$87B for BFD T-Shirts? (Blivens in The Nation)

[REP]

The Daily Outrage - Matt Blivens

Check out just the most obvious pork salted into the President's $87 billion request for Iraqi military operations and "reconstruction" efforts.

George Bush, for example, thinks Americans should cough up $9 million to establish postal ZIP codes in Iraq. "How has Iraq made it for these thousands of years without Americans helping them develop a ZIP code?" asks South Dakota Democratic Senator Tim Johnson. "It is amazing. ... What a generous thing for this Administration to do for other people on the other side of the planet, on our dime, borrowing money to do it."

Bush has also asked for $100 million for 2,000 trash trucks -- which works out as $50,000 per truck. He wants to spend $400 million on building new jails able to hold 8,000 additional prisoners -- which works out to $50,000 per bed. "I have a lot of constituents in my state of South Dakota who live in homes that don't cost $50,000 per bedroom," Senator Johnson says. Or how about the $30 million we've reportedly set aside to teach Iraqis English as a second language. "Undoubtedly there will be a contract to be 'bid' out, surely to that great educational institution, Halliburton, to provide ESL teachers from the US at wartime salaries," writes Tom Englehardt, editor of the indispensable TomDispatch.com.

Once the Iraqis at the Baghdad Fire Department's largest station learn English, they'll be able to read the English-language "Baghdad Fire Department" T-shirts we've decked their employees in. The BFD seems to be a symbol for our whole approach, by the way: US taxpayers have paid for a repainting of the station, new beds, air conditioners, office equipment, a television and a DVD player, reports ABC Nightly News. So the BFD probably on the surface looks more luxurious than most American fire stations. But ABC reports, that "after doing their best for the cameras, the firefighters told us there were still no replacements for the fire engines and protective gear taken by looters just after the war. 'I'm happy the Americans helped us,' said one of them. 'But if I'm going to fight fires, I'm going to need better clothing than a T-shirt. It's nylon and will burn right off.' "

Sorry, did our shock & awe campaign cost you your fire trucks? Here, have a million-dollar T-shirt. And smile for the nice Americans back home.

more|http://www.thenation.com/outrage/index.mhtml?pid=981

[uhhuh]

1. BFD shirts!!??!! LOL!!!

BFD???? Was this an attempt to give the troops something tolaugh about between bouts of getting shot at? Why didn't they just give them WTF shirts?

[teryang]

2. Give every Iraqi a $400 tax rebate and pull out

That's good enough for Americans.

[REP]

3. Shameless Kick

[kentuck]

4. But only $66 billion for the "troops"....the rest to Halliburton, etc...

Let's see, 140,000 troops? Divided into $66 billion? That would be about $470,000 per "troop"... We're getting by on the cheap, aren't we?

[nostamj]

5. most of the 66B for 'troops'

will 'troop' right into BushCo CEO's off-shore accounts.

(it's not like they'll give raises or better benefits to the WORKERS)