In the
midst of an economic crisis that's getting scarier by the day, it's
time to ask whether the nation can really afford some 1,000 military
bases overseas. For those unfamiliar with the issue, you read that
number correctly. One thousand. One thousand U.S. military bases
outside the 50 states and Washington, DC, representing the largest
collection of bases in world history.
With a
new administration taking office in Washington, and an era of profound
economic crisis on the horizon, the U.S.
President Obama will almost certainly touch down in Baghdad and Kabul in Air Force One sometime in the coming year to meet his counterparts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he will just as certainly pay a visit to a U.S. military base or two.
On Monday, February 16th about 50 activists decided to take a trip to the Franklin Mills Mall right outside Philadelphia, PA to get their look at a new "store". "The Army Experience"
(AEC), as it is called, built by the taxpayers to the tune of $12
million, attracts local kids to play video games, most of which are
high tech simulations of combat situations.
I wanted to be a fighter pilot when I was in sixth grade. Fresh off my first viewing of Top Gun,
I decided to serve my country by learning to fly an F-14. Fifteen years
later, I'm a civilian with no flight experience whatsoever. This is
hardly surprising. Childhood dreams don't always become adulthood
realities.
WASHINGTON - Despite a shrinking national economy and a record defense budget, U.S. neo-conservatives and other right-wing hawks are mounting a spirited - if misleading - campaign to persuade Congress that the military should get a bigger slice.
They are calling on Congress and President Barack Obama to boost military spending next year even beyond the projections made by the administration of former President George W. Bush as to what would be needed.
Like much of the rest of the world, Americans know that the U.S.
automotive industry is in the grips of what may be a fatal decline.
Unless it receives emergency financing and
undergoes significant reform, it is undoubtedly headed for the
graveyard in which many American industries are already buried,
including those that made televisions and other consumer electronics,
many types of scientific and medical equipment, machine tools,
textiles, and much earth-moving equipment -- and that's to name only
the most obvious candidates.
A new commission examining waste and corruption in wartime contracts got a grim report from government watchdogs who say poor planning, weak oversight and greed combined to soak U.S. taxpayers and undermine American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, says the U.S. has committed nearly $51 billion for a wide array of projects in Iraq - from training the Iraqi army and police to rebuilding the country's oil, electric, justice, health and transportation sectors.
WASHINGTON - U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday raised concerns about the U.S. military's increased use of private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, and said KBR and other companies should be held accountable for the electrocution deaths of U.S. soldiers and other mistakes.
Democratic Sens. Robert Casey of Pennsylvania and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota said the Army recently told the mother of a U.S. soldier that her son's electrocution death in Iraq was not accidental, but a "negligent homicide" by contractor KBR and two of its supervisors.
WASHINGTON - The man nominated to be the Pentagon's second-in-command could make at least a half-million dollars next month with vested stock he earned as a lobbyist for military contractor Raytheon.
William J. Lynn, who was chosen to be deputy defense secretary despite an Obama administration order against "revolving door" lobbyists who become public officials, has pledged to sell his stock in the Waltham-based company before taking the job.
