Phantom Arm. That's what I'm calling the reach-around that is this administration's treatment of wounded soldiers. Stories have been circulating in the press regarding the sub-standard care of wounded men and women as far back as 2003. Only now, it seems, has the outrage been 'discovered' and we see very high ranking officials committing very public seppuku on each others accusatory fingers.
The Enemy doesn't think the Department of Defense alone is to blame, even though it's the top brass issuing all the mia culpas. Veterans groups have said that the Bush
administration budget falls $2.2 billion short in veteran medical care
funding and $700 million short of funds needed to hire workers to
handle disability claims.
Is this not further evidence of a systemic failure? A failure that has characterized the entire Iraq debacle from the very beginning.
This army has struggled to remain standing under the trickle-down chaos of a woefully inept commander and chief and his criminally negligent secretary of defense. They are losing that struggle.
As you know, the Army has to go to war with the Administration it has. It's not the Administration it might want or wish to have at a later time. This is the same administration that once referred to the soldiers fighting in Afghanistan as "fungible assets"
Bush and Co are more than happy to have the public ire focus exclusively on the "Buck Stops Here" DoD, and the press seems, for the most part, all to willing to oblige.
Let's remember that this is the same administration that turned around and blamed the intelligence community when the WMD deceit was finally revealed for what it was. As it did then, this administration is relying on the professionalism and honor of others to keep a duty bound silence and take the fall graciously.
We, however, are under no such obligation. In fact, it is our duty to step-up and protect our soldiers from this rouge presidency.
Let's lay the blame where it ultimately belongs, shall we? Now more than ever the troops need our support.
And while we're allocating blame –– don't we all bear some responsibility in this. As the Husbandito asked last night, is it really so surprising? could a private citizen with an income comparable to army pay expect any better treatment under America's current "health care" system?
"The military tried to run military health care on the cheap –– like an HMO," said Paul Sullivan, who until March 2006 was a top project manager at the Department of Veterans Affairs in charge of data on returning veterans. "And the consequences are the medical catastrophe and the bureaucratic nightmare that we see right now."
Sound familiar? An HMO makes its profits by DENYING services. As much as possible, as long as possible. That is their philosophy and their modus operandi. And we, the American public has allowed this profit driven system to become the standard in health care.
Apply the same principle to the VA system and you have a recipe for disaster. A well managed health care operation is not one that provides barely acceptable quality of services on an ever shrinking budget.
