CBA & conflict management methods

From Department of Death:
The Department of Defense announced today the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. They died of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their vehicle with an improvised explosive device Feb. 2 in Zabul province, Afghanistan. They were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.

Killed were:

Capt. Daniel Whitten, 28, of Grimes, Iowa; and

Pfc. Zachary G. Lovejoy, 20, of Albuquerque, N.M.

I am sick to death of these notices. This awful daily, bloody notices, all composed exactly the same, as if they've been done by typing variables into fields.

On the same day, today, I got my other daily Department of Death notice:

CONTRACTS

NAVY

Oshkosh Corp., Oshkosh, Wis., is being awarded $158,382,797 for fixed-price delivery order #0064 under a previously awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract (M67854-06-D-5028). This delivery order is issued against exercised priced options for the purchase of 388 logistic vehicle system replacement production cargo vehicles and 15 tractors. Work will be performed in Oshkosh, Wis., and for this delivery order, work is expected to be completed by July 31, 2011. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Marine Corps System Command, Quantico, Va., is the contracting activity.

Cape Environmental Management, Inc., dba CAPE, Inc.*, Atlanta, Ga., is being awarded a maximum $60,000,000 cost-plus-award-fee contract for remedial action services at various sites within the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC), Pacific area of responsibility (AOR). The work to be performed provides for remediation of any media contaminated by solvents, petroleum, oils, lubricants, metals, acids, bases, reactives, polychlorinated biphenyls, and pesticides. Work will be performed at various sites predominantly in Hawaii (70 percent) and Guam (25 percent), and other areas within the NAVFAC Pacific AOR including Japan, Okinawa, Diego Garcia and other areas in the Pacific and Indian Oceans (5 percent). The term of the contract is not to exceed five years with an expected completion date of January 2015. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the NAVFAC e-solicitation Web site with five proposals received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Pacific, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, is the contracting activity (N62742-10-D-1804).

Computer Sciences Corp., San Diego, Calif., is being awarded an $11,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, cost-plus-incentive-fee and firm-fixed price contract for the OCONUS Naval Enterprise Network (ONE-NET) server farm refresh designed to provide integrated data services to the fleet users overseas. The contract includes four one-year option periods which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of the contract to an estimated $25,000,000. Work will be performed in San Diego, Calif. (25 percent); Yokosuka, Japan (25 percent); Manama, Bahrain (25 percent); and Naples, Italy (25 percent). Work is expected to be completed by February 2011. If all options are exercised, work could continue until February 2015. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The contract was competitively procured via the Federal Business Opportunities Web site and the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command E-commerce Web site, with an unlimited number of proposals solicited and two offers received. The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Atlantic, Charleston, S.C., is the contracting activity (N65236-10-D-5826).

Triton Marine Construction Corp., Bremerton, Wash., is being awarded $8,186,057 for firm-fixed-price task order #0002 under a previously awarded multiple award construction contract (N62478-09-D-4018) for repair of wharves B22-B24 at Naval Station Pearl Harbor. This project will repair the wharves which have deteriorated through years of use and exposure to the marine environment. The work includes selective removal work, concrete rehabilitation, marine concrete, refurbishment of marine hardware, metal fabrications, coating of waterfront steel structures, pavement markings, oil-spill containment booms, low pressure compressed air, water distribution, sanitary sewer, exterior salt water distribution system, electrical work, and incidental related work. Work will be performed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and is expected to be completed September 2011. Contract funds will expire at the end of the fiscal year. Six proposals were received for this task order. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Hawaii, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, is the contracting activity.

Arete Associates, Northridge, Calif., is being awarded a $6,000,000 modification to a previously awarded cost-plus-incentive-fee contract (N68335-08-D-0012) for a Phase III Small Business Innovation Research project under Topic N06-002, entitled "Sea Surface Slope and Elevation Statistics to Support Radar Performance Modeling." This modification provides for the development of a capability to extract ocean surface wave slopes over a sizeable patch at a high spatial resolution using passive polarimetric sensors. Work will be performed in Washington, D.C., and is expected to be completed in March 2014. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This Phase III contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Lakehurst, N.J., is the contracting activity.

AIR FORCE

Spaceport Systems International, Lompoc, Calif., was awarded a $48,000,000 contract which will provide for future launch spaceport services for the Launch Test Squadron within the Space and Missile Systems Center/Space Development and Test Wing. At this time, $300,000 has been obligated. SMC/PKN, Kirtland, N.M., is the contracting activity (FA8818-10-D-0022).

Lockheed Martin Corp., Marietta, Ga., was awarded a $9,419,947 contract which will exercise an option for installation of a quantity of eight C-5 aircraft with C-5 avionics modernization program kits and 1 lot of step van maintenance under a firm fixed price effort; and under a time and material effort, Installation of the consolidated load panel avionics modernization program. At this time, the entire amount has been obligated. 716 AESG/PK, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity (F33657-98-C-0006,P00233).

NorthWest Florida Contractors, Inc., Fort Walton Beach, Fla., was awarded an $8,096,083 contract which will provide all plant, materials, labor, equipment, and all operations in connection with the construction of various reinforced concrete targets on specified test areas as shown on contract drawings, at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. At this time, the entire amount has been obligated. 96 CONS/PKA, Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., is the contracting activity (FA2823-10-D-0006).

*Small business


Who dies and who profits? If we don't use up this stuff, how can we justify making more and making the obscene levels of profits that we do? If we don't get attacked now and then, how can we justify going into hot conflict and really raking in the war profits?

If these people ever wanted to convince critically thinking people that there was no link between the attacks on 9.11.01 and war profits, take out the profits. Let all war materiel, all parts of the arsenal, all industry that services the Department of Death, let it all be government or non-profit, truly patriotic, no shareholders, nothing but jobs at regular pay for Americans. War for wages instead of war for record profits for the elite. Until Congress passes such laws, it's going to look like a conflict of interest for a corporate shareholder to pontificate about patriotism and pocket the profit even as foreign babies and our young soldiers are dying.

Am I claiming Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld paid for, ordered, or otherwise planned the September 11, 2001 attacks? Nope. Did they help cause those attacks? Absolutely. They had policy roles all the way back to the 1970s and 80s, when some of this business was set into motion. They were part of the set-up for Saddam, obviously, having spent time in the region, Rumsfeld even meeting Saddam and helping him get his components for his chemical weapons. As the old 'joke' goes, How do you know Saddam has WMD?" "We saved the receipts."

It's the heart of the war system. The war budget needs an enemy tough enough for perpetual fear, sparking it up with the occasional attack, so that we do exactly as we see, spending more on the military than at any time in history, than the rest of the world combined, and spending less on basic human needs. Basic human needs are not as profitable. War profits are the highest obtainable and a lightweight opponent can be puffed up and generalized. Watch out for all Muslims! They are terrorists and if they say they aren't, why don't they go find and exterminate those who are? Be afraid! Pay up and shut up! The generals know more than you do! We are at war! They have the information needed to make all your decisions for you, so good patriots shut up and pay up and vote for whichever of the two war candidates the two wings of the war party allow to run.

Of course it's not sustainable. The costs are so enormous we are cutting way past the bone, into the bones of future generations, but even that has a limit. The system will collapse.

The only possible hope is nonviolence. It is a messy, goofy way to resolve conflict. Winston Churchill, in a sober moment, once dryly observed that democracy is the absolute worst form of government, except for all the rest. Just so, nonviolence is clearly the worst form of conflict management, except for all the rest.