The “water boarding”, if they participated, was not illegal at the time (and may not be now?). I am not saying they were directed to break the law. I am sure that never happened.



I would ask – why not. Certainly they have to have some liability for their actions.

And if they had immunity – its gone now.

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/01/09/iraq17703.htm

Well then, maybe I'll take a stab at it, turnea.

Of course we can't do away with product-type civilian contracting. It makes little sense to have the military in the business of producing uniforms, vehicles, aircraft, and computers.

It's the personnel civilian contracting that I could quite easily do without.

As DTOM points out, we contract out all sorts of stuff these days - food service, laundry service, general cleaning services, executive staff protection, prison guard duty, and on and on...

Why? Because someone tells us thy can do it cheaper, and more efficiently. But I question that premise. Take food service as an example. The military used to pack up a mess hall, and ship the required items over, along with the required people to run said service. Now, we hire a company to do this.

But are we really saving anything? It seems to me that the contracting company is there as just a middleman to wasting more money. Yes, they pack up the mess hall, and ship it over now, along with the requisite people. But when the army ordered the material, they paid the manufacturer of the equipment. The soldiers went where they were told, at a specified salary. The contractor? They still provide all of the equipment, but now they demand a profit over and above what the government paid for the equiment, and they pay their people at above market rates, to get them into a theater that many would otherwise refuse to enter. I doubt seriously that your average civilian line cook in the states, at say $20,000 a year, is going to where they might get shot making that same SOS, for less than double that amount. and we, as taxpayers, get to pay for it all. Oh, goodie.

Add to that the fact that if necessary, you can convert a soldier to a different job as required. Try telling that contracting company that instead of cooking, their employees are now going to be performing guard duty, or washing clothes for the next month, if that's what's needed. It ain't gonna happen. Or, if it does, it will cost us even more than just moving "private Smith" from one job to another. That will engender a whole new set of "contracts".

And God forbid if that contractor should have to defend themselves. I can't imagine that many of the contractors cooks and stewards have been through adequate basic training, much less enough weapons training to be effective, should they be attacked.

As a further example, there was a story a while back about a unit returning from Iraq. The barracks back home, supposedly maintained by a civilian contractor, were in complete disrepair - leaking roof, peeling paint, rusted and clogged plumbing, etc. I can't see a group of soldiers charged with maintaining the barracks allowing this to happen, much less getting away with getting paid for failing to do their jobs.

In short, I see far too much profit motive, and far too little "esprit de corps" out of contract services.

There's one more point along this regard, that I hadn't thought to add until now. We're seeing a transition right now at Holloman AFB, New Mexico. The 117s have been phased out completely. This was the stealth base, and now the stealths are gone along with all of the military personel, mechanics, ect associated with them. The F22 is coming in to replace them. So far we only have two planes, and a handful of pilots and maintenance. It will be an operational unit by next November. A lot of people will start coming in around this September timeframe.

Since most of the support services from the BX to Commissary to the Officer's Club are privately run now, they are shutting the services down and/or downsizing. I was going to buy a grill last week, I went in on Monday and the entire gardening section had been pulled out and shipped away. They are considering shutting down the club. This is a town where the only real place to eat is Chili's. Remember that scene in the last Indiana Jone's movie with the Atomic Cafe? That's where I live. Without these support facilities there is almost nothing, and the base is set to expandby comparison to what it was before (not only will the F22s come, but likely UAVs as well) it's just in a transitional phase, and a short one at that. The BX and Commissary services tell us to "buy from us or lose more" the club says to "use it or lose it" and we do use it, there just aren't enough people here yet. Very frustrating the disconnect, and it harms moral to see the support services shutting down on the one hand (the "private" end) while the commanders are trying to come up with activities to keep people from wanting to slit their wrists when they are sent here (they opened the golf course to fishing late night).



Then how was our personal information, and the personal information of tens of thousands of other military members, stolen...twice? The US government is still using the same company. Who was fired for that one?

I agree with military does need to supply the basics of life. Though in my time the military had the clubs, PX and no other facilities so at least your ahead of us there.

As for losing data, that is a huge headache. The VA has it's problems and it wasn'r contractors that lost the data, but government employees mishandling it. I think that is a long ways from illegal downloads.

As DTOM explained the military nets, I work in the NIPRNET world. Whenever I or anybody looks at a record there is an audit trail saying what I looked with my id and when. If I change anything at all, it records what it was before I changed it. This is something all of us know. If that is the level on the NIPRNET just imagine the SIPRNET. A whole different kettle of fish and a lot more secure and better monitored.

There are people that do not follow the rules and data is mishandled and as a result lose their jobs. That doesn't make it any better for you that are on the receiving end, but it is the best we have at this time. Perfect no, but it is getting better and it is a very high priority to prevent. Part of my job is making it more secure.

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I always wonder how large databases are “mishandled” so badly. Certainly encryption has been around long enough for its use on these databases and certainly “whole disc encryption” is available for laptops and desktops alike. So how can large amounts of data get out there.

Are the people managing these systeme just stupid?