Tuesday, February 03, 2009

The Big "D"

"The vast majority, perhaps even all, of Congress, the general officer corps of the armed forces, top management of American defense manufacturers, prominent members of Washington’s think-tank community and nationally recognized “defense journalists” will hate this book. They will likely also urge that it be ignored by both parties in Congress and especially by the new president and his incoming national security team."

The problem with the vested interests who want this document to go away is the fact the 13 writers are non-partisan pentagon insiders who know the drill and know where the bodies lie. Sort of like Dick Cheney knowing Washington big time except these guys are telling the truth about something that's too important to ignore.

To add credence to Meltdown, read The New York Times Flames Out in Defense Dogfight by Chuck Spinney, a guy who was intimately connected to the pentagon as a top analyst specializing in new weapon systems. (Whistle Blower Supreme that even Congress listens to)

"Bottom line: The Pentagon is in a crisis, the editors of the New Times would unknowingly reinforce it. Readers interested in how we might reform the Pentagon's self-destructive-decision process are referred to my testimony cited in the previous paragraph or the somewhat different recommendations in a remarkable new anthology, America’s Defense Meltdown, published by the Center for Defense Information. This new anthology is designed to give President Obama and Congress a guide to placing the Pentagon back onto a pathway toward an effective defense at a cost a nation in recession can afford. Written by retired military officers and civilians with over 350 years experience in the defense business, this book is unique in that it provides a view from the trenches by people who have struggled to reform the way the Pentagon does business."

If civilian tech worked like the Pentagon, computers would never have left the staging area due to the inability to handle the vagaries of the real world.

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