Update 3: old news

The modern US military and the wars it is fighting is logistically maintained and physically fought by private contractors. Mercenaries and private contractors get paid by the US government to do what US soldiers and the military used to do in-house (but with mark up paid for by US taxpayers) . In 2007 there were more contractors than combat troops in Iraq. Transportation and trucking is contracted out, meal preparation is contracted out,

maintenance and repair of equipment is contracted out,

laundry is contracted out, everything is contracted and then subcontracted to for-profit corporations, which is why we spend over half a trillion dollars a year on the defense budget (all deficit spending). In ten years, we will have spent well over five trillion dollars on war. With half that amount, we could have universal healthcare for all of America with money left over to build a few wind turbines; this, while Iraq's constitution (that the Bush Administration wrote in 2005) guarantees universal healthcare for all Iraqi citizens.

"The frontline FOB where I landed and its soldiers, by contrast, are spic-and-span. Credit for this goes largely to the remarkably inexpensive labor of crews of Filipinos, Indians, Croatians, and others lured from distant lands by American for-profit private contractors responsible for making our troops feel at home away from home. The base's streets are laid out on a grid. Tents in tidy rows are banked with standard sand bags and their super-sized cousins, towering Hescos filled with rocks and rubble.

The tents are cooled by roaring tornados of air conditioning, thanks to equipment fueled by gasoline that costs the Army about $400 per gallon to import. It takes fuelers three to four hours every day to refill all the giant generators that keep the cold air coming, so I felt guilty when, to prevent shivering in my sleep, I stuffed my towel into the ducts suspended from the ceiling of my tent."

"Many young soldiers told me that they actually live better in the Army, even when deployed, than they did in civilian life, where they couldn't make ends meet, especially when they were trying to pay for college or raise a family by working one or two low-wage jobs. They won't mutiny. They're doing better than many of their friends back home. (And they're dutiful, which makes for acts of personal heroism, even in a foolhardy cause.) They are likely to reenlist, though many told me they'd prefer to quit the Army and go to work for much higher pay with the for-profit private contractors that now "service" American war.""All this helps explain the annual cost of maintaining a single American soldier in Afghanistan, currently estimated at one million dollars."

Update 1: New News: Former Senator Ted Stevens in a plane crash. Traveling with an executive from European Aerospace firm EADS (revenue of $26 billion in first half of 2010). The plane and summer lodge it was flying to are both owned by GCI, the Alaskan telecommunications company (second quarter 2010 revenue of $162 million).

Update 2:

"Defense Secretary robert gates said the Pentagon needs to save money by further reducing a “cumbersome” U.S. military hierarchy, setting up potential battles with members of Congress who support targeted programs.

Gates announced plans yesterday to lop spending on support contractors by more than one-quarter over three years and close a military command in Norfolk,"

Update 3: "Paved roads, historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue. State money for local roads was cut in many places amid budget shortfalls."

"In Michigan, at least 38 of the 83 counties have converted some asphalt roads to gravel in recent years. Last year, South Dakota turned at least 100 miles of asphalt road surfaces to gravel. Counties in Alabama and Pennsylvania have begun downgrading asphalt roads to cheaper chip-and-seal road, also known as "poor man's pavement." Some counties in Ohio are simply letting roads erode to gravel."


Well, it was good while it lasted.