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The Pentagon recently asked nearly 10,000 soldiers to repay excessive bonuses they were given for re-enlisting in the California National Guard between 2007 and 2009 amid the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Congress was notified of the problem in 2014, but representatives failed to pass a provision that would allow the Defense Secretary to waive the repayments.
Some representatives claim that the California National Guard failed to convey the scale of the repayments issue or make it a congressional priority. An outraged and bipartisan group of legislators have called for quick action and full forgiveness of the overpayments (estimated to be around $70 million). On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and President Obama have promised to resolve the issue, even as officials acknowledge that the issue may extend to other states:
President Obama has told the Defense Department to expedite its review of nearly 10,000 California National Guard soldiers who have been ordered to repay enlistment bonuses improperly given a decade ago, but he is not backing growing calls for Congress to waive the debts, the White House said Tuesday. The comments by White House spokesman Josh Earnest suggest the administration is running into legal and policy roadblocks as it struggles to handle a public relations headache for the Pentagon, the National Guard and members of Congress who were caught off guard by the scope of the problem.
[...] California Guard officials say they informed California lawmakers about the scale of the debts in 2014, telling them in a list of legislative priorities sent to each House office and the House Armed Services Committee that "thousands of soldiers have inadvertently incurred debt, through no fault of their own because of faulty Army recruiting or accounting practices."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 27 2016, @01:23PM
Do we get to claw back the hundreds of billions of dollars that went to defense contractors of all kinds, now that we know we were lied to to get us into Iraq? Will the American taxpayers see a hefty $20K or so in their refund checks this year? If not, then I say the Pentagon and the government eats this, too. They have lost billions of dollars in cash, loaded on pallets, and that's OK because, hey, they're the boss, but all the servicemen and women who answered the call and got a bonus, they definitely have to give it back?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Thursday October 27 2016, @01:48PM
Do we get to claw back the hundreds of billions of dollars that went to defense contractors of all kinds, now that we know we were lied to to get us into Iraq?
Why not bill you? I'm sure you're good for it and you did as much as defense contractors die to lie to the public and anyone else who needed lying to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @02:21PM
wat
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday October 27 2016, @06:13PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 27 2016, @07:07PM
But the defence contractors were found guilty of fraud, which is a type of lie.
That got us into Iraq? Phoenix666 wasn't speaking of just any sort of lying or any sort of fraud.
As far as I know GPPer has not been found guilty of same - do you know differently?
Well, his painful argument should have some consequence, right? A few hundred billion here and there might seem a little steep, but as I mentioned before, I'm sure he's good for it.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 27 2016, @07:16PM
Says one of the most conservative members of the SN community, about a fraud that was perpetrated by a conservative administration that had full-throated support from conservatives. That's straight out of Karl Rove's playbook, ie. to accuse others of what you're thoroughly guilty of to forestall any uncomfortable questions. Classic, and classy, khallow.
In real life, while you (presumably) and Hillary Clinton were cheering the invasion of Iraq, I was protesting and organizing a grassroots movement to primary anybody from New York who supported the invasion of Iraq. I also wrote extensively and repeatedly on Stratfor and every other platform I could find about how invading Iraq would be disastrous for the Middle East and for US geopolitical standing. In other words, I did the diametrical opposite to what your philosophical brethren did.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 27 2016, @10:43PM
Says one of the most conservative members of the SN community, about a fraud that was perpetrated by a conservative administration that had full-throated support from conservatives. That's straight out of Karl Rove's playbook, ie. to accuse others of what you're thoroughly guilty of to forestall any uncomfortable questions. Classic, and classy, khallow.
I place more value on being accurate than on being conservative. And defense contractors are indeed no more responsible for the lies of the Bush administration than you are.
Second, the label of conservative has no real meaning here. In your next paragraph, you uphold 2500 year old pacifism ideals, and in general pacifism in the US is older than the US (Quakers settled Pennsylvania after all) and the default US response to wars in general. In general, a lot of our ethics and ideals are rehashed ancient ideas some perhaps from before we were even human. So that's one reason calling someone a conservative doesn't make sense.
Second, a traditional view of conservatism is as someone who conserves old ethics, ways of doing things, culture, etc or similarly opposes new ways of doing things. But by now, a lot of different groups are in on that game (such as prayer in schools or preventing sweat shops). I'll note that I've been quite liberal on a variety of economic and social policies, such as freedom to act, speak, own and use weapons, economic activity, etc. I've supported internet ridership and homestaying for profit. I've supported rich people being rich. I support the right of homosexuals to have all the legal privileges and advantages of heterosexuals, including marriage and having children. I also support the right of people to think and say what they want, even if those thoughts and words are homophobic. I support a rather hard core technology and biological development.
Yet somehow I get lumped with the "most conservative" members. I think you are in error here.
I also wrote extensively and repeatedly on Stratfor and every other platform I could find about how invading Iraq would be disastrous for the Middle East and for US geopolitical standing.
The obvious rebuttal is that Saddam Hussein is no longer developing a nuclear weapon. We only need to look at the treatment of Iran to see that there would have been nothing outside of the technology hurdles stopping him from developing nuclear weapons once the sanctions had been lifted. And of course, he'd still be killing people.
The problem with peace at any cost is that the cost can be very high.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday October 27 2016, @11:24PM
If you placed value on being accurate, you could not accept the policies of the political group called conservative in the modern US.
I'll go further. I know of NO political party that places much value on being accurate or which practices accuracy. NONE! It doesn't sell well.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 28 2016, @01:11AM
If you placed value on being accurate, you could not accept the policies of the political group called conservative in the modern US.
Indeed. I wrote:
Second, the label of conservative has no real meaning here.
I don't buy that there is a viable grouping which is covered by the label of "conservative". I don't consider the label more serious than any sports team affiliation, especially given that many of the people who don't fall under the label are quite conservative in outlook. The Precautionary Principle, for example, is an enormously conservative principle.
Moving on
I'll go further. I know of NO political party that places much value on being accurate or which practices accuracy. NONE! It doesn't sell well.
I guess that rules out me being a political party doesn't it? But if you think about it, a political party is about interests not accuracy. Thus, it's subject to the usual adversarial argument rules.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday October 28 2016, @06:59PM
It's too bad you can't mod an unmodified comment at underrated, or I would have so modified your comment. Nothing else seems appropriate.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 28 2016, @02:41PM
To clarify, I'm not a pacifist. I supported the Gulf War and the invasion of Afghanistan. I opposed the invasion of Iraq because the pretext was clearly fabricated and it was an intensely stupid move; history has validated that assessment. If you say that defense contractors and oil companies like Halliburton are completely innocent of that push to invade, then I say that is willfully obtuse.
You make a fair point that the definitions of "conservative" and "liberal" have morphed over time, and have even changed places. Milton Friedman, if asked from his day in the 50's to characterize your political leanings now, would have described them as "neo-liberal." Acknowledging that linguistic evolution does not, however, unwind what the terms "conservative" and "liberal" mean now. It also doesn't detach those with conservative politics from responsibility for the things they have done, such as invade Iraq on false pretenses and squander trillions of American tax dollars and kill a great many innocent people (what any honest man would recognize as a "war crime").
It is a relief that you are not a dittohead. Critical thinking is an unqualified virtue that every man ought to strive to practice. It seems it seldom comes through in what you write here. Perhaps it's your frustration and composition in the heat of the moment. Who in the world can't understand that, these days? How I wish, though, that frustration could be formed into scalpels instead of bludgeons. We can't perform surgery by beating a patient to death.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 28 2016, @04:33PM
If you say that defense contractors and oil companies like Halliburton are completely innocent of that push to invade, then I say that is willfully obtuse.
Push to invade is not a war crime and had nothing to do with the lying to the public to rationalize the war.
It also doesn't detach those with conservative politics from responsibility for the things they have done, such as invade Iraq on false pretenses and squander trillions of American tax dollars and kill a great many innocent people (what any honest man would recognize as a "war crime").
What does absolve them is not actually committing the crimes in question. Hence, my observation that we might as well persecute (or more accurately, bill) you for war crimes as anyone else who is innocent.
It seems it seldom comes through in what you write here. Perhaps it's your frustration and composition in the heat of the moment. Who in the world can't understand that, these days? How I wish, though, that frustration could be formed into scalpels instead of bludgeons. We can't perform surgery by beating a patient to death.
My approach is like with like. Two posters have proposed we fine innocent parties they don't like for crimes they didn't commit and I point out the legitimate legal and moral equivalence to fining the posters in question for the same thing.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday October 28 2016, @06:45PM
Push to invade is not a war crime and had nothing to do with the lying to the public to rationalize the war.
Oh, but it is! This was what came out the the Nuremberg Tribunals: initiating an armed conflict (otherwise known as "invading") is a crime against humanity, for which the principals in a government can be held to account. Of course in a truly representative government, the citizens of the aggressive country are also guilty, but when they were lied to, not so much. Soldiers that follow illegal orders to invade are also guilty of war crimes. Only one American soldier did the right thing and refused, and he was court-martialled for doing the right thing.
Thank you for your service in trying to keep American from committing a war crime, Phoenix!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 28 2016, @06:55PM
initiating an armed conflict
Is not the same thing as pushing to invade.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday October 28 2016, @07:19PM
initiating an armed conflict
Is not the same thing as pushing to invade.
So you are suggesting that the military-industrial-Republican complex was pushing for an unarmed invasion of Iraq? Seriously, khallow, you can only bend words so much until they break. I am starting to think you are trolling me!
.
.
The UN Charter states that all member nations renounce to the use of force in all international relations, except for cases of immediate self defense (REPELLING an invasion) or under the explicit authorization of the United Nations. Bush 1 got authorization. Bush 2 committed a war crime, specifically the crime of war. Interesting as well that at least one of the Nazi propagandists was found guilty of the crime of fomenting illegal war. Fox News should be very worried, if the rule of law ever returns to America.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 28 2016, @08:10PM
So you are suggesting that the military-industrial-Republican complex was pushing for an unarmed invasion of Iraq?
Are you?
The UN Charter states that all member nations renounce to the use of force in all international relations, except for cases of immediate self defense (REPELLING an invasion) or under the explicit authorization of the United Nations. Bush 1 got authorization. Bush 2 committed a war crime, specifically the crime of war.
Bush 2 did get explicit authorization from the UN. Lying to get it is not illegal especially when no one at the UN level can be bothered to care. That's the vast chasm between what is a war crime and what should be a war crime. Similarly, there is a chasm between what should be a war crime and the various proposals here to mess with defense contractors because they have to be guilty of something.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday October 29 2016, @05:24AM
Bush 2 did get explicit authorization from the UN
Um, you know that thing we talked about, where you cannot just make up facts because you believe them? You are doing it again. George W. Bush pointedly did not seek or get authorization from the UN for the illegal invasion of Iraq. Kofe Annan, UN Secretary General, denounced the US for its illegal use of military force. The Goddamned Pope said the invasion of Iraq was not a just war. It was called, the coalition of the billing, because only countries that the US could coerce into participating actually participated in this illegal violation of the sovereignty of a fellow nation. Khallow, you are out of your depth. You actually know nothing of international law, the International Laws of Armed Conflict, International Humanitarian Law, and the Just War tradition going back to the Romans. Seems to be a common affect among Libertarian type, like this Johnson guy. These things are not fictions, they are real, and pretending they are not does not serve the interests of you country, any more than pretending Anthropogenic Global Warming is not real. Tarbaby, Bro! But tarbaby in the Hague! You notice that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz do not travel abroad much, lately? But as for you, if you do not even know the basic facts of the war, I see no point in continuing to debate you. Good day, Sir!
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Oh, re-enlistment bonuses, for soldiers lied into an illegal war? I say, let them have them! People coming back now to say that these incentives were perverse? Way to late. And I know of far greater horror stories of costing the taxpayers an awful lot of money just so one the their Government Issue guys could get an nice juicy re-enlistment bonus.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday October 27 2016, @04:34PM
In theory, it could be declared an odious debt since it benefited the leaders who lied and not the tax payers footing the bill. But that would come out of George W. Bush's personal accounts, not the defense contractors unless they can be shown to have willingly participated in the fraud. Could be bad news for Halliburton.
In practice, that sort of thing doesn't happen to leaders in the 1st world.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 27 2016, @07:17PM
In theory, it could be declared an odious debt since it benefited the leaders who lied and not the tax payers footing the bill.
Probably not going to work, unless you abandon rule of law. Congress is the one who sets the budget, and by default, anything they do is assumed to be in the public interest. And what makes it less in the public interest than the other high price tag items that the US pays for?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday October 27 2016, @11:14PM
Agreed that it's extremely unlikely to happen, but Congress could point out the concerted effort by the executive to manufacture evidence that the war was necessary. Meanwhile, the authorization act itself only authorized military action necessary to the defense of the U.S. By manufacturing evidence and falesly claiming Al-Qaeda ties, it's not hard to make the case that Bush was not within the granted authorization.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 28 2016, @01:59AM
Agreed that it's extremely unlikely to happen, but Congress could point out the concerted effort by the executive to manufacture evidence that the war was necessary. Meanwhile, the authorization act itself only authorized military action necessary to the defense of the U.S. By manufacturing evidence and falesly claiming Al-Qaeda ties, it's not hard to ake the case that Bush was not within the granted authorization.
But they haven't done that, have they? Similarly, there could be all sorts of protests from other countries at the official level, not merely public level that they were mislead with serious legal repercussions to follow. But for the most part, that's not happening either. My view is that the whole point of the exercise was to provide political cover to a host of politicians in the US and without who wanted to support invasion but needed something to sell to their constituents.
It's interesting to review the behavior of the core White House group once they realize during and after the invasion that Hussein didn't have a thing WMD-wise in March and April of 2003. For example, Paul Wolfowitz did a fair amount [defense.gov] of backpeddling once it became clear that WMD evidence would be hard to come by in Iraq.
Q: Was that one of the arguments that was raised early on by you and others that Iraq actually does connect, not to connect the dots too much, but the relationship between Saudi Arabia, our troops being there, and bin Laden's rage about that, which he's built on so many years, also connects the World Trade Center attacks, that there's a logic of motive or something like that? Or does that read too much into --
Wolfowitz: No, I think it happens to be correct. The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason, but -- hold on one second --
(Pause)
Kellems: Sam there may be some value in clarity on the point that it may take years to get post-Saddam Iraq right. It can be easily misconstrued, especially when it comes to --
Wolfowitz: -- there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two. Sorry, hold on again.
That was on May 9, 2003. On January 23 prior to the invasion, Wolfowitz had this [cfr.org] to say:
As terrible as the attacks of September 11th were, however, we now know that the terrorists are plotting still more and greater catastrophes. We know they are seeking more terrible weapons-chemical, biological, and even nuclear weapons. In the hands of terrorists, what we often call weapons of mass destruction would more accurately be called weapons of mass terror. The threat posed by the connection between terrorist networks and states that possess these weapons of mass terror presents us with the danger of a catastrophe that could be orders of magnitude worse than September 11th. Iraq's weapons of mass terror and the terror networks to which the Iraqi regime are linked are not two separate themes - not two separate threats. They are part of the same threat. Disarming Iraq and the War on Terror are not merely related. Disarming Iraq of its chemical and biological weapons and dismantling its nuclear weapons program is a crucial part of winning the War on Terror. Iraq has had 12 years now to disarm, as it agreed to do at the conclusion of the Gulf War. But, so far, it has treated disarmament like a game of hide and seek-or, as Secretary of State Powell has termed it, "rope-a-dope in the desert."
But this is not a game. It is deadly serious. We are dealing with a threat to the security of our nation and the world. At the same time, however, President Bush understands fully the risks and dangers of war and the President wants to do everything humanly possible to eliminate this threat by peaceful means. That is why the President called for the U.N. Security Council to pass what became Resolution 1441, giving Iraq a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations and, in so doing, to eliminate the danger that Iraq's weapons of mass terror could fall into the hands of terrorists. In making that proposal, President Bush understood perfectly well that compliance with that resolution would require a massive change of attitude and actions on the part of the Iraqi regime. But history proves that such a change is possible. Other nations have rid themselves of weapons of mass destruction cooperatively in ways that were possible to verify. So let's talk for a moment about what real disarmament looks like: There are several significant examples from the recent past-among them South Africa, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. In South Africa, for example, President De Klerk decided in 1989 to end that country's nuclear weapons program and, in 1999 [1990], to dismantle all their existing weapons. South Africa joined the Nonproliferation Treaty in 1991 and later that year accepted full scope safeguards by the U.N.'s atomic energy agency. South Africa allowed U.N. inspectors complete access to both operating and defunct facilities, provided thousands of current and historical documents, and allowed detailed, unfettered discussions with personnel that had been involved in their nuclear program. By 1994, South Africa had provided verifiable evidence that its nuclear inventory was complete and its weapons program was dismantled. In the 1990s, President Kravchuk of Ukraine and President Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan ratified the Nuclear Nonproliferation and START Treaties, committing their countries to give up the nuclear weapons and strategic delivery systems that they had inherited with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan and Ukraine both went even further in their disclosures and actions than was required by those treaties. Ukraine requested and received US assistance to destroy its Backfire bombers and air-launched cruise missiles. Kazakhstan asked the United States to remove more than 500 kg. of highly enriched uranium. Given the full cooperation of both governments, implementation of the disarmament was smooth. All nuclear warheads were returned to Russia by 1996, and all missile silos and heavy bombers were destroyed before the START deadline. Each of these cases was different but the end result was the same: the countries disarmed while disclosing their programs fully and voluntarily. In each case, high-level political commitment to disarmament was accompanied by the active participation of national institutions to carry out that process. In each case, the responsible countries created a transparent process in which decisions and actions could be verified and audited by the international community.
In Iraq's case, unfortunately, the situation is the opposite. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 gave Saddam Hussein one last chance to choose a path of cooperative disarmament, one that he was obliged to take and agreed to take 12 years ago. We were under no illusions that the Baghdad regime had undergone the fundamental change of heart that underpinned the successes I just mentioned. Nevertheless, there is still the hope—if Saddam is faced with a serious enough threat that he would otherwise be disarmed forcibly and removed from power—there is still the hope that he might decide to adopt a fundamentally different course. But time is running out.
The United States entered this process hopeful that it could eliminate the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass terror without having to resort to force. And we've put more than just our hopes into this process. Last fall, the Security Council requested member states to give, quote, "full support," unquote, to U.N. inspectors.
Note that he claims before the invasion that Hussein's hiding of WMD is why the invasion is imminent, and Hussein can avoid this invasion by playing ball. Afterward, he claims that it was "bureaucracy" that they settled on one reason which turned out to be completely false, but they had two other good reasons for invading. Does sound to me like they were going to invade anyway, doesn't it?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday October 28 2016, @04:01AM
Bush was making oblique references to invasion before he was even elected. He said a number of things off hand that only made sense if invasion was a foregone conclusion (Honestly, I don't remember exact details but that was the impression I got at the time).
But yeah, as I said, it'll never happen. Too many people still in power would be dragged down with the administration, not to mention companies that are too big to fail.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday October 31 2016, @05:32AM
"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. "It was on his mind. He said to me: 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He said, 'If I have a chance to invade...if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency." Herskowitz said that Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father. In aggressive military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father's shadow. The moment, Herskowitz said, came in the wake of the September 11 attacks. "Suddenly, he's at 91 percent in the polls, and he'd barely crawled out of the bunker."
and
According to Herskowitz, George W. Bush's beliefs on Iraq were based in part on a notion dating back to the Reagan White House - ascribed in part to now-vice president Dick Cheney, Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee under Reagan. "Start a small war. Pick a country where there is justification you can jump on, go ahead and invade."
Bush's circle of pre-election advisers had a fixation on the political capital that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher collected from the Falklands War. Said Herskowitz: "They were just absolutely blown away, just enthralled by the scenes of the troops coming back, of the boats, people throwing flowers at [Thatcher] and her getting these standing ovations in Parliament and making these magnificent speeches."