Friday, March 23, 2007

New Semantics for "Lean and Mean"

Writing for The Nation under support from the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute, Joshua Kors has uncovered another example of the kind of management pathology that emerges from a military run my bean-counting efficiency experts. His article needs to be read in its entirety to appreciate just how bad the "reformed" military has become; but here is the basic message:

A six-month investigation has uncovered multiple cases in which soldiers wounded in Iraq are suspiciously diagnosed as having a personality disorder, then prevented from collecting benefits. The conditions of their discharge have infuriated many in the military community, including the injured soldiers and their families, veterans' rights groups, even military officials required to process these dismissals.

They say the military is purposely misdiagnosing soldiers like [Jon] Town [whose case was used to introduce the article] and that it's doing so for one reason: to cheat them out of a lifetime of disability and medical benefits, thereby saving billions in expenses.

I suppose this is yet another example of how our government has chosen to set it priorities and yet another opportunity for Congressional oversight to look into just what consequences are coming out of Executive decision-making (made by "the decider," of course).

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