In What World Is This Right?

JollyRoger tagged me with an E award, so I thought I'd start this morning's posting with a rant about how the Marines still don't have Mine Resistant Armored Vehicles after five (5) freaking YEARS of war in Iraq, where most of the soldiers lost have been from IEDs. To say nothing of using up resources needed for the fight in Afghanistan where they have to scrounge around for everything in order to conduct the search for Osama been forgotten, the supposed perpetrator of 9/11. Too bad Bush forgot about avenging the deaths of people who were just going to work in his rush to get revenge for some perceived slight to his father. The power of the Presidency is supposed to be used to benefit the American people, not settle childhood issues. If the bozos who pass for Generals and Commanders (as in chief) nowadays were in charge during WWII, we would be speaking German on one coast and Japanese on the other.

Without the technology of today, in the 1940s they were able to effectively build ships, artillery, airplanes and anything else that was needed to fight two successful campaigns on opposite sides of the world and get the job done in less time than we have spent in Iraq. And that's not counting the previous two years of practice warfare in Afghanistan that we've botched so badly that some Afghanis believe that we are allied with the Taliban.

Eventually the haze of bemused anger clears and then I remember, oh yeah, we used to make things back then. Things that could be touched and used, not bought and sold as "futures". There were working steel mills and oil companies that had the country's best interests at heart, instead of their bottom line and how much they should give their shareholders.

Since then, we've come a long way baby. Unfortunately, most of it has been downhill with nothing to show for it except obscene profits by companies who would rather locate their businesses offshore to avoid paying taxes to their country or wages and benefits to their workers.

Meanwhile, our soldiers are dying because they can't get good, dependable equipment. Makes you proud to be an American, doesn't it?

3Bs