« There are lobbies, and then there are lobbies | Main | "Our" turn at the trough »

Belated Christmas for the generals

By Owen Paine on Saturday January 13, 2007 06:12 AM

Not telling most of you anything by noticing this but....
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday proposed adding 92,000 troops to the Army and Marine Corps, initiating the biggest increase in U.S. ground forces since the 1960s to shore up a military that top officers warn is on the verge of breaking from prolonged fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/11/AR2007011102146.html?referrer=email

This I think is the backstage deal behind Bush's phoney surge: "go along with this tits-on-a-bull 20k new buffalo roam, Gen'rul, sir, and you'll get those new brigades you've been wanting so bad."

Cheney actually knocked serveral balls into their assigned pockets here, but none with so steep a long-run price tag as this: more than $10 billion annually. Multiplying back in the standard Pentagon "prospective discount", I make that prolly 30 billion per year, when all is said and done.

But hey, Dick needed to help the brass hats

underscore the Pentagon's conviction that today's wars and anti-terrorism operations will endure for many years. "We call those 'long war' forces," a senior military official said.
My frugal heart wonders, does this spell the end for the late unlamented Rummy's Robo-boots vision? That would be bad news for the high-living high-tech arms sector. Or are these new brigades a pure add-on -- belt and suspenders?

Comments (2)

js paine:

air power ain't enough

the ultimate
imperial smart weapon
is not a death star

it wears boots
and has an ipod

Rowan:

Never thought you'd miss Rummy, huh? His idealogical commitment to a small, sleek military makes me almost nostalgic.

Post a comment

Note also that comments with three or more links may be held for "moderation" -- a strange term to apply to the ghost in this blog's machine. Seems to be a hard-coded limitation of the blog software, unfortunately.

About

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on Saturday January 13, 2007 06:12 AM.

The previous post in this blog was There are lobbies, and then there are lobbies.

The next post in this blog is "Our" turn at the trough.

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

Creative Commons License

This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Powered by
Movable Type 3.31