Stars and Stripes (Read Down to 'America's Leadership')

America's leadership

The sacrifices of military members and their families should be rewarded with fair treatment and honesty from their leaders. Now their safety, job security, and retirement benefits are in jeopardy because top leaders are using deployment decisions as mere profit-making vehicles.

Thomas White, as vice chairman of Enron when it allegedly hid $500 million in losses and manipulated the California energy crisis, is secretary of the Army, even after being cited by the Senate Armed Services Committee for violating his signed ethics agreement. That means he used his position for personal gain and compromised his objectivity for military decisions.

Vice President Dick Cheney’s old company, Halliburton, is now the primary recipient of the Pentagon’s rush to build anti-terrorism military bases, costing taxpayers billions. U.S. military construction units could do all of this work for considerably less. This means more money for Cheney’s friends at Halliburton and less work for military personnel.

Commander-in-chief George W. Bush has made certain that former Enron and energy executives profit from defense and homeland security contracts. His own fortune was made through Enron/WorldCom-type accounting tricks and insider trading that have bankrupted companies and robbed people of their retirement savings. The Bush administration planned to invade Afghanistan even without the tragic events of Sept. 11 because Unocal had found the Taliban too uncooperative in its attempts to build an oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Karachi.

Now Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld wants to eliminate an entire Army division, even as we are running out of reservists to backfill critical positions. The Bush team also thinks that it’s too costly for disabled veterans to earn their longevity pay in addition to retirement benefits. But it’s minimal when compared to cost-plus contracts for Halliburton.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and White are a gang of four who have ordered U.S. military members to be put in harm’s way for oil profits and that divisions be consolidated to free up money for private contractors. This administration has overseen a wrecked economy, befriended corporations that robbed their own employees, has tried to put Social Security into a losing stock market, restricted health care for veterans and deployed military members to fatten oil executives’ pockets.

It’s time for leadership the military can trust. It’s time for the gang of four to go!

M.D. Wooldridge
Würzburg, Germany