corrente

THIS is how overstretched the Army is today. Thank you so much, George Bush. This story ran Thursday and has been picked up by nobody so far. Let's change that:

(via LATimes)

Stretched thin by troop deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan and security needs at home, the Army has resorted to hiring private security guards to help protect dozens of American military bases.

To date, more than 4,300 private security officers have been put to work at 50 Army installations in the United States, according to Army documents obtained by The Times.

The work was awarded to four firms — two of which got the contracts without having to bid competitively. The contracts are worth as much as $1.24 billion.

The Army says the maneuver lets it free up more soldiers for military duty while quickly putting private guards in place to meet the need for additional security since the Sept. 11 attacks.

But the Army's action has drawn criticism on two grounds: that it compromises domestic military security, and that it amounts to abuse of a law intended to aid impoverished Alaska Natives.

Read the story for details. The short of it is, the same way a "private contractor for military intelligence" was financed through the Interior Department to keep it off the radar, this one was fronted under a law giving preference to companies run by Alaskan native people. They promptly re-outsourced it to two names we've seen in this racket before:

Unions have attacked Vance for acting aggressively against striking workers in situations where the company has been hired to protect factories and work sites.

Wackenhut has been accused by unions and government officials of allowing lapses in security at the nation's nuclear plants, many of which employ Wackenhut guards.

A Department of Energy report this year by the inspector general said current and former security guards at Oak Ridge nuclear weapons complex had complained that Wackenhut manipulated the results of drills by altering testing equipment and passing information to low-ranking guards prior to simulated attacks.

"It seems really irresponsible to have Wackenhut, which was found to have cheated on government security tests, doing security work at U.S. military bases," said Stephen Lerner, the director of the security division at the Service Employees International Union, which maintains a website critical of Wackenhut.

"This isn't about mowing the lawn. This is about guarding places that are potential terrorist targets."

Cite this the next time the guy in the next cube says "Well, Bush has respect for the military at least." And it's not like this is new behavior, it's happened in Empires before ours. As one astute observer noted in 1892:

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!