The Bush Admin. Strongly Supports the Troops by Strongly Opposing Pay Raise

Anyone that doesn't believe the Bush Administration  supports the troopsin Iraq, shame on YOU! They provide a number of wonderful ways to support them,for instance...

There'spizza (heart-burn to follow)

Meanwhile, the armed forces' PX system (AAFES) is into charging our GIs inIraq $9 for a 12-inch pizza. A similar pizza is $8.99 at a pizzeria nearGreenwich, Conn., where prices compete with Beverly Hills. The manager told methat about half of this price was gross profit. Lt. Col. Debra Pressley of theAAFES insists the $9 price is "fair and competitive with commercialoutlets, including locations in Greenwich."

There are FREE movies (after Military.com blew the whistle on the $3.00charge)

The powers that be sure planned to make a profit by charging $3 per head forwatching movies in Iraq - at least until we blew the whistle. But once we brokethe story, I got e-mails and phone calls from generals and colonels denying thatthe $3 charge had been scheduled, even though on July 3, 2004, the deputycommander in Balad, Iraq, put out this communication: "CG (CommandingGeneral) has directed that we begin charging movie fees beginning on 7 July 2004in the amount of $3.00 per show."

There are phone calls home(a little expensive, but hey! they're in the desert and we don't charge thetroops for their bullets)

Tom Evslin’s Fractalsof Change has posted an explosive piece about the way AT&T is handlingtheir exclusive contract to install payphones in Iraq and how much they’recharging American soldiers to call home. Would you believe twenty one cents perminute??

As Tom points out with the going wholesale cost of voice minutes under apenny per minute, this seems very, very wrong. Tom also notes that the totalamount of money we’re talking about here is a drop in the bucket for a companylike AT&T. It’s mind-boggling to me that the execs at AT&T don’trealize that the poison PR they could suffer over this is not even close tobeing worth the cash they’re making. If the issue gets more mainstreamcoverage I wouldn’t even be surprised if it comes into play as regulatorsconsider the BellSouth acquisition.

So now's not the time to get your panties in a ruffle just because the BushAdministration "STRONGLY OPPOSES" a bigger raise for our troops.

With President Bush’s popularity scraping bottom in opinion polls, withU.S. casualties rising in Iraq in a force surge that has stretched soldier toursto 15 months, the Bush administration July 10 said it “strongly opposes” keymilitary pay and benefit gains tossed into their fiscal 2008 defense bill. Readon...

Now might be a good time to dig up that air sicknessbag you've been saving from your last vacation.