Troops still don’t have the armor they need
By on Aug 13th, 2005 at 5:07 pm
Troops still don’t have the armor they need
to withstand insurgent attacks, the New York Times reports.
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And the cocky Sec’y of Defense, who travels around Iraq in the best armored vehicle available, flippantly said “you go to war with what you have.” Goddammit, we didn’t have to – didn’t need to – go to war in the first place, jackass!
August 13th, 2005 at 5:21 pmWhat a comfort are his words to the families of the dead and wounded. When they get word of this latest report on the lack of good armor to this date, despite what Rummy and Bush say, they might want to prepare themselves for a few more Cindy Sheehans to not only sit in the Texas sun, but camp out on Pennsylvania Avenue also. Every week there is another disgusting revelation about this war and the arrogant asses of evil who began this nightmare. May they all be damned.
That is, Rummy and Bush might want to prepare themselves.
August 13th, 2005 at 5:23 pmWhere the hell is all the money going that is supposed to get these things done?? Billions and billions of dollars have been spent; on what?? We are a nation of enormous energy and technology, why is this taking forever?? Another sign that Rumsfield has no clue what is really happening in the field!!
August 13th, 2005 at 6:15 pmOr, maybe, he simply doesn’t care!!!!
“Asses OF Evil” I hadn’t heard that one before. I love it. Quite appropriate, as well. BushCo will have their judgement day soon enough.
August 13th, 2005 at 7:07 pmThe factories that manufacture the armor are not anywhere near producing at capacity. They say they are waiting for the armor orders from the govt.and that they will fill them promptly. They said this 8 mos. ago.
August 13th, 2005 at 7:57 pmThey are running this war like a modern corporation runs its business today. Lean operations, where they cut costs like jobs ,benefits, travel, unnecessary capital expenditures etc. so the books look good for share values and stockholders.
August 13th, 2005 at 8:18 pmUnfortunately the soldiers are the “help” and that is where they concentrate cost cutting, like in many Co.’s today. Execs. doing just fine,no cuts there, increases. Contractors in Iraq doing great,a killing. The American tax-payer would much rather treat the soldiers well, I am sure.
Only Republicans count, so there. To hell with everybody else. Armor? What armor? We don’t need no stinking armor.
Democrat? What’s that? Stop your whining and pay your taxes.
August 13th, 2005 at 9:26 pmJust remember, these kids volunteered and they knew there would be risks. So, really, they don’t deserve any armor and everyone should just shut their damn pie holes and get on with the business of making the world safe for free trade.
…or something like that. Sorry, I was just over at Free Republic, and I may have picked up a couple of wonky tropes from the Cindy Sheehan boards. (”Your kid joined the army and got killed, what did you expect, traitor?” — that sort of thing. Whew! Make-a da ganglia twitch.)
August 13th, 2005 at 11:37 pmThe War is over. Somebody just needs to tell Bush
Frank Rich:
“What do you mean we, white man?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/14/opinion/14rich.html
The truth:
U.S. Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq
Administration Is Shedding ‘Unreality’ That Dominated Invasion, Official Says
The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.
The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society where the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.
“What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground,” said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. “We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we’re in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning.”
(…)
“We set out to establish a democracy, but we’re slowly realizing we will have some form of Islamic republic,” said another U.S. official familiar with policymaking from the beginning, who like some others interviewed would speak candidly only on the condition of anonymity. “That process is being repeated all over.”
(…)
“We didn’t calculate the depths of feeling in both the Kurdish and Shiite communities for a winner-take-all attitude,” said Judith S. Yaphe, a former CIA Iraq analyst at the National Defense University.
In the race to meet a sequence of fall deadlines, the process of forging national unity behind the constitution is largely being scrapped, current and former officials involved in the transition said.
“We are definitely cutting corners and lowering our ambitions in democracy building,” said Larry Diamond, a Stanford University democracy expert who worked with the U.S. occupation government and wrote the book “Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq.”
(…)
“The most thoroughly dashed expectation was the ability to build a robust self-sustaining economy. We’re nowhere near that. State industries, electricity are all below what they were before we got there,” said Wayne White, former head of the State Department’s Iraq intelligence team who is now at the Middle East Institute. “The administration says Saddam ran down the country. But most damage was from looting [after the invasion], which took down state industries, large private manufacturing, the national electric” system.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/13/AR2005081300853.html
August 14th, 2005 at 2:28 amI (heart) Cindy Sheehan
Jessica Simpson would have done a better job of handling this war. I wonder how many conservatives are going to take a break from smearing Cindy Sheehan to address this issue?
August 14th, 2005 at 3:52 amMaybe Rumsfailed figures if the troops become sufficiently thick-skinned to the plight of the Iraqis, they won’t need body armor.
August 14th, 2005 at 9:30 amHeav’n has no rage like love to hatred turn’d
Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn’d.
George Bush and the Rethuglicans had best pay attention to Cindy Sheehan. No amount of armor can protect them from her.
Have a nice day
August 14th, 2005 at 10:37 amSoldiers die daily for BushCo.’s war with senile Rummy in charge. But, they volunteered, right — so they don’t mind being dead – - and if their families are now having second thoughts of the value of this “noble” sacrifice, well, they’re just being traitors to the cause.
August 14th, 2005 at 1:53 pmBesides, think of all the future Social Security benefits that will be saved by these people never living to collect anything.
After all these soldiers are primarily low-to-middle class citizens who will need every dollar they can collect from Soc. Sec. — better we should sacrifice them, and leave the wealthy, upper-class in place, because when Soc. Sec. benefits are reduced to a fraction of the present, due to the BushCo. privatization, it won’t matter much because they don’t need the Soc.Sec. anyway.
See, it all boils down to money to these folks. Armor=money spent. Dead troops=money saved.
The important thing is to gain the Iraqi toehold in the oil-rich region – that=money in their pockets.
If Rummy and DoD ordered up the armor there wouldn’t be enough money for Halliburton to swim in. Get with the program people! Who gives a sh*t about the men and women actually fighting this stupid war — there’s a profit to be made.
The assess of evil should be thrown in a ditch with the fire ants.
August 14th, 2005 at 2:41 pmSorry, *asses* of evil…
August 14th, 2005 at 2:42 pmThere is two sides to every story. Rummy said we went to war with the Army we had and not the Army we would like. The Army says we were sent to war by the leaders we had and not the leaders we would have liked. Dumb Dumb and Dumber it would be George, Dick and Rumsfeld.
August 14th, 2005 at 5:58 pmIncomprehensible Incompetence.
August 14th, 2005 at 7:59 pmIf you had told me these people
could be this bad I would never
have believed it.
Negative IQs, i.e., they suck the
intelligence out of a room.
Money, that can be funneled somewhere to benefit those in this administration, isn’t going to go to our troops, who have nothing Bush wants.
August 15th, 2005 at 3:47 amThis is a quick overview of an article I read called “Despoiling of America”. It’s based on the religous contention that the people, God favors, he makes rich, the people who are out of favor, are the poor. Therefore, the rich are God’s favored people and the poor, who are in disfavor, are meant to be controlled by the rich. The poor can be interrogated, questioned, jailed and executed if need be. No courts, no justice, just the will of the FAVORED.
This also goes beyond the boundaries of this country. The FAVORED are the chosen ones, so anyone who doesn’t fit their standards, regardless of race, color or country, are in disfavor, and are fairgame.
There’s more to the article.
Doesn’t it seem it’s starting? Who are the favored ones? Who got the best from this administration? The RICH! (Be it personal or corporate.) Who fights most of the wars? The poor & middle class, who are fast becoming the ‘new poor’. If anyone would care to read the article, and it is long, I’d be happy to forward it to you. A friend sent it to me in April, and I finally got to read the whole thing. Its’ beyond words.
I listened to a call to the guy who sat in for Springer last week. She said her son enlisted because he has some buddies in Iraq and he wants to go to watch their backs. She tried to talk him out of it but he feels compelled to be with his buddies. (personally I think the kid is an idiot but hey if he has a death wish thats his choice)
As the woman continued to talk she started to choke up because she was so worried about her son going to war without armor. It seemed that by the end of the call she realized for the first time that her son probably wouldn’t come home in one piece if at all.
August 15th, 2005 at 4:50 pm