Several times in reference to various posts I have noticed that the Pentagon doesn’t seem to be addressing problems that Congress has authorized money to fix. The “up armoring” of vehicles was the most recent, but the purchase of effective body armor, the acquisition of small arms ammunition, the equipping of Iraqi security forces, are all issues where the money has been authorized but the Pentagon hasn’t spent it.

If you look at the Iraqi reconstruction fund, less than $2 billion of the $18 billion Congress approved in the “famous” $87 billion request has even been put under contract. There are also Iraqi oil funds that haven’t been accounted for after the dissolution of the Coalition Provisional Authority. There is a sizable chunk of money in limbo.

Let’s add to the mix the hiring of Chilean and South African mercenaries for security jobs in Iraq, the appointment of John Negroponte as the ambassador, and an image of the failed “death squad” approach to counter insurgency comes to mind.

Death squads, like torture, seem like a good idea to deskbound cowardly people. Since these people have no real morals; since they lack the humanity to suffer torture or death to save friends, family, and ideals; they don’t believe that other people have these values.

Look at the people in charge. The only “adult” is Colin Powell, an ex-soldier. The rest avoided military service because they didn’t want to risk injury or death. They lacked the core conviction to risk it all.

If these fools introduce death squads, all they achieve is a further destabilization of Iraq. We are already dealing with the “blow back” from earlier decisions, including helping Saddam Hussein come to and remain in power, the creation of mujahidin forces in Afghanistan, installing the Shah in Iran, do we really want to make matters worse?

Assuming the Bush administration realizes we are in a hole, when are they going to stop digging?

Spellbound is a nice little spell checker for the Firefox browser. People who have to read my comments will now be saved from some of my more egregious typos.

If I could just figure out how to edit the “forms” feature, I wouldn’t have any complaints left about Firefox.