Paint and Spray: Increasing U.S. Indebtedness One Magazine of Ammunition at a Time

 A self-prescribed conservative Christian family member sent me another email recently, even though I had requested to be removed from his online chain mail nonsense list.

The attached video was linked to this message, and emphasized the frustrations that an American soldier was having with his xerox/photocopy/fax machine while working in Iraq.

This man was upset, because when he called Hewlett Packard to find out how to fix it he was told that he would have to pay them for their assistance.

I understand his frustration with this process, and with the evident complacency of H.P. towards aiding our service men and women, at least to some degree.

But then this man responds with recklessness and demonstrates, in my opinion, his own disregard for the careless expenditure of our collective national wealth.....

The Daily Reckoning

London, England

Saturday, February 11, 2006

While India makes money, the American Empire squanders it...on bullets. Imperial troops are trying to kill "insurgents" in Iraq. Who these insurgents are or why the United States would want them dead, are matters left for future historians or surrealist artists. We just note that America’s war against Iraqi "insurgents," whoever they may be, has gone on for longer than its involvement in World War II. And now, the running cost is rising to equal the expense of the Vietnam War—when as many as 500,000 U.S. troops were on the ground in Southeast Asia. Paul Craig Roberts, former assistant secretary of the treasury under President Reagan, recently tried to figure out the math:

The official estimated number of insurgents in Iraq has been 20,000. According to reports of the Government Accounting Office (GAO), by September the U.S. military had used up 1.8 billion rounds of small caliber ammunition in Iraq.

That means "U.S. troops have fired 90,000 rounds at each insurgent,’ states Roberts matter-of-factly. ‘Very few have been hit. If 2,000 insurgents have been killed, each death required 900,000 rounds of ammunition."

"Think about that," says Roberts. "Hollowed-out U.S. industry cannot produce enough ammunition to defeat a 20,000-man insurgency."

We remember the line from "Apocalypse Now": "What ya shootin’ at, soldier?"

The trouble is, contractors can’t make enough bullets to keep up. The Pentagon has had to buy bullets from overseas.

Note: A reliable source confirmed that "surplus" stocks of .223 (M-16) and 7.6 2x 54 (.308 for machine guns and sniper rifles) and 7.62 x 39 (AK-47) are drying up for private purchases in the U.S.

The tremendous expenditure of ammo in Iraq is due to a "spray and pray" policy governed by the fact that, of U.S. 100 soldiers, 95 are barely trained infantry cannon fodder and only five are well-trained professionals. The "insurgents" are experienced fighters familiar with their surroundings. In other words, the 95 spray and pray to keep the "insurgents’" heads down while the five assess the situation and attempt to accomplish a military objective.

The U.S. uses M-16s. The U.S. has provisioned the Iraq military and Iraq police with AK-47s purchased from Russia; their ammo is supplied by China.

About 75 percent of the ammo expended in Iraq (both sides) is supplied by China.

http://proliberty.com/observer/20060204.htm

There are many ways to deal with the frustrations that come along with disfunctional electronics and lackadasical companies. I suffer with AT&T's grossly inferior telecommunications service all the time. But I am smart about how I take out this anger.

What soldiers like the one highlighted in this video needs to demonstrate the intelligence and ruthlessness of the American uniformed warrior.

If you want to destroy your printer, tear it apart with hand to hand combat.

What struck me so much about this whole situation was that my family member, the fiscal and social conservative, applauded this soldier's wasteful efforts destroying that HP machine. Yet, at the same time he complains loudly about wasteful spending.

Instead of jumping on political bandwagons and selling one's self out to political groupieism and clique-ing we need to be honest with ourselves. While we are cutting vitally needed social programs that keep American citizens from being homeless, hungry, and worse we are continuing the ongoing waste of national treasure through trigger happy, and evidently poorly supervised/trained soldiers.

Perhaps the cost of those expended rounds should be deducted from that man's paycheck.

I would support that 100%.

Maybe my wealthy fiscally conservative family member should start footing some of this bullet-ridden military debt......