Billions for Halliburton and Bush’s’ other Friends but Very Little for Injured Veterans
Billions for Halliburton and Bush’s’ other Friends but Very Little for Injured Veterans
By Only Me
Although the problem is presented in the media as if it were just uncovered, under funding of the Department of Veteran Affairs has always been standard practice. Veterans organizations like the DAV, http://www.dav.org/ , The Military Order of the Purple Heart, http://www.purpleheart.org/ and others were formed largely because no one else would speak up for veterans.
But just like nature, people sometimes do the unexpected. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), served as Vice Chairman of The United States House of Representatives Standing Committee on Veterans’ Affairs from 1999 to 2001 and Chairman from 2001 to 2004 when he was fired by Speaker Hastert for doing his job.
He fought President Clintons’ FY 2000 veterans budget, which he claimed was $1.1 billion short of what it would cost just to maintain the services currently being provided.
From: http://www.house.gov/chrissmith/news/old_releases/pr031199_vet.htm
Still, short-fall continued although Chairman Smith fought the political power elite trying to properly fund Veterans needs. The budget deficits were publicly announced but conveniently ignored.
“The recent announcement by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) that the department was suffering from a financial shortfall of over $1 billion for fiscal year 2005 came as no surprise to me, many of my colleagues in Congress and numerous Veterans Service Organizations. Former VA Secretary Anthony Principi testified before the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee on February 4, 2004 that the Office of Management and Budget at the White House denied him an additional $1.2 billion in the fiscal year 2005 VA budget, funding that the Secretary deemed essential to provide necessary health care services for our veterans. “
”Throughout the year, in the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee and on the floor of the House of Representatives, my colleagues and I made numerous attempts to provide the VA with the funding Secretary Principi said it needed in the fiscal year 2005 budget and the additional needs recognized by the House Veterans’ Committee. Every last attempt failed on a party-line vote. In fact, when former Veterans’ Committee Chairman Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ) spoke out about the funding shortfall and pushed for increased funding, his leadership not only removed him from his Chairman post, but from the Veterans’ Committee altogether.”
From: http://wwwc.house.gov/reyes/news_detail.asp?id=826
Representative Smith told it like it is, in Washington, when you go against the grain when he said:
"As a result of that vote, my Republican colleagues who joined me lost funding for their district projects, I lost my chairmanship and - worst of all - veterans lost much-needed resources to provide essential medical care."
From: http://www.vawatchdog.org/07/nf07/nfMAR07/nf031107-11.htm
The publicly acknowledged fraud and theft of billions, in both Afghanistan and Iraq, would have provided much needed essential care for the steady stream of injured being denied the care they deserve.
Caveat: This was not an unbiased Blog.
I am a disabled veteran, who visits a VA Hospital periodically. I see and talk with veterans from WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, Gulf War I, Afghanistan, and increasingly Iraq.
When I first became a VA patient seeing people my age or older in various stages of disrepair was unsettling but not unduly traumatic. Just about when you think you have seen everything some old vet will come wheeling down the hall or into a waiting room and takes your breath away and rips your guts out.
About 3 years ago the younger ones began showing up, men and women. For some reason, a missing leg or arm doesn’t look as bad on an old person as it does a young person. Now they are flooding in and it is becoming more difficult for me to go to the hospital, even though I know that I must.
So a few generals will get sacrificed on the public alter, The guilty bastards hold their hearings, news commentators get to run their mouth in that know-it-all holier than thou arrogant supremacy they cultivate. Then there will be another Anna Nicole in the spotlight while tormented and twisted veterans are left to cope with their broken or missing limbs, destroyed immune systems, cancers, and demons, mostly alone.
6 comments:
dude!
we've been had!
again.
and again!
you have been shown the priorities of the people in power. the cannon fodder is not in their top 100, nor are any of the other peons toiling in the vineyards.
after the utter disrespect they have shown these soldiers in the field of "battle", (maybe it is their way of evening up the odds), i wonder how these military guys still find it in their hearts and minds to keep going back to work every day, tangling with civilians. not fighting for their country, not fighting for our precious "freedoms", not fighting for anything noble at all: fighting to keep the lid on the fact that the neocon administration and friends have hijacked the treasury, the congress, the country, and are using it as their own private playground.
and they are beyond the rule of law...they are the law. and they are sucking the oxygen out of our lungs and the lungs of people the world over.
god help us!
We need to be careful to differentiate between the Active Service Hospitals and the Veteran’s Administration. There are major differences.
I am currently a resident in a Veteran’s Home after having undergone treatment through the VA for PTSD and Depression, long overdue some 40 years after the Tet Offensive that cap stoned my military 2nd tour in Vietnam with a lifetime of illness.
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/local/16873701.htm
My blog has attracted the stories of many veterans such as myself and other sufferers from PTSD who were victimized by elements of society other than the VA system of medical and mental treatment. I, for one, became trapped in the Military Industrial Complex for 36 years working on weapons systems that are saving lives today but with such high security clearances that I dared not get treated for fear of losing my career:
http://rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com/2006/11/odyssey-of-armaments.html
When my disorders became life threatening I was entered into the VA System for treatment in Minneapolis. It saved my life and I am now in complete recovery and functioning as a volunteer for SCORE, as well as authoring books and blogging the world.
When I was in the VA system I was amazed at how well it functioned and how state of the art it is for its massive mission. Below is a feature article from Time Magazine which does a good job of explaining why it is a class act:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1376238,00.html
I had state of the art medical and mental care, met some of the most dedicated professionals I have ever seen and was cared for by a handful of very special nurses among the 60,000 + nursing population that make up that mammoth system. While I was resident at the VA Hospital in Minneapolis I observed many returnees from Iraq getting excellent care.
I do not say the VA system is perfect but it is certainly being run better on a $39B budget than the Pentagon is running on $494B.
We have bought into the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). If you would like to read this happens please see:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/03/spyagency200703
Through a combination of public apathy and threats by the MIC we have let the SYSTEM get too large. It is now a SYSTEMIC problem and the SYSTEM is out of control. Government and industry are merging and that is very dangerous.
There is no conspiracy. The SYSTEM has gotten so big that those who make it up and run it day to day in industry and government simply are perpetuating their existance.
The politicians rely on them for details and recommendations because they cannot possibly grasp the nuances of the environment and the BIG SYSTEM.
So, the system has to go bust and then be re-scaled, fixed and re-designed to run efficiently and prudently, just like any other big machine that runs poorly or becomes obsolete or dangerous.
This situation will right itself through trauma. I see a government ENRON on the horizon, with an associated house cleaning.
The next president will come and go along with his appointees and politicos. The event to watch is the collapse of the MIC.
For more details see:
http://www.rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com
welcome to the bee-rapture.
I am truly glad to hear the your treatments for PTSD were successful.
your comments are important to the conversation. I might disagree with your characterization that there is no "conspiracy", and that what we are seeing is merely a result of growth management problems.
there certainly has been a conscious effort by budget controllers to reduce, time and again, the VA budget, and do this at the expense of our veterans. I have not used the VA facilities myself, but have heard that, although it takes some effort to get into the system, once in, the dedication of the health providers is excellent, and the the VA certainly provides good value for the amount of money that it is given to work with.
your point about the MIC is well taken.
it may well be too late to back out of a system that is completely dependent on war and arms dealing, and the enormous defense budget, that does not even take into consideration the clandestine budgets of the "intelligence" services.
Through our taxes, we support this voracious monster, regardless of where its appetite takes it.
to speak to it about the morality of war, or other spiritual visions is absolutely pointless. The vocabulary that it uses does not understand or comprehend these kind of concepts.
there is only the language of corporatism: profits. and increasing market share.
It cannot forecast or imagine its own demise, or what form that demise might take in the world it is in.
or what effect it will have on the inhabitants of that world.
when it crashes and burns, it will crush much of our planet. our spaceship earth, our "lifeboat" earth.
but a conspiracy it is: there are individuals who serve these corporate masters willingly and eagerly, even understanding that there may be an unknowable price for accumulating that kind of power, to that huge an extent.
good luck, and I will check your site soon.
For the fellow veterans who commented on my post concerning funding of Veterans Affairs, I mostly intended my anger toward the politicians who repeatedly failed to do their job, and now crassly act astounded that such things could happen, as have been reported at Walter Reed.
I agree the VA is probably different. (My experience with active duty medical centers was limited to a couple weeks in 1970 after which I was released to cope on my own) Not so with the VA, they (The people) have been great. However, I do believe it is correct to say that if it weren’t for the unrelenting pressure of veterans advocacy groups, the money would dry up. I must also give a lot of credit to the VET Centers that do wonders for veterans.
But I too suffer from PTSD, among other maladies, and although the medication, counseling, and understanding that I have found has turned me into a new person, I still hold a deep distain, disrespect, distrust, and contempt of politicians. Its something that I need to work harder to understand. But that’s the way it is right now.
As for seeing the increasing numbers of younger people at both the Vet Center and the VA Hospital, that is as true as it is troubling. It is also becoming very crowded in the waiting rooms as ever more people need assistance.
Lastly, thanks for your comments, and your prospective, that's why I bother to share my opinions, to hear what others have to say.
Surely can’t argue with the assessment of our elected officials to do their job or the effects (present and future) of this wholly unjust and ill-conceived war.
The matter of adequate funding for veterans medical care in my mind begs another issue. The continual fight our veterans have to maintain minimum-funding levels for medical care is symptomatic of our fractured, compartmentalized health care system. A system that considers risk, profit and ability to pay more important than the humanity it is supposed to serve.
When we finally figure out that access to health care is a civil right, not a privilege; when we finally become ashamed of infant mortality rates that look like those of a third world country; ashamed that twelve year olds die of an infected tooth because no dentist would treat it without a guarantee of payment When we finally figure it out, then maybe we’ll drum up enough collective political clout to get the insurance companies out of the halls of Congress.
Until then, there will be more Walter Reeds and the force of public outcry will parallel our current state of involvement in armed conflict.
How do the military guys find it in their hearts and minds to keep going back?
"I spent 33 years in the Marines. Most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenue in. I helped in the rape of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street...."
“My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military.”
~ Smedley D. Butler (1881-1940) Major General (U.S. Marine Corps)
mary ann
i could not agree more
we're being played
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