There are good points in your article. I would like to supplement them with some information:

I am a 2 tour Vietnam Veteran who recently retired after 36 years of working in the Defense Industrial Complex on many of the weapons systems being used by our forces as we speak.

If you are interested in a view of the inside of the Pentagon procurement process from Vietnam to Iraq please check the posting at my blog entitled, “Odyssey of Armaments”

http://rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com/2006/11/odyssey -of-armaments.html

The Pentagon is a giant, incredibly complex establishment, budgeted in excess of $500B per year. The Rumsfelds, the Administrations and the Congressmen come and go but the real machinery of policy and procurement keeps grinding away, presenting the politicos who arrive with detail and alternatives slanted to perpetuate itself.

How can any newcomer, be he a President, a Congressman or even the new Sec. Def.Mr. Gates, understand such complexity, particularly if heretofore he has not had the clearance to get the full details?

Answer- he can’t. Therefore he accepts the alternatives provided by the career establishment that never goes away and he hopes he makes the right choices. Or he is influenced by a lobbyist or two representing companies in his district or special interest groups.

From a practical standpoint, policy and war decisions are made far below the levels of the talking heads who take the heat or the credit for the results.

This situation is unfortunate but it is absolute fact. Take it from one who has been to war and worked in the establishment.

This giant policy making and war machine will eventually come apart and have to be put back together to operate smaller, leaner and on less fuel. But that won’t happen until it hits a brick wall at high speed.

We will then have to run a Volkswagen instead of a Caddy and get along somehow. We better start practicing now and get off our high horse. Our golden aura in the world is beginning to dull from arrogance.

Finally we’re getting a few specifics on these no bid contracts.  While it wasn’t exactly “news” to find out that illegal activity and “oversight” were the rule, at least the information is coming out. The people and corporations involved should be required to repay the monies which were taken fraudulently.  They should also be fined and imprisoned for their illegal actions.  If we don’t aggressively pursue them, then I propose we open our prison doors and just let everyone out.  Is there anyone currently locked up who could even come close to this level of thievery?

It really is a nauseating experience to address just how debased some can be for the almighty dollar. I consider the suffering of the innocents, the death, the destruction and the filth of the people involved and am physically sickened.  Have you noticed anyone doing EXTREMELY well economically lately? I suggest staying away from them, as odds are they’re just another cog in the war machine.

I’ve taken business courses where the “little guy, Joe Businessman” speaks of “how great war really is for business and industry” and that “while its not a good thing, it still is a business opportunity.” And also that; “you have to face reality and get your piece of the pie.”

Well, yes and no.  Sure, more supplies and the like will be needed, but to “capitalize” on it is perverse.  To create war with the intent to capitalize on it, criminal and saddistic. But these players are even worse than that - they rape, rob, steal, kill and maim even their own! All in the pursuit of the ALMIGHTY DOLLAR!  When these people started putting up gated communities it was obvious something was up.  I mean who wants to live behind bars?!!!!  Well, now we know why.  Stay in there and don’t come out.  America hates you.

“Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” - Benito Mussolini

Hmmm, where have I seen that before!

BTW Vet 240,

some liberal commentators say that “bust” is exactly what Bush and the neo-cons are trying to achieve as a back door effort to dissolve medicare and social security.  As far fetched as that sounds, Bush & Co. couldn’t be any more successful at bankrupting the country if it was true.

More Don Rumsfeld’s accomplishments !

Lets hope they actually get busted, but I am not holding my breath.Let us all remember where thos tax-payer dollars are coming from - The rich need not worry much about this kind of waste, but the rest of us do.

This is how the Military industrial complex works. If you look a little harder you’ll probably notice kick-backs and other forms of graft.
America has been taken over by the corporatocracy, They outsource as many of those jobs associated with peaceful commerce and expand the war-making manufacturing capabilities. Of course, if you make the weapons systems and the infrastructure to maintain and distribute those systems you need wars to rationalize their need. Russia used the no-bid method of awarding contracts to their weapons manufacturers too. They went busted in 50 years. How much longer can America last? I wonder.