After carefully checking the warranty on my asbestos suit and its claims for suitability for this particular application, I decided to air my opinion on recent developments in the Iraqi war. Here it goes:

Now that the politics of the elections are over, along with much of the hollow rhetoric it brought to surface, it is time that we looked again at the situation in Iraq. It is not my intent to analyze or critique the merits of the war, I have done that already and my position/opinion has not changed, but rather to discuss, debate, if you will, how well or badly, as I think it is, it is lead, conducted or in other words done.
I think that the “bad” has been clearly illustrated by the recent Q & A in Kuwait between the troops and Secretary Rumsfeld. And it is not the lack of the armor and equipment that make it so bad, but rather the callous disregard by Rumsfeld of the needs of our troops, eclipsed only by his arrogance. That type of behavior can not be attributed to ‘being off guard’ or any other type of cliché mistake, only to malevolence. Clearly, Rumsfeld is by far smarter than to say something as stupid a he said, by error, rather he said it out of annoyance [how dare you ask me this?] and total lack of consideration. Hardly the sign of even adequate [not to mention good] leadership. And the president? In his ever inapt way of “communicating” instead of taking a stance or offering a solution, asks the same question. Is it at all possible that he did so because he does not have the answer or the solution?
Time and again it is apparent that our leadership is either incompetent or does not care. The mere fact that Bush was re-elected hardly negates the fact that is not a good president, and the lack of a better alterative is an indictment of us as a country. One would think that by now our Commander in Chief would not only realize the multitude of bad decisions he made, but would also acknowledge them and try to remedy them instead of misleading us.
Having said all that, I must add and emphasize that even against all this, our men and women of the armed forces are doing an incredible job, nothing short of a miracle, which makes the situation that much worse: THEY DESERVE BETTER.

Peter

 

Well apparently a majority of voting Americans didn't agree.

Maybe we could have just sat around waiting for every minuscule detail to be hashed out before we sent troops overseas.

Maybe we could have waited until we had enough volunteers to send our troops overseas.

Maybe we could have waited until the UN council decided what action to take before we sent our troops overseas.

Maybe we could have sent OBL a nastily worded letter demanding an apology before sending our troops overseas.

Maybe we could have waited long enough and we wouldn't NEED to send our troops overseas.

The terrorists would be in your front yard.

 

You are analyzing one question that an enlisted soilder ripped off at the Secretary of Defense AFTER a news reporter put him up to it. You know nothing of the chain of command in the military and how it works.

You liberals want to analyze the heck out of every word, every question, every sentence. ANY war, in ANY theater requires adustments. The fact that this soldier was able to ask the question in a country that 2 years ago was ruled by a mass murdering dictator has escapped you liberals. The fact that if this soldier was in any other army than ours he would have been dead by now also escapes you.

Our soldiers are the BEST equipped, and best trained military on the planet. Can we do better? Obviously, we always can and we always will. Again the fact that we allow improvement escapes you libs. We are in a war and people are going to get hurt. The purpose of war is to kill people and break things.

The fact also escapes liberals is that your candidate voted against the military spending bill (after he voted for it) to provide supplies and armor to our troops.

Why don't you demos try to fix your party rather than tear down ours? The only tactic you have left (pun intended) is to attack some petty supply problem in the military and try to make a HUGE deal out if it? Side armor is not going to save you if a 500 pound IED bomb goes off next to you.

The next thing ya know the demos will be calling for Bush to be impeached cause our troops didn't get peanut butter on time. You demos need to look at your party for what it is, a FAILURE! Radical demos have taken over the demo party and the American people have seen through the liberal crap. Your party represents all that is going wrong with this country and
the last election proved it.

You lost the elction now......GET OVER IT!

By the way, instead of trying to tear down our military and its chain of command why don't you try serving in it first?

 

I won't presume to speak for Rumsfeld or even try to make excuses for his actions, but I will try to shed a little light on the subject, so you can see the TRUTH of the matter.

Again this is just more left wing crap trying to smear the current administration, The previous Administration went out of it's way to reduce the strength of the military, but people want to pin it on Bush

First of all, when you go to war, you go with the equipment you have.......That means you are left to fight with what ever has been supplied by the previous administrations. Military weapons and vehicles take many many years to go from design to actual battlefield use.

Bush has stated time and again that this is a war like none we have fought before, we find ourselves fighting an unconventional war with conventional equipment. Hummers and other fighting vehicles were not designed for this type of battleground use. They were designed at a time when the doctrine was to employ speed and mobility so that heavy armor plating was not needed.

If you were quick and mobile, you were not as vulnerable to the RPG type weapons being deployed in the streets of Iraq. We are now using equipment that was not designed for this type of use. Nobody likes it, but there is no magic cure, remember that your representatives who voted against military funding are the villains here.

Everyone knows we need better equipment, but it doesn't grow on trees People moan and complain but when it comes time to shell out the money for new equipment and weapons they don't see the need to spend the money.

I recall all to well seeing soldier after soldier placing tape over the holes in his "Jungle Boots' to keep the sand out of them during Desert storm. It wasn't the Presidents fault they had boots designed for jungle warfare in the desert, it was simply the available equipment at the time. Equipment that had been designed for another time and another place. Changes have been made, but you can't outfit an entire Army with new equipment over night.

Again we go back to my earlier statement that we are forced to use the equipment that the previous administrations saw fit to supply us with. Guess what.....What ever battles we have to fight 20 years from now, we will have to use equipment that is being designed today. That means it may or may not be adequate for the area it will be used in.

If this really bothers you than do something real about it, and call your Senator and Congressman and tell them to pass a military appropriations bill that will give our soldiers the equipment they so desperately need! It takes MONEY!!!!! to outfit an Army.

Quit whining and trying to blame this stuff on Rumsfeld or Bush, they are simply working with what is in the arsenal which by the way is mostly stuff left over from the Reagan era. Vote people into office who will try to build up our military and not destroy it, thats the only real chance our soldiers have.

 

I don't know the entire thing, but it seems to me that our current humvee's just weren't designed for being hit with some imporvised explosive boobie-trap. Like Top said, armor was probably left off in order to increase speed, not to decrease cost. Sure, you can make a humvee that can withstand anything, but it would be slower than a snail. It's just the rock paper scissors of warfare- you can't have a humvee that can withstand a boobie-trap, deploy quickly and be affordable. Our humvee's don't got armor because it would have retarded their initial purpose; why would we armor something that isn't designed for armor?

Also, in America we got the mentality that we have to go to war without loosing a single person. When the pentagon says that we need oh-so-many troops/ supplies, that is the number we need to not loose a single person and do our job very quickly. If we could accept increased casualities and time of engagement, we wouldn't need so many troops.

And it really annoys me that 'we don't have the right to be in Iraq' liberal. We have the right to occupy and conquer anybody we want. We do things for our profit, not theres. If done correctly, we would prosper. Annexing a few hundred miles of Mexico, converting everybody to English, kicking the Mexican military's butt (do they even have one?) and exiling anybody who doesn't want to be American sounds like a great idea to me. Why don't we? Because of whiney little liberals.

 

Not that I take it personal, but I do not recall ever calling myself, or thinking of myself as either a liberal or a "demo", as a matter of fact I am a registered republican and have voted so always except this time.

I did not loose, not to mention that it is not about winning or loosing [our debate that is] but about integrity, honesty, telling the nation the real situation. But many, far too many of our soldiers did loose their lives, and many many more limbs and other body parts. Why don't you dwell on that for a while...

Perhaps you should re-read the post and try to understand it, if anything I only have praise for the military, I mean those who really put it on the line. As for serving in it, it was among the first things that I offered to do when I came here.

And I will tellyou this also: The Man can NOT walk on water. There have been and there are serious mistakes made, and not because it is this or any administration, they were and are made by human beings, it would be the mark of true leadership to aknowledge them and having learned from them make the necessary "adjustments." Denial and name calling hardly serve anything, well maybe one's ego.

 

Hey I voted for Reagan and I am proud of it, and would do it in a heart beat again.
I am not whining, I am angry. I am angry at what I see as "not telling the people the truth"
I am angry to see lives lost. And yes I will vote for people that will make the military stronger not in words alone but as Reagan would. I still do not like this war or the way it is lead.

 

You "offered"..... now that was nice of you. Why didn't you sign on the dotted line and commit to military service?

 

Was going to jump in and get fired up, but figured it would do nothing but raise the blood pressure and deprive myself of some of the energy required to go in and face some of the idiots tomorrow.
I work every day with people who never have and never will face the horrors of combat. They will never experience the taste of fear, the smell of fresh blood, or any of the grim and harsh realities of war. Why?, politics and their own "position" in life.
Whether the present administration was right or wrong in going into Iraq is past discussing. We are there. We went in based on the best information available. The equipment situation has occured because of one reason and one only, $$$$$$ Remember, everything we GI's get is made by the lowest bidder. It meets the MINIMUM standards.
There is nothing in the inventory that will handle a single 122mm projectle, much less two of them tacked onto a 500 lb bomb.
I'm getting on a soap box and didn't intend to. So with that in mind, I'm gonna clear out in order to deal with idiots tomorrow. I'm getting too old and set in my ways to listen to armchair commanders.
Sorry about the rant.

beentoolongofadayShortround out

 

regardless of what administration did/said what, one would think the military should be able to rapidly adapt to whatever demands are placed on it. one would have thunk they could have taken the experiance of the first gulf war, figured out what they needed, designed it, built it, and put it into service some time in the ten year period between the first and second war.... the threat of sadam never really went away.
this comment really isn't part of this discussion, lary's comment struck me as odd....

 

MCMLV,

You make some good points, but your rational to answer them for yourself, or at least the way you try to explain them, is way off.

Along with others, I'll try one more time to remind you.....most of the lack of equipment is due to the political party and people that Bush just defeated. We have NEVER gone into any war completely prepared with the right equipment. A conflict in the Middle East has been brewing for a long time and the Clintonistas set us back even further with his military budget cuts and base closings. It may have made his economic success look good, but BILL CLINTON has caused the deaths and injuries of many soldiers.

My brother-in-law just back from spending a year in Iraq. He was front line, training and going into battle with the ING almost daily. For the record, the ING are much more under equipped then our boys, so you know where that left Dave. Granted, he too would liked to have had better equipment and more armor, but unlike you and many other complainers, he knows why there is a shortage, and he understands it takes time to right the previous administrations wrongs. Believe it or not, things are much better. He was getting shot at, RPG'ed, and dodging roadside bombs and he understands....why can't liberal complainers understand?

Dave will be the first to tell you that we are making a difference for the betterment of the Iraqi people. He can tell you about the dedication of most of the ING. Yes there are some turning tail, but don't forget that we've had a bunch turn tail and run to Canada and Europe in our past also. He can tell you about the people that wave and tell them 'Thank You for ridding us of Saddam", about the women and kids that give them flowers when they're headed for a hot zone, about the people with more water, electricity and classrooms then Saddam ever let them have. He can tell you about people that had never seen a TV or heard a CD until Saddam was ousted. He can tell you about the dedicated Iraqi soldiers and civilians that have died trying to make their country a better place.

Why am I wasting my breath, nothing anyone can say are do will make a single pacifist understand the sacrifices of a war that will make a difference in the history of the world.

PS,
When the soldier asked the "set up" question about the armor, DR handled it much better then I would have. My response would have been more along the lines of General Patton!

 

I guess it struck you as odd because you do not see the difference in the two wars. Let me try to enlighten you. In Desert Storm we ran a highly mobile battle force destroying an enemy force of tanks and troops in open warfare across the desert.

In Iraq TODAY....We are fighting door to door in the streets of the city, an entirely different scenario but we are having to use the same equipment. I am glad you made your post. This is precisely why there is all this second guessing going on...It is being done by people who obviously have no clue as to what is actually happening.

Nothing wrong with that until they attempt to second guess "those who do" Essentially we are using equipment designed to attack with speed and agility in an open area, in a small confined area that makes them vulnerable to attack.

We can adapt doctrine but new equipment has to be designed, tested and then deployed into the battlefield. We can't do that when the Senators and Congressmen are voting against the money necessary to build this stuff.

This war is no different than any other in history in the respect that Soldiers are placed in harms way with inadequate equipment. I hope this helps you to better understand the problem and realize that the ONLY cure is MONEY to design and field better equipment.

We understood this in WWII and the entire country joined together to help by rationing gas, food and metals. Factories were retooled from Auto manufacture to weapons manufacture, the whiners all shut up and pitched in to help any way they could.

You don't see anybody lining up to donate their precious trucks or gas grills to be melted down into armor for our troops today. Be real people, War is HELL! it takes sacrifice by everybody to be victorious......But you all knew that on 9/11, what happened to make you all forget so soon?

 

In the first Gulf war there were no insurgents setting off 500 IEDs so putting armore on humvees wasn't needed. The humvee was never designed to be an armored vehicle, but we are adapting them now to protect our troops. Now that the insurgents are there we are adapting as best we can.

On the beaches of Normandy in WWII when our men were on the brink of being anialated by the Germans our soilders took the steel tank traps, cut them into pieces and welded them onto our Sherman tanks so our troops could bust through the hedge rows, and move forward to Paris. Those men adapted to the situation because of AMERICAN INGINUITY. Our troops today adapted to the situation with what they have at hand also.

To have someone who's only claim to our country is to have "offered" military service insinuate that President Bush & the Secretary of Defense don't know of the problem or they are hiding from the problem, or that its IS a problem, or that they should bow down to an enlisted man asking a question a reporter gave him is just plain rediculous.

Let the men who are in the serving in the military do their job and lets all stop pretending we know whats best for them. They know what they need, and its up to us to give it to them.

I can tell you one thing they don't need, its arm chair generals.

 

That is kind of my point.... This type of warfare is not new. Thinking here of the north africa tour of '40-'43. http://www.topedge.com/panels/ww2/na/noframe.html
I install telephones in my little corner of Canada. This hardly qualifies me to tell your military what to do.....
I don't think I am being an arm chair general, what I am doing is sitting here asking "whadda ya mean the us army isn't equipped to fight a desert war??"
That's a rather simplistic way of puting it though.....

 

For some reason the main point of my post is missed. It is not the fact that there are problems with equpiment or supplies, that happens even in the best planed circumstances. It is the simple fact that the bad planing that went into this war, continues to this day, and that instead of reasurances that changes are implemented to better the situation, Rumsfeld gives a retarded answer that 'even if you put all the armor in the world on a tank it can still be destryoed' Again it is the attitude, the care, that I am talking about. I don't think that one has to be an 'arm chair general' all you have to do is pull your head out of wherever it is stuck so that fresh air can bring some lucidity you your thoughts.