Iraq Is On Track

[Hugo]

Actually, American troops are taught a very high degree of redundancy when required. For instance, an M1 Abrams tank has a crew of four. Each crewman has to be able to do his own job and the jobs of his three comrades. This is simple redundancy, in case of battle casualties.

No, American tank crews don't learn about airborne insertion or anything like that, but they'll never need to. I don't believe Canadian servicemen have any greater breadth of knowledge than Americans.

[Lost in Manitoba]

Not really important but the crew for the Abrams, thats their job (or weapon system that I mentioned), so of course they should know the in's and out's. What I was just saying, and by all means I may be mistaken, was that a Canadian soldier in that tank (I don't think we have any but whatever) would probably know how to change the tracks, fix a fuel leak, and hell, probably repair the leaky roof on the motor pool as well. Where as the US has other people to do those jobs. I met a guy from CFB Shilo, here in MB, who worked in an IT field. He had a University education and all that. Anyhoo he had to drive a 4ton truck every morning, dropping artillery guys off at the ranges. Why? They had no one else that was available. This is the norm, in the US this would be the exception.

[Hugo]

The Canadian crewman knows probably the same as the American crewman: how to perform very minor repairs. Tanks are extremely complex, unreliable and expensive pieces of machinery and repairs are difficult and time-consuming. You can't do them on the battlefield, therefore, it makes little sense to train a crewman to change a track, for instance.

[Lost in Manitoba]

Useless to discuss this any further I suppose. Just an opinion formed from my experience in the navy.

[KrustyKidd]

Anybody in a tracked vehicle undergoes training. This involves everything from changing tracks to lightbulbs. As for comparing US to CDN military you are both right. When I got in during the late 70's my US counterparts were slightly less disiplined and were as lost said "specialized." We did well against them on exercises through motivation and manuverability. They slowely got better getting rid of drunks, druggies and demanding higher calibre of individuals in their all volenteer army. We did the same.

As for the high tech and all that, I'd like to cite one example that is quite interesting. We were in Ft Bliss near El Paso, 700 Paratroopers augmenting an armored car regiment of 5,000 against a 35,000 US desert division. These guys had it all, dune buggys with jammers, a smoke battalion to decieve the enemy into thinking there was a tank division moving. It was unreal. Tehy were everywhere looking for us and tuning the airwaves for our transmissions and our location.

We were dug in, moved at night spread out so we could use cover. 700 guys finding their own water so resupply trains wern't used and detected We had a plan and stuck to it and captured their command post five times that way. They learned a lot from us and that is that technology is not the living end. Maybe saved a lot of lives in the Middle East too.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear Hugo,

I think that to say that 1 Canadian solider is worth 5 Americans, though, is absolutely ridiculous.

I will stand by my quote. Highly trained or 'specialized' is not the same as intelligent. It limits the ability to 'think outside the box'. I saw a documentary by Gwynne Dyer (who served in 3 different Armed Forces) and in my opinion is one of the most intelligent and pragmatic 'military minds'. He also felt that the 'brainwashing' of basic training 'limits' independent thought to a crippling degree. Loyalty is great, but it comes at a price.

Dear KK,

I read that Canadians also do very well in 'Top Gun' competitions, often winning over their US counterparts.

[Lost in Manitoba]

You said it better than I did TFB.

[KrustyKidd]

Dear Hugo,

I think that to say that 1 Canadian solider is worth 5 Americans, though, is absolutely ridiculous.

I will stand by my quote. Highly trained or 'specialized' is not the same as intelligent. It limits the ability to 'think outside the box'. I saw a documentary by Gwynne Dyer (who served in 3 different Armed Forces) and in my opinion is one of the most intelligent and pragmatic 'military minds'. He also felt that the 'brainwashing' of basic training 'limits' independent thought to a crippling degree. Loyalty is great, but it comes at a price.

Dear KK,

I read that Canadians also do very well in 'Top Gun' competitions, often winning over their US counterparts.

I like Dyer. He is pretty smart. I would however be very surprised if he gave the impression that Canadian Soldiers are five times more effective than their American counterparts.

You cited education as one facctor. I know that the US military has raised the bar educationwise for entry into it's ranks. I forget what it is now but know iit is not grade school by any means. As for Canada I can attest that the Non Com ranks are not filled exclusevely by PHD material. Like any other workforce it has it's smart guys and dummies. It also has it's hard workers, lackys, leaders and followers.

The two systems are the same in that disipline is begune to be instilled upon indoctrination. You cited "brainwashing" and "ablility to think outside the box." To respond to this I will use my experience in the Airborne; during Basic Parachute Training the young soldier is constantly being inudated with images of how tough the Paratrooper is. These images are visual, audio and verbal. When running he is chanting songs to not only increase lung power but to reinforce that message that once he has become a Paratrooper he is tough and dangerous. Brainwashing? You bet! Young soldiers have to have something to fall back on when times get rough. Forty men in the back of an aircraft getting ready to jump into a black void behind enemy lines would be somewhat ineffective if they all thought they were losers and were going to get killed by the enemy's superior quality troops.

The leaders and senior NCOs have, throughout the years grown out of this need for emotional support from brainwashing and are, quite able to "think outside of the box." They however, need to have the men under complete control and know that when the crap hits the fan and friends and comerades start to fall around them, the men will keep it together and be able to follow orders instead of freaking. This is where the basic disipline comes in. When Sgt Rock says "Pass the bullets." he expects Private Bailly to - well, pass the bullets. In a freethinking army he would turn and find Beetle working on some excellent plan which would negate the need for bullets altogether if only there was enough time to put it all together. Meanwhile, the unit gets shot to pieces because the heavy machine gun ran out of ammo.

I know the argument will come forth that what to do if only Privates are left through casualties and this spells the need for better educated men. If that is all there is left the unit will have been withdrawn long before this fiasco and either replaced or the army retreated altogether.

It's like anything else Lonius. You don't expect the janitor to barge in on Executive briefings to tell the CEO how to run Microsoft nor does the Stewardess take over the controls of a 747 because she knows something better than the pilot. This is not to say that the janitor and the stewardess are forever doomed to be peons because like the military there is ample opportunity to gain sponsored education, experience and promotions to facilitate their ambitions.

It is like this in the American Army as well. As I said earlier, gone are the days of the drunks, thugs and druggies. They are a combat effective and highly motivated army. So is ours.

Theirs has better equipment - We have to improvise but you can only improvise so much before you hit a dead end.

They have combat experienced leaders and men everywhere, at all levels including the basic ranks - We have a few combat experienced leaders and next to none in the basic ranks.

They train more often and more realisticlly with money being no object which provides ample opportunity for all levels to gain experience in practical matters of war and quite frequently these exercises employ division sized forces to practice practical co-ordination at massive levels - We find little time to train as we are either being prepared/on/comming back from UN missions. This in itself is good training for the individual to see things and learn about different situations but is hardly a substitute for combat experience. When we do train, cost is quite often the deciding factor on whether it is going to be effective or haphazard.or simply just a command post exercise which does little to give experience to anyone except leadership. Very seldom is anything more than a Brigade brought together to exercise. In a large scale operation this point alone leads to defeat through inability to resupply forces.

One factor that is in our favor here is that our units are smaller and therefore more flexible.

I thank you for your vote of confidence in our troops however I would, through my experience say that it is somewhat overrated. We are, motivated, smart, proud and well disiplined. So are they. They are not the monkeys they used to be. As an example I will use the same ratio as you did 5:1. If a Canadian is worth five Americans then it would stand to reason that an American would be worth at least ten Iraqis. This would mean that a Canadian would be worth fifty Iraqis. I just cannot picture myself being on a battlefield in Iraq facing 50 Iraqis with my C 1 (M16) and leatherman jack knife feeling confident about my chances.

As an aside, if we are worth 5:1 that would mean that we could have gone to Iraq instead of the USA and won with only half of our armed forces. Somehow that seems unrealistic. I would say that man for man sans equipment we are on par but given the opportunity and experience we would quickly become better.

[Whistler]

This discussion of military “intelligence” is laughable. Solders don’t think they follow orders and do their jobs or the machine breaks down. To argue who is more intelligent is moot. Canada does not need a strong military or even tanks, they while complaining the whole time, enjoy the umbrella protection of the U.S. and as a result can afford their socialist programs.

500 to 100 thanks for the laugh again!

[FastNed]

Thank you, KK, for your candid and responsive posting.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear KK,

I do agree with you (and Whistler) that the common infantryman is not required to think. I was best buddies with an engineer in the Canadian Military, and even went to a recruiting office when I was about 18. My buddy told me not to enlist in the infantry, for that is where all the dummies go.

My post is more of an overview of past US military efforts, of which I could cite many examples of American 'inferiority'.

To cite some examples:

The US Armed forces are trigger-happy. (They have probably the highest incidences of -friendly-fire casualties of any modern force. All the way back to 'Stonewall Jackson' being killed by his own troops. During WWII, they frequently shot, shelled, and bombed their own and allied troops, far more so than any other participant. )

The US refuses to accept advice and expertise from those who are more knowledgable. (several examples of this, from WWII, Vietnam, Afghanistan, you name it. During WWII, the US absolutely refused any advice from the British relating to convoy escorts and systems, and finally agreed to use British Mine Sweepers as part of the convoy system, but were adamant that no British officers or expertise would be used.)

I agree that the common soldier is not to blame, for they must indeed follow orders. I suppose it would be the commanders, those whose battle plans are to be followed, those are the truly inferior ones.

If Canada were to spend our entire tax revenue on the military, and run up a debt of trillions, we could also be world class. I would rather rely on conscription in a time of true crisis, however, trusting the formidible 'fighting spirit' of the average Canadian, than rely on having the US as an ally. Chances are greater of dying when the US is on your side (friendly-fire wise) than from the enemy.

[Hugo]

I don't disagree that Canadian and also British servicemen are somewhat better trained than their American counterparts, but I don't think for a second that this makes the Canadian soldier the equal of 5 Americans. All other things being equal, better training gives a slight edge - but that's one that is easily nullified by technology and equipment. I've known American servicemen, and although most of them were Marines and thus a cut above most American soldiers, their weapons handling, fieldcraft and initiative were excellent - comparable to or better than other well-trained, Western, all-volunteer forces and certainly a lot better than any conscript army. I've also known USAF pilots and their skills and training might not have been quite as finely honed as other pilots, but nevertheless they were fully capable of carrying out any mission they were assigned. If they were golfers, we would be comparing Tiger Woods to Jack Nicklaus, not Jack Nicklaus to some nitwit just joining the country club.

The US refuses to accept advice and expertise from those who are more knowledgable.

Actually, American special forces have been largely influenced and trained by British special forces, particularly in anti-terrorist roles.

America does like to develop her own solutions, though. Sometimes this is a bad thing, for instance, the use of fast patrols instead of escorts in WWII until the lesson was learnt the hard way, but sometimes it is a good thing, such as the development of the nuclear-powered submarine.

Finally, regarding blue-on-blue incidents, the fact is that they occur in any war. America has more of them because America pretty much sends more troops to more wars than anyone else. Thelonius thinks they were the worst culprits in WWII, but I guarantee that the Red Army was far worse - their troops were frequently completely untrained, morale was often terrible, and due to the Soviet censorship machine no mention was really made of these incidents.

During Gulf I, after the initial phase of the ground attack, the 1st Infantry division was due to be rotated out of combat and replaced by a fresh division. Unfortunately, it could not really disengage and do this easily. In the middle of the night, in darkness, the 1st Infantry slowed and allowed the replacement unit to pass through it and continue fighting seamlessly. This is a difficult maneuver and the potential for a friendly-fire incident is high, but there were no incidents at all.

My point is that American troops are competent and no more likely to suffer a friendly fire incident than any other Western army - and certainly a lot less likely to suffer one than an incompetent conscript army such as the Red Army or the Iraqi Army.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear Hugo,

I'll grant you that friendly-fire incidents were probably grossly under-reported by the Russians in WWII and probably since. However, my father (who lost his arm against the Germans) and 3 uncles served in different services in WWII, and all told me that the US Army was the biggest bunch of trigger-happy nitwits of any armed force. History will prove this out. Omaha beach, for example, was only 'bloody Omaha' because the US scorned the use of 'funnies', specialized yet unconventional modified tanks for beach landings. 'The Bobbin'( a device mounted on a tank to lay down matting across soft sand), the Crab,( with chain 'flails' at the front for setting off mines) and the Mulberries, (portable harbours for resupply) for example.

If you recall the Gulf I stats, I believe US friendly-fire casualties were over 50% of the total in the conflict. In Afganistan, they managed to kill Canadians and now, in Iraq, they killed a bunch of Iraqi policemen who were on their side. To say that they are no more prone to this than any other army, should be true. But it isn't. They seem to have the philosophy of 'shoot first, think later, (or not at all.)'

[KrustyKidd]

Wondering here Lonius, could it be that they appear to be trigger happy because there is so many of them and they are actively engaged in warfare? I mean, when was the last time we put two hundred thousand men under the age of forty on a battlefield with orders to advance and destroy?

Real armies have different problems than caretaker ones.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear KK,

When was the last time you saw Canadian or Australian troops repeatedly kill their own or their allies? In WWII, the Canadians nor the Ghurkas shot down transport planes full of their own reinforcements.

I read somewhere that 85% of gun deaths in the US are from the owner's own gun, not from intruders. Certainly, active warfare (or gun ownership) increases the risk of friendly-fire accordingly.

According to my own made-up stats, one fifth of 200,000 is about forty thousand Canadian troops, who could have gotten the same job done, with minimum to no friendly-fire casualties, and probably would have earned the respect of those we had fought.

The Brits used 'tally-ho!', the Japanese ,' Banzai!', the Afrika Korps 'Heia Safari!, while the American battle cry is still "Yahoo!".

[KrustyKidd]

Certainly, active warfare (or gun ownership) increases the risk of friendly-fire accordingly.

That's what I am trying to say. We never get anything close to what these guys have in the field fully loaded to bear. I suppose the last closest thing would have been Korea. Any figures on that era reguarding this?

How about WWI and II? I'd be interested to see how we stack up relative sized wise. When you make these comparissons don't forget that the larger the unit, the more different componants there are that make communication more difficult. I mean that 1 Canadian guy walking in the field by himself times one thousand is not exactly like taking one thousand US troops and dividing accident statistics by 1,000.

To say that our guys walking the beat in Afganistan have not commited one friendly fire incident is not a fair comparisson to having 150 thousand troops getting shot at day to day. I do however remember we had a guy shoot one of his buddies in a tent in Somalia I think. Canadian friendly fire in peacetime? Multiply that by 75 so that our 2000 guys now equal 150 thousand US and we have 75 friendly fire incidents on a peacekeeping mission. How would we do in actual war I wonder?

I'm not argueing with you, just trying to put it in context. These guys are in war, we are not. These guys are not Bill and Sam and Fred but almost a quarter of a million guys that rely on command posts and stangers radio transmissions to keep them from colliding. Gone are the days of the whistle and flags. This is all done by plans laid out, liason officers and SOPs. The amount of movement in the dark is staggaring and nothing compared to trench warefare and extended line advances. Accidents are bound to happen and the amazing thing is that more of it is not happening.

I guess what I am trying to say is that unlike you I don't think it is the nationality that is at fault but rather the size, operation and time constraints of the mission that make for these figures. If we all went to the county fair with no weapons then there would be most likely - no friendly fire incidents right?

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear KK,

I agree that size multiplies the risk factor. However, I will stand by my assertation that the US has the most disproportionate rate of friendly-fire casualties. Not just by sheer rate of conflict but in each conflict.

If we all went to the county fair with no weapons then there would be most likely - no friendly fire incidents right?

Only if it were a teetotaling affair! j/k lol.

[KrustyKidd]

I didn't say it was an Afgan county fair LOL

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear KK,

I was in Great Falls, Montana (for the cheap beer) and after closing, it seemed that the 'good ol boys' thought that there was nothing more exciting than to be in a fist fight in the parking lot. My friend and I thought it was great fun to break up fights and ask what they were about. We made an awful lot of friends that night, but still, I think it tainted my view of the average US citizen. I had not seenanything like it before.

County fairs? I wish Canada had more of them. Community is the strongest bond humans have except to ourselves, but the US seeks to sever the ties to 'community' as leftist, extollng individual gain above all.

[KrustyKidd]

I have. British soldiers on pass in Wainwright. Nothing stupider than that Walking up to one another and punching for no reason at all. They didn't even go in to the fight phase. Just punch, bleed and move on to the next one. I've also seen guys do that in various bars in Canada. I don't think it is exclusive to the US. Take the Soccer Hooligans for example. That's the hieght of stupidity, paying airfare so you can get your face beat in.

[Hugo]

Walking up to one another and punching for no reason at all.

Soldiers are trained to be aggressive and violent. It's pretty much inevitable. The British army makes soldiers participate in "milling" which is basically stepping into a ring with a pair of oversized boxing gloves and trying to beat your opponent into submission by any means possible. The purpose of this is both to build physical endurance and hardiness, and to cultivate an aggressive mindset. A soldier who cannot be aggressive is pretty useless.

This is a similar phenomenon to the fact that servicemen usually have more than their fair share of marital difficulties and domestic violence. This, too, is a byproduct of a culture that emphasises aggression and accepts violence as a valid solution to a problem.

Unfortunately, if one compromises on that, one compromises on these soldiers' ability to perform as soldiers. This is why officers don't take incidents of brawling terribly seriously.

Furthermore, I think KK's idea that Americans are involved in more friendly-fire incidents because there are simply more of them is true. These incidents happen to any army and are inevitable. For instance, in Gulf I some British soldiers were killed by American fire. While both sides viewed this as regrettable, the British did not press for any charges or prosecutions because they know that these incidents are pretty inevitable. You put 200,000 men with rifles together and tell them to shoot at something and some kind of accident is inevitable. It doesn't even necessarily have to reflect upon their training.

For instance, the Lee-Enfield rifle has a notorious problem with an over-sensitive trigger. If the weapon is dropped with the safety off and a round chambered, odds are it'll go off. Now, you have a thousand men running at the enemy, coming under fire, and obviously each of them is carrying a rifle with a round chambered and the safety off in case they see a target of opportunity. Let's say one man in the bunch gets shot or hit by shrapnel or whatever and goes down. He drops his rifle, which discharges and shoots the guy in front of him in the back. That's a friendly-fire incident, to be shot in the back with one of your own weapons, but it's not really the soldier's fault, is it?

[cknykid]

Last week I described how Singapore despite being an impregnable fortress because of the wide moat around it, the straits of Johore Bharu, and despite having forces within the fortress far exceeding those of the besieging Japanese, was still breached and once that happened it was all over bar the shouting. On the evening of the final surrender of Singapore by the British to the Japanese, I, among 3000 others, British, Australian and Indians was in Raffles Square. It was about 6 pm, when a message came that the Governor of Singapore, Sir Shenton Thomas was going to address us. Shortly afterward there was a stir and a car drove in. Out stepped the governor. Suddenly a hush descended upon the gathering. The governor mounted the plinth of the statue of Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore in 1819 when the island was totally uninhabited. Sir Stamford was an official of the East India Company, the one that was ruling India, with its headquarter in Calcutta. Because it was colonised by a company based in Bengal that to this day Sikhs (Indians) are called Bengalis by the locals!

The governor, Sir Shenton Thomas, began to address us in English. He had a British major by his side translating into Hindustani, haltingly, falteringly and comically inaccurately. It was still the time when the aura of greatness and competence by the whites and in particular the British had not been shed. It was because of this aura that as soon as the Japanese attack started in North Malaya in December 1941 that Sir Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, announced with great pride and boast the despatch of two capital ships, the battleships the Prince of Wales and Impulse to their great naval base of Singapore. This base was so built that an invasion from the sea in the south was envisaged and that too from their subsidiary empires, that of the Dutch (now all of Indonesia), the French (Tongking, Annam, Crchiur China, Laos and Cambodia) and the Americans in the Philippines. All the non-whites to the north of Singapore, the Chinese or the Japanese were considered as lesser beings incapable of any such temerity. This was despite the fact that the Japanese had defeated the Russians in 1904 in Russia’s far east. Because of this myopic view, all the defences of the island were in the South. There were emplacements nestling in the hills pointing towards the sea to the south. But since the attack had come from the north, the guns remained silent. They could not be turned around. And the great warships, despatched with such fanfare were sunk by the Japanese Kamikaze pilots in the China Sea, north east of Singapore, about the time they landed in north east Malaya.The governor, Sir Shenton Thomas, started off, by saying that "our emissaries have gone forth to the Japanese to seek surrender terms." And then be added that once surrender took place, he expected us to cooperate with him in maintaining Singapore the same way as we had done before the Japanese intervened.

Even while he spoke, I was thinking that the man must have been unhinged. The fact of the matter was that about 4 pm General Percival had gone over to the Japanese commander, General Yamashita to surrender (not seeking surrender terms, it was complete and abject surrender). Sir Thomas was then no longer the governor. How he imagined that he would still be lording it over the "natives" despite the conquer by the Japanese, is hard to understand. When the governor (ex) left, there was a stillness, a calm after a storm. I climbed a seven-storey building and stood on the roof. There were fires breaking all around. And no one was moving. No fire brigades, no police, no nothing.

I stood on top of that building and saw the end of the British Empire, the end of white dominance. Although the British still had their empire, particularly India, one could see the beginning of the end. I felt this so acutely that I wrote a poem — "The end of an Empire". Some day when I find it among my papers I shall publish it. In any case it was not very long — only 4 years — when the empire ended with the freedom of India. The next day I woke up and roamed the city. No one obstructed me. The Japanese had already taken over completely. At every intersection there was a Japanese traffic controller and an armed soldier. Everything was working effortlessly.

Indian troops were gathered in one place. Australian and British are in another and they were locked by the Japanese and in separated spaces. The British civilians were locked up separately. Among them, Sir Shenton Thomas, the ex-governor was probably still dreaming of running Singapore. The hallucinatory period of the British and the white areas was over.

Considering the chaos in which Iraq is six months after its illegal occupation by the Americans who have yet to have telephones in Baghdad going, electricity and water restored and law and order functioning and currency replacing the one with Saddam Hussein’s visage, the Japanese had a Military Administration Department which began to function the moment they arrived. This was civil administration which had done all its homework before they arrived and almost the next day their currency was in circulation. Water from Johore Bharu was restored instantly with the pipeline repaired. Electricity worked, All municipal services worked. The Military Admn Department had done all the work in advance. In fact the citizens never felt any disruption. All worked smoothly, effortlessly. In contrast the Americans are still groping and trying hard for someone to rescue them. The greatness of the whites stands exposed.

Concluded

[Craig Read]

Whatever. Iraq is in better shape than before. Talk to some people who have been there. Schools opened, more energy than pre Gulf War II, freedom, press, a governing council and the incipient steps to democracy all undertaken. International law [which does not exist] such as it is, favors the US action. Your posts are vapid.

[cknykid]

When they asked the outlaw Willie Sutton why he robbed banks, he put it to them straight: "That's where the money is."

It is of course physically--not to mention politically--impossible for the weasel-wording cadres of the Bush Regime to give a straight answer to anything, but if they could be forced to cough up the truth behind the conquest of Iraq, their reply would be identical to Sutton's. For although the media commentaries--have thrown up a dust storm of high-flying moral, strategic and ideological "reasons" for the war, each passing week brings new proof that the whole murderous farrago boils down to one thing: loot. "Follow the money"--Let's begin by following the money from the mounting pile of dead bodies in Iraq to the silk lining of Dick Cheney's trouser pockets. This month the mainstream American press woke up to the long-established fact that Cheney is still receiving oodles of boodle in "deferred compensation" from his old firm, Halliburton, which just happens to be the biggest gorger at the Iraqi trough. These "revelations" forced the grim-visaged veep into a furious spin cycle: the terms of the deal were set before he took office, he'll give all the money to charity, his honesty is irreproachable, blah blah blah--the usual soft-soap, swallowed whole, as usual, by the media.

So bold was his defense that last week Bushist minions called on critics to issue a formal apology to the poor maligned unelected multimillionaire war profiteer (and former business partner of Saddam Hussein). But even granting the ludicrous assumption that Cheney was actually telling the truth about this particular arrangement--which only involves chump change of a few hundred thousand dollars, after all--the fact is that Halliburton is using a back door to fill their former chief's coffers with ***millions*** in blood money pumped directly from the corpses of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

This profitable arrangement was found hiding in plain sight last week by investigator Maggie Burns of the Progressive Populist. While the media mandarins were gulping soap, Burns committed the increasingly rare act of journalism by checking out Cheney's financial disclosure forms. These show that Cheney has a minimum of $18 million invested in The Vanguard Group, a leading mutual fund. (Given the deliberately vague, vast ranges of the "disclosure" forms, this nest-egg could be as high as $87 million. We mere mortals are not meant to know).

Vanguard, as it happens, is the 10th largest shareholder in--oh, you guessed already!--Halliburton. The fund owns 7.6 million shares in the firm, worth about $176 million. Thus any government contract that swells Halliburton's bottom line does indeed pour war profits straight into Cheney's bulging bank accounts. No amount of soap can wash away that fact. Meanwhile, five of the other top 10 shareholders in Halliburton have big bucks parked with our old friends The Carlyle Group, where George Bush Senior hangs out his shingle as a pricey corporate shill (and former bin Laden business partner). So Bush family coffers are definitely not forgotten when Halliburton goes to war.

But do let's be fair. After taking a bit of mild heat for larding Halliburton, Bechtel and other Bush-blessed firms with billion-dollar no-bid contracts, the Regime announced it was "opening up" competition for war pork. The new rules give potential contractors all of three days--or even sometimes as much as seven whole days!--to put together bids for major projects totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, the NY Times reports.

Oddly enough, most companies not already on the ground in Iraq are finding it difficult to meet these luxurious deadlines. "Oh, your company can't come up with specs for rebuilding the entire national highway infrastructure of Iraq in just three days? Too bad; guess we'll have to give it to Bechtel then. Here ya go, Bechs--and by the way, thanks for that campaign check, pal! See ya at the ranch this weekend!"

Now this system of conquistador cronyism is going global. In a desperate bid to get some outside help in cleaning up the ungodly, blood-soaked mess they've made, the Bushists struck a UN deal last week that will allow foreign countries who contribute to the sacking--sorry, the reconstruction--of Iraq to funnel the cash to their own politically favored firms, the Guardian reports. Naturally, the Bushist occupation junta will "coordinate" the gobbling at this new trough, making sure the White House Van guardians get their cut. At last, a form of internationalism that Bush can embrace!

But the sweetheart deals get sweeter yet for Homeland gobblers like Halliburton. First, most of the insider pork is being doled out in "cost-plus" contracts, with a company's profits tied to a project's "expenses." The more costs they ring up, the greater the profit: it's a green light for overruns, and a license to loot the public treasury. But that's not all: the profits from these scams are being kept secret--not only from those habitual saps, the American people, but also from the constitutionally mandated oversight of Congress, the Seattle Times reports. Secret deals with pals and patrons, secret profits that can't be traced, mutual funds to launder the money--and plenty of cannon fodder to do the wet work and take the blowback: Bush has turned America into a den of thieves. Iraq is fully on track.

[KrustyKidd]

CK, hate to break the news to you but the average Iraqi doesn't care if Haliburton or Golda Meir is rebuilding their country. The results are what they benifit from, not who gets their palms greased. By the way, got a link for that post?