by hilzoy
Via Atrios, a story that would shock me if I still had the capacity to be shocked by what this administration does:
"Brain injuries are so common among U.S. troops that they're called the signature injury of the Iraq war, but Congress is poised to cut military spending on researching and treating them.
House and Senate versions of the defense appropriation bill would chop funding for the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center from $14 million to $7 million. The center runs 10 facilities across the country, including one at Fort Bragg that has performed research and treated soldiers' injuries since 1998."It's just ridiculous," said Sgt. Maj. Colin Rich, a Fort Bragg soldier who has been legally blind since he was shot in the head while serving in Afghanistan in 2002. "Whoever is cutting the budget must have a head injury themselves."
"With the bombs, the gunshot wounds and everything else, their plate is full," he said. "They need that money."
The Pentagon asked only for $7 million and didn't respond properly when congressional staffers tried to find out whether it needed more money for the program, said Jenny Manley, a spokeswoman for the Senate appropriations committee.
"The Pentagon needs to get behind the things that they want," she said. "Otherwise, we'd just be kind of guessing about what they really need." (...)
The center's research at Bragg and elsewhere isn't just academic, Zitnay said. "It's developing new helmets, it's developing drugs we can use to treat memory loss, it's developing innovative rehabilitation strategies," he said.
The center's work, for example, can help battlefield commanders quickly determine whether a soldier who has received a blow to the head is fit for battle.
Zitnay testified before the Senate appropriations committee in May that the center needed $19 million this year, in part because of the number of head injuries from the wars. Thirty-three members of Congress signed the written request for that amount, he said.
The Pentagon's basic budget for the center -- $7 million this year -- has long been augmented by members of Congress with discretionary or "pork barrel" money. The Pentagon didn't request the discretionary funding this year, said Manley of the appropriations committee staff, and then didn't respond to a request about whether it actually needed more."
In 2000, George W. Bush said that he had "a message to all of our men and women in uniform and to their parents and to their families: Help is on the way." We should have remembered that he's from the same party as Ronald Reagan, who famously said: "The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help", and been very, very afraid.
More than any other of its enormities, the callousness of the leadership of this country towards wounded soldiers enrages me. Long after George Bush has sunk into an alcoholic, brush-clearing haze on his ranch, these thousands of veterans are going to be struggling to get through life with hellish problems, abandoned by the people who sent them off to get their injuries.
Fully expressing my feelings would violate posting rules, so I'll fume instead.
Posted by: JakeB | August 29, 2006 at 05:44 PM
JakeB: That's the reason the text part of my post was very short. Trying to express my views about the administration's treatment of all of our military, but especially those who have been wounded in their pointless war of choice, would reduce me to sputtering fury. So I opted for short and pithy.
Posted by: hilzoy | August 29, 2006 at 05:51 PM
While I'm all for funding both research and practical therapy for our service members with brain injuries....
They allocated the exact amount the Pentagon requested apparantly. Could this be yet another sign that the Pentagon is kinda screwed up from the top down?
Posted by: Davebo | August 29, 2006 at 05:55 PM
Posting my views on the administration would violate the posting rules, several sections of the the United States Code, the Magna Carta, and quite possibly the Geneva Conventions.
Instead I'll just say that this is most unsatisfactory.
Posted by: Ugh | August 29, 2006 at 06:19 PM
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw | August 29, 2006 at 06:48 PM
Pause to consider that, if the *Democrats* had proposed such a cut, you could actually *hear* the blog postings at Instapundit, etc., etc., no matter where you were in the continental U.S.
Posted by: Anderson | August 29, 2006 at 07:00 PM
Quick, someone get Sebastian $7 million!
Posted by: Anarch | August 29, 2006 at 07:14 PM
We might be able to pick up a quick million here
WASHINGTON, Aug. 28 (AP) — The Pentagon has done little to recover about $900,000 mistakenly paid to 75 Army reservists who have not reported for duty since late 2001, Congressional investigators said in a report on Monday.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | August 29, 2006 at 07:31 PM
That high pitched shriek of WHAAATT???? you heard all the way in Sweden was me expressing my first reaction to this decision. My subsequent vocalizations on the subject are not suitable for a respectable blog. Might I add that the stem cell research, also restricted by Bush et al, is one of the more promising lines of research into brain and spinal cord injuries?
Posted by: Dianne | August 29, 2006 at 08:56 PM
i can only chuckle. they no longer shock me. this is just another point on the graph (1/x).
Posted by: cleek | August 29, 2006 at 09:11 PM
I can't say I chuckled, but I don't understand how anyone can find this surprising. I suppose Republicans have to pretend this isn't what they were voting for all along but the rest of us dont need to pretend.
Posted by: Frank | August 29, 2006 at 09:17 PM
"The center's work, for example, can help battlefield commanders quickly determine whether a soldier who has received a blow to the head is fit for battle."
Well, there's your explanation right there. Can't have metrics in the field that might prevent a soldier from being sent back into battle, now, can we?
We're already sending amputees and retired folk back in, along with felons, illiterates, and sociopaths. Why coddle soldiers whose only injury is that they've sustained serious head and brain injuries? As long as they can fire a weapon at someone or something, they're good to go.
"Approximately ambulatory" - it's the new One-A.
Posted by: CaseyL | August 29, 2006 at 09:22 PM
"Whoever is cutting the budget must have a head injury themselves."
Well... I have a head injury now as well. I lost my job today. Who needs a cure or better treatment for cancer? Thank you Bush.
:(
Posted by: IntricateHelix | August 29, 2006 at 10:28 PM
I don't understand this. I take for granted that the Bush Administration is largely composed of soulless zombie psychopaths (to avoid any problem with posting violations, I will stipulate that they are sincere soulless zombie psychopaths), but I also assume that many or most of Bush's conservative supporters really do respect the troops and would be outraged if they heard something like this.
Or else refuse to believe it. I suppose that explains it.
Posted by: Donald Johnson | August 29, 2006 at 11:07 PM
Intricate, I feel your pain. I lost mine 2 months ago and still looking.
What really gets me is that these are the same folks who accused Kerry of not wanting to fund the troops.
What was the word that was so frequently used in Andrew's thread?
Oh yes, hypocrisy.
Posted by: john miler | August 29, 2006 at 11:08 PM
"Oh yes, hypocrisy."
Actually, Andrew spelled it "hypocracy", which, I believe, is a form of government which makes hypocrisy the centerpiece of its operations.
Except, like FEMA during Katrina, cutting funding for brain injuries sustained by our youth, for f--- sake, in Iraq, is deliberate policy. It ain't hypocrisy, it's consistency.
Your government is expensive .. and dead.
Reagan's legacy... Bush's accomplishment.
Government run by the Republican Party is pure theft of my tax dollars. At every level.
Let's recall what they themselves recommended back in the early 1990's:
Tax revolts and an armed citizenry.
What? You think it was political theatre?
There are two entities in the world who despise the U.S. Government: the Republican Party and Al Qaeda. Every move they make helps the other.
Posted by: John Thullen | August 30, 2006 at 01:37 AM
Who needs a cure or better treatment for cancer?
Yeah, the cuts to the NCS budget stunk too.
Posted by: Dianne | August 30, 2006 at 07:38 AM
I take for granted that the Bush Administration is largely composed of soulless zombie psychopaths (to avoid any problem with posting violations, I will stipulate that they are sincere soulless zombie psychopaths)
Awesome stuff, Donald J.
Posted by: emmanuel goldstein | August 30, 2006 at 11:26 AM
I don't see how this could be the Bush Administration's fault - this is an incredibly stupid thing for the Pentagon to cut, even when pressured to cut military spending. Staff from congress even asked the Pentagon if they needed any more money.
OTOH, if they don't get on fix this and find out why this happened, that's a different story...
Posted by: Rob | August 31, 2006 at 03:12 PM