campaign contributors was a politically smart move, even if it was a net loss for the taxpayers. In Iraq, however, reality does matter. And thanks to the ideologues who dictated our policy over the past year, reality looks pretty grim.
During my DOD tenure, government contractors popped up from out of nowhere. One day, no one ever heard of Booze Allen or Caci or others that I can't recall the names of right now. It almost seems like the next week, they were everywhere being quoted on all sorts of stuff. I don't know who the top management of these outfits were but I was offered a contract to write a proposal for technical support to the Naval Systems Command after I retired by one of their middle managers, an ex- navy officer who had no technical expertise what so ever. I declined in order to go to work for the Institute for Defense Analysis. This is a fancy name for a bunch of horses asses whose job it is to tell the DOD what they want to hear. In this case, the project was Star Wars(Ronny Reagans idea) point defense. They didn't like what my analysis showed with regard to trying to knock down Russian reentry vehicles flying in a helix (hoodooman's idea). They cancelled my contact pronto when they saw my results. My supervisor said I didn't "fit in". As I left his office a three star air force general walked in for a consultation with this asshole. My thought was "how stupid could this general be". I walked away shaking my head.
Several people who know me have suggested that I write a book about my experiences with DOD. I even thought of a title for it. This book would consist of a large group of short stories about nothing but 40 years of federal government lies, cover ups and ultra stupid ideas where the government wasted billions of dollars trying to design systems thought up by technical incompetents, both civilian and military. I know where all the bones are buried and I can show proof of every thing that I claim. For example, the incompetence of the air force resulting in the crash of the Bell X2 in 1956 and the death of its test pilot. Check it out on the net. They are still lying about it, even now according to the history channel that cover it a few years ago. Starting with the Bell X2, the book would cover case after case of tragedy after tragedy, along with some of the most stupid ideas that one can imagine. For examples, the 40 mph sail boat and the dirigible with a keel. Both of these ideas thought up by an idiot who was technical director of a government laboratory. I would love to write it all down but I've never even tried because I don't think that I would ever find a publisher. I would also probably need a good lawyer because I suspect that a lot of this crap is still classified secret and for a very good reason. Furthermore, no one is interested in this stuff. The fact that there were only a couple of replies to a post that claimed that DOD has a special security clearance for its employees who pledge to violate the Geneva Convention proves my point. regards Thanks for the suggestion
While I did work on some nuclear weapons during my career, my design experience was mainly with conventional weapons and my speciality was flight mechanics and airframe design. Therefore, I'm really not qualified to discuss the pros and cons of nuclear weapons research. However, my personal experience strongly suggests that an outright threat of global nuclear war between nations (like the cold war) is remote compared to the possibility of terrorists detonating small tactical nuclear weapons in our major cities. Here is why. In 1957, I was a member of the missile preliminary design group at the Douglas Aircraft Company in Santa Monica. One of our designs was a tactical nuclear weapon with a war head that was extremely small. In those day, the army was interested in designing nuclear weapons that could be launched on the battlefield. Another interesting idea at the time was the nuclear cannon which, if I recall correctly, was designed and tested. You can probably find out about this stuff on the web. When I was first shown how small a nuclear device could actually be, I was deeply troubled that terrorist would eventually set some off in this country. IMHO the DOD and the defense industry are corrupt and always have been. Therefore, I would be extremely suspicious about any new nuclear weapons programs costing billions of dollars. Regards
It proves a few points I think... seems to be a tremendous and sudden lack of interest in what is going on in the name of the people right now.. threads here about the actual major news story across the world for the last week.. the torture.. are very thin and quiet.. Its clear that this has rattled and disturbed folk.. and there has been a head in the sand approach to it... took some time for the photos to be even shown in the usa as far as I could see... not what they want to hear at all! I watch fox news sometimes.. its lively and can see things coming a mile off there.. for example I was pretty sure iraq was on the agenda once fox started running continuous stories on it... bad bad iraq.. for months and months before it was discussed in the open elsewhere.. they have an endless supply of failed ex vietnam war era 'heros' and heritage foundation 'experts' to put us all right on matters.. but I have even seen the moronic trio of steve ed and brian (fox and friends) giggling over the prospect of terror suspects being 'questioned' by friendly egyptian security interrogators on behalf of the usa.. who of course cant do the same useful kind of torturing... oh yeah??? I dunno.. if those heros at that prison had been watching fox.. and I can be fairly sure they do.. they might have thought they were doing the lords work? lol Altho its still worth thinking about that book.. most are not interested, but you only need the ones who are to make it worthwhile.. still a few million people left around the world who care about stuff..
Neil Thanks for the reply. Fox is the worst excuse for broadcast news that I ever could have imagined. Half of all americans are either ignorant beyond belief or brainwashed. CNN ran a story the other day claiming that a very large percentage of the population (perhaps 30%, I can't remember the figure but it was very large) didn't even know that John Kerry served in Vietnam. I've got a bunch of true stories about DOD that would crack you up but I'm too old to spend my time writing a book that will never be published. If someone could find me a publisher, I'ed start right now. regards
On the contrary....the "general" isn't stupid at all. It's business as usual, it's the "legal" way to loot the treasury, courtesy of the stupid taxpayer.. MIC-Media complex are very cunning, well why wouldn't they be??, look what they are dealing with:eek: :eek: Notice the Carlyle group IPO-United Defense Industries. They were trying to go public for 10 years.. no dice. BUT in OCTOBER 2001, hey bingo! chachingo baby.. remember that crusader project? what a joke! Anyway... War!!! what a lucrative business hoodooman, good thread, nice insights !