"Support the troops"? What's that mean?

In 1983, I joined the Air Force because of the educational benefits (and, yeah, because I really didn't know what I wanted to do with my life at the time); I'd only planned to stay in for one tour. By the time that tour was up, though, I had a wife and two kids, and having a good health plan seemed like the way to go. So I reenlisted.

My second tour ended and I still had the wife, but now I had three kids. Staying in seemed like a much better idea. And by the time that enlistment ended, I had been in the military twelve years - over halfway to retirement.

The military pays the troops less than they would get doing the same job in the civilian world. If it hadn't been for the benefits, there isn't a chance in hell that I would have stayed in, and my attitude wasn't unique. It's almost universal among the enlisted members. (There are some rare exceptions, of course, and officers may be a different story - they're paid significantly more money than the grunts.) If you cut the benefits, your all-volunteer military is going to collapse.

So, what the hell is going on here?

Republicans and Democrats alike are signaling a willingness — unheard of at the height of two post-Sept. 11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — to make military retirees pay more for coverage. It's a reflection of Washington's newfound embrace of fiscal austerity and the Pentagon's push to cut health care costs that have skyrocketed from $19 billion in 2001 to $53 billion.

The numbers are daunting for a military focused on building and arming an all-volunteer force for war. The Pentagon is providing health care coverage for 3.3 million active duty personnel and their dependents and 5.5 million retirees, eligible dependents and surviving spouses. Retirees outnumber the active duty, 2.3 million to 1.4 million.

And some changes are already happening.

We pay a little more to get the Trophy Wife's prescriptions from Walgreens. They'd be free if I got them from the base hospital, but my wife works with Opera Unlimited, travelling across New Mexico to help music programs in elementary schools. If she is 500 miles away, and runs out of, say, Zetia (a heart medication) or Losartin/HCTZ (for blood pressure), Walgreens will get her an emergency supply to hold her over until she gets back to Albuquerque: their database clearly shows what she's taking and how often, and every Walgreens in the country can pull that information up.

But that's apparently going to change in January, because Walgreens and Express Scripts are locked in a contract dispute which may prevent Walgreens from handling prescriptions for Tricare, the Defense Department plan managed by Express Scripts.

But that's just an inconvenience. Thanks to Iraq and Afghanistan, we're getting more injured veterans pouring into the system than we have since Vietnam. And despite the challenges of readjusting to civilian life, they haven't been getting the help they need for years.

Plus, thanks to advances in both military and medical technology, more soldiers are surviving worse wounds than ever before. So, not only do they need more medical care, but their needs are only going to get worse as they get older.

The Pentagon estimates that as many as one in five soldiers are coming home from war zones with traumatic brain injuries, and current studies show that studies show that even a slight trauma to the brain doubles your chance of developing dementia later in life, meaning that many will need around-the-clock care.

Assuming that they can get any help at all.

Marine Cpl. James Dixon was wounded twice in Iraq -- by a roadside bomb and a land mine. He suffered a traumatic brain injury, a concussion, a dislocated hip and hearing loss. He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Army Sgt. Lori Meshell shattered a hip and crushed her back and knees while diving for cover during a mortar attack in Iraq. She has undergone a hip replacement and knee reconstruction and needs at least three more surgeries.

In each case, the Pentagon ruled that their disabilities were not combat-related.

In a little-noticed regulation change in March, the military's definition of combat-related disabilities was narrowed, costing some injured veterans thousands of dollars in lost benefits -- and triggering outrage from veterans' advocacy groups.

But we have to cut expenses, right? We have to decrease spending somewhere, and defense spending is one of the larger chunks of the federal budget.

Well, funny you should mention that.

The 2012 military budget includes 134 billion dollars for equipment, but also includes almost 81 billion dollars in research for new weapons systems. You know, I think we kill people well enough already; ask the Iraqi people. (You know, the ones who are left...)

But how much good is that 81 billion dollars doing us, anyway?

Despite improvements, more than half of the Pentagon’s big weapons systems still cost more than they should, with management failures adding at least $70 billion to the projected costs over the last two years, government auditors said Tuesday.

The Government Accountability Office, a Congressional watchdog, said the biggest program, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, accounted for $28 billion of that increase. Other systems also had significant cost overruns, the agency said, adding that the increases could force the Pentagon to cut the number of ships and planes it buys.

The auditors said many of the problems occurred because the Pentagon began building the systems before the designs were fully tested.

In August of this year, Congress finished a comprehensive look at spending in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In its final report to Congress, the Commission on Wartime Contracting said the figure could grow as U.S. support for reconstruction projects and programs wanes, leaving both countries to bear the long-term costs of sustaining the schools, medical clinics, barracks, roads and power plants already built with American tax dollars.

Much of the waste and fraud could have been avoided with better planning and more aggressive oversight, the commission said. To avoid repeating the mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan, government agencies should overhaul the way they award and manage contracts in war zones, the commission recommended.
[...]
The commission said calculating the exact amount lost through waste and fraud is difficult because there is no commonly accepted methodology for doing so. But using information it has gathered over the past three years, the commission said at least $31 billion has been lost and the total could be as high as $60 billion. The commission called the estimate "conservative."

But that's OK. That's only the money we've lost in foreign countries.

How often does the Pentagon award contracts to defense companies that have already been proven to be defrauding taxpayers? A report the Department of Defense did at the request of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) reveals an answer that should make Washington very uncomfortable.

The report, released today, showed that hundreds of defense contractors found guilty of civil fraud received more than $1.1 trillion in defense contracts since 2001. The study took into account only companies that were found to have defrauded taxpayers of more than $1 million dollars.

More than $573 billion went directly to companies that were guilty of defrauding taxpayers, and when you factor in the awards that went to the parent companies of those contractors, the total is $1.1 trillion. Of that $573 billion, more than two-thirds—$398 billion—went to companies after they had been found guilty of fraud.

So maybe there's a few places out there where we can save money.

But as to the veterans, it's simple morality.

We have an all-volunteer military, but it goes both ways. When they sign on, they put, not just their lives, but their bodies, in harm's way. And if these brave men and women get hurt fighting for their country, we have an obligation to take care of them. For the rest of their lives, if necessary.

If you don't want to pay for wounded veterans, there's only one answer: stop making them. Stop sending soldiers to distant countries, where they risk their lives for some political agenda.

You don't get a choice on this. If you're going to play, you've got to pay; if you don't like it, get out of the game.

Motes and beams

There was a wicked messenger
From Eli he did come
With a mind that multiplied
The smallest matter.

-Bob Dylan-

_______________________

To distort the importance of a matter, to exaggerate little things, perhaps to draw attention away from big things, to belabor the significance of a problem long past: making a mountain out of a molehill. If you need to elevate this common human tendency to the level of psychology, call it magnification. Call it hyperbole. Call it catastrophization. Otherwise call it politics. It's how governments handle problems both real and invented. High purpose, Liberal or Conservative; it usually ends in hyperbole and fraudulent accounting.

Dismayed at how may people are dying in automobiles? One might expect a focus on the areas where most of them occur, but once the problem is taken up by zealots, hyperbolized and dressed up as catastrophic, we have unbearable pressure to apply oppressive speed limits to the safest areas while doing essentially nothing about those areas where the bulk of fatalities occur. As crime declines, we make every next one a bigger problem, focus on the most spectacular and base our estimations of the whole on a freak occurrence. It's human nature and it's also a human weakness to be exploited.

But there are more sinister applications. Take the constant carping about how trade unions are harming our economy, now that their membership and power are at low tide. One might infer that eliminating them entirely is a better description of the hidden intent.

Take the heavy emphasis on medical liability claims as a way to reduce the accelerating cost of health care. They account for a tiny fraction of the whole and seem to be the whole and sole solution offered by one particular political party. Never mind the mountain, look here instead. A cynic might suggest a motive having to do with benefiting from high medical costs.

Spending cuts. We need spending cuts and you're crazy if you don't think we need spending cuts so lets propose spending cuts and lets keep cackling and gobbling and chanting about cutting the little things so that no one notices where the money is going and why the income can't keep up with it. Never mind that mountain LOOK AT THAT MOLEHILL!

So what are we told we have to cut? In general we're told about programs that aren't as much financially significant as doctrinally anathematic. NPR has to go, particularly now that it's credibility exceeds that of Fox. It may cost the average American pennies a year, but never mind, it has to go. The EPA of course since it retards the wanton rape and pillage of corporate vikings. Gingrich wants it dead. Planned Parenthood: it's offensive to religious tyrants -- it has to go.

Hyperbole and fraudulent accounting, Let's cut the debt by .001% and make things that are cheap seem prohibitively expensive and those trillions and trillions we didn't make from cutting taxes and those trillions we blew on unnecessary wars obsolete weapons and fraudulent procurement? Don't look at that, look at school lunches!

Ron Paul -- in the tradition.

Why does Ron Paul have to sound so damned reasonable? Why does he sound so much like I did in the late 60's? The party he somehow belongs to has been telling us we can't afford anything but wars for as long as I can remember and most of them, including the metaphorical war on drugs have produced no discernible benefit to our security or prosperity. Since much of the equipment we bought at irrational prices isn't suitable for any threat facing us, why the hell don't we stop doing that and spend the money on health care?

“Even though I have my ideal system I would like to see, with the government out completely — because that would be a much better system — that’s not going to happen. I’m realistic.”

Pragmatic, realistic, flexible and non-dogmatic? Stop it Ron -- you're killing me!

"I would cut from these trillions and trillions of dollars that we have spent over the years and bring our troops home so that we can finance it [health care].” Said Paul on CNN

Is that Dylan I hear in the background? No, not really, but it's about time that someone from the GOP, even if he's not really one of them, mentioned those trillions and trillions when complaining about the Democrats' big spending, and it's stunning to hear approval for Obama's curtailment of the F-22 fighter program at least as a first step. Of course he believes we can eventually wean ourselves away from such government health care programs and says "freedom" will produce better coverage than a bureaucracy.

Having worked for many years for insurance companies I see their bureaucracies as more expensive, less honest, more reckless and sometimes quite malignant, so I'm not so sure I agree. Still Dr. Paul is certainly not a war lover, has the courage to say it out loud and that's novel. All in all, when he described RonPaulSingles.com (”We put the ‘love’ in revolution”) the dating website for Paulistas on American Morning yesterday:

“It sort of fits a famous slogan that I sort of liked, which says ‘Make love not war,’"

I was inspired to dig out the John Brown gladiator sandals I used to wear back in the day. The times they are a'changin' you know.

Bombs or Buicks?

My hypocrisy detector burned out on overload ages ago, so I can't really tell whether the idea that preserving jobs at GM and Chrysler is an outrageous example of Democratic overspending while eliminating a smaller number of jobs producing weapons systems designed for all-out war with the Soviet Union is an equal and opposite outrage -- even though the overall military budget will increase by $20 billion and even though the plan to halt production of the F-22 super fighter and the C-17 cargo carrier come from George Bush's former secretary of Defense.

It's getting harder to be partisan when the perceived difference between spending and cutting, big and small government no longer relates to the actual budget -- unless, of course, you just cover your eyes and ears and pick a side.

Of course there's a difference between pouring money into consumer products, the use and maintenance of which creates further jobs and into products that create shock and awe and a lot of debris, but if there's any discussion of that, the noise of the turf wars between the military and private sectors may be drowning it out.

The defense industry is trying to hang on to its share of the gravy train, says The Washington Post today.

"Why, they ask, would President Obama push hundreds of billions in stimulus spending to create jobs only to propose weapons cuts that would eliminate tens of thousands of them?"

Maybe because building more jets not only takes money away from systems we need more of, like armored vehicles and armored soldiers, but because every Chevy built supports not manufacturers of the car; of tires and batteries and spark plugs and glass and paint and steel : it supports not only dealers, mechanics, salesmen, gas stations and all the businesses drivers patronize, but it supports every business that needs to transport people and goods and that means virtually all of them. More money travels more places, through more hands and at a higher velocity and that's exactly what we need to save our sabotaged economy.

But that's just my opinion which hardly counts because I can only vote and I only have one voice to complain with and I don't have the $175 million or so the defense industry spends on contributions and lobbying. I don't have Rupert Murdoch's billions behind me or a huge, underground staff of spammers and swift-boaters and seditious talk radio gasbags hoping to profit from further chaos and collapse.

Am I wrong to expect nothing but the worst?

YEAR OF THE MELTDOWN

Happy New Year, everyone! Americans are famous for customary greetings that bear little relevance to events or context.  By all accounts, the New Year will be anything but happy. For some, 2009 will be called, “Year of the Ox.”  In my book, it should be called, “Year of the Meltdown” … in more ways than one.

The Economy
Since the first of the year, 100,000 job cuts have been announced including: 30,000 at Circuit City, 5,000 at Microsoft, 6,000 at Intel, 2,500 at United Airlines, 11,000 at General Electric, as examples.

According to Futurist.Com, our economic problems are "deep and structural and even cultural. It has to do with energy, with lifestyle, with the shape and form of what we build, and with global politics, and more."

In Florida, for example, our local supermarkets stock oranges from California and vegetables shipped from Chile, Mexico, and Peru.  Most of this produce is grown locally, transportable to market at little cost, and far cheaper than inferior store-bought varieties.  Yet, local growers are struggling or going out of business. Why? It seems chain stores favor a procurement model that ignores long distances, higher energy costs, inferior quality goods, and impacts on local economies. Hardly a model of efficiency, one would think.

James Howard Kunstler of Clusterfuck Nation says we should "prepare for the end of current global commerce as currently conducted, prepare psychologically to downscale, take a time out from immigration, prepare for a lot of paper “wealth” to disappear, prepare for a psychology of resentment."

America’s Defense Meltdown
Our country supports an annual defense budget of $600-700 billion and rising but gets less bang for the buck with each passing year.  We have the fewest number of navy combat ships, submarines, and combat aircraft, and the smallest number of personnel in uniform at any time since the end of World War II.  Why are we spending more and getting less?

According to Winslow Wheeler, "In Congress they're interested in jobs and campaign contributions. In the Pentagon they're interested in various political and bureaucratic agendas. They're not paying attention to the lessons of combat history … we should only fight when we truly have to fight rather than pursue agendas and political dogmas and help politicians posture as patriots."

Global Climate Change
In March of 2002, a giant ice sheet known as Larson B broke away from Antarctica and went adrift. According to global climate scientists, the Antarctic continent as a whole warmed at the same rate as the rest of planet.  Local conditions, however, are another matter of special concern:  The western peninsula warmed at a rate five times faster than the rest of Antarctica. Ice sheets such as Larson B hold back the glaciers behind them.  If they were to collapse completely, scientists say, the entire western ice shelf would fall into the ocean … resulting in a 16-foot rise in sea level.

In 2009, an even bigger chunk threatens to break away.  The Wilkins Ice shelf, roughly equal in size to the State of Connecticut, is literally “hanging by a thread” and “could go at any minute,” according to the latest observations.

ExxonMobil gave $1.6 million to the American Enterprise Institute in an attempt to undercut the findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a report widely regarded as the most comprehensive review of climate change science.  The Bush administration sought to further undermine public understanding of the issue by censoring the findings of climate scientists.  Thus, our government, under pressure from the oil lobby, suppressed meaningful data to influence the debate.

Apparently, a little propaganda money goes a long way.  This comment from a conservative blogger is representative of how public opinion is shaped by good ol’ boys:

CB (12-20-2008 at 9:35 AM): I am an outdoorsman and a conservationist. I support clean air, water, etc. What I object to is the leveraging of carbon dioxide, a naturally occurring gas and not a pollutant, into anti-capitalist redistribution schemes.

... and some of my best friends are [fill-in the blank].   When a conservative blogger makes a statement like this, claiming to appreciate the outdoors while debunking climate science, it reminds me of a pedophile who says: “I like children.”

Shadows of the Indignant Desert Birds
There will always be shrill voices resistant to change. Public policy debates have an aspect of “advertising jingle” to them.  A catchy melody repeats endlessly on the radio over months and years, then plays continuously inside the head long after the product has disappeared from the store: “Its not how long you make it, its how you make it long.” Once firmly imprinted, it is difficult to reshape public opinion.

Or perhaps one can look at the issue of changing public opinion from the perspective of a psychotherapist whose client engages in reckless behaviors.  An addict clearly knows the risks of substance abuse but is unable to break the habit in emotional terms, such as a chain smoker who reaches for another cigarette after being told of dire health consequences.  Even when understood intellectually, it is hard to change old habits and perceptions.

For those of us who read scientific studies, the data may seem compelling, but how do we convince others who don’t study graphs and maps, who listen only to long imprinted jingles?

And then there are lobbyists trying to protect their dirty franchises. They would have us focus attention, not on the data points clustered around a trend line, but on the statistical outliers … the confounding dodge and feint.  Once imprinted, only a catastrophe will change minds.

There will always be voices from a bygone era still hearing messages the dead have stopped sending. There will always be voices arguing, not for the common good, but from pure self-interest. Implementing public policy changes are difficult at best. We can understand these quirks of human nature with all due patience, but we are running out of time, and there is little wiggle room left.

Happy New Year, everyone.