More White-Flag Waving from the Left

Yeah, it's a little old (boy, is it!) but it's worth mentioning that the Democrat American Communist Party is one again trying to fight against victory for all they're worth. Only this time, Defense Secretary Gates let them have it with both barrels:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that unless Congress passes funding for the Iraq war within days, he will direct the Army and Marine Corps to begin developing plans to lay off employees and terminate contracts early next year…

“There is a misperception that this department can continue funding our troops in the field for an indefinite period of time through accounting maneuvers, that we can shuffle money around the department. This is a serious misconception,” Gates told reporters at the Pentagon.

As a result, he said that he is faced with the undesirable task of preparing to cease operations at Army bases by mid-February, and lay off about 100,000 defense department employees and an equal number of civilian contractors. A month later, he said, similar moves would have to be made by the Marines.

Some members of Congress believe the Pentagon can switch enough money to cover the war accounts, Gates said. But he added that he only has the flexibility to transfer about $3.7 billion — which is just one week’s worth of war expenses. Lawmakers, he said, may not understand how complicated and restrictive the situation is.

I say let's start the layoffs in Democrat American Communist Party Districts, starting with Murtha's home territory. We can then move to Feinstein's home base and continue on down the line.

This is all a snowball effect from the military cuts during the 1990's. We have civilian contracters in Iraq right now, doing jobs that the military should be doing. And they're doing this for two reasons - 1) as the military has been cut in half, many of the support positions were eliminated. Cooks, mechanics, laundry, showers, all of them took hits. So now we have civilians in Iraq making $60-$70k cooking meals, or doing laundry. 2) Since it's not the military supplying these contracters in many cases, then it's not the military that's paying for all of them. The military budget could not pay all of them. The military budget as a percentage of GDP is the smallest it's been since before WWII. And the hacks in Congress want to start playing games with it. Again.

So now we have the Democrat American Communist Party playing their games with the military that they loath and refuse to support. At least someone is calling them on it.

Kennedy snarked about the state of the military and asked sarcastically which enemy that it has faced has put the Army in the state that it’s in. Gen. Casey’s answer, more or less, is the Democrats who cut the military’s budget in the 1990s have put the Army in the state that it’s in.

A-friggin'-men, General.