[Politics] White House Policy: Too Little Too Late

The White House announced yesterday that it will shift $3.2 billion of its defense budget out of investment in new weapons, such as the Lockheed Martin Corp. F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and toward armor kits and transport vehicles for ground troops. The letter from the White House Office of Management and Budget said, "Items...that have been used as offsets have been deemed less timely or lower priorities than those in the current request. Reuters reports.

It's about freaking time! Or, worse, its entirely too late.

Again the Bush administration seems to be utilizing a too little too late policy. Addressing poor conditions at Walter Reed Hospital: too little too late; troop surge in Iraq: likely (though I pray it is not) too little too late, and now this. It has taken the administration nearly four years to realize that fighting the war in Iraq will be best done by giving our troops on the ground the best equipment available and not by investing in the military-industrial complex for weapons and aircraft that won't be operational for several years.

I hate to say it, but it does seem as though the administration is more interested in handing out big defense industry contracts than in protecting our troops. How else can you explain the billions of dollars being invested in aircraft at a time when we have 140,000 troops engaged in a war that can only be won on the ground?

Investing in new weapons is important, but when we are engaged in a hot struggle that is already straining our armed forces, our fiscal investments need to be focused on the troops that are fighting in that struggle. Poorly equipping the troops while we hand out billion-dollar defense contracts (and pay for the million dollar salaries, and grossly over-budgeted work of reconstruction companies like Halliburton) is an insult to the men and women that sacrifice for this country. I sincerely hope that people do not still think that this administration is more committed to the troops than the politicians that criticize them.

On a side note, this month's Wired magazine has a fascinating article on some of the things DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is doing to make our soldiers stronger. Check it out.