If this does not raise your blood pressure, little will. So we could have saved lives, but we didn't, but we have protection for contractors because they can afford it. Why? Because they charge it back to us at a 30% minimum profit margin. Soldiers are collateral damage.

What the hell is this?

Contractors protect their "intellectual assets" - a wonderful buzz term meaning your ass is mine until you die and we will slough you off like a healed scab when you quit making us money - better then we protect our youth.

Another day I will rant about the use of contractors. Today I want to focus on how mismanaged this war and our military is. No one would ever expect the armed services to be safe. But if you have a volunteer army willing to go and serve, this cannot be the best you can do.

I truly believe that Saddam was picked because it was like attacking the local puppy butcher. An amoral oppressor who attacked his own people (Kurds). And they had no anti-aircraft capabities to stop shock and awe. Quick win, Mission Accomplished, look good in a codpiece, be studly. But, oops, we forgot the aftermath and what Condi calls civil order problem:

"But you know, I just -- I know that there are all these reports now -- well, but you know that this might happen or that might happen. I can remember sitting in our meetings before the invasion and saying, and particularly Don Rumsfeld -- you know, people worrying about revenge, that after all those years of the suppression of Shia and Kurds, particularly Shia, there might be revenge taken out. And then we were really rather surprised not to see it. And even in the first few months after the Samarra mosque, we were sort of surprised that people didn't.

Well, it has emerged. But it's emerged by extremists and bad guys doing it. It's not as if -- and sometimes when people say civil war it drives me a little bit crazy because, you know, it's not like Iraqi Shia and Sunnis are running down the streets killing each other because they're Sunnis and Shias. These are organized gangs and death squads, and that's a civil order problem. And we're helping them deal with a civil order problem.

I think part of the problem for the American people is that's kind of uncomfortable. And as Dave Petraeus has said, it's very dangerous -- helping them deal with a civil order problem. But if we can give them the space by helping them deal with the civil order problem to get this de jure reconciliation in place, then I think you can see the transition to the kind of posture that a lot of people talk about as acceptable for American policy. But we can't just get over where we are and go there now."

Does anyone not remember Yugoslavia??? Oil, control, bid swinging dicks and little "what happens next" vision. This administration is single-minded and incompetent. And not willing to sacrifice. Or ask others to. Just shop and be happy.

Why aren't people more furious? Oh yeah, they are working two manufacturing jobs (read Mickey Dees) to pay for things like food and rent that one job could pay for before free trade became popular.

rojo