Someone I know has been posting her Dad's emails from Iraq on her blog. I thought this would be interesting to read from someone who is currently there.
DAD UPDATE NUMBER FIFTEEN
August 4th
I have only been here in Kuwait since July twentieth and already the scope of our operations is mind blowing. I have watched the History channel and seen the logistical effort behind Hoover dam and behind the Panama Canal. I know the history of the Marshall plan after world war two. Our effort in Iraq is on that scale. This is an angle the media has completely ignored. They concentrate on the twenty-five hundred U.S. casualties and the insurgency in and around Baghdad. Gunfire is such a media magnet. No one is paying attention to the fact that we will be spending a Trillion dollars in Iraq during the eight year Bush administration.
The media reports that there are one hundred and thirty to one hundred and fifty thousand troops in Iraq. Out of our little post we are rolling six hundred tractor-trailers a day on supply convoys. With back-up drivers that is almost seven hundred and fifty civilian drivers. Not all are American, most are Indian or Malaysian. In addition there are the Americans that run the freight office. Then there are the foreign mess hall workers, laundry service, latrine cleaners and gas station attendants. At any one time, if there are one thousand American troops on our little base there are at least that many foreign workers. Take whatever the number of reported troops is and double it to understand how many people we are morally responsible for.
This is not world war one or two. The GIs you see on the history channel are getting off the troop ships with their rifle and a tiny backpack. Our troops have four duffel bags and a footlocker. Everything from uniforms to movies on DVD, all the comforts of home. At our poverty-stricken base we have eight man tents with bunk beds, a gym that the Ellsworth YMCA would envy, free laundry service, a PX and flush toilets and urinals. (The urinals have a color chart next to the handle so you can check the color of your piss to see if you are dehydrated from the heat. I dont know what the girls do.) I say poverty-stricken because I have just returned from the Hundred and First airborne base north of Baghdad and those folks have it made. Some of them may actually deserve it; they certainly believe they do, as they are the ones on foot patrols getting shot at. We on the other hand are just getting blown up as we drive by.
The 101st airbase has all the amenities. Two movie theaters, four gyms, each the size of a Wal-Mart and broadband Internet in each tent. The base is so big they all ride bicycles to get around. They have four dining halls. Each is a real brick and mortar building with tile floors, tablecloths, plates and steel flatware. No plastic spoons and paper plates for those troops.
The point is when people talk about bringing the troops home they are ignoring the physical infrastructure we have bought and paid for. We are obviously not dismantling every plastic shower stall and pulling every urinal off the wall to ship back to America. We will undoubtedly take some of the stuff like the four big diesel power plants that run our little base. They are meant to be mobile anyway. But we have poured a lot of concrete in runways, parking lots and even sidewalks. It is all money spent never to get back.
In addition to the infrastructure on the bases there is a mountain of work going on around the country. The American taxpayer is building Iraq a new interstate highway system. New bridges, new roads, new sewers, new construction everywhere. There is a public works project going on wherever you look. Why else is our base running six hundred tractor-trailers of supplies a day into Iraq and we are not the only supply base.
I apologize in advance for belaboring this point. Let us step back and ask ourselves what exactly a Trillion dollars is. A Trillion dollars is a thousand Billion. The public was outraged when the senator from Alaska grabbed two hundred million dollars to build a bridge to an island with five hundred residents. You can build five such bridges for one Billion or five thousand bridges for a Trillion dollars. Each of the fifty states could have one hundred such bridges. Think about it the next time you hit a pothole. Congress whines about a two hundred million dollar subsidy for Amtrak. For a Trillion dollars we could have free rail service for every citizen from Ellsworth, Maine to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Think of a Trillion dollars spent as the Brazilians did on ethanol or nuclear generated electricity as the French did.
I know I have a bias for spending the publics money on durable infrastructure rather than social services. Clean water, clean air, national parks and mass transit are my preferences. We can debate the uses of a Trillion dollars later when we do not have it to spend.
The last three times our nation went crazy to spend money it was mostly at home and our economic circumstances were different and more favorable. When President Roosevelt started to spent the money for Hoover dam and the Tennessee valley authority the nation was almost debt free. . Franklin Roosevelts projects brought electricity to whole regions of the country. When President Eisenhower spent the money for the interstate highway system the country was almost debt free, having paid off world war two debts. Everyone with a car benefited from good roads. When President Theodore Roosevelt built the Panama Canal the country was running a surplus in its budget. . The Panama Canal is still used today. In all of these cases the benefit to the country was tangible and immediately visible.
The questions we must ask ourselves are simple. Ten years from now will our nation have gotten its monies worth from a Trillion dollars spent? Will there be a lasting and just peace with a stable middle east no longer on the nightly news? Or will there be an Iranian government in place in Baghdad as the Iranians take our place after we leave? Will the printing of a Trillion new dollar bills cause the collapse and devaluation of our currency? It was after all president Nixons decision to take us off the gold standard that resulted in the first oil embargo, as the Arabs did not want to hold just paper dollars. Internet and casino gambling are popular now a days but this is the mother of all bets. There is a Trillion dollars in the pot and the wheel is spinning. Will the bet pay off?
