Your terror dollars at work: fancy seat edition

Terrorism Funds May Let Brass Fly in Style

The Air Force's top leadership sought for three years to spend counterterrorism funds on "comfort capsules" to be installed on military planes that ferry senior officers and civilian leaders around the world, with at least four top generals involved in design details such as the color of the capsules' carpet and leather chairs, according to internal e-mails and budget documents.
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Air Force documents spell out how each of the capsules is to be "aesthetically pleasing and furnished to reflect the rank of the senior leaders using the capsule," with beds, a couch, a table, a 37-inch flat-screen monitor with stereo speakers, and a full-length mirror.
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The internal Air Force e-mails, provided to The Washington Post by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a nonprofit Washington group, and independently authenticated, make it clear that lower-ranking officers involved in the project have been pressured to create what one described as "world class" accommodations exceeding the standards of a regular business-class flight.

No word on if the capsules have the ability to fire Harrison Ford completely away from a menacing Gary Oldman, but sources report that is in the plans for phase 2.

Turns out the accommodations for the grunts aren't good enough for the Air Force brass. Luckily the plans are moving forward despite the objections of Rep. John Murtha (ordering that the money be spent on a "higher priority" need), as well as a crippling setback over seatbelt and leather seat color that delayed the project for months and added to costs.

Shouldn't they prioritize their spending a little better, you say, like spending it on training or equipment, instead of $20 million on leather seats, dvd players, and flatscreen TV's? No. Stop being so wrong.

Despite this being a relatively small project by Pentagon standards (full disclosure: I found $20 million in the couch cushions of a waiting area there last month) it has nonetheless received a disproportionate amount of attention from their top men (Who? Top........men), who obsess over color, cushion compression, seat pockets and making sure the accommodations are 'world class'.

So give everyone involved a slow, sarcastic golf clap. The war on terror is an existential threat to our existence, but they'll be damned if they're going to have to do it on a regular seat and without a DVD of Step It Up. What else should the Pentagon spend their time and money on? Base wiring? Get real.