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| The recent collisions of our US Warships and huge container ships in the busy shipping lanes of the Western Pacific were caused by a “loss of situational awareness” according to the Navy report released on 11/1/2017. The details of the errors made prior to the collision of the USS John S. McCain are frightening. According to the Navy’s report, “the crew was unprepared for the situation in which they found themselves through a lack of preparation, ineffective command and control, and deficiencies in training and preparations for navigation.”
These ships cost $1.843 billion to build and are heavily armed and dangerous. Senator McCain who understandably has an emotional attachment to the Navy and in particular this ship, has said that we “have deprived them of the funds to do it”, referring to operations of the Seventh Fleet based in Japan. The Pentagon can’t get by on $640 billion? Proposed foreign aid reductions include health programs that fight HIV/AIDS, malaria and polio, elimination of an emergency food aid program, continued funding for NATO but cutting contributions to U.N. peacekeeping by more than half, a $1.6 billion reduction. The cuts include $25.6 billion for the core budget of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Conclusion: we citizens need to get control of how our money is spent.
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