BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG
We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
IT is time for us to leave Iraq. The people of Iraq don't want us there, the government of Iraq is corrupt, rife with fraud and abuse and we do not need to sacrifice any more American lives for a country that can't be considered an ally. This war has been waged on the lies and fraud of the george w bush administration, thousands of Americans have been killed, tens of thousands wounded, hundreds of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars wasted through corruption, fraud and abuse by the U.S. military-industrial complex. No more killing in our name in Iraq. No more sacrificing, wasting American troops in our name in Iraq. Bring the troops home, and make the Iraqi people and government accept responsibility for their nation. This from Mother Jones...
Spc. Austin Davenport passes out Iraqi flags to children in Baghdad, Aug. 11, 2007.US Army/Flickr
The shock and awe didn't last long. On Friday afternoon, just minutes after Barack Obama announced that America's war in Iraq would be finally, truly over at year's end, critics of the president punctured what could have been a national moment of solemn reflection and relief.
"As a candidate for president, I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end," Obama—the president whose administration has ended the lives of Osama bin Laden, Anwar Awlaki, and just yesterday, Moammar Qaddafi—said in his announcement Friday. "The rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year." Obama added that US-Iraq relations would change dramatically on January 1, 2012, to "a normal relationship between sovereign nations"—a recognition of the past nine years' weirdness that, although perfectly obvious, still seemed poignant when spoken aloud.
Nonetheless, the end of US military operations in Iraq—100,000 troops have already left the country, and the final 39,000 will be gone by late December—is already being spun by some Republican critics as an admission of defeat, part of a larger attempt to paint Obama and his party as soft on national security. That narrative is increasingly divorced from reality.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), a presidential hopeful, said in a campaign press release that Obama had shown "weakness" in making "a political decision and not a military one." The withdrawal, Bachmann argued, "represents the complete failure of President Obama to secure an agreement with Iraq for our troops to remain there to preserve the peace and demonstrates how far our foreign policy leadership has fallen," she said. "We have been ejected from a country by the people that we liberated and that the United States paid for with precious blood and treasure."
Mitt Romney's campaign sent out an email statement with a near-identical sentiment. "President Obama's astonishing failure to secure an orderly transition in Iraq has unnecessarily put at risk the victories that were won through the blood and sacrifice of thousands of American men and women," the candidate stated. "The unavoidable question is whether this decision is the result of a naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude in negotiations with the Iraqi government."
Whence comes the idea that poor Obama got manhandled by a Middle Eastern baby state and made a strategic blunder? Our own Kevin Drum and Spencer Ackerman at Wired's Danger Room report that the US, concerned about Iranian influence in the region, had sought permission from Iraq to keep a few thousand troops as a deterrent and a reaction force. But when Iraq wouldn't extend immunity from prosecution to any remaining American troops, Obama said fine, peace out. (He did leave the US embassy in Baghdad with a pretty massive force of security contractors, just in case.)
Is that weakness? Given that any remaining US forces wouldn't have had a real strategic mission in Iraq after December—patrols are verboten, so they'd basically just have been sitting around, waiting to react to an attack, or waiting to be attacked—it seems that withdrawing them was the real military decision, and the political decision would have been keeping them there for the sake of some abstract "insurance" policy against Tehran—Bachmann's apparent preferred policy.
One more thing: The status of forces agreement between the US and Iraq that requires American troops to leave this year—the deal that Bachmann and Romney are railing against—was negotiated in 2008 by George W. Bush.
Adam Weinstein is Mother Jones' national security reporter. For more of his stories, click here or follow him on Twitter. Get Adam Weinstein's RSS feed.
EVERYONE should participate and send a message to the FCC demanding strong oversight of all public monies the phone companies receive to make sure this doesn't become another rate raising scam from verizon, at&t and the other big telecommunications companies. Click the link to send your message to the FCC.
Do you want to hand over even more of your hard-earned money to your phone company?
The FCC has a plan for that: This week the agency is weighing a new rule that would give phone companies yet another way to reach into your pocket to pad their profits. Click here to learn more and tell the FCC to pass rules that protect consumers, not AT&T and Verizon.1
Here’s the deal: The FCC has proposed a so-called “reform” of the Universal Service Fund (USF), a program that has helped secure telephone access for millions of Americans, and which is funded via a small fee in our monthly phone bills. (Look for a line item labeled something like “universal service charge” or “federal government surcharge” and you’ll find the fee.)
The program’s goals are noble but outdated. So the FCC is looking to funnel these funds toward broadband infrastructure rather than phone lines. There’s just one problem. The FCC hasproposed rules that couldallow phone companies like AT&T and Verizon to extract billions morefrom consumerswith no accountability.
If we don’t get the FCC to change its plan, carriers would have free rein to add up to $4.50 more to your monthly bill. In an era of $100 “triple-pay” packages, do AT&T and Verizon need more of our money?
Meanwhile, those Americans who can least afford higher bills and who are less likely to have broadband — the poor and the elderly — are the ones who would bear the greatest burden of this rate increase.
The FCC is voting on its proposed rules this week. But it’s not too late for it to change its path. Click here to tell the FCC that we must hold AT&T and Verizon accountable for any public money they receive.
Right now, people around the country are rising up against corporate wrongdoing. This is no time to allow another transfer of our cash to the wealthiest corporations.
Thanks,
Josh Levy
Associate Campaign Director
Free Press
Want updates on key Internet issues, like Net Neutrality and broadband access? Follow our Save the Internet campaign on Facebook.
1. Craig Aaron, 'Is the FCC Reaching Into Your Pocket to Pad Industry Profits?' Huffington Post, Oct. 6, 2011: http://act2.freepress.net/go/6552?akid=2963.9767049.fuh8mS&t=8
MAKING us all more aware of the real sacrifices being made....and it makes me sad for their families and friends and very mad because there is no longer any justification for the deaths of any American troops in Afghanistan. Just the other day Afghan pres karzai told Pakistani government officials if they are attacked by American troops then Afghanistan will be on the side of Pakistan. Get our troops out of Afghanistan now and let these people wallow in their own blood if that is what they want! From Mother Jones....
By Adam Weinstein
As right-wing pundits decry the end of one US war and the conduct of another, they'd do well to consider the case of Sgt. 1st Class Kristoffer Bryan Domeij. The 10-year veteran of the elite Army Rangers was killed, along with two of his comrades, in an IED attack in Afghanistan on October 22. But Domeij's situation was special: He perished on his 14th war deployment since 2002.
Domeij's commanding officer, Col. Mark Odom, called him "the prototypical special operations" leader whose special skills—he was one of the first soldiers qualified to coordinate Air Force and Navy air attacks from his ground position—made him a hot commodity in the war zones. Domeij, he said, was a "veteran of a decade of deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan and hundreds of combat missions."
Besides being loved by his colleagues, the San Diego-born Domeij was also (PDF) the married father of two daughters. Assuming an average deployment length of seven months—Army deployments are seldom shorter than that, and usually much longer—he probably spent at least 8 of his 29 years overseas, waging America's wars.*
It's easy to make too much of a case like this; Domeij, after all, was a voluntary soldier and a member of an elite special operations community whose motto is "Rangers lead the way." But a fit young person's willingness to serve his country is not the point; the point is whether this country is abusing its fit young people's sense of commitment. It's amazing (and encouraging) that, for all its shortcomings and divisions, the United States still has a supply of dedicated public servants. It's also amazing that we could exhaust our supply so dramatically that we could ask a man to spend nearly one-third of his brief life at war.
Domeij died along with Lieutenant Ashley White, 24, a cultural support specialist, and Pvt. 1st Class Christopher Horns, 20, who was on his first war tour. All three were working for the 2nd Battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment, and even other special operators appear shaken by their loss. As one former Ranger commented online: "A young line Ranger on his first deployment, a seasoned [leadership] Ranger on his 14th and a female Officer as part of the overall assault force. Things have certainly taken a turn for the surreal."
Another put it more succinctly: "2nd Batt is not having a good rotation." * UPDATE: A knowledgeable reader points out that, as members of the SPECOPS community, Rangers handle their deployments differently from regular Army and Marine line units. By his estimation, Sgt. 1st Class Domeij likely spent closer to four or more years in the war zones, not including pre- and post-deployment training. And as our reader points out, it's not just the time you do, but what you do in that time:
The 75th Ranger Regiment typically deploys on 105-day deployments, i.e. a little longer than three months. What they lack in calendar length is made up in intensity: they typically conduct an operation every single night of their deployments with few exceptions. That someone has been deployed 14 times is mortifying and sad, especially in this case, but I do not believe there is anyone in the Army who has been deployed for eight out of the last 10 years.
Adam Weinstein is Mother Jones' national security reporter. For more of his stories, click here or follow him on Twitter. Get Adam Weinstein's RSS feed.
A great football player no matter what team you support, I remember his years with the Buffalo Bills. 50 is too young to die, so very sad....
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - Kent Hull, who served as Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly's center during the Buffalo Bills' AFC title years in the early 1990s, has died. He was 50.
Mississippi State, where Hull played his college ball, announced he passed away on Tuesday afternoon. The cause of death was not immediately known.
Hull was a three-time Pro Bowl selection during 11 seasons with the Bills. He was credited for playing a key role in helping run the team's no-huddle ``K-Gun'' offense. The Bills honored Hull in 2002 by placing his name on Ralph Wilson Stadium's Wall of Fame.
Hull broke into pro football in 1983 with the USFL New Jersey Generals, where he eventually was joined by Kelly in 1986, just before the league folded. The two then headed to the Bills, the team that still held the rights to Kelly after selecting him in the first round of the 1983 draft.
Hull also joined Kelly in announcing his retirement following the 1996 season.
He was tough and durable as a player, and at one point appeared in 121 consecutive games with the Bills.
His sudden death left his former teammates, Hall of Fame coach Marv Levy and even their respective families inconsolable.
``I'm so, so saddened,'' Levy said. ``I coached for 47 years, and he honestly was one of the very most memorable individuals who was my privilege to coach.''
Levy's wife, Fran, was so heartbroken she sobbed openly upon learning the news. Patti Thomas, the wife of Hall of Fame running back Thurman Thomas, also had difficulty speaking because she was overcome by emotion when reached by phone.
In an email to The Associated Press, Thurman Thomas wrote: ``We have suffered a tremendous loss. Kent was a teammate, big brother and best friend. My heart breaks for His amazing family. My heart breaks period. He will be a best friend and in my heart forever.''
Hull was a bear of a man, who was both outgoing, funny and philosophical. During Kelly's induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2002, Hull commented on the sea of Bills fans in attendance at Fawcett Stadium and said: ``I feel like I'm in Buffalo. Look at this.''
Hull is survived by his wife, Kay, and two children, Drew and Ellen. Funeral arrangements had not yet been announced.
"You are a refuge to poor people, refuge to the needy in their distress, shelter in the storm, shade from the heat – for the breath of the ruthless is like an ice storm or a scorching drought. You subdue the roar of the enemy, and the mantra of tyrants is stilled." - Isaiah 25:4-5 (The Inclusive Bible)
"What is the use of living if not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?" - Winston Churchill
MAYBE this will be the end of the bloodshed in Libya and the people can begin the process of rebuilding, and hopefully Libya will become a free, democratic nation. We can only hope and pray it will be so. From the Washington Post......
TRIPOLI, Libya — Revolutionary fighters overran the last major stronghold of Moammar Gaddafi’s loyalists on Thursday, and Libyan state television and top officials of the new government reported that the ousted former Libyan leader was killed.
There was no immediate confirmation of the death from independent sources, and conflicting reports circulated that he had been captured or wounded.
The revolutionaries captured the Mediterranean coastal city of Sirte and effectively brought an end to an eight-month war in which NATO intervened militarily to protect a pro-democracy uprising.
Abdelhakim Belhadj, the military chief of the governing Transitional National Council, told the al-Jazeera satellite network that Gaddafi had been killed.
Libyan TV station al-Ahrar also reported that Gaddafi was killed in the fighting but did not cite a source.
However, other officials said Gaddafi was seized by revolutionary fighters. News agencies distributed a cellphone photo purporting to show a bloodied Gaddafi in the custody of fighters, but it was not clear from the image whether he was alive or dead.
“He’s captured. We don’t know if he’s dead or not,” Ibrahim Mohammed Shirkasiya, a senior security official in Misurata, the biggest city west of Sirte, said by telephone. He said his information came from revolutionary commanders in Sirte. Celebrations erupted in Sirte and in other parts of the country as word spread of the fall of the city and the possible capture or slaying of Gaddafi.
In Tripoli, hundreds of cars honked their horns, and the air was filled with celebratory gunfire from automatic rifles and heavy weapons.
Gaddafi’s death, if confirmed, would ease fears that he could still rally his forces to launch a stealth guerrilla campaign against the revolutionary government. Gaddafi ruled with an iron fist for 42 years, brooking no opposition and establishing a cult of personality.
Sirte was a key prize because it was the last holdout of the Gaddafi forces and sits astride a key coastal highway about midway between Tripoli and Libya’s second-largest city, Benghazi, the rebels’ former de facto capital. In addition, the interim government had held off on declaring the war over until the city fell.
“This is the watershed moment,” said political analyst Peter Cole, in Tripoli. “It’s a significant moment. We’ve been in political no-man’s-land until Sirte fell.”
A senior official with the Transitional National Council told Reuters that Gaddafi was wounded in both legs and captured while trying to flee Sirte, his birthplace, in a convoy that was struck by NATO warplanes.
The Misurata Military Council, one of multiple command groups for revolutionary forces, says its fighters captured Gaddafi in Sirte, the Associated Press reported. Another commander, Abdel-Basit Haroun, said Gaddafi was killed when an airstrike hit his convoy.
Gaddafi was driven from power in Tripoli in August, and his whereabouts had remained a mystery.
U.S. and NATO officials said they could not ascertain the ousted leader’s fate or determine whether he was in the convoy that was struck.
A spokesman for Libya’s transitional government, Jalal el-Gallal, and its military spokesman Abdul-Rahman Busin also said the reports of Gaddafi’s death have not been confirmed, AP reported.
At approximately 8:30 a.m. local time Thursday, “NATO aircraft struck two pro-Gaddafi forces military vehicles which were part of a larger group maneuvering in the vicinity of Sirte,” NATO said in a statement. “These armed vehicles were conducting military operations and presented a clear threat to civilians.”hare
“We’ve had no confirmation whether Gaddafi was in there or not,” said a NATO official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Over the past couple weeks in Sirte, the official said, “there was a sense that given the fight they were putting up, which was concerted, that they were protecting something important.”
On Thursday, the official said, “we saw a convoy coming out. It was tracked by NATO. There was a limited amount of engagement.” The official said that forces under control of the Libyan Transitional National Council had also surrounded the area and were engaged in heavy exchanges of gunfire with the convoy.
“We’ve seen nothing coming out of that particular pocket” of Sirte “until today, so it was unusual,” the official said. The official described what had come under attack as not a single convoy, but “a number of different packets of vehicles attempting to break through.”
Mahmoud Shammam, a spokesman for the Transitional National Council, told the BBC: “We cannot confirm that any Gaddafi officials have been captured.”
He said that on Thursday, “suddenly our people were able to storm Sirte and control it in a few hours.”
Libya’s state television station reported that Gaddafi had been killed, and that his son Mutassim and top intelligence aide Abdullah Senoussi had been captured and brought to Misurata. A news anchor wrapped in a tricolor Libyan flag delivered the news.
NATO’s military activity had tapered to nearly nothing in recent weeks, as tight urban combat in Sirte was not appropriate for alliance airstrikes. Instead, tough street fighting had some Libyans worried about the beginnings of an insurgency.
Birnbaum reported from Berlin. Staff writer William Branigin in Washington contributed to this report.
Rumors, photo claims Gaddafi wounded and captured, but all unconfirmed
The final stronghold of Moammar Gaddafi loyalists fell to the Libyan fighters Thursday, and Libyan state television reported that the ousted leader had been captured and killed. Anti-Gaddafi fighters celebrate the fall of Sirte. (Esam Al-Fetori /Reuters)
The news came two months after Libyan rebels captured the capital of Tripoli. There was no immediate confirmation of the death from independent sources.
“He’s captured. We don’t know if he’s dead or not,” Ibrahim Mohammed Shirkasiya, a senior security official in Misurata, the biggest city west of Sirte, told The Post’s Mary Beth Sheridan by telephone. He said his information came from revolutionary commanders in Sirte. Libyan TV station Al-Ahrar reported that Gaddafi had been killed in the fighting, but didn’t cite a source. Transitional National Council member Jamal abu-Shaalah quoted in al-Jazeera and Abdel Majid, a council official quoted by the Reuters news agency both said he had been killed. (Watch live video here.)
Twitter erupted with the news, with six of its top ten trending topics focusing on Libya. People began passing around an image that appears to have been taken by a cell phone and shows a bloodied Gaddafi. AFP and Getty Images pushed out this photograph saying it was an image captured off a cellular phone camera showing the arrest of Libya's strongman Moammar Gaddafi. (Screengrab from Twitter)
Reuters reports that Gaddafi was fleeing the city in a convoy when NATO warplanes attacked.
“We’ve had no confirmation whether Gaddafi was in there or not,” said a NATO official who spoke to The Post’s Michael Birnbaum on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly. Over the past couple weeks in Sirte, the official said, “there was a sense that given the fight they were putting up, which was concerted, that they were protecting something important.”
Thursday, the official said, “we saw a convoy coming out. It was tracked by NATO. There was a limited amount of engagement.” The official said that forces under control of the Libyan National Transitional Council had also surrounded the area and were engaged in heavy exchanges of gunfire with the convoy.
“We’ve seen nothing coming out of that particular pocket” of Sirte “until today, so it was unusual,” the official said. The official described what had come under attack as not a single convoy, but “a number of different packets of vehicles attempting to break through.”
Gaddafi has proved elusive during the fighting and has not been seen since Tripoli fell. There have been a number of reports in the past that he was captured or near capture. Former U.S. State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley wrote on Twitter that Gaddafi’s death, if confirmed, would “help Libya avoid a lengthy and destructive insurgency.”
Libyan officials previously had said they believed Gaddafi to be hiding somewhere in the vast southwestern desert. Sirte is on the northern coast of the country. Reuters reported that the U.S. State Department could not confirm the capture of Gaddafi.
What is confirmed, though, is that Libyan fighters are raucously celebrating the fall of Sirte. The Associated Press reports:
“In the central quarter where the final battle took place, the fighters looking like the same ragtag force that started the uprising eight months ago jumped up and down with joy and flashed V-for-victory signs. Some burned the green Gaddafi flag, then stepped on it with their boots.
“They chanted ‘Allah akbar,’ or ‘God is great’ in Arabic, while one fighter climbed a traffic light pole to unfurl the revolution’s flag, which he first kissed. Discarded military uniforms of Gaddafi’s fighters littered the streets. One revolutionary fighter waved a silver trophy in the air while another held up a box of firecrackers, then set them off.” More reading from the Washington Post World: The Rise and Fall of Moammar Gaddafi World: Gaddafi’s home overrun Video: Libyan fighters celebrate fall of Sirte
Sec of Defense Leon Panetta is a liar, totally controlled by the greedy corporations of the American military-industrial complex. He could save billions by cutting the wasteful, bloated and ineffective government contracts with these corporations. These corporations milk the Pentagon, and so the U.S. taxpayers for billions of dollars in cost overruns for weapons systems so behind schedule they are outdated by the time they are delivered or don't perform as they are supposed to. Other contractors are awarded contracts "managed" through fraud and corruption, which are then subcontracted multiple times to the point it is impossible for any auditor to actually verify what OUR money was spent on. And the contractors guarding American embassies and diplomats and other American facilities around the world are nothing but fronts for thugs, mercenaries, drunks and some are even involved in providing children for sex as part of the bribery, fraud, graft and corruption they commit while representing the United States. They are a disgrace as are many of the so called "intelligence" companies who have been awarded contracts paying way to much for the "services" they provide. We aren't getting what we are paying for with most of these contracts, but the contractors, and not the actual men and women in uniform, are who Panetta is fighting for. Check out this video from BraveNew Foundation and the article from the Washington Post.....and for more information on this check out my earlier post on this
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is flagrantly advocating for war profiteers at the expense of real security for the American people. He's trying to browbeat Congress and other officials into continuing to send huge sums of our money to war profiteers who are killing jobs and ripping off the taxpayer. Our new video busts Panetta's scare tactics and talking points--please watch it and share it.
Huge military budgets cost jobs. That's an established fact. The corporations like Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman and General Dynamics that make billions every year selling the Pentagon super-expensive and often useless weaponry don't care about the effects of their profiteering. They just want to keep the gravy train rolling (For example, Lockheed Martin's CEO made $21.9 million last year, with most of the money coming from your taxes.). These contractors held a closed-door meeting with Panetta on September 13, and since then, he's parroted their untrue talking points and warned of "doomsday" if elected officials make even modest cuts to the bloated, corruption-filled war budget.
Panetta repeated more misleading spin when he testified before Congress this week. War spending kills jobs and productivity in the economy, but Panetta recently claimed just the opposite. Even the largest cuts to the military budget on the table in deficit reduction talks would simply return us to spending at 2007 levels--which was the highest level ever at the time--but Panetta strangely claims this is "doomsday." We don't need to spend six times China's military budget on war to keep America safe, and the last thing our economy needs right now is more job-killing spending on war profiteers.
Please watch our video and share it with your friends as soon as you can. Don't let Panetta and the war industry get away with misleading Congress again. Your financial support makes our effort possible. Thank you for helping us stand strong against the war industry and the Pentagon's spin campaign.
Sincerely,
Derrick Crowe, Robert Greenwald
and the Brave New Foundation team
Defense chief Panetta warns lawmakers that cutting military too deeply would be devastating
By Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Defense leaders and members of Congress drew a line in the sand Thursday, saying the Pentagon must be spared from any budget cuts beyond an initial plan to slash at least $450 billion over the next 10 years.
The military, they said, must not take even deeper cuts — a looming threat if lawmakers fail to agree on $1.2 trillion in federal budget savings by Thanksgiving and instead allow automatic cuts to kick in.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said President Barack Obama shares his view that the Pentagon should be shielded from any additional budget cutting.
Appearing before the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday, Panetta and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pounded home their message that further cuts would create national security risks and devastate the military.
“I don’t say that as scare tactics, I don’t say it as a threat, it’s a reality,” Panetta said. He said the initial $450 billion reduction will “take us to the edge” but any more than that would hollow out the force and “badly damage our capabilities for the future.”
Despite questions from the committee members, Panetta and Dempsey provided no details on any planned spending cuts and they gave no specifics on how U.S. military strategy might be affected. They said they are still reviewing the issues.
The only new hint came when Dempsey opened the door for trimming the troubled F-35 fighter jet program. He told lawmakers that developing and building three versions of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — one each for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps — creates fiscal challenges for the department, and he suggested it may not be affordable.
During the early part of the hearing, eight protestors were arrested by Capitol police when they began shouting anti-war chants. Seven were charged with disruption of Congress and one was charged with simple assault.
During a news conference after the hearing, Republicans on the panel echoed the plea to spare defense from further reductions.
“We’re saying: No more cuts,” said Rep Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., the committee chairman.
And Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, highlighted Panetta’s statement earlier that Obama shares his view that there should be no further cuts.
“I think it’s important for the president as commander in chief to make his views known,” Thornberry said. He said it’s a message that congressional Democrats need to hear.
During the hearing, Panetta urged Congress to consider cuts to mandatory federal spending programs and increases in revenues in order to meet the deficit reduction plan.
Rising deficits and deep debt have forced the federal government to slash spending — even at the Pentagon, whose budget has nearly doubled to some $700 billion in the 10 years since the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
The debt accord reached this past summer between Obama and congressional Republicans calls for a $350 billion cut in projected defense spending over 10 years. The Pentagon and House committee members say the actual number is more than $450 billion. The difference depends on the budget baseline that is used.
Panetta said the military has been stressed by a decade of fighting, squeezed by rising personnel costs, and is in need of modernization. In the last decade the military has focused heavily on fighting insurgencies and terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than on the skills and equipment needed to fight modern armies, navies and air forces.
Meanwhile, international security issues have grown more complex, Panetta said, noting the United States must be prepared to continue dealing with violent extremists as well as the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea, the prospects of cyber attackers who may target American infrastructure, and other threats.
Panetta also repeated the warning he issued earlier this week — saying that some lawmakers’ favored defense programs could be on the chopping block.
Recalling his time as a member of the U.S. House, Panetta noted that a military base in his district was cut in 1994.
“I lost Fort Ord. ... That represented 25 percent of my local economy. So I know what it means to go through this process,” he said. “We have to do this right, and we can do it right.”
If the special bipartisan deficit-reduction supercommittee fails to come up with at least $1.2 trillion in cuts from all federal spending by Thanksgiving, defense could face additional reductions. If the panel fails to come up with a proposal, or Congress rejects its plan, automatic cuts of $1.2 trillion kick in, with half of that to come from defense.
Panetta said the Pentagon is taking a comprehensive look at its spending, from overhead costs to the size of the force as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, from modernizing weapons to personnel.
Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, the top Democrat on the House panel, said in a recent interview that it would be wise for the Pentagon to provide details on its strategic review as Congress considers spending cuts.
“I urge them to get it out sooner,” Smith said. “We’re already deep into” the next budget.
___
Associated Press writers Donna Cassata and Pauline Jelinek contributed to this report.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
THE blunt, honest and inspiring interview by Tavis Smiley of Dr Jeffery Sachs on 13OKT11 on the state of America and how ALL politicians, yes, including Pres Obama, have abandoned the poor, the working class and the middle class and are controlled by the rich and corporate America and the military industrial complex. He names names......has the moral courage to do so. Watch the video (click the link), read the transcript AND check out the videos of Dr Sachs speaking at the Occupy Wall Street protest in NYC, and share....
The noted economist, director of Columbia’s Earth Institute and co-founder of Millennium Promise explains how we can end poverty globally.
Jeffrey Sachs is a leading voice for combining economic development with environmental sustainability. The best-selling author is director of Columbia's Earth Institute and co-founder of Millennium Promise Alliance, a nonprofit aimed at ending extreme global poverty. The Detroit native previously spent more than 20 years at Harvard, where he received three degrees and was one of the youngest economics professors in the school's history. In his latest text, The Price of Civilization, Sachs offers an incisive diagnosis of America's economic ills.
Tavis: Our gratitude and thanks once again to the good people at the Media Mobilizing Project for their terrific work on these poverty tour highlights. Their mission of training and empowering people who are poor and working class is one of the primary reasons we chose to partner with them on this project in the first place, and as you can see every night this week the quality of their work speaks for itself.
For more tonight, I am honored, honored, to be joined by Jeffrey Sachs. He is a noted economist, best-selling author and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia, whose latest book is called, “The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity.” Jeffrey Sachs, always good to have you, sir, on this program. Jeffrey Sachs: Thank you so much. I’m the one that’s honored. What you’re doing is unique in this country and so essential right now, and it’s just incredible. It’s great, this series. Tavis: Well, thank you. Sachs: These are people that are not being heard. This is what’s wrong with our political system, and you’re helping people to raise their voice and be heard in this country. Tavis: I appreciate that. I want to get to “The Price of Civilization” in a moment, but I want to start, Professor Sachs, with what I think is the seminal text on poverty, on ending poverty, that is – your book, “The End of Poverty.” Sachs: Thank you. Tavis: 2005. Read it two or three times. I want to start by asking what you make of where we are now vis-à-vis poverty in America, given the plan that you laid out for ending poverty back in 2005. Sachs: Well, I said in 2005 that in our generation we could end poverty worldwide. We can end it certainly in America, the richest large country in history, with all the technology, all the means. If we weren’t so selfish in our politics, this wouldn’t even be a challenge, actually.
But we can also end poverty worldwide in the very poorest places, in the villages of Africa or in the hills of Central America, and we see powerful progress in some places, but not in the United States right now. In the U.S., it’s backsliding. In the U.S., we are not going forward, whereas in other parts of the world there’s a lot of progress in reducing poverty. Tavis: You’ve said two things now I want to go back and get right quick and have you unpack for me. Number one, when you say if we weren’t so selfish in our politics, what do you mean by that? Sachs: I mean that our politics really for the last 30 years has been to give everything to the top and to keep taking away from the middle class and the poor, and we’re still on that route right now. We’re just gutting the government services that people need to make sure their kids can get a decent education, can be healthy, can avoid asthma, can avoid other debilities of nutrition or an unsafe environment.
We’re still taking away from the poor, and the rich have never been richer. The 400 richest people in this country, the billionaires on the new Forbes list, have more than $1 trillion of wealth. They’re averaging more than $3.5 billion each of them in their net worth, and then we’re told by Washington politicians, oh, there’s nothing we can do, we have a budget crisis.
Well, sure. If you let the richest of the richest of the rich just walk Scot-free, bear no responsibility in our society, then there won’t be for the poorest of the poor. Tavis: Over the last 50 years, though, to your point now of being selfish in our politics, we’ve had both Democrat presidents, Republican presidents, Democrat-controlled Congress, Republican-controlled Congress. So how is it that whether Democrat or Republican control Congress or control the White House, that we have still been, to your term, so selfish in our politics? Sachs: The last time we made big progress against poverty was in the 1960s, and the war on poverty, despite everything that was said and said by the right wing until today, made huge and sustained progress in reducing poverty. Big breakthroughs.
But then came Reagan and the backlash, and what’s amazing is that our politics since 1981, when Ronald Reagan came into office, and he came into office on a platform that said government is not the solution, it’s the problem, and I say if that’s what your view is, don’t be president, because we need a president that believes in government, not believes in dismantling government.
But he started to dismantle. He gave tax cuts to the rich, started to cut the base out of our education spending, social safety net, stopped investing in infrastructure – the things that make America productive.
But then what’s amazing is this continued, unfortunately, through the Clinton administration, this continued through definitely the Bush era with more tax cuts, and tragically, it’s continued through the first years of the Obama administration.
What you see are two political parties that are both so eager to get big campaign contributions from rich people that they don’t even hear the poor people anymore in this country. Tavis: There are a lot of poor people, though, who voted for then-Senator Obama who thought that this would be the end of the Reagan revolution; that Reagan era would finally, finally come to an end and that things would be different. So the message of hope and change resonated, obviously, with so many Americans, that Mr. Obama doesn’t just win, he wins in a landslide.
Yet I hear you suggest now that this has continued three years into his presidency. What do you mean by that? Sachs: Well, I supported the president, I support the president, I’m going to vote for the president for reelection, but it hasn’t been change, it’s been continuity. The sad part is that even when Senator Obama was campaigning to become President Obama in the summer of 2008, his campaign advisers wrote a column in “The Wall Street Journal” that said, “We will keep the tax collection as a shared national income no higher than during the Reagan administration.”
I was shocked. I sent a note to them, “What are you doing?” They told me a few months later that I was the only person that wrote to them that way. I know as an economist if we don’t tax the rich so that we can rebuild schools, so that we can rebuild neighborhoods, so that we can focus on real infrastructure projects, not shovel-ready, which don’t exist, but real infrastructure over a decade, we’re not going to be able to rebuild, we’re not going to have the skills, we’re not going to create good jobs.
So I was asking, “What are you saying, to keep the tax rates?” but this is how politics plays in America – both parties cater to the rich. That’s why, honestly, when push came to shove in December 2010 and the Bush era tax cuts were about to expire, 60 percent of Americans were saying in the opinion surveys, let them expire at the top.
But that’s not what happened. All of a sudden there’s a deal between the White House and the Congress to extend them for two more years. That wasn’t because the president’s back was to the wall; sadly not, because 60 percent of Americans wanted the top tax rates to go up. They know what the story is.
But that’s not what the political advisers were saying. “No, no, you can’t do that, you’re running for reelection. You’re going to need the campaign contributions.”
This is really the story of America, how the market system, especially in the global era, took away a lot of jobs in America that used to provide a middle class income, especially in the manufacturing sector.
But instead of the government helping to create new skills, new industries and so on, the government teamed up with the most powerful and richest interests in this country because that’s how campaigns are made, and since those 30 years have continued to side with the top 1 percent and to ignore totally the bottom, the poorest people, and once in a while say something about the middle, but really only pay attention to the top. Tavis: Which takes me directly into the new text, “The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity.” Let me try to get into it this way, so you can tell me more about the new book.
To your point now, though, when Occupy Wall Street, now in 800 cities and growing, starts to raise its voice, when Jeffrey Sachs writes a book called “The Price of Civilization,” when Tavis Smiley or Cornel West go on a poverty tour or anybody else in this country – there are many people beyond us who have been talking for years about eradicating poverty - Sachs: Absolutely. Tavis: When you do that in this moment, we get accused of playing a game of class war. What do you say about that? Sachs: The war has been on the poor. The rich have been waging a war on the poor for 30 years, and now people are finding their voices and saying, “Stop it.” What’s amazing is that in 2008, when Wall Street created a worldwide disaster, these CEOs, these titans of finance that nearly wrecked the world, said, “What? Me? No, we want government bailouts, give us a trillion.” Then with that money they paid themselves more billions of bonuses the next year.
I called the White House and I said, “What are you doing? You’re letting them take taxpayer money for their mega-bonuses,” and Larry Summers, the economic adviser from Wall Street, said, “Well, Jeff, where would you draw the line?”
I said, “Larry, what are you talking about? It’s taxpayer money going out in big bonuses.” But Wall Street and politics are so tightly infused they couldn’t even draw the line at that moment, and that’s why we’ve reached a point where Wall Street abused the public, it abused the trust, it violated the laws, because every one of our big firms, whether it’s Goldman Sachs or Merrill Lynch or JP Morgan, they’re paying fines right now for what they did against the securities laws, and yet they’ve remained in charge.
They remain invited to the White House for the state dinners, and that’s why people are out in the streets across this country right now. The key slogan, the key motto, “We are the 99 percent,” is rigorously accurate, because the top 1 percent has walked away with the prize.
People who are staggering, people who we have seen, you have seen on the tour and whose voice you’re bringing to America, they’re suddenly realizing, “Wait a minute – this isn’t a market economy just good luck and bad luck. These guys broke the rules, they broke the law. They took the money, they sided with politics and they’re still there. What kind of market system is that?” That’s a rigged system, and that’s what people are starting to wake up to. Tavis: I’ve got 90 seconds. I could do this for hours with you, but in 90 seconds, I want to give you all of that time to give me the last word. What, then, is the price of civilization? Sachs: The price of civilization is the investments we need to make in education, in healthcare, in our neighborhoods, in the physical environment for safety and for good health. We need to pay for that, and especially those who have taken all of this money at the top need to start paying.
That’s the virtue that we need. They cannot be lawless. They can’t absent themselves from our society. They need to participate. I have in this book a specific set of recommendations; how we can collect several percent of our national income from the top of the top and use that money to help people regain the skills or finish college, have the wherewithal to be productive members of society.
Not receiving handouts, but having the productivity to get out of poverty and to have decent jobs in the future. We need to invest in those people to help them, and the money has to come from the top. Tavis: As I said earlier, Jeffrey Sachs, back in 2005, wrote, to my mind, the seminal text on ending poverty in America, go get that. It’s called, “End of Poverty.” The new one from Professor Sachs is called “The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity.” Jeffrey Sachs, an honor, sir, to have you on this program. Sachs: Thank you so much. Good to be with you. Tavis: Delighted to have you here. Tomorrow night we’ll wrap up our poverty week with a look at new grassroots movements working to combat poverty and a conversation with Sojourner CEO, Jim Wallis.
"If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we've got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition, and then admit that we just don't want to do it." - Stephen Colbert
"Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom." - James 3:13
Spc. Austin Davenport passes out Iraqi flags to children in Baghdad, Aug. 11, 2007. 
