uh, mofan? they did take care of it. so what exactly are you bitching about now?
are you more concerned about the actual welfare of the soldiers? or are you just looking for something to criticize bush for? i think we all know the answer to that one. 
Is it taken care of? Please show me evidence that the problem has been completely resolved. Looks like theyâre merely in ass-covering mode.
Meanwhile, soldiers who try to get their vehicles operational again to deliver supplies needed by the troops are getting sent to jail for 6-month stints. Why? They took parts from wrecked vehicles. 
Given how much the Bush administration clearly doesnât respect the soldiers, Iâm surprised they werenât given 6 months with daily horsewhippings. :s
ok, you claim there is a problem and then demand that i provide evidence that there isnât one?
the unit that the soldier was in who asked the armor question was almost completely armored 24 hours after the question was asked. the link has already been posted in this thread.
Great news, then. One unit down and how many more to go? Plenty of other articles have already been posted indicating that the armoring of vehicles still has a long way to go.
So far, evidence has been presented that problems exist. Please show that these have been resolved.
so youâve been arguing this whole time and you didnât even know that the unit was already armored? seriously, you didnât even read all the posts in this thread?
:bravo:
You GOPsters are hilarious â one unit gets their vehicles upgraded, and you think the whole problem is gone. Iâve got an email from a good friend serving there right now in which he mentions his humvees are not armored. I guess since you donât have a real response, youâre stuck with just making shit up.
Reminds me of the time that Fred and Tigerman were trying to argue that because they found one corporate press release saying that one port had been made more secure, that was equivalent to the entire port safety situation being resolved for the entire nation. :bravo: :bravo:
Another well-written article on the topic that shows that Rumsfeldâs incompetence is now an issue being taken up by Republicans ⌠and that it has taken Wilsonâs questioning of Rumsfeld to shame them into belatedly trying to take care of the troops:
msnbc.msn.com/id/6700937/site/newsweek/
[quote]Among these second-guessers is Rep. Robin Hayes, a North Carolina Republican. Hayes told NEWSWEEK that âthe secretary of Defense exhibited a remarkable lack of sensitivityâ in his remarks. Hayes said he has been frustrated by delays in getting several heavier armored gun carriers to the light-gunned 82nd Airborne, which first requested them a year ago. Four such tank-treaded vehicles are still sitting in mothballs in Pennsylvania. Army Gen. Richard Cody approved the transfer last March. But then the Army decided to wait for a newer system mounted on a wheeled Stryker, though the system has been held up due to reliability issues, according to a recent General Accounting Office report. On Dec. 9, a day after Rumsfeldâs Kuwait appearance, Hayes wrote him a letter saying, âI simply cannot understand why we are not equipping our soldiers and Marines on the front lines with every weapon in our arsenal.â
Other defense insiders say that better armor has not been a high enough priority, at least until recently. After 9/11, Boeing ramped up production of JDAMs, its precise, GPS-guided bombs, from 900 a year to 3, 000 a month for use in Afghanistan. (This past week, in the middle of the armor furor, Boeing announced that it had delivered its 100,000th JDAM kit to the Air Force.) âIf they could do it for bombs, why couldnât they do it for armor to save lives ?â asks Defense analyst Bill Arkin. Rumsfeld âcould have awakened any morning in the last year and a half, determined to make sure every vehicle is properly armored and said, âI want industry to jump through hoops to do itâ,â says one defense contractor. âI was infuriated he could be so cavalier.â No doubt the Pentagon chief is getting on top of the problem now.[/quote]
As Iâve always said, the military are smart enough to figure out the screwing theyâre getting at the hands of Bush and his cronies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/17/international/europe/17spiegel.html?oref=login
[quote]US military officials are becoming increasingly vocal in their criticism of the war in Iraq, telling Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that more troops are needed to prevail over the insurgents. Moreover, recruitment is down and more reservists and members of the National Guard are being sent to Baghdad.
The war is over, at least as far as Darrell Anderson is concerned. Anderson, a 22-year-old GI from Lexington, Kentucky, deserted a week ago, heading across the USâ loosely controlled border with Canada. When his fellow soldiers in the First US Tank Division, stationed in Hessen, Germany, ship out to Iraq for their second tour of duty, heâll be in Canada.
Anderson spent seven months in Iraq last year as a part of a unit assigned the dangerous mission of guarding police stations in Baghdad. He was wounded by grenade shrapnel during an insurgent attack, was awarded the Purple Heart and allowed to spend Christmas at home in the United States. But instead of returning to duty, Anderson fled to Toronto.
Anderson has now applied for political asylum in Canada. His attorney, Jeffry House, was once one of the 50,000 draft dodgers who fled to Canada to avoid serving in the Vietnam War. Deserters who are now fleeing to Canada to avoid the Iraq war have reawakened memories of an exodus that took place more than thirty years ago. House says: âEvery day I get calls from at least two soldiers looking for a way out.â
Revolt no longer Rare
Deserting US recruits â once a rarity â are not alone in their search. Three months after being reelected and immediately prior to what is expected to be a triumphant inaugural party to mark the start of his second term, US President George W. Bush will be hard-pressed not to reevaluate the strategy for the deployment of US troops in Iraq. He faces massive doubts among the members of his own military, who are becoming increasingly vocal in their opinion that the US war with Iraqi insurgents is being conducted with insufficient manpower and equipment. Lieutenant General James Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, warns that his troops in Iraq have âdeteriorated into a broken force.â
A revolt seems to be taking place within the ranks. Even though daily bomb attacks in Iraq and the latest death toll of 1,361 US soldiers have yet to trigger any significant reversal in US public opinion, and even though President Bush reiterated last week that the world is a safer place without Saddam Hussein, Bushâs soldiers and officers seem increasingly convinced that the opposite is true. Almost without warning, Americaâs armed forces, superior to any of the worldâs other militaries but faced with severe personnel shortages, are suddenly encountering almost insurmountable obstacles â politically, strategically and financially.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld particularly faces growing criticism. In light of the disastrous situation on the ground in Iraq, even fellow Republicans are quietly demanding his removal and calling for a change in strategy. Rumsfeld bears the brunt of the blame for the precarious situation in which the US military now finds itself. The Iraq war has cost US taxpayers more than $150 billion to date, with the Pentagon spending $4.5 billion a month on its campaign in Iraq. [/quote]
And weâre really thinking about invading Iran?? WTF??
Comrade Stalin, the troops are plenty able to make up their own minds on it. Now that the myth that âall troops are Republicanâ has been blasted to shreds in earlier posts, we can also see that serving troops have serious issues with whatâs going on as well. Even you can see the damage thatâs being inflicted upon the U.S. Army as an institution â calling up retirees and pulling back people who last served at the time of the first Gulf War.
The U.S. military is starting to take on the appearance of the German Volksstrum, circa May 1945 â old men and the infirm being sent out with a couple of panzerfausts and five bullets apiece. Howâs the supply situation going? Is the Bush administration still trying to claim that they have fixed the whole problem just because they rushed to get armored humvees to Williamâs unit?
What I donât get is that the Bush administration has made a political issue of not supplying the troops even when they can. Theyâre fighting this tooth and nail, and it seems pretty much only those of us willing to call a spade a spade are pushing them to give the soldiers what they easily could be giving them. The company making armored humvees wasnât even producing anywhere close to their manufacturing capacity until Wilson made it an issue and questions started being asked.
Consistently, the Bush administration is always in a reactive mode, denying problems and only acting when finally forced to by public condemnation.
which posts would those be? and who said âall troopsâ are republicans?
every survey ever done has shown active duty soldiers as well as veterans vote heavily republican. if you can find me a SINGLE study that says otherwise, please link it here.
btw, still waiting for you to swallow your partisan zeal and criticize kerry for voting against the military spending bill.
Flipper, just because you are fighting tooth and nail to ignore the troopsâ situation doesnât mean that I need to spend time on unrelated topics. The USD 87 billion package passed and is relevant only in as much as it is clear that the Bush administration has not been spending money to give the troops what they need. Perhaps an independent investigation is necessary to find out how on earth so much money has apparently disappeared.
Can you imagine how much body armor the USD 240,000 spent on Armstrong Williams would have gotten for the troops? Come to think of it, the USD 40,000,000 being spent on the inaugural partying could be better spent on supporting the troops with a few armored humvees. How about the USD 100,000,000 estimated extra pricetag going to divert our military, Homeland Security, FBI, police, and other security services to a high-profile inaugural ⌠when a perfectly adequate (and more traditionally appropriate) answer would be to hold a lower-profile event.
Reagan and Clinton won peacetime landslides but didnât hold celebrations like this. WTF? Apparently Bush and his cronies have USD 140,000,000 to spend on a big party but canât be bothered to even ask if armored humvee production can be put onto full capacity. He supposedly cares about taking action on terrorism but is sending out Homeland Security goons to toy stores.
wow, mofan dodged the question again! who woulda thunk it?
You can feel free to start up a Kerry thread anytime you want to discuss whether or not he should have voted as he did. However, I choose to focus on the troops here. In contrast (given the topic of this thread), you seem quite tetchy about discussing what can be done to help the troops.
MaPoSquid had a great website â adopt a sniper is one good way people can help out the troops. I regularly correspond with friends stuck in Iraq and am again preparing packages. However, I donât own the right shop, tools, etc. or have the particular skills for armoring humvees.
How about this? The federal government could seek the assistance of elite custom body shops (the private sector!) â the kinds of guys who could tear apart and customize the humvees for the troops to ensure maximum durability, safety and horsepower. Some of these guys would probably be willing to do the work for free in exchange for a full pardon of their speeding tickets.
To raise money, they could film âSo Fast, So Furiousâ, the third installment in the series â featuring Vin Diesel as a guy who can bust ass across Baghdad in a customized armored humvee. Dieselâs humvee will have also the best-ever 16-layer paint job seen in a warzone, with a few cool decals that will do for humvees what ânose artâ did for World War II bombers.
so you start a thread about soldiers being underfunded, but you refuse to discuss kerry voting against a military funding bill. uh, ok.
Oh, so you think that the troops just need a bunch of money?? Well, if you look back to the start of this whole thread, you can see that itâs about a lot more. Whatâs the good of USD 87 billion if hardly any of it ever makes it to the troops. Whatâs the good of a secretary of defense who glosses over his own incompetence with glib references to âthe army you haveâ when he was the part and parcel of the undue rush to invade Iraq. Whatâs the good of making excuses for not providing troops with equipment that is well within our ability to provide them.
If we know about the needs of the troops and it is well within our capacity to give it to them, then letâs do it.
lol. so kerry voting against the military funding bill actually benefited the underfunded soldiers? itâs like youâre not even trying to make sense anymore.
MFGR was trying to make sense BEFORE???!!!
HmmmmmâŚI think this guy might know alittle better about whatâs going on than some people posting hereâŚ
[quote]
Kline says troops getting necessary equipment
Fred Frommer, Associated Press
January 19, 2005
WASHINGTON â Rep. John Kline, returning from a trip to Iraq, said U.S. troops told him they are getting the necessary armored vehicles and equipment to do their jobs.
"I made a point of asking every soldier and Marine I could,ââ said Kline, a Minnesota Republican and Marine Corps veteran. The soldiers he spoke with said they had personal body armor, and that they always had an armored vehicle when they left the perimeter, Kline said.
*
*
But Kline said that U.S. military officials and Iraqi government officials agreed that the elections must go forward as planned.
"I didnât speak to one single person who even remotely thought it was a good idea to postpone the elections,ââ he said.
Kline, who served in the Vietnam War, said he didnât agree with the suggestion made by some that Iraq was becoming like Vietnam.
"Iâve never liked that comparison,ââ he said.
"When we were attacked on September 11th, we were at war. Arguably in Vietnam, we chose as part of a strategy of containment to go to Vietnam. But even when we did that, we never envisioned we would be attacked in our own country. Now we do. We have been attacked.ââ[/quote]
startribune.com/stories/1762/5193099.html
From Rep John Klineâs official biography:
[quote]Although this marks his first elected office, Congressman Kline is familiar with Washington, where he served as a military aide to Presidents Carter and Reagan for three of his twenty-five years in the United States Marine Corps. Mr. Kline
Flipper â
Are you saying that the USD 87 billion didnât pass because of Kerryâs vote? Wow. Thatâs news none of the rest of us read. So, youâre saying thatâs the reason why the Bush administration wonât ask the company making armored humvees to move into full production ⌠until Wilson raised it front of Rumsfeld and 2,300 cheering troops? Wow, I just hadnât seen that the USD 87 billion had not passed.
Please show me the link where the USD 87 billion did not pass because of Kerryâs vote. Otherwise, I think you owe the troops an apology:
[quote]Draft Apology from Flipper to the Troops
Dear U.S. Troops,
I am sorry that I tried to mislead fellow Americans as to the source of your equipment problems by falsely blaming a former presidential candidate for all of your problems. Given that in a democracy itâs important for the citizens to have and share accurate information about government performance, I now realize that making shit up about the source of your equipment and supply problems only adds another layer of confusion into how those problems can be resolved.
I acknowledge that falsely saying the entire supply problem in Iraq was resolved while knowing that only Spc. Wilsonâs unit has been supplied contributed to the disinformation circulating on the internet. By falsely telling fellow Americans that the problem was âsolvedâ, I was basically asking Americans not to inquire any further into your welfare. I am sorry I did this.
I acknowledge that invoking partisan politics involving an election from 2 months ago is is morally reprehensible when the supply issue is a matter of life and death for American troops. Partisan politics have no place in supplying the troops, and I now realize that no matter what party holds the presidency, the current secretary of defense has been callous and irresponsible in not providing the troops with equipment that is clearly within our industrial capacity to provide.
I further acknowlege that my characterization of any effort to improve the supply of armored vehicles as involving nationalization or government expropriation was intended to creat irrational fear among my fellow Americans. I now realize that private-sector solutions were always available and that my government was simply not aggressively seeking to use existing resources to resolve the equipment problems.
Now that weâre nearly into the third year of this Iraq War, I hope that we can work together to solve the substantial problems that the troops have. The troops are fighting a war unlike the previous ones we fought â they must move quickly through narrow streets and face enemies that can show up on any and all sides during a battle. I understand that they donât need battleships, aircraft carriers, heavy artillery, missiles or B-52s â their expressed needs are small and we should do what we can to give them a little more armor.
With Great Contrition,
Flipper[/quote]