They're coming down hard on the wounded. This is from The Army Times:
Remember these are folks with PTSD, missing limbs. Nice way to support the wounded.Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media.
“Some soldiers believe this is a form of punishment for the trouble soldiers caused by talking to the media,” one Medical Hold Unit soldier said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
It is unusual for soldiers to have daily inspections after Basic Training.
Then there's this. I guess this is why the acronym "snafu" came from the Army:
So the guy who's taking over the complex is also part of the problem? I guess so:The commander of Walter Reed Army Medical Center was fired Thursday after the Army said it had lost trust and confidence in his leadership in the wake of a scandal over outpatient treatment of wounded troops at the hospital complex in northwest Washington.
Army Maj. Gen. George Weightman, who assumed command of Walter Reed in August, will be temporarily replaced by Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley.
But the appointment of Kiley, who had been the facility's commander before Weightman, surprised some Defense Department officials because soldiers, their families and veterans' advocates have complained that he was long aware of problems at Walter Reed and did nothing to improve outpatient care.[emphasis added]
And it's put Capitol Hill in a bipartisan foul mood.Top officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, including the Army's surgeon general, have heard complaints about outpatient neglect from family members, veterans groups and members of Congress for more than three years.
A procession of Pentagon and Walter Reed officials expressed surprise last week about the living conditions and bureaucratic nightmares faced by wounded soldiers staying at the D.C. medical facility. But as far back as 2003, the commander of Walter Reed, Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, who is now the Army's top medical officer, was told that soldiers who were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan were languishing and lost on the grounds, according to interviews.
Dubya supports the troops?
13 comments:
As Rumsfeld said, "You go to war with the Army you HAVE to destroy, not necessarily he Army you WANT to destroy."
As the earlier posting shows, the Bushies took over the world's greatest armed forces and will leave us with a pitiful remnant.
Of course, the problem of re-building won't be theirs. Monkey Man, Big Dick, Rummy, the Wolf Man and company will be happily multiplying their billions.
Where is D-L and xranger on this stuff? Both regularly accuse the "libs" on this blog of not supporting the troops, etc., but across the board Republicans and this administration have a remarkably terrible record of supporting the troops: cuts to the VA, sending troops into battle without the necessary equipment to be safe, etc. Contractors are getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to be professional soldiers on the ground, while the families of many of our enlisted men and women in Iraq have to rely on charities just to feed their kids.
Yet not a peep from the right-wing blogs or our resident wingers. Just empty rhetoric about not supporting the troops and blatant falsehoods about Al Gore's alleged hypocrisy on global warming to distract attention from the real issues.
Bleh. It sickens me.
no they are too busy creating a bulls..t diversion over the word "wasted"
and then there's anna nicole's funeral. maybe all the republican's are watching that?
wonder if fox news aka, america's PRAVDA, will be sending santorum to pontificate on how it relates to his "islamo-fascist terrorist" retoric now that he works for them.
he can go to the bahamas with bill o! get them some "fallafels"
god, i'm sick about this whole freaking disqusting thing!
great support of the troops huh?!
the republican way, bumper stickers, talking points and then let them live on the streets, in cars, on welfare and rehab before hand with cockroaches, rats and MOLD!!!
Don't be sick, Whigs, the ol' X is here to rescue you from your liberal pergatory.
I have been blogging that the feds should look into outsourcing the rehab care for these wounded vets, necause it is sickening what they have to endure.
The federal government, nay, all government entities, are not equipped to provide the best care, because they are huge, baffling bureaucracies. For the simple reason that their goal is job retention, not operating in the most effective and efficient manner.
This problem did not arise with Bush; it has always been there. The fact that it was known, and allowed to fester, is despicable.
X-to-English dictionary:
"It has always been there."
Rather than taking action to support the troops, the Bush administration sent them into a war based on lies, knowing there would be inadequate care for them when they came home wounded.
Well, Paul Krugman, who is absolutely a democrat partisan, has praised the VA of the recent past as a government success story and a model for a single payer health system (along with Medicare). I assume Krugman would blame the administration for the current problems with the VA’s administration of Walter Reed. I know the VA has been seen as a “baffling bureaucracy” in the past (wasn’t there a Kiefer Sutherland movie about that?), but perhaps had been reformed during a democratic administration. Or maybe not.
One point should be crystal clear. Once casualties started coming in, the President should have focused some attention on their care and to see if the VA could handle its increaded workload. To simply throw his hands up and blame the bureaucracy is an absolute cop out. If he wants to outsource care, fine, do it. He had the majority on congress, he could have gotten it done. Instead he ignored the issue and now is shocked, shocked that big government (which he has been trying to shrink to the point where it can be drowned in a bath tub) has failed.
X – on this President’s watch Iraq has not been rebuilt, the rebuilding in New Orleans has progressed painfully slowly and appears skewed towards wealthy interests, and now this scandal at Walter Reed. And there was Abu Graheb (whatever the spelling is). I’m sure you blame the obstructionist democratic minority in Congress.
But I ask you, why are so many Americans motivated to be so *unpatriotic* under this President? (
John, you should restrain yourself, I'm trying to frame the question in a value neutral tone, to avoid being dismissed as a partisan).
Where is D-L?
The problem is, X, that it's a pattern with the GOP. Two groups that I know of have released rankings of how members of Congress did on issues related to veterans, IAVA and Disabled American Veterans.
Look at DAV's rankings and tell me if you see a pattern in the scoring differences between Democrats and Republicans: http://www.vote-smart.org/issue_rating_detail.php?sig_id=004044M
That's right, almost every Democrat scored higher than any single Republican, with one or two exceptions. Then look at the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America rankings:
http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/2006/10/iava-support-troops-rankings-for-senate.html
In this case, every Democrat scored higher than the highest scoring Republican.
Now, of course, the Democrats have nobody to blame but themselves for allowing themselves to be viewed as anti-troop, when there is example after example of Republicans saying they support the troops, but doing the exact opposite with their votes.
I'm glad you've blogged about Walter Reed, X, but what do you and the rest have to say about your side's voting record on things that matter: equipment in the field, pay, health benefits, health care, war-time contractor fraud?
Well, actually, I don't know how much you can say, other than, "You're right."
Whigs, you have put the issue in a nutshell: Republicans TALK about the supporting the troops.
It's reminiscent of the old saw that Republicans run on the idea that government is evil and ineffective. Once in office, they prove it.
Whew, that was a mouthful. Where to begin:
EDheath, I've heard the reports on the VA, and that is encouraging. However, I watched the ABC special last week with that anchor who was injured in Iraq, and all it could say was how bad the VA was. Once government agencies act as though they must show a profit, as opposed to job retention and spending all monies alloted to them, that is the only way the government will not show waste and over-spending.
By the way, whenever I debate/discuss health care with friends, I always start with the caveat that EVERYONE wants universal, affordable, health care. It all boils down to how to pay for it. If it is controlled and staffed by government union/bureacrats, it is destined to fail. The key is to find the common ground that will allow the free-market system work to keep costs down, while allowing access to all.
And another thing, I've been blogging to you guys for a while now, and, while I am an unabashed Reagan Republican, I have nothing but scorn for the worthless Republican Congress, and real problems with the W admin.
My real problems are fiscal with this sorry lot, not Iraq. I've always fashioned myself as socially moderate, fiscal and foreign policy conservative. Not a lot for me to cheer there.
Finally, I feel the Reps lost Congress not due to the war, but because of their fiscal irresponsibility and scandal.
Well, fair enough, X, a straight and honest answer to my question. I have to say, though, that I wonder if we might all want re-think the health care issue. In my opinion, health care might be a case of market failure, those situations when the free market is unable to deal with a reasonable cost structure on its own. Pollution is the canonical example, where the externality effects can not be accurately reflected in costs because the air or water being polluted is not owned by private parties. The behavior of insurance companies, in selectively insuring younger, healthier employed people and then only paying a fraction of there costs has encouraged the medical community to raise prices to maintain income streams.
I mean, is it correct that other industrialized democracies have government health insurance systems?
Paul Krugman, the shameless political partisan but also Princeton economist, talks about the increased costs of health insurance administration in the private sector over the VA and Medicare. I have to say I forget the numbers. This actually makes some sense, when you think about the incentives. The insurance companies are regulated, more so for health than otbxjfther types of insurance. Maybe at one time the best solution would have been less or no regulation, but now the market would not bear it. Although I would say that I think HSA's are a good bet, for people under 25, but no one older.
So I would say there is room to hold a discussion.
Where is D-L?
His wife has made him quit politcal blogging. Check this out:
Friday, March 02, 2007
Signing Off
I am regretfully retiring this site due to personal reasons. My passion for political ranting and raving has had such a negative impact on my health that my wife and I are deeply concerned about the consequences if I were to continue.
This site will remain in place until the domain expires. I will no longer be posting to it, nor will comments be enabled. Once the domain expires, www.democrats-lie.com will be gone forever.
And always remember: "When you're a Democrat, it's *just* different."
It's been fun.
He's done this sort of thing before. There's no promise that he'll stay away.
Let's just hope his wife is insisting on a good therapist.
My wife did no such thing.
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