[quote=“mofangongren”]
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.[/quote]
The troops have seen how things were both under Jimmy Carter and Bill Clintoon. Why do you the think reenlistment rates and morale were so low then? It explains alot why they vote Republican. Did you ever serve under a Democrat or a Republican?
In 2000, after 2 Clintoon terms:
[quote]
Earlier this year, the Navy had to reduce training exercises and delay maintenance of its warships because of a shortfall in operating funds. Also, the Navy started the year with a shortage of nearly 10,000 enlisted personnel at sea.
When the Clinton-Gore administration took over in 1993, approximately 85 percent of Air Force combat units were rated at the top readiness level. By the beginning of this year, the top readiness share had declined to 65 percent.
In early 2000, it was reported that 40 percent of the Army
republicans - love to spend tons of money on the military. always trying to increase military spending.
democrats - think more money should be spent on social causes and less on the military.
wtf are you smoking, mofan? did you not notice that one of the main attacks on kerry and edwards was they voted AGAINST the spending bill for iraq?
why attack the republicans instead of the democrats? why attack bush(who supported the spending bill) and not kerry(who voted against)?
your arguments have become so pathetic lately it’s kind of sad. still waiting for you to explain how mein kampf was a right-wing book when it was written as hitler was consolidating power in a communist/socialist party and rising to power from the left. but then you never thought through that argument(which you posted on 2 different threads), either.
yup, soldiers are pretty smart. they’re also in the field so they know more about these issues than you do. and they vote predominantly republican.
soldiers vote republican. mofan rants about issues he has no personal experience with and tells people to vote against republicans. on military issues, i’m going to have to go with the soldiers on this one and support the republicans.
Republicans keep selling out the soldiers and they’re: 1) not going to have too many soldiers remaining as volunteers and 2) they’re not going to have many soldiers voting.
As to whether or not soldiers know how they’re being screwed, it seems that the 2,300 soldiers who overwhelmingly cheered Thomas Wilson on when he confronted Rummy are starting to catch on mighty fast.
Keep in mind that the “One Weekend a Month, My Ass!” sign in the truck window was a joke from the early days – there’s been a lot of time since then and nothing’s been getting any better.
Of course, there’s something pathetic in how the Bushies are having to scrape the barrels to find guys who last served a decade ago and use press-gang tactics to dump them into the desert. The lawsuits filed by some of these guys could be an indication of the unwillingness of former veterans to subject themselves to getting Rumsfelded.
What, you forgot about the Republicans’ favorite quote of Kerry’s? Spending bills get presented to congressmen and senators in many forms, meaning that it’s quite possible for someone to vote for a bill in one version before they vote against it. Considering that Bush threatened at one point (on one version of that spending bill) to veto what was in front of him, what does that make Bush??
Now, if we get down to what really counts, we can see that the Bush administration has simply not done a good job of ensuring that the troops get what they need. Consider the Depression-era U.S. economy and population that somehow managed to single-handedly crank out tanks, aircraft carriers, trucks, submarines, the latest figher planes and bombers, etc. Figure that we were supplying the Brits, the Soviets, etc. to the tune of trillions of dollars worth of military supplies in those days.
Flash forward to the present. Troops rushed into war without adequate food, water, “woodland” uniforms, body armor, etc. No planning for the “peace”, which helps create (according to Paul Bremer, and he might know about this) a lawless environment in which the insurgency flourishes. The insurgency starts blowing up our vehicles with roadside bombs, and many, many months later it takes Thomas Wilson to stick up to Rumsfeld. 2,300 other soldiers present cheer when Wilson gives Rummy an overdose on truth. Rummy can’t handle it and proceeds to insult the truth by lying back to them.
Then, when we could be building 550 armored humvees every month (and probably a lot more if we were actually pushing to get them from all available sources), we find out that the DoD isn’t even trying to get more than 450. Meanwhile, U.S. troops are desperately picking through trash heaps to stick scrap metal onto their vehicles. An Army major is sentenced to 6 months in jail for “stealing” abandoned vehicles and parts from wrecks. Another Army Chief Warrant Officer from that unit also got 6 months. This is how we treat people who are desperate to keep the supplies getting up to the troops. pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune … 83881.html
Just wondering when Bush is going to re-introduce horsewhips in order to keep these sorts of soldiers down… sounds like this election was about “values” after all.
so kerry votes against the spending bill and you make excuses for him. bush signed the bill and you trash him for not doing enough. you’re so transparent, mofan.
I guess you think that “nobody” is accountable for anything, whereas more traditional Americans would tend to think that the buck stops somewhere. The Bush administration needs to constantly check whether the troops are getting the actual stuff they need or whether needed equipment is actually being made. It’s their job and duty.
So, Bush rushes to dump 150,000 US troops out in the middle of nowhere on a wild goose chase for WMDs when troops might otherwise be needed to work on actual anti-terror efforts or to stem the resurgent Taliban from retaking 1/3 of Afghanistan. He spends ka-billions of dollars doing so and claims that others are denying the troops equipment when they raise legitimate questions about what sort of quagmire Bush has gotten us into.
He gets an additional USD 87,000,000, but then hardly any of its gets spent on rebuilding Iraq and hardly any of its gets spent on giving the troops what they need. Where did the money go?? Meanwhile, Rumsfeld and the administration are tripping over themselves to lie about why the troops don’t have adequate armor plating on vehicles. Turns out that the vehicles are available in much higher numbers. Turns out that the DoD isn’t really talking to the production people. Seems like the GOP has much more urgent tasks, like how to run up a massive deficit while giving their millionaire buddies a huge tax break… or perhaps spending USD 240,000 of this scarce money to buy commentator William Armstrong to be a shill for the “No Child Left Behind” malarkey.
Most insulting is how Rumsfeld says that line about how you go to war with the army you have, not with the one you want – well, the rush was entirely a fabricated one. Waiting a bit would have yielded no reason to go to war – i.e., no WMDs. Rummy, Cheney and Bush put the troops there and have had nearly 2 years now to get the troops some semblance of what they need. We could build aircraft carriers in World War II but can’t slap some steel armor onto humvees?? Gimme a fucking break. :loco:
Still don’t have any real response to how Bush has dumped the troops in the middle of nowhere and not supplied them? I can see how you’re so desperate to avoid dealing with the hard questions of Bush’s complete mismanagement of this war (from the original fake WMD rationale onwards), that you can’t actually respond to what might be done to ensure the soldiers get what they need. :bravo: You’re really sticking to your regular form!
Bush got his $87 billion, and it looks like the troops still ain’t getting the humvees and Iraq ain’t getting reconstructed. Perhaps it’s time for an independent investigation into WTF they’re actually doing with the money.
Unlike apparently most Republicans, I have higher expectations of government performance. Considering myself a “shareholder” in the U.S. society, I look for shareholder value. Now, while the Bush administration spends money like a bunch of crack whores, wasting it without any heed to the needs of our troops, us Democrats would be ensuring that the troops got the best we Americans could give them.
[quote=“mofangongren”]Still don’t have any real response to how Bush has dumped the troops in the middle of nowhere and not supplied them? I can see how you’re so desperate to avoid dealing with the hard questions of Bush’s complete mismanagement of this war (from the original fake WMD rationale onwards), that you can’t actually respond to what might be done to ensure the soldiers get what they need. :bravo: You’re really sticking to your regular form!
[/quote]
bush has supplied the troops. us troops in iraq are currently the most well-equipped troops from any country at any point in history.
[color=red]you will not be able to find an example in the history of the world of any army in a war zone better armed and protected than the current us force in iraq[/color] .
even in bold i predict you will pretend you didn’t see the line i just wrote(and which i have written earlier many times in this and other threads).
Please show how Bush has supplied the troops, along with references showing clearly whether or not U.S. troops have had to search through garbage dumps to find find metal they can use for “armoring” their vehicles. Please also show how in previous wars, U.S. troops have had to do so 2 years into a conflict.
Please also show how the armored humvees built to date are in any ways comparable to the industrial output. Keep in mind, my little friend, that the Depression-era economy of the U.S. was able to crank up enough factories at the start of World War II to produce trillions of dollars worth of steel, aircraft carriers, destroyers, tanks, etc. Our good brave soldier Wilson has raised the question of armor plating on humvees, but it looks like you’re hiding from that (just as the Bushies are).
Chop! Chop! You’ve got some work cut out for you. Perhaps the water, food, body-armor, and other shortages can be addressed later. And remember – I want you to cite to actual sources, not the usual sort of blogs you GOPsters usually resort to when the facts don’t run your way.
When I was in Vietnam, half the guys were carrying pistols, shotguns, etc their families had sent them. In 1978, I had my (then) wife send me a cleaning kit for my M-16 as they were almost impossible to find. My boots were Corcorans. I had to buy them myself and they weren’t cheap. Regular issue boots were crap. Our M-113s were Vietnam vintage and you could see battle damage on some. All of our pistols and heavy machine guns were of WWII manufacture (the US didn’t buy new pistols for the Army until the Reagan Admin). One of my My M-16s in the late '70s had a flash suppressor from the mid 1960s…the weapon had been fired so much it rattled. Our PRC-77s were also Vietnam vintage. Half the time they didn’t work. Alot of our C-RATS were from the 1950s (BTW, the BigTime Dog Food company in Dillon, SC manufactured much of our C-RATS…YUM!).
[quote=“Flipper”]
[color=red]you will not be able to find an example in the history of the world of any army in a war zone better armed and protected than the current us force in Iraq[/color] .[/quote]
[quote=“mofangongren”]Please show how Bush has supplied the troops, along with references showing clearly whether or not U.S. troops have had to search through garbage dumps to find find metal they can use for “armoring” their vehicles. Please also show how in previous wars, U.S. troops have had to do so 2 years into a conflict.
Please also show how the armored humvees built to date are in any ways comparable to the industrial output. Keep in mind, my little friend, that the Depression-era economy of the U.S. was able to crank up enough factories at the start of World War II to produce trillions of dollars worth of steel, aircraft carriers, destroyers, tanks, etc.[/quote]
are you trying to suggest that us troops were better equipped and armored in ww2?
Comrade Stalin: You were in the Marines, right? They were famously neglected during Vietnam and nearly every other war. It used to be a point of pride that their helicopters, rifles, etc. were not the fancy ones being issued to the army guys. Thus, it would appear completely consistent that you were getting screwed left and right.
Flipper: Relatively speaking, yes.
Before we get off track on this, keep in mind that in previous wars the troops weren’t able to send uncensored emails and make cell-phone calls right from the middle of things. Technology has basically allowed us to know straight from the troops that they are being screwed – and for the troops to do some of their own research into what news is going on back home. They know more and we know more. Thus, we don’t need to act like ostriches with regards to their problems – on a non-partisan basis (unless the Republicans want to make something partisan about it by being the only party that denies there’s a problem), we can agree as Americans that our troops should have more.
Do troops always need “more”? Sure. But when it is easily within our productive capacity to provide what they want, it’s complete bullshit for us not to do it. We have no excuse that we don’t “know” what they want or need, and it’s not like these guys are asking for death rays, plasma phase rifles and force fields that simply don’t exist yet.
are you seriously that ignorant about the supply situation during world war 2?
let me repeat this just to make sure, you are claiming that us soldiers were better equipped and armored during world war 2 than they are today in iraq.
i certainly love the hole you’re digging yourself here.
i especially love the part where you blame the government for not nationalizing all our industries and forcing them to produce armaments. precious. a thread for the ages.
it’s amazing how irrational bush-hate can make you push such interesting arguments.
once again you bring up the troops and what they think. and once again i’ll counter that the troops vote heavily republican and support bush’s policies in iraq. why you keep using people who contradict you to support your point is beyond me…
soldiers and vets know much more about the situation in the field than either of us ever will. soldiers and vets vote heavily republican and supported bush over kerry. seems pretty clear cut.
In World War II, at least people were trying. There were plenty of guys in the rear areas who siphoned off stuff, but nobody was saying that the Roosevelt administration wasn’t trying to get the troops what they could. No secretary of war has ever been confronted by a soldier in a war zone and then had to face the supporting applause of 2,300 others.
Do I think they tried to do a better job in World War II? Sure. Do I think that relative to the economic power of the U.S. we gave the troops a lot more than we’re giving them now? Sure. Hey, I’m not arguing that we were putting our World War II troops into Bradleys back then or that we were giving them rifles with the same firepower. However, we had a government back then that clearly did everything it could to crank out as much support as we could give our soldiers and those of many of our Allies.
Where do I say that? I blame the Bush administration for not even being curious about the production capacity of existing private contractors. I would think the U.S. could easily find a few people with the armoring skills of a “B.A. Barracus” to help out with the efforts to add armor to trucks and other vehicles. Like there aren’t enough machinists in the world to do this? :loco: Just a quick reminder, the manufacturer of fully armored humvees was running 100 below capacity until Wilson shook up Rumsfeld.
Sorry, but I would figure that supporting the troops means expecting our government to do its best to keep them supplied. When we know of a need and that need is not beyond our means, we should supply it. Asking our government to do what it can is what citizens regularly do.
“Irrational” is when a GOPster refuses to provide the troops what they need because he’s unwilling to ever admit mistakes are made or to take responsibility for the mistakes. Using political grounds to deny the troops is simply pathetic.
did i mention that us troops currently in iraq are the best equipped and best armored troops of any army
[color=red]IN HISTORY[/color] ?
not sure if you’re trying to argue that point or if you are just completely avoiding it because it destroys your whole argument. you’ve already backpedaled on ww2 troops being better equipped. now you’re left trying to argue that they “tried harder”. even without the mass mobolization of the economy like in ww2, us troops today are still better equipped than at any time in history.
also would like to point out again that the soldiers who know much better than anyone on this board the situation on the ground completely disagreed with you and supported bush over kerry. why do you think you know more about what’s good for them than they do?
Wow. I must have really shook something loose in you. You could only respond in little tiny pieces, and even then what you wrote is still incoherent.
I have you totally running from the questions at issue in this thread. IF:
the troops need something simple and
it is totally within our industrial ability to provide and
we know about that need
THEN why the hell doesn’t the Bush administration get off their ass and take care of it? Bush loves to talk up a storm about “showing leadership”… let’s see a bit. All I’m seeing are a bunch of sorry-assed crybabies running about trying to cover their asses and play politics. Let’s see him act like a “commander in chief”.
Spending bills get presented to congressmen and senators in many forms, meaning that it’s quite possible for someone to vote for a bill in one version before they vote against it. Considering that Bush threatened at one point (on one version of that spending bill) to veto what was in front of him, what does that make Bush??
