Is our military going to outsource jobs to Asia?

[alfredo]

Looks like that is what Rumsfeld wants. When I saw this, I thought I saw a similarity between The bush junta and the last days of the Roman empire.


Rumsfeld Watch

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0350/mondo5.php

WASHINGTON, D.C.—If Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has his way, the vaunted U.S. military of the future will be transformed into what amounts to corporate-owned units. The daffy secretary calls his plan "outsourcing." The intention, he claims, is to put the lid on money going into expanding of the army so it can be diverted to new technologies such as Rummy's favorite hobby, fighting wars from space.

Rumsfeld has already outsourced much of the logistics and supply functions of the military to private firms, especially to Cheney's old employer Halliburton. There are now 90-odd companies competing to provide private soldiers from places like Fiji and Nepal to work as machine-gun-toting guards in Iraq.


the Fall of the roman Empire

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/mbloy/westciv/fallrome.htm


The new conditions caused important changes in the social order. The Senate and the traditional ruling class were destroyed by direct attacks from hostile emperors and by economic losses. Their ranks were filled by men coming up through the army. The whole state began to take on an increasingly military appearance. The most important distinction was the one which drew a sharp line between the aristocracy, soldiers and the lower classes. The aristocracy had a privileged position in law. They were given lighter punishments, could not be tortured, and alone had the right of appeal to the emperor.

It became more difficult to move from the lower order to the higher. Peasants were tied to their lands, artisans to their crafts, soldiers to the army, merchants and ship-owners to the needs of the state, and citizens of the municipal upper class to the collection and payment of increasingly burdensome taxes. Freedom and private initiative gave way before the needs of the state and its ever-expanding control of its citizens.

-snip-

After that, the army was composed largely of mercenaries who came from among the least civilized provincials and even from among the Germans. The officers gave personal loyalty to the emperor rather than to the empire. These officers became a foreign, hereditary group of aristocrats that increasingly supplied high administrators and even emperors. In effect, the Roman people hired an army of mercenaries, who were only technically Roman, to protect them.

[JailBush]

1. I can't wait for the day we get into a war with China, only to discover

they're making our ammunition.

[RC]

3. What makes you think they aren't now?

This country would collapse in short order if the Asian countries would stop trading with us.

[alfredo]

7. Most of the microchips used by the military come from Asia

It is not impossible for the mercenaries to use what they have learned against us. Can you say Somali Warlords, or Osama Bin Laden?

[aquart]

2. The Romans had the excuse of lead poisoning

For their idiot decisions.

What's Rumsfeld's excuse? Bush's? Cheney's? Rove's? Perle's?

[Ernesto]

4. Hell No the US government would NEVER out source to Asia!

But good ol repuke style FREEDOM will allow their corporate backers to let China take over Boeing manufacturing operations. Ever here of the Chinese AIR FORCE? Ever hear of NATIONAL SECURITY?

[maggrwaggr]

5. don't forget the rebuilding in Iraq is being outsourced

and isn't even being done by Iraqis, who have a 60% unemployment rate.

Halliburton is importing cheaper laborers from southeast Asia.

Somehow this is just another news story that vanished off the map.

I'm experiencing "scandal fatigue"

[DivinBreuvage]

6. A great idea, from their point of view

The administration is already using "green card" soldiers in Iraq. Why not get some "Hessians" from the developing world? They'll put up with 18th-century conditions that would make native-born Americans desert or shoot their officers, they can be expended as freely as tax dollars, and no one will care if they get killed.