I AM APPALLED

On the evening of Tuesday April 1, 2008 I received an email from one of my Senators, Patty Murray. The subject line was "Rallying Against The Tanker Decision". In the email Senator Murray wrote that she protested the Air Force's "misguided decision to award a $40 billion tanker refueling contract to the European company Airbus."

I am simply appalled and I share my response to Senator Murray here.

Senator Murray,

I AM APPALLED!!!!

• As this nation spends literally billions of dollars daily to wage a war
  falsely claiming to be a retaliation against terrorists who were raised and
  trained in Saudi Arabia and based on overstatements, exaggerations, outright
  lies, and pretext to satisfy President Bush’s attempt to build his legacy on the
  backs of dedicated young men and women and the bodies of Iraqis
• As no bid contracts are awarded to large corporations with ties to the administration and those same contractors are found to be wasting and/or embezzling the funds that American citizens have paid in taxes and borrowed against their children’s and grandchildren’s and great-grandchildren’s futures
• As young men and women are deployed multiple times to fight an insurgent and now civil war with no realistic prospect of any hope for a resolution within sight - particularly given our experience of Viet Nam and the more recent and ongoing real world example of the utter and folly of a “war against terrorism” in the Middle East
  As daily more of those same young men and women come home not in uniform but in body bags
• As the Democratic majority has been unwilling and/or unable to take an affirmative stand against the illegal, immoral, and ultimately unforgivable actions of the current administration while we watch our international legitimacy and currency erode with every new picture or story of American atrocities and excesses …
  
  And I could but will not go on.
  
  I find your “Rallying against the tanker decision” to be an obscene waste of your precious time as my representative in Congress. From everything that I have read the contract was awarded to the lowest bid who provided the best value for the money proposed, which of course, will be borrowed against the futures of my children and grandchildren and …
  
  I find it inexcusable that you

• Have been unable to find as much passion to oppose the war in Iraq
• To demand that the President acknowledge that there never were any weapons of mass destruction, terrorists from Iraq, or any terrorist training bases in Iraq, at least until the United States pressured some nations to join us in an unprovoked attack against a sovereign nation
• To publicly admit that the only planes allowed to fly immediately following the bombings in New York and Washington DC were Saudi planes allowing material witnesses sought for interview by the FBI
• Have not demanded that the President keep his word and fire any and all persons involved in the wanton release of a CIA operative’s name in retaliation for the truth spoken by her husband which was contrary to the Administration position and thus jeopardized her life and career as well as the life of her family
• Have not demanded that the President and all members of his staff fully and unequivocally comply with the provisions of the Geneva Convention and oppose all forms of inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners and in particular denounce and reject any act of torture
• That you have not demanded that the present administration immediately cease dealing with any contracted provider who was awarded a contract without competitive bidding and demand a full accounting of all excesses, waste, and embezzlement of millions of dollars and demand that any person including Chief Operating Officers, executives, or members of the present administration who have been found to have participated in such acts receive the same type of punishment that a young black man would receive for shoplifting.

Airbus won the contract in competitive bidding. Apparently it has been acceptable to this nation for decades that we supply arms to the world, including supplying arms to brutal dictators when it served a "national interest" and including supplying arms that American soldiers ultimately faced in Iraq when it was no longer in our national interests to support Saddam Hussein. And now we are supplying logistics and arms to Pakistan in what promises to be a repeat of a historical pattern of arming brutal, oppressive regimes in what is a truly misguided hope that we will benefit from the support of that regime and achieve some good end. It seems only just that when a provider, regardless of where their coprpoate headquarters are located, submits the lowest bid in a competitive bid and meets and/or exceeds the standards established for satisfying the bid, that the contract be awarded to that provider. If we truly believe in the capitalistic democracy and the free operation of the markets then we should believe in and demonstrate that in what we do. If we act against our own rhetoric, as we have so often done in the past, we can hardly expect that people will be willing to have confidence in our rhetoric.