cybermage's Journal: Peace Time Procurement No Way To Win A War

After the failure of several contractors to deliver badly needed equipment on time, the U.S. Military's procurement practices have been called into question by the Pentagon's Inspector General.

The report questions whether the pentagon should have given non-compete contracts to exclusive contractors when the equipment was needed by troops that have already been deployed. This despite Secretary of Defense Robert Gates calling the procurement of such equipment a "top priority." The equipment in question is a variety of armored vehicles and body armor.

It is difficult to reconcile the conservative mantra "We Support The Troops" with incidents like war profiteering, er, I mean, no-bid procurement contracts, and the travesty that is the VA system.

It is also difficult to reconcile visions of a truly determined U.S. pulling out all the stops to win World War II, complete with housewives building airplanes, versus the business as usual procurement strategy of the current administration.

The only way I can reconcile the apparent disparities is to believe that the administration cynically wants the chaos that we have now. The uncertainty has certainly done well for their friends in the oil industry. Also, a U.S. presence destabilizing the middle east fits in nicely with the Project for a New American Century's Neo-Conservative agenda, which was calling for using the invasion of Iraq as a model for democracy in the middle east before Bush even came to power.

After September 11th, the administration could have called for and gotten the kind of sacrifice the American people went through to win World War II. But, instead, they decided to take us into war with a business as usual mindset.

This could be explained away as simple hubris. A simple misunderstanding that advanced weaponry isn't a match for IEDs and desperation. But when you consider the administration's consistent efforts to almost actually thwart success like outsourcing the attack on Tora Bora to get bin Laden, and calling off the attack on senior al Qaeda figures in Pakistan, you have to wonder if there isn't a more cynical agenda underneath it all.

Further Reading:
      Ron Paul: It Had To Do With Oil
      Bush Wants Troops In Iraq Indefinitely
      U.S. Middle East Diplomacy Continues To Unravel

Reprinted with permission from apathy.net.