Hightower Lowdown

Do our “leaders” in Washington drink a great big glass of hypocrisy every morning just to get prepared for a day’s work?

How else to explain the fact that, while Bush and the leaders of both parties speechify about how much they honor the men and women of our armed forces, they cynically shortchange the troops at budget time?

Military spending is at nearly $400 billion a year—yet only a pittance of that goes to outfit the grunts who do the dirty work. The infantry, on whom the White House depends to pursue its war adventures, has been left “cash-poor and ill-equipped,” according to senior Army officers.

Army investigators report that GIs in Afghanistan had to buy their own gloves, socks, belts, flashlights, and other basic equipment!
Where do the billions for defense go? To huge corporations that make high-tech weaponry—fat campaign contributions to Bush and the other politicos. While the grunts have to buy their own socks in Bush’s war on terrorism, corporate contractors routinely overcharge and defraud us taxpayers for weapons that often don’t work or aren’t even needed.

The New York Times reports that just this year’s $690 million cost overrun on the problem-plagued and unnecessary F-22 jet would pay for new boots, fatigues, helmets, weapons, ammo, flak vests, and other needs of 87,000 ground troops. But, said the Army’s chief of infantry sarcastically, “We’ve chosen to do other things.”