These people make me so angry watching this. I am so disgusted.
Let me pick apart their little shpeal piece by piece.
First
of all, the way Greenwald conducts himself, he seems to imply that he
has absolutely no understanding of any form of business or economics
whatsoever. He says "the more money they spend, the more money they
get." This statement is not 100% accurate. What he should have said is
"they hope that with more money spent, they will in turn receive a
higher return on their initial investment." How the fuck is that different from any other business?
Secondly,
the process by which this happens is mutually beneficial for everyone
in the country. My tax dollars are first of all barely being put to
this use. The US spends annually just under 580 billion dollars every
year on all military expenses combined. This is roughly 19% of our
annual budget. there isn't another country in the world that spends
less than 15% of their annual budget on defense- in fact, most
countries spend more than 25% of their annual budget on defense. Rather
than looking into matters in which neither has any authority in
whatsoever, these two pinheads should investigate why we pour 600
billion into Social security every year (a system mathematically doomed
to fail in 2018) or why we spend 320 billion dollars every year on
welfare so shaniqua johnson can have 12 children without getting a job
and can smoke crack all day.
Moreover, the process is a boost
to the economy itself. The US hires private contractors for jobs it
otherwise cannot provide efficiently or responsibly. Not only does the
military then get to concentrate and specialize personnel more
efficiently, contractors such as Blackwater Industries (one of these
contractors Greenwald points out) go public and can be publicly
traded, boosting our domestic exchange economy. In return, rather than
paying the contractors pure cash, the US subsidizes by buying their
product at a greater value. This is a good thing for 2 reasons. 1 it
prevents high scale corruption by forcing the contractors to still
actually do something and produce, and 2 it generates revenue in a way
that minimalizes the contractor's monopolistic power. In other words,
it is subsidizing so that the contractors will operate at market
equilibrium, still generate a fair profit, and remain stable. Bill
maher and CERTAINLY greenwald don't understand the economics of this whole issue.
Thirdly, this is not decreasing morale in troops at all! What the fuck do a couple of radical left wing pinheads know about troop morale? If anything this act boosts troop morale incredibly high. If you were in the army would you like to cook, and clean latrines? Hell, i know i wouldnt. If the tradeoff is that there is a Blackwater Industries fighting alongside me, so be it. Little do those people know that mercenaries are all retired military vets who can no longer fight officially in the military. And all the gear that is handed to US military personnel must be bought individually by Blackwater contractors. That gear doesnt come cheap. They need 1st level body armor such as a PACA vest which runs $600. Then they need molle vests (most popular being the Eagle CIRAS maritime), molle pouches, a belt line, safariland 6004 holsters, VIP strobes, Comtac/Peltor communications equipment, MBITR or equivalent radio, and various other things. Not to mention weapons which much fire a 5.56 NATO green tip which in this case would be only an M4 (or variant), M16, or m249. They then need weapon accessories such as Aimpoints, AN/PEQs, surefires, blah blah. All of their equipment will run more than $20,000. In comparison, they are pretty much equals. In addition, military contractors do not fight on the front lines. They are given jobs such as VIP protection, proximity surveillance, and standard guard. I know if i were in the military, my morale would be boosted significantly knowing i didnt have to handle boring jobs.
And lastly, the whole "consipracy" with halliburton is false. Maher points out there are many other companies that can do the same job as KB. this is just plain dead wrong. There is only that one conglomerate of military contractors that have the proper clearance, insurance, track record, and frankly, resources, manpower, and hardware to handle the tasks.
