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The Conspiracy Letters
Join the fray! Email us at letters@poorandstupid.com. We reserve the right to publish all letters with authors' names, unless specified as not for publication or for publication anonymously. Letters may be edited for clarity and brevity.
Friday, August 15, 2003
EVEN THE FRENCH HAVE PRIVATIZED Re: "David Brooks: This is War" [August 13, 2003]. I think the Athenians and Spartans both probably outsouced during the Peloponnesian Wars, but there was a picture in the History Channel Magazine a few months back of thousands of French taxis that were hired by the US Army to transport reinforcements to the front during WWI. They made several round trips each with 3-4 troops per. No mention of tips. Paul Krugman would assert that Halliburton had the contract for $1000 per round trip and paid each driver 1.5 Francs with the Bush Administration accepting 50% of the $998 profit as a campaign contribution -- notwithstanding the fact that none of them had yet been born.John Corn
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 2:09 PM | link
A MISTAKE OF VIETNAM PROPORTIONS As a Senior Program Manager for a defense contractor, in the services industry and a former Army Artillery Officer and commander, I knew from anecdotal experience that Paul Krugman's claims ["David Brooks: This is War" August 13, 2003] would not hold water. It was simply "more of the same," from the New York Times.
During the first Gulf War, when my brother, a Navy Seal, and his platoon had to eat MRE's for more than two days straight, they dug in their packs, dragged out their spear fishing gear and ate fresh, Persian Gulf sea bass every day. The troops always find a way around eating MRE's. Besides, any commander worth his salt would insure that his troops had a hot, mess hall cooked meal, at least once a day.
I am also sure that each unit of 100 soldiers has its own water trailer/buffalo, field showers, etc. as well as access to Red Cross gift packages. If they did not, commanders would be fired, if not fragged.
Soldiers will always "bitch," it's just the way it is. One of the things that scares me now, especially since my oldest son was just commissioned in the service, is that the commanders are talking about rotating units home now, after one year in Iraq. Until that place settles down we need to keep the guys over there who know how to patrol the streets, have set up trusted relationships with the local populace, know the countryside and are trusted by the Iraqi people who want meaningful change. Inserting fresh meat into the country and not availing ourselves of the experience gained, would be a mistake of "Vietnam" proportions.
Skip
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 2:06 PM | link
BUYING MILITARY SERVICES BY THE GLASS, NOT THE BOTTLE Paul Krugman ignores facts to make a point that turns out to be utterly silly ["David Brooks: This is War" August 13, 2003]. What is cost-effective for the military is to purchase specialized services short-term from qualified companies.
I work for a defense contractor. We are a subcontractor on a large DISA (Defense Information Systems Agency) telecommunications contract. Many of the folks who perform on the contract served and got their training in the military. In the run-up to the war in Iraq communications facilities here in the US and in SouthWest Asia needed major upgrades. We and others provided fully qualified folks quickly to plan for, install, test, and hand over fully functional communications. We’ve got a few folks in Iraq today. They won't be there for a career, just a few more months, and then we'll find something else for them to do. They won't be a drag on military active duty or civil service budgets until they retire.
Krugman pretends not to understand how much training and support goes into today's soldier, and how expensive it is to retain them. But the lead time is the real bottleneck. As an example, this is what slows down our ability to increase the size of our special operations forces. We take the best of our regular forces who’ve served at least four years and put them through years of training all over the world. It takes active duty personnel one or two years after a year's study in military schools to become good comms folks. For logistics, communications, and all sorts of stuff, DOD can purchase support by the glass, not the whole bottle. That's what's more practical in the short and long terms.
My final point is that with a few exceptions (like perhaps the International Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders), the NGO and UN personnel don’t have the drive, discipline, and leadership to do the job as efficiently as the contractors do. From reports I’ve read it's UN and NGO folks who were running the prostitution rings in the Balkans and are in the black market in Afghanistan. Who is there to discipline them? With US contractors, there’s company and military oversight, along with the promise of immediate ejection for any infraction of the rules.
Mike Cakora
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 2:02 PM | link
PRIVATE BATTLES I have to add a thought to the incredible Paul Krugman statement ["David Brooks: This is War" August 13, 2003] that Iraq is the first instance of private contractors in a battle zone. Has Krugman never heard of World War II? I'm sure he knows about the Viet Nam war. Two examples:
Wake Island at the beginning of WWII. Construction workers from The Morrison-Knudsen Company actually helped Marines defend the Island. Many later were executed by the Japanese.
Much of the military infrastructure in Viet Nam built during the war years was constructed by a consortium of four large U.S. companies known as RMK-BRJ (for Raymond Engineering, Morrison-Knudsen, Brown & Root, and J. A. Jones Co.).
And of course complaints were made that Brown & Root then got the job because of its ties to the President -- but then it was Lyndon Johnson, not George Bush.
Robert Avery
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 1:57 PM | link