The flaw is that it isn't noxious to Republicans. They can simply promise to do the same thing.

"But you had three branches of goverment for the last few years - in wartime - and you didn't do it then. We are doing it. Why should we settle for your promises?"

If the Dems are in power, they can simply do it instead of promising it.

So besides the fact that it admittedly would have to be handled carefully to avoid being coopted or pre-empted, what else? BTW - I welcome the criticism for the aforementioned reason.

with this, ideologically, only fiscally.

The republicans have so far done a pretty fair job inculcating the American people to knee-jerk react negatively to even a hint of a tax increase....and I don't see a Verteran's pension and disability boost like this happening without a tax boost to pay for it.

I can't see the Pentagon giving up it's pricey toys to better care for their people...at least, not with the civilian leadership we currently have. and, short of revolution, I don't see the current leadership being replaced with folks who would work positively for the soldiers.

On its face, though, I like the sound of this....it's long past time our government did something for the rank-and-file in the military besides kicking them in the face

-5.75,-4.05 "I am in earnest; I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard."
William Lloyd Garrison
US abolitionist & editor (1805 - 1879)

Duluth Minnesota did this for all its public service employees during a labor negotiation about two decades ago when all the employees were young and healthy, thus their impending municipal bankruptcy. They promised them health care for life, before health care costs starting rising by double digits each year. Seemed like a really good idea at the time, except to the guy on the council who did the NPV calculations.

I'm ALL IN FAVOR of gratuitous benefits for these folks. They CERTAINLY are earning them. It's the perpetuity that scares me.

What scares me even more is the belief that war is the answer to anything and making the military a more attractive career seems to perpetuate that myth.

I'd rather abolish war from the planet and dissolve all the military institutions. We could use the money for cool stuff like mass transit, safe nuclear reprocessing of fuel, and the next generation of rapid breeder reactors to feed our computers, electric cars and Ipod rechargers. Would we be fighting this war if electricity was plentiful and cheap? We could make health care available and affordable to all, while eradicating tuberculosis, AIDs, malaria, etc. We could dramatically reduce the cost of higher education. The list goes on.

Adding a couple trillion dollars in accruals for compensating the military in perpetuity would be pretty easy actually. Who looks at the annual fiscal report anyway. Last year's accrued deficit was $760B, not the $400B cash basis deficit that was reported. The difference was primarily for vet's accruals.

But if we are going to form sacred classes of workers in our society, let's start with the teachers. Provide tenure all the way to the preschool level. Ultimately they are the ones that prevent the wars, not the soldiers.

Cheers Escher.

Democrats and Progressives dream of beating Republicans at their own game. Problem is, it's the wrong game. Republicans only care about gaining and keeping power. Progressives care about good governement. So, If you want to keep playing on Republican turf, go ahead and pander to patriotism and boosterism and us-vs-them politics. And keep losing because the Republicans must always be better at it.

Democrats forget that fairness is the heart and soul of the progressive agenda. Clinton got fairly close to articulating an agenda of fairness with responsibility - one that sold quite well. What we need to do as progressives is get off the war-path and focus on issues that really affect American voters. We need to connect. Now, if one can treat soldiers to fair healthcare policies and we can connect such an idea with a fairness agenda, then people will begin to understand that fariness is about enforcing implicit obligations that we share due to our being part of a society - one of which is to pay for and look after people who have spent themselves and lost their health in the armed services. If we can make this be about fairness and connect it to our values, I think it is a good idea. If we make it be about being more effective Republicans, then everybody loses.

Yeah, I think you've nailed it. Unless there's a simultaneous commitment to reduce other forms of military spending, the US simply can't afford it.

Article coming up on that in the next bit. There's a lot of living in fantasyland going on in the US. There are a number of entitlements, of which the military is only one, and at least a couple of them are simply going to have to go.

Right now the smart money is on Medicare and SS.

one that I had thought of.

But if it's legislated, what's keeping it from being legislated as mandatorily-troop-strength-neutral?

When they scream, one can always ask them to write their objections down, staple them to their audit results demonstrating proof of that assertion and submit them together.

Troops strength neutral is fine - the question isn't that, it's expenditures.

A sane US would withdraw from Iraq tomorrow and the day after start the process of cutting its military budget in half.

as step one in setting the Pentagon up for a "pudding bowl haircut".

This is the pudding bowl - you first place it over the head to protect the areas you don't want cut. Step two is you get the clippers out.

...in the hopes of a desired result, but legislation has a pretty high "unintended consequence" failure rate. I don't think that one could legislate this as troop strength neutral, given the major expenses coming down the pipe. All those hideously expensive weapons systems that folks think can be cancelled to fund something like this? I think most of them are going to end up being cancelled or massively curtailed anyway a couple of years down the road in the hopes of maintaining present capabilities. Additionally, I don't think that better accounting systems are going to change any of this - $13 billion seems like a lot, right up until one stacks it up against a defence budget that's northwards of $400 billion. If you think that the current system's a pork barrel dream, add something like this to it - yikes.

Defence appropriations (and defence generally) is currently living in a dreamworld - they're fighting a war on a peacetime rotation and appropriations footing, which is a recipe for ultimate disaster. I don't want to think about how many brigade sets of equipment is going to end up needing to be replaced (and how much maneuvering there's going to be over what Buck Rogers things it should be replaced with) when this little adventure is over. Add to that real, necessary transformation costs associated with the increased expeditionary focus that'll be needed to mediate the chaos arising out of this (as opposed to the pie in the sky gravy train version of transformation being pushed and funded inside the Beltway), as well as increasing health costs for former military, and myriad other costs good and bad, and I'm not real optimistic that defence can be funded without degrading capabilities even without adding something like this on top.

Besides all that, the 700 pound dead moose in the room that's being ignored in a troop strength neutral approach is that the US force structure needs to go well beyond troop strength neutral - the big problem is that a) they don't have enough troops on the ground and b) they've done not a great deal in the past 40 years to increase the effectiveness of infanteers in the types of conflicts that they're most likely to fight. Either increase end strength or fundamentally change the force structure and one might have a force that can tackle the jobs that it's most likely to get.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

- EOM

I don't understand how people can agreed on facts and then disregard them as simply a product of anger.

1) Under international law and treaty's that the US has signed this is an illegal war. Anyone participiateing in it are obeying illegal orders and as we have seen at Fallujah and other placeds the tactics and weapons used violate the Geneva conventions.

Agreed??

2) Under the UCMJ any service member has an obligation to disobey illegal orders. By obeying them they become war criminials.

Fact

3) It is a given in any war, like Iraq and Afghistan, that atroicities do occur. Sad but true. It is also a given that only a smll percentage of the crimes are ever reported and/or investigated. We have seen attempts at cover up on the crimes of Abh Ghabrib, Marines massacre in western Iraq, Soldiers testifing that they were ordered to murder any males old enough to carry a gun, rape of a 14 yr. old and murder of her family, execution of prisoners just to name a few. If we are aware of these how many do we not know of? How many were casual murders of 1 or 2 innocents in isolated circumstances that have not been reported? I have read a number of physchologist discussions on treating some of the returnees who have become incredibly brutalized and unfit for civilized society. This bespeaks of an unacceptably high level of random violence that is widely known and winked at by the fellow uniforms. Is acceptence of this behavior acceptable I think not.

So do you agree that the amount of outright murder and criminial behavior commited while under the protection of a uniform is unacceptable or not? If you say yes then why should we ignore it? If you say no please present your position on how this sort of behavior while engaged in an illegal war is acceptable?

4) Mercenary "A mercenary is a soldier who fights, or engages in warfare primarily for private gain." The US military is staffed by individuals who joined to earn money and see it as a job. Obviously by thier blatant disregard of the Geneva principles and rights of civilians they no longer deserve the title of soldier. Soldiers fight wars and while doing so try to protect civilians and bystanders. Cordoning of city's such as Fallujah and then declaring them to be free fire zones is a blatant obrogration of the principles of being a soldier. All members of the military voleenteered for the yankee dollar and, again, obviously will do anything to get thire hands on the greenbacks.

So why do you feel that these comments can be disregarded as just anger?

Isn't this enough reason to be upset?

We have gangbangers serving life in Pelican Bay who have shown more honor then those besmirching the flag and the history to justify thier greed and sadism.

If gangbangers go to Pelican Bay the military goes to Leavenworth. Not one penny except to build more and bigger prisons to contain these thugs.

if the military were better paid and made more attractive to intelligent, morally balanced and well motivated people, you could also raise standards. I don't accept your premise that the troops involved were actually responsible for, for example Abu Ghraib, if that's your drift. The higher ups were just able to sacrifice the lower echelons to save their own skins because they could.

If a career in the military was income neutral compared to an entry level position in the private sector, you could weed out the low lifes. As things now stand, even with the current incentives, recruitment standards are being increasingly lowered. These chickens will inevitably come home to roost. As long as we have an all volunteer military we need the best volunteers possible and patriotism alone won't ensure we get them.

There are costs for hideously expensive weapons systems in the pipeline that, if eliminated, could go a long way to pay our soldiers well. Do we really need fighter planes that are even better than the current ones which are already better than anything any other country will ever fly?