Spending soars to keep troops

$1 billion spent on bonuses for soldiers, Marines balloons
The Associated Press
Updated: 6:33 a.m. PT April 11, 2007

WASHINGTON – The struggle to entice Army soldiers and Marines to stay in the military, after four years of war in Iraq, has ballooned into a $1 billion campaign, with bonuses soaring nearly sixfold since 2003.

The size and number of bonuses have grown as officials scrambled to meet the steady demand for troops on the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan and reverse sporadic shortfalls in the number of National Guard and Reserve soldiers willing to sign on for multiple tours.

Besides underscoring the extraordinary steps the Pentagon must take to maintain fighting forces, the rise in costs for re-enlistment incentives is putting strains on the defense budget, already strapped by the massive costs of waging war and equipping and caring for a modern military.

The bonuses can range from a few thousand dollars to as much as $150,000 for very senior special forces soldiers who re-enlist for six years. All told, the Army and Marines spent $1.03 billion for re-enlistment payments last year, compared with $174 million in 2003, the year the war in Iraq began.

‘War is expensive’
The Associated Press compiled and analyzed the budget figures from the military services for this story.

“War is expensive,” said Col. Mike Jones, who oversees retention issues for the National Guard. “Winning a war, however, is less expensive than losing one.”

The soaring budget for re-enlistment bonuses — particularly for the Guard and Reserves, which have seen the most dramatic cost increases — has prompted some observers to question whether the country can still afford its volunteer force.

“I believe the whole issue of the affordability of the volunteer force is something we need to look at,” said Arnold Punaro, who heads an independent panel established by Congress to study the National Guard and Reserves.

The higher bonuses come as support for the war continues to wane both in Congress and with the American public. That decline is fueling concerns that more soldiers will leave the military under pressure from families who fear the rising death toll and are weary of the lengthy and repeated overseas deployments. The Iraq war has claimed the lives of at least 3,280 U.S. troops to date.

Incentives for Army Guard and Reserve members combined have skyrocketed from about $27 million in 2003 to more than $335 million in 2006.

The active Army, meanwhile, poured more than $600 million into these payments last year, a six-fold increase from $98 million in 2003. The Army gave two out of every three soldiers who re-enlisted a bonus last year, compared to less than two in 10 who received one during 2003.

Those who don’t get bonuses are generally in jobs that are not in high demand or are not in war zones. For example, certain artillery crewmembers who re-enlisted outside Afghanistan or Iraq would receive no bonus, said Army spokesman Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty.

Bonuses for Marines have nearly doubled, from about $50 million in 2003 to nearly $90 million in 2006.

The incentives help the military compete with private employers who often pay much higher salaries, Hilferty said.

“Soldiers with valuable skills and experience are aggressively sought after by industry,” Hilferty said. He said while the extra money is important, “people don’t re-enlist in a wartime Army for $13,000. … If soldiers didn’t think they were doing the right thing for the right reason, they would get out and get a job back home.”

He said soldiers with special skills can get bonuses between $10,000 and $30,000, with a select few eligible for payments up to $50,000. Only very few highly qualified special forces soldiers would get the top bonus of $150,000. Nearly all soldiers deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait get a maximum of $15,000 for re-enlisting, just a bit more than the average.

Bonuses for Marines in certain critical specialties can go as high as $60,000 for a new four-year tour. On average a Marine who re-enlists this year can receive as much as $24,000. About eight in 10 Marines with up to six years of service will get a bonus this year, as will more than half of those with six to 14 years in the Corps.

Punaro, chairman of the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, calls the soaring costs “a ticking time bomb.”

“My instinct tells me … that the Guard and Reserve will continue to be a real bargain for the taxpayer” because the costs for the active duty military have gone up a lot more, he said.

So far, the extra cash appears to be working. The active Army, the Guard and the Army Reserve are all on track to meet their re-enlistment goals for the fiscal year that will end Sept. 30.

Sgt. 1st Class Richard Doran, who works full-time for the Guard, signed on for another six-year tour late last year, just before he returned home from Iraq. That not only gives him the $15,000 bonus but also makes it tax-free because he was on the battlefront when he re-enlisted.

“It helps a lot of guys out,” said Doran. “And I think it does sway some of the decisions to stay in when guys are on the fence trying to decide.”

Not just about money
But for some who have been sent to war as many as three times, the money isn’t enough.

“We had some that, once we got back, opted to say goodbye and just leave. Some guys said the money did play a part in their decision to stay, others said the $15,000 wasn’t worth it.”

Jones of the Guard said boosting the maximum re-enlistment bonus from $5,000 to $15,000 caused most of the budget increase. And, he said, more soldiers signed up than anticipated.

“When we’re at peace, and when we’re not deploying units, the bonuses probably don’t need to be what they are today,” said Jones. “When the risks are lowered, the reward would be lowered. But one of reasons we struggled in 2005 and 2004 is because we were slow as a nation to increase the rewards at the same time as we increased the risk.”

(A sorta-followup to Peter Lamborn Wilson’s piece in Arthur Vol. 1 No. 16….)

washingtonpost.com

The Once and Future Republic of Vermont

By Ian Baldwin and Frank Bryan
Sunday, April 1, 2007; B01

BURLINGTON, Vt.

The winds of secession are blowing in the Green Mountain State.

Vermont was once an independent republic, and it can be one again. We think the time to make that happen is now. Over the past 50 years, the U.S. government has grown too big, too corrupt and too aggressive toward the world, toward its own citizens and toward local democratic institutions. It has abandoned the democratic vision of its founders and eroded Americans’ fundamental freedoms.

Vermont did not join the Union to become part of an empire.

Some of us therefore seek permission to leave.

A decade before the War of Independence, Vermont became New England’s first frontier, settled by pioneers escaping colonial bondage who hewed settlements across a lush region whose spine is the Green Mountains. These independent folk brought with them what Henry David Thoreau called the “true American Congress” — the New England town meeting, which is still the legislature for nearly all of Vermont’s 237 towns. Here every citizen is a legislator who helps fashion the rules that govern the locality.

Today, however, Vermont no longer controls even its own National Guard, a domestic emergency force that is now employed in an imperial war 6,000 miles away. The 9/11 commission report says that “the American homeland is the planet.” To defend this “homeland,” the United States spends six times as much on its military as China, the next highest-spending nation, funding more than 730 military bases in more than 130 countries, abetted by more than 100 military space satellites and more than 100,000 seaborne battle-ready forces. This is the greatest military colossus ever forged.

Few heed George Washington’s Farewell Address, which warned against the danger of a permanent large standing army that “can be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.” Or that of a later general-become-president: “We must never let the weight of [the military-industrial complex] endanger our liberties or democratic processes.” Dwight D. Eisenhower pointedly included the word “congressional” after “military-industrial” but allowed his advisers to excise it. That word completes a true description of the hidden threat to democracy in the United States.

The two of us are typical of the diversity of Vermont’s secessionist movement: one descended from old Vermonter stock, the other a more recent arrival — a “flatlander” from down country. Our Vermont homeland remains economically conservative and socially liberal. And the love of freedom runs deep in its psyche.

Vermont seceded from the British Empire in 1777 and stood free for 14 years, until 1791. Its constitution — which preceded the U.S. Constitution by more than a decade — was the first to prohibit slavery in the New World and to guarantee universal manhood suffrage. Vermont issued its own currency, ran its own postal service, developed its own foreign relations, grew its own food, made its own roads and paid for its own militia. No other state, not even Texas, governed itself more thoroughly or longer before giving up its nationhood and joining the Union.

But the seeds of disunion have been growing since the beginning. Vermont more or less sat out the War of 1812, and its governor ordered troops fighting the British to disengage and come home. Vermont fought the Civil War primarily to end slavery; Abraham Lincoln did so primarily to save the Union. Vermont’s record on the slavery issue was so strong that Georgia’s legislature resolved that a ditch be dug around the “pestiferous” state and it be floated out to sea.

After the Great Flood of 1927, the worst natural disaster in the state’s history, President Calvin Coolidge (a Vermonter) offered help. Vermont’s governor replied, “Vermont will take care of its own.” In 1936, town meetings rejected a huge federal highway referendum that would have blacktopped the Green Mountain crest line from Massachusetts to Canada.

Nor did Vermont sign on when imperial Washington demanded that the state raise its drinking age from 18 to 21 in 1985. The federal government thereupon resorted to its favored tactic, blackmail. Raise your drinking age, said Ronald Reagan, or we’ll take away the money you need to keep the interstates paved. Vermont took its case for state control to the Supreme Court — and lost.

It’s quite simple. The United States has destroyed the 10th Amendment, which says that “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

The present movement for secession has been gathering steam for a decade and a half. In preparation for Vermont’s bicentennial in 1991, public debates — moderated by then-Lt. Gov. Howard Dean — were held in seven towns before crowds that averaged 230 citizens. At the end of each, Dean asked all those in favor of Vermont’s seceding from the Union to stand and be counted. In town after town, solid majorities stood. The final count: 999 (62 percent) for secession and 608 opposed.

In early 2003, transplanted Southerner and retired Duke University economics professor Thomas Naylor gave a speech at Johnson State College opposing the Iraq war. When he pitched the idea of secession to the crowd, he saw many eyes “light up,” he said. Later that year, he and several others started a loosely organized movement (now a think tank) called the Second Vermont Republic, which has an independent quarterly journal, Vermont Commons, and a Web site.

In October 2005, about 300 Vermonters attended a statewide convention on the question of secession. Six months later, the annual Vermont Poll of the University of Vermont’s Center for Rural Studies found that about 8 percent of respondents replied “yes” to peaceful secession, arguably making Vermont foremost among the many states with secessionist movements (including Alaska, California, Hawaii, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Texas).

We secessionists believe that the 350-year swing of history’s pendulum toward large, centralized imperial states is once again reversing itself.

Why? First, the cost of oil and gas. According to urban planner James Howard Kunstler, “Anything organized on a gigantic scale . . . will probably falter in the energy-scarce future.” Second, third-wave technology is as inherently democratic and decentralist as second-wave technology was authoritarian and centralist. Gov. Jim Douglas wants Vermont to be the first “e-state,” making broadband Internet access available to every household and business in the state by 2010. Vermont will soon be fully wired into the global social commons.

Against this backdrop, secessionists from all over the state will gather in June to plan a grass-roots campaign to get at least 200 towns to vote by 2012 on independence. We believe that one outcome of this meeting will be dialogues among different communities of Vermonters committed to achieving local economic vitality, be they farmers, entrepreneurs, bankers, merchants, lawyers, independent media providers, construction workers, manufacturers, artists, entertainers or anyone else with a stake in Vermont’s future — anyone for whom freedom is not just a slogan.

If Vermonters succeed in once again inventing vibrant local economies, these in turn may reinvigorate the small-scale democratic town meeting tradition, the true American Congress, and re-create the rudiments of a republic once again able to make its own way in the world. The once and future republic of Vermont.

ianb@sover.net

frank.bryan@uvm.edu

Ian Baldwin is publisher of Vermont Commons. Frank Bryan, a political science professor at the University of Vermont, is author of “Real Democracy: The New England Town Meeting and How It Works.”

Help Save Yellowstone Grizzlies

Dear Friends:

On March 29, 2007, the Department of the Interior removed federal protection for Yellowstone’s grizzly bears under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). On April 29 this “de-listing” will take effect. Only a challenge in federal court can stop this final ruling.

I believe this decision will mark the beginning of the end of the grizzly in the contiguous states. Here are three reasons:

Insofar as the Yellowstone population’s de-listing is based on estimates of the number of bears, the removal of ESA protection for the grizzlies in and around Glacier Park (where the data on numbers is considered more reliable) will soon follow.

Second, de-listing may represent one of the most destructive actions this administration has yet taken against the natural world, largely because the Yellowstone grizzly delisting policy was developed hand-in-hand with the government’s denial of the existence of global warming—an unimaginable firestorm approaching us all—and this proposal reflects that lingering ignorance.

Finally, the myopic and political removal of Yellowstone’s grizzlies from the Endangered Species list effectively eliminates practical discussion of the linkages necessary for countless species of plants and animals that will need to move northward and higher to survive. I’m saying that our best chance of keeping alive and pragmatic the visionary idea of interlinking corridors (like those proposed by the Wildlands Project, Yellowstone to Yukon, the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act and others) is the attainable goal of connecting the isolated grizzly ecosystem of Yellowstone northward to Canada. Without the protection that was afforded the bear under the ESA, the opportunity to complete those linkages will soon be cut off by human development and Yellowstone will remain the island that refutes our grand dreams for connectivity. The grizzly still affords the widest available biological shoulders upon which countless plants and animals may hitch a ride in their struggle to adapt to rapidly shifting habitats.

The decision to remove Yellowstone’s grizzlies from the ESA can now only be reversed by a suit in federal court. Legal arguments will revolve around about bear biology. Here are some concerns:

* The greatest climatic changes in history are now facing the Yellowstone ecosystem and already threaten major bear foods. Whitebark pine, and the nuts it produces, is arguably the grizzly’s most important fall food. A two-degree warming since the 1970s has rendered these trees vulnerable to blister rust and beetle infestation; whitebark pines are dying and could be eliminated from Yellowstone Park within a few decades. Remnant stands of trees would survive only in the coldest outlying regions of the ecosystem, namely the Wind River Range of Wyoming. With de-listing, management of this last refuge for pine nut eating grizzlies will be turned over to the state. Wyoming’s bear management plan would not permit significant numbers of grizzlies anywhere in the Winds and none at all in the southern half of the range.

* The Forest Service and Wyoming post de-listing management plans are inadequate for grizzly survival. The number of bears in Yellowstone has rebounded because the grizzly was listed on the ESA in 1975. The Federal Wildlife Service has credibly administered this policy and they should keep doing it. The FWS currently claims that it can make “adjustments” or re-list the bear if the Yellowstone grizzly population again plummets. But it will be too late by then. The states lack the resources to monitor the number of grizzlies. This is not the time for a change in the great bear’s status.

* There are other issues, other food problems, but the nut remains this: the Yellowstone grizzly is an island ecosystem surrounded by a sea of human industrial and commercial development chewing up the remaining habitat needed for the genetic and physical linkage to northern populations and necessary for long-term survival. On top of that, great and uncharted changes driven by global warming are coming to us all.

* Grizzlies are touted for their adaptability and ability to find new food sources. They should be as well suited to survive the predicted wave of extinction as any wild animal—except for the attitudes, personified by intolerance and greed, of people who historically have killed them and destroyed their habitat. Sometime in this century Homo sapiens must contend with real threats to our own survival and may recognize in the face of the adversary those same human attitudes. During these times, a vigilant generosity towards the natural world is not inappropriate; may we hope for a distant reciprocation.

This note is my first, and perhaps last, fundraising letter. I wrote it because of the enormous and destructive importance of this governmental action: We cannot afford to allow the final ruling to remove the bear from the ESA to slip through uncontested. I also wrote it because of my unmitigated faith in the people of the Bozeman office of Earthjustice to do the work.

You can support the legal efforts to protect this magnificent species by writing a check to Earthjustice, indicating that your contribution should be allocated to the Grizzly Delisting case. The cost of expert witnesses, court costs and attorney time for a case of this magnitude will likely exceed $500,000. If you have the means and might consider making a substantial donation toward this case, please call Doug Honnold at Earthjustice, (406) 586-9699, with any questions or to discuss it further. All levels of support are greatly welcomed: checks may be sent to Earthjustice, 209 S. Willson Ave., Bozeman, MT 59715.

I urge you to contribute to this fund in any way you can, including sending a copy of this letter to all similar-minded friends. If you are with a group or organization that has other urgent priorities, please forward this letter to appropriate supporters who may be inclined to help. Please feel free to contact me personally at any time.

For the wild,

Doug Peacock

April 10, 2007 press release from Dr. Bronner’s

“Germ” Wrongly Jailed Over Soap

Absurd GHB Drug Charges for Don Bolles, Drummer of the “The Germs”, Stem
From a Bottle of Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint Soap Found in Van During Police Stop

ESCONDIDO, CA – The Bronner family, makers of the popular organic Dr.
Bronner’s Magic Soaps are shocked and disturbed by musician Don Bolles’
April 4th arrest for felony drug possession after police alleged an 8oz
bottle of peppermint Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap tested positive for the
illicit drug GHB (Gamma Hydroxy Butyrate). The notion that anyone would put GHB in a rinse-off liquid soap product is beyond belief, and the police field test used must have been flawed or tampered with. GHB, which produces euphoria and is an alleged aphrodisiac when ingested, of course has absolutely no effect in a soap product that is rinsed off the hands and body.

Mr. Bolles, drummer of the legendary punk band The Germs, was arrested following a police traffic stop and spent three and half days in various jails in Orange County before being released early Easter morning. During a consented search of Mr. Bolles vintage 1968 Dodge A-108 van, Newport Beach police found a bottle of peppermint Dr. Bronner’s soap which is made with organic coconut, olive, hemp, peppermint and jojoba oils. Felony drug possession could mean 20 years in prison if convicted. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for Friday, April 13, 2007 at the Harbor Justice Center, 4601 Jamboree Road Newport Beach , CA at 8:30am.

“I’ve used only Dr. Bronner’s soap for 35 years,” says Mr. Bolles. “I use it for everything – bathing, washing my hair, washing my clothes – it goes everywhere I go. I’m scheduled to go to Europe to tour with The Germs this summer, but these felony charges could keep me from traveling out of the country. This whole thing could be really devastating to a 50 year old guy just trying to make a living. I told the officer ‘its soap, it smells like peppermint soap,’ but he seemed intent on arresting me.”

“It is totally outrageous that the police could be this malicious and
idiotic,” says Michael Bronner, Vice-President of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps. “This clearly is a case of profiling by the Newport Beach police of a person who doesn’t look like the people who live in that town. We are paying the cost of Mr. Bolle’s lawyer, and we demand the charges be dropped or proof from the police forensics lab of GHB contamination be immediately provided to us,” said Bronner. Adds brother David Bronner, President: “We cannot imagine anyone putting GHB, or any other drug for that matter, into a rinse-off soap product that is lathered and rinsed off the body immediately. The Newport Beach police should see how much of a buzz putting beer in their shampoo gives them, and get a grip and apologize on their hands and knees to Mr. Bolles.”

At the time of the arrest Mr. Bolles was driving his girlfriend, and fellow musician Cat Scandal to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Newport Beach. “I had heard of GHB but the police had to tell me what it was,” said Bolles. “I’m going to fight these charges.”

from http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/04/another-enemy-of-people.html

Sunday, April 08, 2007
Another Enemy of the People?
Mark Graber

I am posting the below with the permission of Professor Walter F. Murphy,
emeritus of Princeton University. For those who do not know, Professor
Murphy is easily the most distinguished scholar of public law in political
science. His works on both constitutional theory and judicial behavior are
classics in the field. Bluntly, legal scholarship that does not engage
many themes in his book, briefly noted below, Constitutional Democracy,
may be legal, but cannot be said to be scholarship. As interesting, for
present purposes, readers of the book will discover that Murphy is hardly
a conventional political or legal liberal. While he holds some opinions,
most notably on welfare, similar to opinions held on the political left,
he is a sharp critic of ROE V. WADE, and supported the Alito nomination.
Apparently these credentials and others noted below are no longer
sufficient to prevent one from becoming an enemy of the people.

“On 1 March 07, I was scheduled to fly on American Airlines to Newark, NJ,
to attend an academic conference at Princeton University, designed to
focus on my latest scholarly book, Constitutional Democracy, published by
Johns Hopkins University Press this past Thanksgiving.

“When I tried to use the curb-side check in at the Sunport, I was denied a
boarding pass because I was on the Terrorist Watch list. I was instructed
to go inside and talk to a clerk. At this point, I should note that I am
not only the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence (emeritus) but also a
retired Marine colonel. I fought in the Korean War as a young lieutenant,
was wounded, and decorated for heroism. I remained a professional soldier
for more than five years and then accepted a commission as a reserve
office, serving for an additional 19 years.

“I presented my credentials from the Marine Corps to a very polite clerk
for American Airlines. One of the two people to whom I talked asked a
question and offered a frightening comment: ‘Have you been in any peace
marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that.’ I explained
that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at
Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush
for his many violations of the Constitution. ‘That’ll do it,’ the man
said.

“After carefully examining my credentials, the clerk asked if he could
take them to TSA officials. I agreed. He returned about ten minutes later
and said I could have a boarding pass, but added: ‘I must warn you,
they’re going to ransack your luggage.’ On my return flight, I had no
problem with obtaining a boarding pass, but my luggage was ‘lost.’
Airlines do lose a lot of luggage and this ‘loss’ could have been a mere
coincidence. In light of previous events, however, I’m a tad skeptical.

“I confess to having been furious that any American citizen would be
singled out for governmental harassment because he or she criticized any
elected official, Democrat or Republican. That harassment is, in and of
itself, a flagrant violation not only of the First Amendment but also of
our entire scheme of constitutional government. This effort to punish a
critic states my lecture’s argument far more eloquently and forcefully
than I ever could. Further, that an administration headed by two men who
had ‘had other priorities’ than to risk their own lives when their turn to
fight for their country came up, should brand as a threat to the United
States a person who did not run away but stood up and fought for his
country and was wounded in battle, goes beyond the outrageous. Although
less lethal, it is of the same evil ilk as punishing Ambassador Joseph
Wilson for criticizing Bush’s false claims by ‘outing’ his wife, Valerie
Plaime, thereby putting at risk her life as well as the lives of many
people with whom she had had contact as an agent of the CIA. …

“I have a personal stake here, but so do all Americans who take their
political system seriously. Thus I hope you and your colleagues will take
some positive action to bring the Administration’s conduct to the
attention of a far larger, and more influential, audience than I could
hope to reach.”