What’s happening to our military today is insidious. I don’t think we’ll fully realize how dreadful BushCo is treating our armed forces for decades to come.

The lessons of Vietnam were learned. If you wanted to maintain public support for an unjust war, or at least keep the public disengaged, then you don’t draft young people. If you want people to remain complacent, you don’t show flagged draped coffins on TV. If you don’t want people to care, you don’t give weekly death tolls and publicly honor those who have fallen.

That’s where we are today. When BushCo took power, their mandate was to privatize. They wanted to and have handed as much of the government as the possibly could into the hands of private contractors. The worse case of privatization is what Rumsfeld did to our military. As many tasks as possible that were once performed by Soldiers were being outsourced to the likes of Halliburton, KBR, Bechtel, etc.

The idea was to prove how great and efficient corporations are, how government completely sucked ass, and how privatization would be the savior of the United States. In reality all it has done is deliver sub par services while making BushCo friends billions of dollars.

But the real devious part of the occupation of Iraq was not just the lying to the American People about why we were invading Iraq or lying about Saddam’s supposed WMD. The worst part of it all was the decision to fight the war on the cheap.

I know that sounds strange seeing has how the occupation of Iraq is costing upwards of $400 billion and will reach trillions before it’s all over.

But in the beginning commanders like Shinseki told BushCo it would take at least 450,000 troops to occupy and stabilize Iraq. BushCo didn’t like that.

For one, that would engage 3 times as many family members in the military action, two, the cost would sky rocket, three, why send 450,000 U.S. troops when you can use that money to build a private military force?

The goal was never really to streamline the military and make it more efficient. The goal was to steal as much of the DOD budget as possible. This meant scavenging as much equipment and personnel from the National Guard. It also meant sending the National Guard to Iraq. States are now suffering due to their depleted Guard resources. Just ask Louisiana and Kansas. All the while BushCo smiles and Tony Snow dances the White House jig quickly blaming the Democratic Governors of those States.

As recruitment goals dropped it also meant extending the tours of our veterans in Iraq. From 9 months to 12 months to BushCo’s recent announcement that tours will be extended to 15 months. Even more mind blowing are rumors that tours will now be extended to 18 months.

Unlike the draft where a person did 12 months and got out, these days Soldiers are continually in a state of stop loss with tours extended. Others are given huge signing bonuses to re-up.

One part of me fails to understand how or why our military commanders continue to go along with BushCo. Another part of me also realizes that career military officers are trained from day one to follow orders and not question superiors, at least publicly.

What we have now is s state that is worse than the draft for our military but is great for BushCo. The public remains hazy as to why we are in Iraq. Americans have not yet connected fully to the fact that our military is being exploited to protect the oil interests of Exxon, Cheveron, BP, and Shell. Americans remain disengaged over Iraq. It doesn’t affect them on a daily basis. The news is kept to a minimum and the true casualty numbers are kept secret.

Most Americans seem to think that we will eventually get out of Iraq. Meanwhile the Vatican sized embassy in Baghdad casts an ever growing shadow. The permanent military bases signal to the Iraqis that we aren’t leaving.

The Hydrocarbon Law being forced onto the Iraqi Parliament by BushCo would give 80% of the oil revenue to Exxon, Chevron, BP, and Shell. More importantly, Iraq’s oil production is at a minimum keeping their oil off the market thereby helping justify high gas prices in the minds of the oil companies.

It’s not enough to stick it out for a couple more years. It’s not enough to set some timetables. It’s not enough to sit there and ignore what is happening in Iraq. We need to leave now and we need to give Iraqis back their oil. We need to scrap the permanent military bases and scale back the embassy. That’s the only viable solution for a lasting peace in Iraq.

Unfortunately what Washington will do while the American People watch TV is slowly wind operations down in Iraq over a number of years giving time for the private military contractors to build to an even larger force. Then they will leave about 30,000 to 50,000 U.S. troops in Iraq permanently for 50 years or until the oil runs out. The job of those troops will be to protect the assets of Chevron, Exxon, Shell, and BP.

It’s nothing that unusual. It’s wrong but not unusual for the Unite States. We have troops all over the world still left over from World War 2.

The frustrating part for many Americans is watching this all unfold knowing the answer is to develop alternatives to oil, not fund more war, and feeling powerless to affect change.

A simple test for whether or not a military action is justifiable is if people will volunteer to fight the war. In the beginning when we invaded Afghanistan there was a surge of new recruits. In the beginning when Bush lied to Americans telling them Iraq had ties to 9/11 and that Saddam had stockpiles of WMD, the Army had no problems meeting recruitment goals.

Young people today don’t seem too keen on going to Iraq. That should speak volumes to the American People.