Most of the soldiers who fought for the Confederacy didn't own slaves. They were fighting for an institution that worked to their permanent disadvantage. The same is true today. The martial culture of the Confederacy has prevailed in America. It isn't, ironically, a culture of rebellion; it is a culture of obedience to a hereditary elite, now set in stone by the free inheritance of the great fortunes won by war and by accumulated advantage.

Anyone with 1/3 of a brain and a fly-over familiarity with a concience has a problem with James Woolsey. He's been foaming at the mouth for this war in front of every TV camera he can get near for years now. Besides his financial interests, I'd like to know what parts he's played behind the scenes in getting this thing going.

Stock options for soldiers and guard personnel is such an imaginative, out of the box proposal, probably something that would be too slick for this administration but something that makes one think. I really like the idea, Steve
Your making the wheels upstairs turn,
Darci

What's worse is that the failure to provide TRICARE insurance to inactive Guard and Reserve personnel without health insurance of their makes no sense from a military standpoint. You'd think the Pentagon would have some interest in having healthy soldiers report for duty, especially in this time of extended Guard and Reserve deployments to combat zones. Plain stupid.

President Eisenhower's Son Endorses John Kerry
http://blog.johnkerry.com/blog/archives/002976.html#more

Why I will vote for John Kerry for President
By JOHN EISENHOWER

As son of a Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is automatically expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election of 2000, I was. With the current administration’s decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent, and barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry.

The fact is that today’s “Republican” Party is one with which I am totally unfamiliar. To me, the word “Republican” has always been synonymous with the word “responsibility,” which has meant limiting our governmental obligations to those we can afford in human and financial terms. Today’s whopping budget deficit of some $440 billion does not meet that criterion.

Responsibility used to be observed in foreign affairs. That has meant respect for others. America, though recognized as the leader of the community of nations, has always acted as a part of it, not as a maverick separate from that community and at times insulting towards it. Leadership involves setting a direction and building consensus, not viewing other countries as practically devoid of significance. Recent developments indicate that the current Republican Party leadership has confused confident leadership with hubris and arrogance...

Let's hope Kerry also mentions the missing $8 billion. If Kerry knew how to campaign, this would be common knowledge.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,129489,00.html

The way soldiers (active duty & reserves) are treated now is symptomatic of the corporate mindset: cut costs & expenses, always, no matter what the cost to personnel. Forget the quality of the product/goods/services; cut costs! "If they can't get by on what we pay them, they should learn how to manage their money...!"

Disgusting.

MORE ON WAR PROFITEERING!! This takes a page directly out of the GOP playbook ... find the greatest strength of your political opponent and ATTACKATTACKATTACK. Kerry should be calling on Cheney, Perle, Wolsey and all others in policymaking positions to contribute to this fund OR ELSE THEY ARE NOT PATRIOTS. In fact they are traitors by siphoning off money from a legitimate war effort. Where are the Dem strategists coming up with these strategic gambits!?!?!

Sorry, but I think this is a really bad idea. We're already working too much with mercenary armies. Why should we give ordinary soldiers further incentives to plunder and privatize Iraqi national resources and perpetuate wars so that their stock holdings go up.
I agree soldiers are getting the raw end of the deal. But, what were you thinking?

Dear zzi --
Diversity of views is fine with me. But you ask what I'm thinking. Well, pretty much what you were thinking in your last line -- the soldiers are getting screwed. The National Guard members who are staying more than a year are finding their and their family's non-government health care terminated -- and the TriCare coverage rules for dependents of deployed National Guard servicemen are spotty. The ongoing care for those evacuated out of Iraq -- but not necessarily listed as casualties (see the Mark Benjamin reports I wrote about a while back) -- is also a question for troops who are in the Guard as well as the uniformed services. They are getting screwed -- but others who helped encourage the war set up firms or helped direct investment funds that profit from this conflict.

I'm tired of the complaints about Perle and Woolsey from the left - some of which I have been a part of. Nothing has yet been done to attack this disgusting and inappropriate war-profiteering. I'd be pleasantly shocked if Kerry said anything about this in the debates tomorrow night -- but he'll probably just refer to the important (but stale sounding) complaints about Haliburton. He fails to personalize this Iraq War conflict of interest problem Washington is having.

So, what I'm thinking is that if you haven't beat Woolsey and Perle by getting people angry about how inappropriate their behaviour is, then we should at least "propose" that those actually doing the fighting, and the sacrificing, get some benefit from those firms who want to "volunteer" stock options....

nothing required, all volunteer...let's see which firms fail to contribute.

best,
Steve Clemons

This is a great post Steve. I think you're exactly right. zzi's concern is valid, but largely beside the point. The crap Perle and Woolsey are pulling is appalling to anyone who understands it. And that's why your stock option proposal is valuable. Who cares whether it would work in practice. The rhetorical point is spot on and much needed. As you point out, it shines a bright light on the fact that Woolsey, et al. saw the invasion of Iraq as a lucrative business opportunity and furiously set out to cash in from the war they helped bring about. The war profiteers will be ostracized!

I have to agree with zzi, mercenaries is total opposite to the American "citizen-soldier" model of which we are so proud of.

The real issue, to me, is this administation's second-class treatment of the Reserves and Guards that US is now relying so heavily on. Why would anyone want to join these organizations? Less training, poorer equipment, and the almost certainity of extended calls to active duty in a combat zone. In my mind, Kerry could do well to take a stand that Bush has failed this generation of citizen-soldiers and for Kerry to promise better treatment of both regular military and reserve/guard military. Allowing the reserve/guard to get Tri-care insurance would be a start.

I'm not sure we need 135,000 soldiers whose agenda now becomes the perpetuation of war for personal gain. How about suspending executives options and freezing their salaries in a time of war? This would apply to all defense contractors and apply to that percentage of business that derives from war profits. Additionally, during a time of war, dividends normally paid to shareholders should be redirected to the disabled and the families of the fallen. Lets get the interests aligned in such a way that war is not only discouraged but less economically viable to the corporate strategists.

I wish Kerry could say everything there is to say about the president's bungling, but he only has two minute and ninety second moments. I think Kerry does pretty well making his points and looking presidential alongside the kid in the room. Just as it was a ludicrous excuse for Bush to say the troops won the war too quickly, fucking up in so many ways in so many areas all at once at home and abroad might be the White House's most plausible strategy: it's impossible to talk about it all. The newspapers can't report it all or they appear partisan. So, screw up big and win. It is the incompetence version of the Nazi "big lie".