Well, one would expect the world’s only superpower to at least arm and armor its troops in a satisfactory manner for such troops to not be killed by home-made road bombs.
Not according to Time (yes, Time) and Newsweek. See the latest editions.
Not according to Time (yes, Time) and Newsweek. See the latest editions.[/quote]
could not access the time article without paying, but just read the “hillbilly armor” article in newsweek. the newsweek article says NOTHING about the vehicles in the unit the soldier was in. my statement stands.
[quote=“banshette”]
Well, one would expect the world’s only superpower to at least arm and armor its troops in a satisfactory manner for such troops to not be killed by home-made road bombs.[/quote]
us troops are better equipped than at any time in us history. us troops are better equipped than troops from any other country in the world. i agree with the liberals that we should not be satisfied and should spend even MORE money on defense to get closer to that unreachable “satisfactory”. 
You might want to reread that article that was posted earlier where all remaining vehicles were armor plated within 24 hours of the “challenge” to Rumsfeld. You might also want to check your facts regarding how much the reporters and soldiers involved actually “knew” and how much of it was “hearsay” and “wishful thinking.” It was a setup and it is blowing back in their faces. Deservedly so.
So far, the anti-soldier Republicans have not refuted:
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that U.S. troops have been searching scrap heaps to try to armor their unarmored humvees;
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that the lack of armored humvees has been an issue for a long time – since the roadside bombs first became a serious problem;
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that armored humvee production was far short of actual capacity and that the DoD was notably incurious about boosting production despite the continuing troop deaths in unarmored humvees; and
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that the lack of adequate equipment and adequately armored vehicles is showing up as an issue raised by troops.
With regards to the last point, the soldier who questioned Rumsfeld is interviewed in the Time “Man of the Year” issue providing fuller background information about his question. Basically, the “prompting” amounted to this: A newspaper reporter whom he’d known pointed out that at the “town hall” meeting with Rumsfeld reporters would not be allowed to ask questions – only soldiers. The reporter encouraged the soldier, generally, to ask some of the questions on the soldier’s mind. The soldier wrote out a few, showed some to the reporter and the reporter urged him to tone it down a bit – the soldier refused to do so on the basis that the question as he phrased it matched what he felt.
The Republicans cannot explain away the fact that the 2,300 other soldiers present broke into spontaneous applause and shouts of approval. The Bushies might try to spin a bunch of BS about the question being “prompted”, but they have not done squat to refute the resonance of the question with Wilson’s fellow soldiers.
First, the HUMV, a general purpose replacement for the JEEP, was never intended to be armored; however, the terrorist attacks have required hardening of these and other vehicles which is being accomplished. In a blatant disregard of the truth, those who seek headline over substance have failed to mention that in the past 18 months the number of armored HUMVs in Iraq has increased from 235 to 15,000. In addition, at the time the neatly rehearsed question to Mr. Rumsfeld by the National Guardsman, 97 percent of that unit’s vehicles had been armored with the remaining 20 completed the next day.
[b]Additionally, neither the soldier who was fed the question for Mr. Rumsfeld nor any of his unit (nor the reporter for that matter) had experienced either combat or the alleged need "to dig through local landfills and trash to up-armor our vehicles."[/b] The presumption that the impressions of a battalion of Tennessee National Guardsmen which yet to deploy to combat is a reliable example of our fighting men's disaffection with the Department of Defense would stretch the imagination of the National Enquirer or the Village Voice
Finally, the characterization of Mr. Rumsfeld as callous, flippant and/or condescending is simply a dog which will not hunt. To the contrary, for any objective viewer, his answers were not only extremely forthright and factual, but also professional and to the point, neither sugarcoated nor vague but exactly what should be expected of one in his position of responsibility.
But don’t let the mere presence of facts stand in your way MT. That would be completely out of character for you.
So the humvee wasn’t originally supposed to have armor? Is that supposed to excuse that there is an armored version, the manufacture of which has not approached capacity.
In the past, countries trying to implement crowd control or deal with urban insurgencies made liberal use of armored cars. It wouldn’t appear that an armored humvee is such a novel concept.
Of course Rummy’s comments can be taken as callous. First off, he and the Bushies did rush off into a war with the “army they had” without giving a rat’s ass about equipping the army or conducting adequate planning. Why the rush? It’s well established that Iraq was no real threat to the U.S. in any real sort of way – at best it was some sort of vague future problem the way one might figure “global warming” or asteroids could be. Rummy and the rest of the Bushies are responsible for having troops in the middle of a desert mess without adequate equipment for the job at hand. Perhaps it’s time that he and the others started to take a lesson from President Truman and acknowledge that the buck stops with them.
It’s not like we haven’t seen all sorts of stupid war planning over the decades – lessons we could draw from to underscore the idea that future needs will have to anticipated. The failure to equip our troops adequately brings to mind how Hitler’s troops outside Moscow had to rely upon wrapping themselves in civilian women’s overcoats, tablecloths and spools of rope in desperate efforts to keep themselves warm during the winter of 41-42. Why? Because Hitler was in such a godawful false rush to attack the Soviet Union that he forgot the Russians have bad winters.
Frankly, the Russian winter was no less predictable then the likelihood that we would totally steamroller the conventional Iraqi army – we had people calling up the senior Iraqi generals’ mobile phones working to get the fast collapse that happened. The lack of preparation for the war and the current growing insurgency hold a direct relationship, and the hundreds of lives lost are a matter of bad planning and decisionmaking that goes directly to the Bush administration. Can any one of them be man enough to acknowledge their utter mishandling of the war? I doubt it.
Yeah yeah MFGR:
You are a real predictor of events. Except about the ones where you are wrong. We won the war in Afghanistan and the elections were held and there was no humanitarian crisis and 4 million refugees returned.
Most Iraqis support our continued involvement. This is like saying the police should not target criminals and gangs lest they be targeted for retailiation and that it might make the neighborhoods unstable by patroling them. Wait and see. We will win. The elections will be held in Iraq in January as scheduled. The people want freedom, democracy and respect for human rights. They did in Afghanistan and they won. They did in Ukraine and they appear to have won though I have my doubts about the opposition rolling over peacefully. Iraq is another piece of this puzzle. They have seen what happens with Muslim theocracies. There is Iran and Afghanistan under the Taliban. All failures. Just like communism. We will win. People want us to.
Love Fred
In the context of the failure to equip the U.S. troops for the war in Iraq, this is a nonsequitor and not even accurate with regards to my expectations or the reality of that war. However, that is another discussion.
Well, if police were equipped with .50 caliber machineguns that punch through the brick walls of three houses in a row, perhaps the local residents would not be so enamored of the police. Perhaps you need to redefine “target” in this context as meaning “bomb the crap out of everything in the vicinity” in order to capture the flavor of how we’re winning “hearts and minds” among the Iraqi people.
Is this some sort of mantra? Are you pushing for us to wait-and-see simply in hopes that we’ll come up with a “V-weapon” that will enable troops to drive across Baghdad without getting smacked down by terrorists. Unfortunately, even Powell doesn’t think we’re winning – at least in what he’s saying off podium.
Right… and large amounts of the country are still no-go areas for U.S. troops while the resurgent Taliban have retaken 1/3 the territory. Nice to know we can’t even control the rampant dope growing or even go for a country drive there.
Again with the mantras… Getting back to the thread topic (which seems to be one to which you are frightened to respond), it sure would be nice if the U.S. government would pull out all the stops to ensure that the troops get what they need. 1-1/2 years into the Iraq war, and Rummy’s still playing the dummy when it comes to our troops.
Here’s a brilliant little piece that shows for once and all how the Republicans have sold out our troops:
edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS … index.html
[quote]In the three years immediately after Pearl Harbor, the United States, a nation of 132 million people with a gross domestic product of less than $100 billion, produced the following to win World War II:
296,429 aircraft,
102,351 tanks,
87,620 warships,
372,431 artillery pieces and
2,455,694 trucks.
Compare those heroic achievements to the current, dismal supply record as the U.S. war in Iraq is fast approaching its third year and the United States, now a nation of nearly 300 million with defense spending in excess of half a trillion dollars:
Only 5,910 of the 19,584 Humvees U.S. troops in Iraq today depend upon are protected with factory-installed armor;
8,002 of the 9,128 medium and heavyweight trucks transporting soldiers and supplies in that war zone are without armor.
Because of the incompetence or indifference of this nation’s civilian leadership of the war, Americans in Iraq are tonight living with an increased risk of death in Iraq.[/quote]
So much for the Republicans watching out for the interests of the troops. I’m trying to think of the last time a president or vice president was receiving checks from a major defense contractor while he was still in office, but it seems the Bush administration is the first one to sell out troops in such a brazen fashion.
The Taliban are not “in control” of one-third of the country and a recent report wondered why they were so incapable of influencing the election at all. There was almost no violence and two of the major leaders were recently captured. I strongly suggest that you rephrase this.
Finally, I do not think that more troops is the answer. In this type of insurgency, we would be better off lowering our numbers to force Iraqi faces on these efforts AND focus on preventing any major uprisings like Sadr’s from threatening the govt. That should be our role not policing. As to this oft repeated mantra of not enough troops on the ground, we did without them in Afghanistan and successfully achieved our aims, we should do the same with Iraq. 150K is too many. We should have a lower number and press the Iraqi govt to get going on training whoever it needs. It may take a while to quell the violence but then the Iraqi govt will have to live with that responsibility. In the meantime, we should free our troops up to take on the continued source of funds in Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Or don’t you believe that there is any of this taking place? I mean where is the actual “proof?” haha
Oh well now if we are not stopping the drug trade then that is truly something. We must have successfully accomplished the invasion of AFghanistan, the overthrow of the Tablian, an election, the installation of Karzai and the cooperation of the Afghan cabinet. So now, we are finally raising the bar yet again. Now is it about not stopping poppy production? We must truly be succeeding beyond my wildest dreams. haha
Fred, you’re still running away from the topic of how our troops are being supplied. Don’t you feel bad that the Republicans to all possible appearances have absolutely no respect for the American soldier??
this has got to be one of the stupidest lines of attack i’ve seen from the left in many years. a nudge and a wink and we can all pretend that the soldiers themselves don’t know which political party is more likely to vote for more equipment and money for the military. 
stop and take a look at your argument for a moment. you are complaining that republicans are stopping the democrats from increasing military spending. wtf are you smoking? it’s like you think if you can make up bullshit audacious enough, people will believe you.
mofan, what do you think of reagan’s increased military spending which led to rising deficits in the 80’s? please, tell me that you think reagan should have spent MORE if he had respected the troops. 
once again, mofan, do you realize that soldiers(both active duty and vets) vote predominantly republican? i would like to hear you explain that fact without insulting the very people you pretend to care so much about.
I didn’t see many armored Hummers when I served in Vietnam.
And it was rather worrisome being told to sit on yr flak jacket and yr helmet while travelling to work in a helo. But once you watched a few holes mystriously open up in the floor it seemed appropriate.
This is a comment on the fact that there was a need to ‘up-armor’ during the Viet Nam war as there is today. But strangely enough, the media didn’t jump on that bandwagon…hmmmm.
[quote=“TainanCowboy”]
And it was rather worrisome being told to sit on yr flak jacket and yr helmet while travelling to work in a helo. But once you watched a few holes mystriously open up in the floor it seemed appropriate.[/quote]
Certainly raised the pucker factor! 
[quote=“Comrade Stalin”][quote=“TainanCowboy”]
And it was rather worrisome being told to sit on yr flak jacket and yr helmet while travelling to work in a helo. But once you watched a few holes mystriously open up in the floor it seemed appropriate.[/quote]
Certainly raised the pucker factor! [/quote]
The pucker factor was at an 11.
“Tighter than a ducks butt”
And how tight is that?
“Watertight!”
A nudge and a wink and we all now know which party is not willing to do what it can to help the troops have the equipment they should have. Keep in mind that “should” is something relative – sure, back in the Vietnam War people didn’t have the modern stuff of today. However, we have an obligation to provide equipment that is easily within our economic and manufacturing means to produce. Jamming equipment might seem like a “luxury” to some, but to the troops the ability to block the transmissions headed to roadside bombs is a real life-saver.
No, I’m complaining that Republicans aren’t listening to the troops. Even when the troops try to get their message directly to guys like Rumsfeld, the Republicans still don’t give a shit. Bush seems to want to give his big-buddy corporations like Halliburton sweetheart deals (see the railroading being done to Bunny Greenhouse for daring to question the more wacky terms being offered to Halliburton), but he doesn’t seem to care about getting the grunts what they need to stay alive.
What part of what I’ve written is “bullshit”? That the troops don’t have equipment easily within our ability to give them? That despite the IEDs going off over the past 1-1/2 years, the DoD still doesn’t give a crap about adding armor to vehicles? That the actual capacity of the manufacturer of the armored versions was 100 units higher than the DoD was claiming?
Well, although people used to say that we “outspent” the Soviet Union down into their collapse, I’m not so sure the $500 toilet seats were helping us. We need to get bang for our buck. You see, unlike Republicans these days, I have a more classic “American” virtue of expecting “value”. I also expect responsibility – it’s really a shame that the buck stops nowhere in the White House.
Perhaps as they see how the Republicans are selling them out, they’ll change their voting pattern. Do you realize that soldiers are pretty smart and can figure out for themselves how to vote? Please don’t insult our serving troops by assuming the GOP can count on their votes while reaming them. Please explain how the Bush administration can have so little respect for people who are sacrificing so much.