Just for the record, it looks like we have another clearcut case of ignoring what the troops on the ground need. Wired magazine, (yeah, not your usual news source about the needs of the troops), just published an article which highlights again how the care and feeding of the military-industrial complex interferes with the good judgment necessary to get the Marines, in this case, what they absolutely require to be safe. (H/T to Devilstower at dailykos for the article link.)

Maj. John Rumbaugh’s job was hard enough without all the mortar attacks. An Army surgeon attached to a Marine force in Iraq’s lawless Al Anbar province, the Maryland resident saw a constant stream of casualties from roadside bombings, gunfights and checkpoint shootings. Meanwhile insurgents, exploiting gaps in patrols in the region, would periodically rush the base, fire a handful of mortars at the Marine hospital, then disappear.

Almost every day for a year the insurgents repeated the deadly trick with seeming impunity. With just 20,000 Marines and a few hundred soldiers to cover thousands of square miles, there simply weren’t enough troops to secure the base. Rumbaugh understood that. What he didn’t understand was why the Marines’ weapons-buying bureaucracy had refused repeated, urgent requests for aerial drones that could watch over the base instead.

For years the U.S. Army had used hundreds of such drones to monitor expanses of Iraq where the ground troops were thinnest. The Marines had their own drone - the $100,000 Scan Eagle co-produced by Boeing and Insitu - but in much smaller numbers. Since 2006, Marine commanders in Iraq had filed three formal requests asking for between 60 and 240 additional Scan Eagles. But the complex of Quantico, Virginia, offices responsible for filling such requests - the Combat Development Command, the Marine Corp Systems Command and the Warfighting Laboratory - had ignored or rejected all the pleas.

<!-more->

As a result, none of the 10-foot-wingspan Scan Eagles were available to patrol around Rumbaugh’s hospital. When 12 of Rumbaugh’s medical staff were seriously injured in a spate of attacks in 2006, the major had had enough. In January 2007, through a family member, he appealed to his representatives back home, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland) and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland).

Van Hollen passed the request (.pdf) on to the Army; Mikulski went a step further, contacting Secretary of Defense Robert Gates directly. “I ask that you look into this situation,” the senator wrote (.pdf), “and take whatever steps you deem appropriate to ensure the safety of these forces.”

The Scan Eagle episode is just the latest in a long history of conflict between the Marine Corps’ fighting troops and the bureaucrats in Quantico, where critics say an entrenched resistance to more efficient technology purchasing is endangering fighters’ lives. While an adaptive enemy takes advantage of commercial equipment to build lethal roadside bombs and survivable communications networks, Quantico eschews cheap off-the-shelf products in favor of Cold War-era processes for designing expensive new weapons over the course of years.

There’s more in the article. Look in particular for the account of the green laser “dazzlers” as well as the story of the trucks. Nick Schwellenbach, an analyst with the watchdog group, Project on Government Oversight, was quoted:

There is definitely a tendency in many quarters of the defense establishment to prefer to establish new programs or protect existing ones, rather than use off-the-shelf technology available on the commercial market…

It’s about turf, ego and resources. If your bread and butter is the research and development of new systems, then why would you want to undermine your own project that you may have spent years on?

It reminds me of something that President of the United States (and former General of the Army) Dwight D. Eisenhower said in his Farewell Address to the Nation on January 17, 1961:

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction…

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.

This is particularly true when it gets in the way of providing what our marines and soldiers actually need on the ground in a war zone.

JK noted this himself during his introduction last year of the Honest Leadership and Accountability in Contracting Act of 2006 which he co-sponsored with Senators Dorgan and Leahy.

We owe every man and woman serving in our military nothing less than complete transparency when we spend money in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the war in Iraq and the actions of companies like Halliburton and Custer Battles have become symbols for questions about government waste and a near total lack of accountability. It’s a disgrace that we have to answer to parents who ask how we can allow corporate cheaters to reap massive profits on the battlefield of Iraq when their sons and daughters are serving without proper equipment.

Sounds like we still need that bill.

 

One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek but a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.

  - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1968

Dr. King’s admonition to us about peace underscores a point that JK has made many times about the solution to the conflicts in Iraq and elsewhere, and that is that it is a political solution, not a military solution. I went searching for the source of Dr. King’s quote so that I could view it in context and found that it was part of a chapter, commonly called “The World House” chapter in a book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, published in 1968 by Dr. King.

1968—a time when so much upheaval and conflict existed including Vietnam. Dr. King’s wisdom appears remarkably fresh in light of current events.

The stages of history are replete with the chants and choruses of the conquerors of old who came killing in pursuit of peace. Alexander, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne and Napoleon were akin in seeking a peaceful world order, a world fashioned after their selfish conceptions of an ideal existence. Each sought a world at peace which would personify his egotistic dreams. Even within the life span of most of us, another megalomaniac strode across the world stage. He sent his blitzkrieg-bent legions blazing across Europe, bringing havoc and holocaust in his wake. There is grave irony in the fact that Hitler could come forth, following nakedly aggressive expansionist theories, and do it all in the name of peace.

So when in this day I see the leaders of nations again talking peace while preparing for war, I take fearful pause. When I see our country today intervening in what is basically a civil war, mutilating hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese children with napalm, burning villages and rice fields at random, painting the valleys of that small Asian country red with human blood, leaving broken bodies in countless ditches and sending home half-men, mutilated mentally and physically; when I see the unwillingness of our government to create the atmosphere for a negotiated settlement of this awful conflict by halting bombings in the North and agreeing unequivocally to talk with the Vietcong—and all this in the name of pursuing the goal of peace—I tremble for our world. I do so not only from dire recall of the nightmares wreaked in the wars of yesterday, but also from dreadful realization of today’s possible nuclear destructiveness and tomorrow’s even more calamitous prospects.

Before it is too late, we must narrow the gaping chasm between our proclamations of peace and our lowly deeds which precipitate and perpetuate war. We are called upon to look up from the quagmire of military programs and defense commitments and read the warnings on history’s signposts.

One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek but a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. How much longer must we play at deadly war games before we heed the plaintive pleas of the unnumbered dead and maimed of past wars?

President John F. Kennedy said on one occasion, “Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.” Wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete.

[...]

We have ancient habits to deal with, vast structures of power, indescribably complicated problems to solve. But unless we abdicate our humanity altogether and succumb to fear and impotence in the presence of the weapons we have ourselves created, it is as possible and as urgent to put an end to war and violence between nations as it is to put an end to poverty and racial injustice.

Almost 40 years later, Dr. King’s words are as true today as they were in 1968.

During his trip to various countries in the Middle East last December, JK made several comments including this answer during an interview with David Gregory (transcript | video) which reinforce the point he’s made so often and which Dr. King so eloquently underscored in his book. <!-more->

GREGORY: More troops would not do enough in your estimation to shore up Baghdad and at least give the Maliki government a fighting chance?

KERRY: Not without a fundamental political resolution. I think you could put 100,000 troops and you’re going to up the casualties, up the stakes, increase the violence and not get a resolution.

The fundamental resolution that I’ve heard in every country I’ve been to - I’ve been to Egypt - I met with President Mubarak; I’ve been to Jordan - met with King Abdullah yesterday; we’re here in Syria today; going to Israel from here; I was in Lebanon yesterday - everywhere people are saying, “You’ve got to have a comprehensive political reconciliation process.” And we’re here to explore whether that can be broader than it’s been in the past and we think it can.

[...]

That is the key, not troops. More troops will not resolve the problem of Iraq. And you won't end the violence. What'll happen is you'll create a larger, more prominent target in the absence of the kind of political solution that's needed.

[...]

But nothing is going to resolve Iraq without this fundamental political reconciliation. You have a divide between Sunni and Shia. And you have criminal elements. You have ex-Baathist elements. You’ve just got an enormous historical cultural problem. And the only way to overcome it is with major assistance from outside countries and from us, to get that political resolution.

As JK pointed out during his interview with Alex Chadwick on NPR’s Day-To-Day program ( transcript | audio ):

Ronald Reagan talked to Gorbachev. Richard Nixon sent Kissinger to talk to the Chinese. We need to engage. This is too dangerous a world not to.

JK’s reference to Reagan and Nixon highlights an understanding that seems to have been forgotten by the current administration. An understanding that Reagan himself stated in another quotable quote:

Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.

 

[Editor’s note: One of the jk blogging community members, MBK, was at the UMass Dartmouth commencement this past weekend. She took pictures and notes and put together a report to share with us. ]   - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - –   The Kerrys at UMass Dartmouth commencement, May 27, 2007  

  The 2007 commencement of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth was held at the campus’s outdoor Vietnam Veterans Peace Memorial Amphitheater. What more fitting venue for a speech by John Kerry could there possibly be?

The amphitheater was overflowing with graduates, faculty, and family and friends of graduates, all there for the main event: the awarding of degrees. <!-more-> But there was also a big bonus for all of us there that morning. First, there was the awarding of honorary degrees to four interesting and most worthy people, the Director of the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists; a beloved Congregationalist minister from Fall River, MA; a landscape designer and author of several thoughtful books on gardens; and, last, but by no means the least, the ever delightful Teresa Heinz Kerry.

In presenting Teresa her degree, the U Mass Dartmouth Chancellor cited Teresa’s work as (my notes, the quote may not be exact) “passionate and compassionate philanthropist, as public servant, and intrepid advocate”, noting along the way Teresa’s “brilliant intellect”. These are all reasons enough to earn her several awards for her work. But then there is also the fact of Teresa’s Portuguese ancestry, a fact not lost on a region with a rich Portuguese / Brazilian-immigrant culture, nor on a campus with its own popular major in Portuguese Studies. If Teresa (who, like the rest of the honorary degree recipients, did not speak during the ceremony) had managed to say even two words in Portuguese to the assembled crowd, pandemonium would surely have ensued. A pity that we didn’t get to hear from Teresa (her spouse quipped later in the day that “my wife speaks 5 languages and has opinions in all of them”) or her fellow degree recipients, but great choices on the part of U Mass Dartmouth: all of them, in the words of the Chancellor, are indeed “people who have used their education to truly make a difference”.

Second, there was the award of the prestigious. rarely awarded and much-deserved Chancellor’s Medal to Sen. John Kerry, who offered up a fine talk, both very funny and deeply serious.

Overviews of the event, and biographies of all the awardees , can be found at the university website here and in this news account.

U Mass Dartmouth also promises a video of Kerry’s speech “as soon as possible at” www.umassd.edu/commencement/.

With those summaries available, I’ll just highlight here the most memorable moments for me.

The Chancellor introduced Sen. Kerry as “our own Senator, and, I only wish, our own president”, and described his “service defined by principle and action”. Yes, this is the man I voted for, with pride and hope, in November 2004.

As JK approached the podium, a man several rows behind me yelled out for all of southern Massachusetts and at least half of Rhode Island to hear, “WE LOVE YOU, JOHN!”. I grinned with recognition of a kindred spirit.

Sen. Kerry started his talk by talking about the choices he faced in preparing his speech, trying to decided between a 120-minute policy talk on global warming and other serious issues of the day, or a 10-minute talk on a lighter note. As both the johnkerry.com live bloggers here, and the newspaper accounts have already noted, he chose the 10-minute version (actually, I suspect it was really about 20 minutes in all), reeling out the one-liners, with surprisingly contemporary pop references, one after the other.

But, at the end, he got serious. Here are some of Sen. Kerry’s lessons, as recorded imperfectly by hand by me:

“Your hard work and aspirations have come to fruition at a hard time. What’s important is that you don’t become cynical and walk away from the choices that make a life well-lived”.

Speaking about good and the bad he’s seen in his forty years of public service, and, (I’d guess, holding special thoughts for the unspeakable last few years), he said:

“I’ve . . seen a level of procrastination, a level of avoidance, a level of irresponsibility, and a level of danger growing that challenges all of us. And what I know after all those years is it doesn’t have to be this way.”

“We need you to care. If you think that global warming” (or any other disaster) is bigger than you. .that it’s futile to try to change things, my answer is: NO, IT’S NOT. Lech Walesa saw a strike, jumped a fence, and became president. Vaclav Havel left jail, and became president. On Earth Day, we—20 million of us strong—created accountability.

Recounting the birth of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other early legislative acts stemming from the first Earth Day, Kerry noted, “We didn’t even have the EPA,” among other things until people went out and made that happen. It wasn’t politicians that made that happen; YOU made that happen.You can make a difference. You can do it without any political labels. You can do it with the quality of your thinking.

”Some people didn’t like what we were doing” (in fighting to end the Vietnam War)“ and some people still don’t. . .But we didn’t’ get here by standing still”. He recounted one of his favorite lines (which I think is the description of the patriotism of Sen. Kerry in a nutshell), “My country right or wrong: when it’s wrong, make it right”.

Sen. Kerry concluded with this thought:

“What we have is not guaranteed, and some of it is at risk… When you get out of here, go out and build your families, build your net worth, build whatever you want, build your careers; just don’t forget to build your country while you are at it.”

After Sen. Kerry had finished, the Chancellor thanked him with these apt words: “Thank you for challenging us, as always, to be our best selves.”

OK, water under the bridge and all that, but I couldn’t help thinking, multiple times that day, how much our country lost in November 2004 when it failed to restore our own nation to its highest, best self. I kept thinking to myself, with wonder: “And half of my fellow citizens chose the other candidate, over this man, in 2004? And still others among us were too indifferent even to vote? Will we ever wake up to the full depth of what we havew lost?”

After the ceremony, as I inched along in the traffic jam, involuntarily contributing to global warming, a trio of 20-somethings (newly minted graduates?) walked by (yes, passed) my traffic-jammed car. One of them said to his friends, “He promised he wouldn’t give a campaign speech, but he gave a campaign speech!” Diplomatic silence from his two companions. The speaker then back-pedalled: “But he is a fantastic speaker”. Keeping my own diplomatic silence, I thought to myself, “Well, even the slow learners among us seem finally to be catching on.”

Onward and upward to our best selves.

MBK

PS. Speaking of best selves, that 77-year old graduate mentioned by the live bloggers turns out to be even more amazing than you already think. Dieter Kramsch was awarded his BA in anthropology summa cum laude. A fantastic achievement in itself, but there’s more: he plans to go on for his Ph.D. in the same field. And there’s still more: he already has a Ph.D. in pharmacology and an MD, and was a professor for many years at the University of Southern California and Boston University Schools of Medicine!

 

 

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - –

 

MBK, thanks so much for the report and the pictures.

 

 

Day is done, gone the sun, From the hills, from the lake, From the sky. All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.

Fades the light; And afar Goeth day, And the stars Shineth bright, Fare thee well; Day has gone, Night is on.

Thanks and praise, For our days, ‘Neath the sun, Neath the stars, ‘Neath the sky, As we go, This we know, God is nigh.  

  - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - –   <!-more-> There are no official lyrics to the music of Taps, but these are some of the oft-cited verses.

Hattip to the IGTNT diary for today. IGTNT (I Got The News Today) is a diary series written at dailykos in acknowledgement of each reported death in war.

 

The University of Massachusetts found itself in hot water last week for its controversial decision to present former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card with an honorary degree from that prestigious institution, in what many protesting students and faculty felt was direct conflict with the university’s high moral and ethical standards. (Mr. Card, as you may recall, accompanied Alberto Gonzales during his now-infamous visit to John Ashcroft’s hospital room in an attempt to get him to re-authorize the domestic surveillance program which had recently been determined to be illegal by the justice department.)

The University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth should have no such problems during their commencement exercises today, however. The list of those being presented with honorary degrees this time includes a familiar name or two, and there’s little doubt of their worthiness for recognition. The featured commencement speaker’s name should ring a bell, too. As the university’s website notes,

U.S. Senator John F. Kerry will deliver the main address at UMass Dartmouth’s 107th Commencement Exercises to be held Sunday, May 27 at 10:30 a.m. in the Vietnam Veterans Peace Memorial Amphitheater.

Honorary degrees will be conferred upon:

• Teresa Heinz Kerry, chairman of the Heinz Family Philanthropies;

• Edmund Barry Gaither, Director and Curator of the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists;

• Robert P. Lawrence, pastor of the First Congregational Church in Fall River; and

• Julie Moir Messervy, landscape designer and author.

“We are honored to have Senator Kerry as our commencement speaker this year,’’ Chancellor Jean F. MacCormack said. “For four decades he has served the Commonwealth and nation, and has been a stalwart advocate for our university and region. His perspective on the issues that our nation will face in the coming years will be highly valuable to our graduates as they go forth.”

“We are also pleased to be granting honorary degrees to Teresa Heinz, Rev. Robert Lawrence, Julie Moir Messervy, and Edmund Barry Gaither—four extraordinary individuals who have used their immense talents and generous spirits to enhance the social, cultural, and physical landscapes of communities near and far,’’ Chancellor MacCormack said.

The festivities begin at 10:30 am EST, and will be broadcast live over the web in several formats—see http://www.umassd.edu/commencement/webcast.cfm for details.

We’ll be keeping an eye on the events and live-blogging them in real time here on johnkerry.com, of course, and we expect to have updated reports from our JK bloggers on the ground in Massachusetts later in the day as well.

So turn on your media players, tune in to UMass Dartmouth, and enjoy the show!

Sometimes a melody and a few pictures speak most eloquently.

Created by globalvillage

  On this Memorial Day weekend, please take time to watch, listen, remember and honor those who have honored us with their service.

  – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

  Thanks, GV, for this remembrance.

 

There was a lot of discussion on the post JK put up at dailykos yesterday.

Kos pulled out a quote he liked that’s worth repeating:

I’m not going to ask for patience, because the truth is big policy changes like this are only achieved by impatient people – in huge numbers.

JK made some additional points in responding to some of the comments and in his updates to the post that are worth higlighting as well. The first update was a response to a question by Granny Doc.

update: I’ve tried to answer a few of the recurring questions below, but one of the biggest sources of frustration I see is a feeling that you don’t see the process how I describe it. As Granny Doc said:

Will you PLEASE take the time to explain this line in your diary, Senator?

this supplemental was only the first avenue to begin to put pressure on the GOP

How? When? Exactly what pressure is being exerted by giving the Administration and the GOP exactly what they wanted?

I think I speak for many when I say, we really do not see what the hell is going on. If there is a Grand Strategy, please give us a clue

I want to reprint what I said up here for everyone to see:

Well, first of all, let’s be clear – I wanted this bill defeated. I’m not sugarcoating that, if I tried you’d call me on it, deservedly so. My “no” vote speaks for itself.

As for where we go from here, it’s not really a secret plan. We force votes on Iraq again and again and again. We pressure them every chance we can get. And I think these Republicans who stand with George Bush’s rotten policy will squirm. That’s why I launched the Roadblock Republicans campaign that a ton of you made a success. Look, the pundits and the horserace crowd can spin this vote as good for the GOP, then again when Russ and I got 11 votes for a deadline a year ago they thought we were handing the GOP a “wedge” issue in 2006 – and look how that turned out, it helped give us a Democratic Senate elected on changing course in Iraq. I think the Republicans are scared as hell because they can’t defend this policy. So we need to move forward with bills that are different from a supplemental, where the political calculus is different for some Senators. For example, we could continue to educate people on the awful record of the GOP on actually supporting our troops (groups like VoteVets are doing wonderful work there), then make sure to include troop readiness language in bills. And we use the pressure of one bill to set up the stage for the other, such as using the supplemental to get so many Republicans to go on record saying September was a deadline for success for them. They can’t wiggle out from this mess come then.

Political pressure can come in a variety of forms, of course. And it takes time to build it up around one specific course of action, even on an issue with such wide support as a new course in Iraq. We come out of this supplemental fight with a lot of suburban GOP districts swinging our way. We have a number of groups organizing in key Senate states, such as the AAEI’s campaign with USAction, that have been running ads and building field operations. All of this is slowly taking its toll— if we continue to build it, they will crack. As an old friend of mine used to say, nothing focuses the mind of a politician like the prospect of defeat at the polls.

I hope that helps explain what I mean when I say we need to “keep fighting.” I have to go for a while, but I have another time scheduled to come back. Although I have to say—over 400 comments already is a little overwhelming.

In the second update JK offered encouragement.

update2: Not much time right now, but one thing I want to emphasize is, I’m not blowin smoke at you about the progress we’ve made over months and months of fighting. Don’t just take my word for it - yes, I oppose this supplemental and I’m voting against it - but don’t discount how much we’ve shifted the dynamic already, it underscores why we can’t stop. Here’s what my original partner on this issue – Russ Feingold – just said on the Senate floor:

It’s been almost one year since 13 Senators supported a proposal I offered with Senator Kerry that would have brought our troops out of Iraq by this summer. Now, 29 Senators support an even stronger measure, enforced by Congress’s power of the purse, to safely redeploy our troops.

So let me just underscore - what if we’d thrown in the towel last June? Where would we be now? This is William Wallace time - time to dig in. —JK

Here are some of the other questions and JK’s responses:

Please help me understand why the Democrats lost this round, so to speak.

Why is there a bill coming up that you will vote no on? Why isn’t there a bill coming up that you could vote yes on?

Why didn’t the Democrats hold firm on their version of the supplemental? What pressure could a very unpopular president sitting on top a very unpopular war exert on them?

It seems to me that the Democrats had everything on their side and still couldn’t pull this off.

Why?

by johnny71 on Thu May 24, 2007 at 12:04:21 PM EDT

---

That’s an excellent question, of course.

Look, I feel as confident in my no vote as I am about anything I’ve done here – this broken policy won’t be changed with a blank check. But, and this is the key point, legislation is a blunt instrument. And when you use blunt instruments, you need to have overwhelming political support to pull it off. The work all of you did to build our majority for a deadline has been amazing. It’s that work that makes me confident that we can keep going and building. But we’re not quite at the place we need to be yet, obviously - but that’s not a reason to quit.

by John Kerry on Thu May 24, 2007 at 01:35:01 PM EDT

- – - - <!-more->

Thank you, Senator.

Can you filibuster? Is that an option?

by kyril on Thu May 24, 2007 at 12:03:00 PM EDT

---

• Not really an option

There’s no fancy way to say “no” and I’m not going to try. There’s just not enough support to make a filibuster work. You know I’ll filibuster against steep odds – think about what we did on Alito. But a filibuster would be over in about a minute on this bill – we wouldn’t have a fifth of the votes needed for it. This isn’t a one shot deal. We get more bites at this apple. We need to shift our focus. There was very little chance that this was ever going to be the end of it, and we have many avenues available to us to continue the fight. We need to change the political dynamics before we win this, and parliamentary maneuvering can’t do that right now. If it would, I’d be doing that.

by John Kerry on Thu May 24, 2007 at 01:40:41 PM EDT

- – - –

Thank you

The only reason that people get so upset, is that troops and innocents are dying in the time it takes to get things done. That fact just never goes away.

It’s always in the back of our heads, always. If you are like me and know people who lost their lives in Iraq, and I have no doubt you do sir, then you know that the pain never goes away – and the delays in ending the war just create more dead bodies and more people with a hole in their heart, where their friends’ life used to be.

Cheers, keep fighting!

by cycloptichorn on Thu May 24, 2007 at 12:19:38 PM EDT

---

Never forget

Never out of my thoughts, and never will be. It hurts like hell to go to some of the funerals I’ve been to, more and more as this war goes on. Those faces at Walter Reed never leave your thoughts either. You bet this is personal. I’ve seen what happens in war; I know what it’s like, I’ve seen my friends wear it for the rest of their lives, and I have friends I loved who never got to grow old the way I did.. It’s exactly for that reason that I fight for this.

by John Kerry on Thu May 24, 2007 at 05:12:06 PM EDT

- – - –

This is how cynical I’ve become.

I’ll probably get flamed into dkos oblivion, but right now everyone is suspect to me. Is Senator Kerry, who has been a friend and fighter here, now charged with calming that progressive blog down? He’s gained our confidence, but when you’re selling out the base, who better to distract them? Maybe Feingold or Wes Clark, but..

As you can tell Mr. Kerry, I AM BEYOND DISAPPOINTED AND DISILLUSIONED. I feel used, ignored, manipulated, abused and taken for granted. It’s one thing if I were that single voice in the wilderness. But there are a fucking 210 million of us.

If you are sincere, god speed and god bless you. If not, go away and let me mourn!

by madgranny on Thu May 24, 2007 at 03:32:36 PM EDT

---

Cynicism

I think this Administration is counting on us to get cynical, disillusioned, and just quit on the whole enterprise. That’s how they win. These are really good reasons to be fed up—fed up with Washington games, turned off by a political process that moves too slowly while good people die. But none of those are reasons to pack it in, they’re reasons to become more activist, to redouble our efforts. I understand your feelings, as well. This is a bitter struggle, I’ve been there before and this feels like déjà vu remembering Vietnam and a President who wouldn’t budge back then too. But one thing I’ll tell you is, I don’t come here to do anyone else’s bidding or speak out of anything other than my own conviction. I actually think it’s a strength and not a weakness of our Senate leadership and our caucus that no one in the leadership even knew I’d post a diary here; that’s not the way we operate, that’s the way the other side operates. They’re the ones who demand Stepford-like message “discipline” – hence the reality of Roadblock Republicans who know this policy is a bust but cling to it with a stubbornness that reflects their leadership. I’ve been here before calling for action, I’ll come here to celebrate when we win, and I thought I owed it to you to come here now when the bill didn’t go the way I wanted. If I came here to call for support for the bill, you might have a point, but I didn’t.

Although I will tell you something else, a completely personal aside that you can take as you will, Harry Reid and I haven’t always walked lockstep in the tactics of how to change the Iraq debate, but the depth of his feeling that this Iraq policy is tragically wrong is something as sincere and genuine as it comes. Look at Harry Reid’s face, he wears the anguish of this war for everyone to see, and he cares as deeply as anyone about forcing a change of course. He has more quiet determination than anyone about seeing this through.

by John Kerry on Thu May 24, 2007 at 05:18:20 PM EDT

---

GlobalVillage caught JK speaking on the Senate floor about the Iraq Supplemental Spending bill and posted it in 2 parts on youtube which you can check out here and here.

---

Here’s some of my favorite quotes from JK’s speech:

History has proven that it was a mistake to give this president the power to go to Iraq. And I believe that history will prove that it was a mistake to give him the open-ended power that this supplemental bill leaves in his hands.

This war is not what this president says it is. And I believe that we have an obligation not to vote for continuation of a policy that empowers the president to simply continue the war at his discretion.

[…]

This bill does not provide a strategy worth of our soldiers’ sacrifice. Instead it permits more of the same. A strategy that relies on sending American troops into the allies and back roads of Iraq to referee a deadly civil war. … [W]e had an opportunity here to elicit a legitimate fundamental change and some commitments from this administration with respect to the way in which we would hold the Iraqis accountable and the way in which this administration itself would be held accountable. … [T] hat is what the American people voted for in November of 2006. That is what they have a right to expect from this Congress.

[…]

And I am convinced, because the last years have proven it, the president is wrong to keep suggesting that we’ll stand down when they stand up. I believe—they will not stand up until we stand down. That is the reality.

[…]

Now let me say very, very clearly because I’ve been there before in this argument. I know what happens when you vote here in a way that people can easily try to pick up and construe as a vote other than what it really is.

There is good in this supplemental. Yes, we need money for readiness for troops and every single one of us wants our troops to be as ready as they can be. Yes, it is good that there is money for care for veterans. And our veterans deserve the best care in the world. In fact, the money available in this bill is a far cry from the real needs of our veterans with respect to mental health, outreach centers, veterans centers, the VA, the care at the hospitals. That could be a great deal stronger. But we’re for that, Mr. President. We’re also for the money for Katrina so let me make it clear to anybody who wants to try to distort this vote. I am in favor of the money for readiness. I am in favor of giving our troops all the care that they need and deserve. I am in favor of money for support for Katrina.

But the fundamental gravamen of this bill – the heart of this bill – is the strategy with respect to the war in Iraq. The heart of this bill are the consequences that we invite as a result of our votes.

I think in the last week or two, I’ve been to 3 funerals, Mr. President. One funeral, the son of a man who has opposed the war, a military man, a West Pointer himself, a man who gave us his career. But he’s opposed to this war. And he dared to use the word to me in a conversation on the very day his son was being buried about how it was important for us to redouble our efforts here in the Senate, to bring this to a close. How it was important for us not to allow these young men and women to have their lives wasted; a word that if any politician used, we’d be pilloried for. The father of a man who was being buried used that word on the very day his son was being buried.

Another funeral I attended where the father was overcome with emotion speaking from the pulpit, left the pulpit, came down, stood beside his son’s coffin and said, “I have to talk beside my son.” Put his hand on the coffin and talked to us about his son’s pride and his son’s patriotism and his son’s love of his fellow soldiers, his son and his commitment to what he was doing personally. … [W] e have a responsibility with respect to those young men and women, with respect to those families. And I believe that responsibility is not met when you give the president the very same power to continue on a daily basis what he has been doing for these last years.

[…]

There is not in this supplemental, one benchmark that can be enforced, not one. … How do you say to an American family that their son or daughter ought to give up their life so Iraqi politicians can spin around and play a game between each other at our expense. It’s unconscionable. It’s bad strategy. It’s bad policy. It defies common sense. That’s what this vote is about.

[…]

And I have no fear about casting this vote against this, Mr. President. Because this is the wrong policy for Iraq. This continues the open-ended lack of accountability. This allows the president to certify whatever the president wants, to waive whatever the president wants. And I promise to my colleagues, we will be back here in September having the same debate with the same benchmark questions and they will not have moved in their accountability.

[…]

It’s time for us to get the policy right. That’s how you support the troops.

Or as he said, earlier, “This is William Wallace time… Time to dig in.”

 

Let’s be really clear about the Iraq vote coming down the pike in Congress this week.

I’m voting no on this bill. I’m tired of the false choices of Republicans and all the recycled spin of old battles and the political calculations that do nothing for our troops who bear the real costs of this war. Bottom line: we support the troops by getting the policy right, and this bill doesn’t do that. I’ve said it again and again and I’m not about to stop: we need a deadline to force Iraqis to stand up for Iraq and bring our heroes home, not watered down benchmarks and blank check waivers for this President. We support the troops by funding the right mission, not with a White House that opposes a pay raise for our brave men and women in uniform. Do we need to bring out the hand puppets and make the case again?

Reality about this legislation is as simple as it gets: The original Senate legislation offered a roadmap to change course in Iraq. I was proud of the progress we’d made. (I’ve still got the scars of the lonely fight Russ Feingold and I made in the summer of 2006 when we first introduced legislation to set a deadline to redeploy combat troops and only got 11 votes. But it was perseverance, not pessimism that made that a majority position less than a year later.) I’m voting no on this new version of the supplemental because it enables the Administration and Iraqi politicians to deliver more of the same.

So what do we do now that we’ve hit a bump in the road? Fold up our tents? No way – doing so would be ignorant almost of the long hard legislative struggle and forceful pressure it required to get to this point. I am determined to continue pressing this issue until President Bush changes course. Why? Because we owe our troops nothing less than a strategy that is worthy of their sacrifice. <!-more-> So, yes, in this fight we threw a lot of punches, and we landed a bunch, but this is a heavyweight bout. It’s not going to be over in the first round, and this isn’t the final bell. As Kos said yesterday:

We still haven’t completely lost this Iraq supplemental battle. And if we do, instead of crying and taking your ball home, resolve to fight even harder. We owe it to our troops in Iraq, to our families, to our neighbors, to ourselves …

This movement is about fighting for what we believe in, doing the hard work to transform both our party and our nation. It won’t happen at once. We’ll have to do this incrementally one issue fight and one election cycle at a time.

Changing course in Iraq is too urgent—restoring sanity and balance to our foreign policy is too important—to be anything but disappointed with where we are right now. Every day we follow this path is another day lost, another day of damage being done to our country. I fought for a new course—I’ll continue to fight for a new course—and I know a lot of you fought with me. Believe me: we will win this debate the same way we clawed to this point – by never relenting in the pressure to change things.

So where do we go from here? We push from every direction we can think of. Harry Reid and I have spoken about this many times, and this supplemental was only the first avenue to begin to put pressure on the GOP. There are many other opportunities, and we will seize them all. Because, make no mistake about who makes up the other side on this one: it’s the Bush White House and its GOP enablers. Now we have many, many Republicans on record as saying that September is a deadline to see how the misguided escalation is going. (So now they like deadlines?) So when September comes along, we can’t let them posture their way into throwing out some new deadline we need to reach to see if anything will happen. We’ll have another three months of pressure built, another season of activism to make them rethink their position.

I’m not going to call on you to do anything specific today; you’ve done so much already. I’m not going to ask for patience, because the truth is big policy changes like this are only achieved by impatient people – in huge numbers. I’m just telling you, I’ll continue to work every single day (every damn day as my old friend Ron says) to apply pressure to change this broken policy. There will be new avenues of attack, new paths to take. But, for right now, it’s up to folks like me to do our part to keep the battle going, so all of you can work to keep the pressure going. Together, we can win this, as long as we keep the battle joined. Keep punching.

Cross-posted at dailykos and Huffington Post.

 

FCW.com noted JK’s criticism of SBA and its policies related to minority-owned business in a hearing on May 22nd.

The Small Business Administration seems asleep when it comes to issues related to minority-owned small businesses, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said today.

For example, in a decade, SBA has not updated its net worth threshold for its small-business program that assists businesses with government contracts set-asides, said Kerry, chairman of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, at a committee hearing.

Things have changed considerably since 1997, he said, and SBA needs to review the dollar amounts.

“Frankly, it seems like it’s almost asleep,” Kerry said about the agency.

The threshold determines when a business is eligible to enter the small-business program and sets a ceiling for when the company outgrows it. An individual’s net worth must be at least $250,000 to enter the program, and once it hits $750,000, he or she becomes ineligible, according to testimony from SBA officials.

The key is the individual’s net worth, not the business’ net worth, said Calvin Jenkins, SBA’s deputy associate administrator for government contracting and business development, in his testimony. Things have not changed that much, which makes the levels still appropriate, he said.

Most individuals’ net worth is well below the program’s threshold, Jenkins said.

Kerry said those dollar figures are squeezing downward and narrowing the field of who can join the program. It takes a companies up to four years before getting a contract, and then “boom! they’re out of the program” because of their growth, he said.

PRNewswire has more detail about the hearing in “Kerry Focuses on Expanding Minority Entrepeneurship Opportunities”.

HispanicBusinessNews.com covered the preview of the hearing in the post, “Kerry Looks to Spur Small-Business Growth: Part One”. <!-more-> RTO Online noted the unanimous passage of the Small Business Lending Reauthorization and Improvements Act (S. 1256) by the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. They noted that the bill’s features included:

The Small Business Lending Reauthorization and Improvements Act:

-  Establishes an Intermediary Lending Pilot Program championed by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), to reach businesses that are not eligible for 7(a) and 504 loans but need capital to help finance their growth -  Increases loan assistance for businesses looking to trade with other countries, a provision championed by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) -  Expands lending in low-income communities by coordinating the 504 loan program with the New Markets Tax Credit program -  Encourages lending to Native Americans and to those with disabilities -  Strengthens the Microloan and Microloan Technical Assistance Programs and the Program for Investment in Microentrepreneurs -  Updates the 7(a) and 504 programs to address more expensive markets and rising interest rates, making it possible to refinance property with 504 loans and get larger 7(a) loans -  Allows small businesses to obtain both 7(a) and 504 loans, giving them the benefits of both programs when they need working capital and fixed-assets -  Allows non-profit child care centers to get 504 loans through a pilot program -  Creates an office at the SBA to increase business ownership by minorities -  Reduces red tape to make participation in loan programs easier and to encourage more lenders and non-profits to make small business loans

FCW.com reported that “Kerry queries DOD on missed vet set-aside goal”.

ORLANDO, Fla. —Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) wants to know why the Defense Department, of all agencies, is falling short when it comes to contracting with small businesses owned by service-disabled veterans.

Kerry, chairman of the Senate’s Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, wrote to Defense Secretary Robert Gates May 15 asking for a clear statement on DOD’s commitment to meeting the governmentwide goal of setting aside 3 percent of contracting dollars for such businesses.

DOD has yet to meet that goal, which was written into law in 1999. In 2005, for example, the department set aside a little less than 0.5 percent, Kerry wrote.

PRNewswire has the text of the letter sent to Robert Gates in this post.

IT BusinessEdge reported on Senators Kerry and Snowe’s efforts to gain more time for small business in Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.

In light of the fact that Congress denied small businesses a Sarbanes-Oxley section 404 exemption not long ago, Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) are lobbying regulators to give SMBs more time to comply with the complicated internal controls requirements.

Kerry and Snowe serve, respectively, as chairman and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. In those capacities, they recently penned a joint letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox and Public Company Accounting Oversight Board Mark Olson.

They asked both boards to consider giving small businesses an extra year to comply with Sarbox. In addition, they asked the PCAOB to keep an eye on how auditors deal with small businesses so that they are not unduly burdened. And of the SEC, the senators requested a published small business compliance guide, a full assessment of the “economic impact” of Sarbox on small business and regular reporting on that impact, as well as an upward adjustment to the number of shareholders needed for securities registration.

reinvention inc blog posted JK’s letter calling for investigation into Women Business Center Funding.

PRNewswire has the letter and more background on the impact of the failure to adequately implement the Women’s Procurement Program.

Inc.com made a quick passing note of the bill introduced by JK and Sen. Snowe whiich would boost SBA loans.

May 3, 2007—Senate lawmakers this week introduced legislation that would allow the federal government to back nearly $100 billion in loans to small-business owners over the next three years.

The bill, introduced Wednesday by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), provides $60 billion for the Small Business Administration’s 7(a) loan program, $27 billion to its 504 program, and $330 million for government-backed microloans.

A sidenote in a Washington Post article about the fire at the historic Eastern Market in Washington, DC highlighted JK’s recommendation:

The fire, which was caused by an electrical short, displaced 13 merchants of fresh produce, meats and poultry from the 134-year-old brick building on Capitol Hill.

Within hours, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty vowed it would be rebuilt. City and federal officials scrambled to find money. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, encouraged the city to seek loans from the Small Business Administration.

JK wrote an oped for the Wooster Business Journal

We Americans pride ourselves on having the fairest, most transparent and most efficient financial markets in the world. We got there by developing a regulatory approach that insures investors around the world have confidence in our markets.

However, over the last few years, the actions of companies like Enron, WorldCom and Arthur Andersen shook the American people’s faith in our financial markets.

In response, Congress took decisive steps to restore accountability to corporate governance, auditing, and financial reporting for public companies by passing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

But this success has come with a disproportionately heavy burden for our small businesses – the small companies that can’t afford an army of accountants to help them wade through endless red tape. A recent Government Accountability Office study found that firms with assets over $1 billion spend just 13 cents per $100 in revenue on audit fees, while small businesses spend more than a dollar.

We need to assist small businesses, the backbone of the American economy, in making the transition to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley regulations. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) are currently considering final rules and guidance on implementing the law. I am hopeful that their changes will make compliance easier for small businesses. But above all, small companies need additional time to understand and implement the changes to Sarbanes-Oxley.

You can read the rest of the oped here.

Wooster Business Journal had a news brief item highlighting the Massachusetts business owners honored by JK during the Small Business Week celebration.

Mass. Business Owners Awarded

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) recently honored four Massachusetts small business owners at the National Small Business Week in Washington, D.C. Craig A. Bovaird from Princeton, president of Built-Rite Tool and Die Inc. based in Lancaster received the Massachusetts Small Business Person of the Year award. His company specializes in developing and manufacturing thermoplastics for the aerospace, medical, defense and high-tech industries. Patrick Turley, president of Turley Publications Inc. in Palmer was honored with the Phoenix Award for Small Business Disaster Recovery. Anne Marie Cerami from Burlington received the 2007 National Financial Services Champion award. She is the senior vice president and manager of agency guaranty programs at TD Banknorth Inc. Vice president of Sovereign Bank in Boston, James M. Hanlon, received the Export Lender of the Year Award.

Goodbiz113 blog gives a kudos to JK in a post titled “Senators Kerry and Snowe Press SBA for Action on Energy Program”. The post includes the letter which JK and Sen. Snowe sent to the SBA administrator, Steven Preston, concerning the SBA’s energy conservation support efforts.

GoodBiz113’s take: As champions of small business and the environment, we again commend Sen. Kerry and Sen. Snowe on their collaborative and persistent efforts to promote entrepreneurship and energy efficiency. Keep fighting the good, bipartisan fight!

Then there’s these items in the better-late-than-never category.

This blog post at 0800handyman.co.uk blog caught my eye:

Yanks take small business seriously

Dan Matthews at Real Business points out that John Kerry chairs the (US) Senate Committee on Small Businesses. John Kerry! ... Americans really are so much better than us at this sort of thing.

Ok… of course I followed the breadcrumb trail to RealBusiness.co.uk and found this post which pointed to an interview that JK did with Inc magazine which I totally missed highlighting in a prior Small Business News Roundup.

And yes, JK does take Small Business and Entrepeneurship very seriously. Thanks for the smile

And now for the Inc magazine interview, “John Kerry: Back in Charge” with Angus Loten

Ruling out another presidential run, John Kerry has chosen to focus on his day job in the Senate—including chairmanship of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. So what’s on his agenda? He’s the guy who put the “entrepreneurship” in the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. As committee chairman in 2001, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) had the name extended to reflect its broader sense of mission. Now, with the Democratic takeover of Congress, he returns to the helm, pledging to strengthen capital programs and other opportunities for small-business owners, while fighting to give them a fair shot at federal contracts—largely by preventing Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Wal-Mart and other large corporations from scooping them up. Kerry, a former entrepreneur himself, surprised colleagues 22 years ago for seeking a post on the low-profile committee, yet was pilloried as anti-business during his 2004 presidential bid campaign, over his support of a minimum-wage increase and curbing tax incentives for corporations. Kerry recently spoke to Inc.com staff reporter Angus Loten about raising the federal minimum wage, taming employer health-care costs, and other key issues the committee expects to take up in the year ahead.

link to rest of interview

 

Is the current administration really supporting the troops, the way it claims? John Kerry doesn’t think so.

It’s no secret that the brave members of our volunteer military services have been getting short-changed in the field for several years now. Units have been called up and sent overseas without enough supplies, without enough equipment, without enough training, without enough body armor, without even enough ammunition. Tours of duty have been extended and time between tours compressed or eliminated, pushing the soldiers and sailors and pilots and their families right to the breaking point.

The many ways in which the current administration continually short-changes service members and their families here at home is nothing short of scandalous. Published reports over the last several years have indicated that anywhere between one-third and one-half of all military families in the U.S. have to rely on food stamps and welfare payments to make ends meet. Those numbers are skewed by the fact that military families living in on-base housing are ineligible for such social services, despite what their financial needs might be. The families of National Guard troops who’ve been called up to serve long tours abroad are in similar but even more difficult straits, since local employers often cannot afford to hold the outbound service members’ jobs open and continue to pay benefits to their families while so many of their key employees are deployed overseas.

Is this the way that our country ought to treat its volunteer military service members in the field? John Kerry doesn’t think so. Is this the way that our country ought to treat its volunteer military services at home? John Kerry doesn’t think so, either.

There is simply no excuse for making those who volunteer to serve their country pay such a high economic cost for their sacrifices, nor should their families have to suffer the fears and indignities of being forced to live below the poverty level here at home. If tens of billions of dollars can be thrown away in Iraq through fraud, waste, corruption, and basic mismanagement every year, then why do military families have to live on food stamps and welfare payments?

Is there any way in which this kind of systematic inequity can be justified? John Kerry doesn’t think so.

The latest example of the current administration’s disregard for the fundamental economic fairness involved in giving our volunteer service members and their families enough of a basic wage to live on is their recent refusal to allow a .5% increase in base pay for active duty service members.

Last week, the White House opposed a provision in the FY 2008 National Defense Authorization Bill to increase military pay to 3.5 percent, calling it “unnecessary.” In addition, Bush has opposed a $40 monthly benefit for surviving spouses and military families.

According to a Boston Globe article published on May 19,

The White House is trying to kill a Democratic plan to increase the size of a military pay raise next year, contending it would be too costly and that members of the armed forces are already sufficiently compensated.

In a letter from the White House Office of Management and Budget to congressional committees overseeing the military, OMB director Rob Portman said Wednesday that the administration “strongly opposes” a Democratic plan to bump up military salaries by 3.5 percent instead of Bush’s request for a 3 percent jump.

“The cost of increasing the FY 2008 military pay raise by an additional 0.5 percent is $265 million in FY 2008 and $7.3 billion” if similar raises are enacted over the next five years, Portman’s office said in a six-page memo outlining concerns about the defense spending bill that was approved by the House early Friday and will be taken up by the Senate this week.

The 3 percent raise proposed by Bush is equal to the increase in the Employment Cost Index estimated by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. New recruits currently make a base salary of $15,617 but are eligible for various bonuses and receive extensive benefits.

Top Democratic leaders vowed to continue their efforts to enact a larger raise, arguing that members of the armed forces and their families deserve annual pay raises higher than the private sector due to the dangers of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[...]

In a letter circulated to Senate colleagues yesterday urging their support for the higher pay raise, Senator John F. Kerry , Democrat of Massachusetts, chided the Bush administration for opposing the measure even as it lobbies Congress to extend tax cuts for some of the wealthiest Americans.

In a separate letter to Bush yesterday, Kerry said he was “extremely disappointed” by the White House position on the pay raise, saying it stands “in direct contrast to the will of the American people who support all the efforts to support our troops.”

Kerry previously coauthored the Military Family Bill of Rights, which is now law, that increased the death benefit for surviving spouses and family members of troops killed in action to $250,000. The Kerry legislation also extended the amount of time survivors can remain in military housing after their loved one is killed to a full year.

Kerry’s new call for greater military pay was echoed by a group of Iraq veterans yesterday.

“The pay raise in the bill is equivalent to approximately $6 a month in troop pay-raise increases,” VoteVets.org, a Democrat-leaning military advocacy group said in a statement.

The group’s spokesman, John Bruhns , an Iraq veteran, said that “for President Bush to begrudge our troops a pay raise of [one-half] percentage point is outrageous, appalling, and just unacceptable.”

He said more financial compensation is especially needed at a time when Army deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan have been extended from 12 months to 15 months.

The veterans group also urged the White House to support another provision in the House bill that would provide an additional $40 a month for family members of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The House defense bill authorized $644 billion for the Department of Defense for the year beginning Oct. 1, including $142 billion to pay for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The bill provides our troops with more than the Bush administration requested, including a pay raise more in keeping with what they deserve,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement yesterday.

<!-more-> Hmm. At the average troop level, that half-percent difference comes to something like six dollars a month per person. Six whole dollars a month. That’s enough for one loaf of bread and a big jar of peanut butter, if you’re living at the lowest economic fringes. (Or it’s enough for an extra large custom cappucino with whipped cream and chocolate and a biscotti if you’re not.)

Is that fair? John Kerry doesn’t think so.

Our brave troops in the field and their families here at home deserve far better than the treatment they’re getting at the hands of the current administration. And, as always, they can count on JK to stand up for them in the Senate.

Here’s what JK had to say about it in a letter that he sent to President Bush on Friday:

Kerry Asks Bush Not To Cut Military Pay Raise
Says White House Should Reward Troops, Not Short-Change Soldiers on Memorial Day

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Kerry today asked President Bush to back off his plan to cut a proposed military pay raise. Kerry also asked Bush not to cut a proposed benefit for surviving spouses, which Congress and veterans groups say would help grieving families with a $40 month benefit to help cover expenses when a loved one is killed in action. Last week, the White House opposed both of those provisions in the FY 2008 National Defense Authorization Bill.

“It’s unacceptable that this White House continues to choose more tax breaks for the richest Americans and less pay and fewer benefits for our military families,” Senator Kerry said. “Our Democratic Congress has put forth a plan to give our troops a raise at a time of war, and no White House opposition will stand in the way of our commitment to our military. Our troops make incredible sacrifices for our country and we owe them a pay raise and benefits that make it clear we honor their sacrifice. We will fight for this pay raise for our troops until it becomes a reality.”

The Office of Management and Budget said that the House bill’s moves to increase military pay by .5 percent (from 3.0 to 3.5 percent) and give a $40 monthly benefit for surviving spouses and military families were unnecessary. On the same day, the White House expressed opposition to the FY 2008 Budget Resolution Conference Report because it failed to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

Last year’s pay increase for members of the uniformed services was just 2.2 percent, the lowest since 1993. Congress has made a commitment to keep pay raises for the military ahead of private sector pay raises.

Kerry is the author of the Military Family Bill of Rights, which has become law. Kerry’s Bill increased the death benefit for surviving spouses and families of troops who die in action to $250,000 and extended the amount of time they can remain in military housing to one full year, along with increasing TRICARE benefits and promoting better care for those suffering from PTSD and other mental illness.

Below is text of the letter Kerry sent to President Bush on Friday:

May 18, 2007

Dear Mr. President:

We are all proud of our men and women in the American military who continue to perform magnificently in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world. They represent the best that this country has to offer, and America owes them and their families a special debt of honor and gratitude. In light of their sacrifice, I ask you to change your position and support a 3.5 percent increase in military pay and an increase in the Special Survivor Indemnity Allowance to help American military families.

On May 16, the Office of Management and Budget’s Statement of Administration Policy for the House FY 2008 National Defense Authorization bill opposes Section 644 of the bill, which would pay a monthly Special survivor indemnity allowance of $40 from the Department of Defense Military Retirement Fund, calling the existing benefits “sufficient”. The Statement of Administration Policy also “strongly opposes” Sections 601 and 606 of the House bill, which provide a 0.5 percent increase in military pay above the President’s proposed 3.0 percent across-the-board pay increase, calling it “unnecessary”.

I am extremely disappointed in these decisions. This position fails to honor our military families who have made the ultimate sacrifice. It also stands in direct contrast to the will of the American people who support all efforts to support our troops.

Most disappointing, on the same day your position on a military pay increase was announced, the Office of Management and Budget Director Rob Portman expressed opposition to the FY 2008 Budget Resolution Conference Report because it failed to extend tax cuts to provide billions for the wealthiest in our country.

Those who have stood for us should know that we stand with them, today and always. These provisions can do something to ease their burden—but truly supporting our troops requires that we act not just as individuals, but as a nation.

Thank you for your consideration of this request.

Sincerely, John F. Kerry

To date there has been no official response from the White House on this matter.

However, at 11:30 am EST this morning, Senator John Kerry and House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel will hold a press conference to respond to President Bush’s opposition to a 3.5 percent military pay increase for American troops. Be sure to check back here for updates on what JK and Rep. Emanuel have to say about this sad state of affairs later in the morning.

For more information on the military pay inequities and the stress that puts on troops and their families, as well as what you can do to help:

Navy Times, Bill to help military families get food stamps Military.com, Food Stamps are not the Answer Military.com, Surviving on Military Pay Alternet.org, The Odd Welfare State San Diego Union-Tribune, Helping the hungry on base Time Magazine, Helping the Food-Stamp G.I. Boston Globe, Perpetual war hits military families hard D.O.D./AFP Library, Cohen Addresses Food Stamp Housing-Income Equity Armed Forces Relief Trust www.4militaryfamilies.com