Troops not getting needed armor, Rumsfeld needs to go

[irwincur]

Big surprise, another liberal trying to make the news since he cannot do his own job and simply report the news. When are people going to get sick or reporters turning into partisan hack commentators? What ever happened to journalism? When do real journalists stage questions, influence selection of participants in a press briefing, and coach respondants to get the story they want?

I know... It was flooded with a bunch of elite brats who think everyone is too stupid to understand the real world. So they will make it easier by interjecting their stupdity into every 'report' they make. This a**hole really needs to lose his job. If he wants to do 'reporting' like this he should be working for the BBC or NYT - they sure as hell accept sub par idiocy like this.



Oh, about Japan. Actually we attack back relatively quickly. However, there are a few facts people are missing...

1. It is hard to attack a naval enemy when a good chunk of your fighting ships are sunk, damaged, or stuck in harbor. You need to build a fleet before you send it out. This was not a video game where you can send one ship vs. an armada.

2. Communications were much slower back then. There were no cell phones, no pagers, no email, etc... Calls went out, then they had to find people, then collect them, then collect the Senators, etc... Today when something like this happens, the reaction is instantaneous.

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: kage69

These guys are liberals. They have proven time and again that when facts are absent, opinions will do nicely! This thread proves that once again.

I love how guys like you harp about "proof." You wouldn't know proof if it bit you on the ass. You going along with his quite naive and ignorant speculation just shows us you've got your head stuck in the sand the same way. Please return to your normal admin fluffing.

Truth hurts, don't it? What? Four pages of sheer opinion on this thread and finally some facts from the consertatives and the tone turns nasty. Good work!

 

[GrGr]

Originally posted by: Condor

Originally posted by: MoFunk
Hey, before you guys speak of "You're Fired" and being a failure, you need to get more facts. As more and more facts come out about this, this whole thing was a BS setup!

These guys are liberals. They have proven time and again that when facts are absent, opinions will do nicely! This thread proves that once again.

BS setup my ***. If Rumbo can't handle legitimate questions from the troops it's nobody elses fault but his own.

I love the fact that this made the news simply because Rumbo was not prepared to answer tough questions from the soldiers. Rumbo can lie all he wants to the embedded media and not get called on it but when he starts lying to the troops he is in deep water and he and the Bush administration knows it.

The next step is for the troops to be presented with pre-written softball questions, and unit commanders making it abundantly clear that not singing the official military party line will land soldiers "in a world of hurt" or whatever the going cliche atm happens to be.

 

[kage69]

Truth hurts, don't it? What? Four pages of sheer opinion on this thread and finally some facts from the consertatives and the tone turns nasty. Good work!

What "truth" would this be? That smacks of evangelical BS, "truth" being whatever position they decide to hold. No really, please point to these "facts," I'm curious to see what has incited your little circlejerk there.
Are you really just getting all frothy over the reporter thing?



Great planning

Producers dispute Rumsfeld claim

 

[tallest1]

Originally posted by: Condor

Originally posted by: MoFunk
Hey, before you guys speak of "You're Fired" and being a failure, you need to get more facts. As more and more facts come out about this, this whole thing was a BS setup!

These guys are liberals. They have proven time and again that when facts are absent, opinions will do nicely! This thread proves that once again.

What on earth are you talking about? The soldier's question was someone's else but nobody forced Rumsfeld to say what he said. Are you angry that the soldiers didn't say something more cheery or kosher to their boss? Did you expect them to ask for candy canes? Give it up, you're grasping for straws.

Haliburton gets a bunch of our money without a fight and you say its okay/normal. Then a measly reporter gets a mere question though without a fight and you're up in arms. Once again, give it up

 

[GrGr]

Lost in a masquerade

By MAUREEN DOWD
"ICH"

12/09/04 "ABS-CBN" -- It?s immoral to trap our troops in a guerrilla war without the essential, lifesaving support and materiel just so a bunch of officials who have never been in a war can test their theories.
Hoooo-rah! Rummy finally got called on the carpet. Not by the President, of course, but by troops fighting in Iraq.

Some of them are finally fed up enough to rumble about his back-door draft and failure to provide them with the proper armor for their Humvees, leaving them scrambling to improvise with what they call ?hillbilly armor.?

The defense secretary had been expected to go to Iraq on this trip but spent the day greeting troops in neighboring Kuwait instead. Even though Pentagon officials insist that security wasn?t an issue, I bet they had to be worried not to travel the extra 40 miles to Iraq.

Rummy met with troops at Camp Buehring, named for Chad Buehring, an Army colonel who died last year when insurgents in Baghdad launched a rocket-propelled grenade into Al Rasheed, a green-zone hotel once frequented by Western journalists and administration officials that is still closed to guests because?despite all the President?s sunny bromides about resolutely prevailing?security in Iraq is relentlessly deteriorating.

As Joe Biden told Aaron Brown of CNN about his visit to Fallujah, ?They got the biggest hornet?s nest, but the hornets have gone up and set up nests other places.? He said that a general had run up to him as he was getting into his helicopter and said, ?Senator, anybody who tells you we don?t need forces here is a G.D. liar.?

Rummy, however, did not hesitate to give the back of his hand to soldiers about to go risk their lives someplace he didn?t dare to go.

He treated Thomas Wilson?the gutsy guardsman from Tennessee who asked why soldiers had ?to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles, and why don?t we have those resources readily available to us???as if he were a pesky Pentagon reporter. The defense chief used the same coldly cantankerous tone and squint he displays in press briefings, an attitude that long ago wore thin. He did everything but slap the kid in the hospital bed.

In one of his glib ?Nothing?s perfect,? ?Freedom?s untidy? and ?Stuff happens? maxims, Rummy told the soldier: ?As you know, you go to war with the army you have.?

It wouldn?t make a good Army slogan, and it was a lousy answer, especially when our kids are getting blown up every day in a war ginned up on administration lies. Remember when the President promised in the campaign that the troops would have all the body armor they needed?

These young men and women went to Iraq believing the pap they were told: They?d have a brief battle, chocolate, flowers, gratitude. Instead, they were thrust into a savage insurgent war without the troop levels or armor they needed because the Pentagon?s neocons had made plans based on their spin?that turning Iraq into a democracy would be a cakewalk. And because Rummy wanted to make his mark by experimenting with a lean, slimmed-down force. And because Rummy kept nattering on about a few ?dead-enders,? never acknowledging the true force, or true nationalist fervor, of the opposition.

The dreams of Rummy and the neocons were bound to collide. But it?s immoral to trap our troops in a guerrilla war without the essential, lifesaving support and materiel just so a bunch of officials who have never been in a war can test their theories.

How did this dangerous chucklehead keep his job? He must have argued that because of the President?s reelection campaign, the military was constrained from doing what it is trained to do and flattening Fallujah and other insurgent strongholds. He must have told W. he deserved a chance to try again after the election.

He had a willing audience. W. likes officials who feed him swaggering fictions instead of uncomfortable facts.

The President loves dressing up to play soldier. To rally Camp Pendleton Marines facing extended deployments in Iraq, he got gussied up in an Ike D-Day-style jacket with epaulets and a big presidential seal on one lapel and his name and ?Commander in Chief? on the other.

When he really had a chance to put on a uniform and go someplace where the enemy was invisible and there was no exit strategy and our government was not leveling with us about how bad it was, W. wasn?t so high on the idea. But now that it?s just a masquerade?giving a morale boost to troops heading off someplace where the enemy?s invisible and there?s no exit strategy and the government?s not leveling with us about how bad it is?hey, man, it?s cool.

 

[patrickjst]

Originally posted by: GrGr
Lost in a masquerade

By MAUREEN DOWD
"ICH"

12/09/04 "ABS-CBN"

The President loves dressing up to play soldier.

What's interesting is that he isn't dressing up or playing. He's the president of the united states. He's the commander.

 

[tallest1]

Originally posted by: patrickjst

Originally posted by: GrGr
Lost in a masquerade

By MAUREEN DOWD
"ICH"

12/09/04 "ABS-CBN"

The President loves dressing up to play soldier.

What's interesting is that he isn't dressing up or playing. He's the president of the united states. He's the commander.

Right......

Edit: :roll:

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: tallest1

Originally posted by: Condor

Originally posted by: MoFunk
Hey, before you guys speak of "You're Fired" and being a failure, you need to get more facts. As more and more facts come out about this, this whole thing was a BS setup!

These guys are liberals. They have proven time and again that when facts are absent, opinions will do nicely! This thread proves that once again.

What on earth are you talking about? The soldier's question was someone's else but nobody forced Rumsfeld to say what he said. Are you angry that the soldiers didn't say something more cheery or kosher to their boss? Did you expect them to ask for candy canes? Give it up, you're grasping for straws.

Haliburton gets a bunch of our money without a fight and you say its okay/normal. Then a measly reporter gets a mere question though without a fight and you're up in arms. Once again, give it up

My response was to the point that the liberal jug heads did their general thing and started voiceing without even waiting for the facts to come in. I remember the troops in RVN bitching about the Jeeps we used there not having enough power and going to the junk yards to get big block Chevy engines from other vehicles and putting them into the Jeeps. Then they bitched about the broken drive trains and fuel consumption. Armor is like everything else. The use should be based on need. The more armor, the more weight to move and the less agility. The less agility, the more risk of getting caught in an ambush - and so on! I ask you, were these GI's experts on armament? Do you know? Did they know the potential mission of the vehicles? Was the opportunistic reporter an expert on armament? Was he a combat engineer? Was he just looking for fame and fortune at the cost of the administration? I think you all know the answers. The liberals just grasped at an opportunity to bash the administration without thinking about what they were posting - again!

 

[tallest1]

Originally posted by: Condor
My response was to the point that the liberal jug heads did their general thing and started voiceing without even waiting for the facts to come in. I remember the troops in RVN bitching about the Jeeps we used there not having enough power and going to the junk yards to get big block Chevy engines from other vehicles and putting them into the Jeeps. Then they bitched about the broken drive trains and fuel consumption.

I'm trying my best to respond to this point as respectfully as possible but we can't check questions and answers for accuracy in real time. I wish we could. Hell, that'd be great but the what difference would it make in this case? Would Rumsfield say "Ah ha! Thats a reporter's question! I'm not going to answer that!". Would the reporter be a few dollars poorer (assuming he doesn't get fired)? My point is, theres not much repercussions from a game of 'Who really said what, and is it true?'...... thats is unless you're the president making an argument to war in Iraq but thats a whole different topic.

Originally posted by: Condor
Armor is like everything else. The use should be based on need. The more armor, the more weight to move and the less agility. The less agility, the more risk of getting caught in an ambush - and so on! I ask you, were these GI's experts on armament? Do you know? Did they know the potential mission of the vehicles? Was the opportunistic reporter an expert on armament? Was he a combat engineer? Was he just looking for fame and fortune at the cost of the administration? I think you all know the answers.

I truly wish I knew all the answers. No wait, I wish Rumsfeld knew all the answers so that he could give that soldier a straight answer and fine tune his much touted (and experimental) "Lighter is better" war strategy. I guess we'll have to wait until the dust clears to know if the hundreds of troops needed armor more than a better MPG rating on their jeep.

The liberals just grasped at an opportunity to bash the administration without thinking about what they were posting - again!

'fraid not. If Rumsfeld had given a straight answer, given us the facts (instead of lines seemingly copied from a goth kid's diary), and told us what hes going to do to make it better, this would barely make the news and fly below the radar.

Edit: spelling

 

[imported_Condor]

Originally posted by: tallest1

Originally posted by: Condor
My response was to the point that the liberal jug heads did their general thing and started voiceing without even waiting for the facts to come in. I remember the troops in RVN bitching about the Jeeps we used there not having enough power and going to the junk yards to get big block Chevy engines from other vehicles and putting them into the Jeeps. Then they bitched about the broken drive trains and fuel consumption.

I'm trying my best to respond to this point as respectfully as possible but we can't check questions and answers for accuracy in real time. I wish we could. Hell, that'd be great but the what difference would it make in this case? Would Rumsfield say "Ah ha! Thats a reporter's question! I'm not going to answer that!". Would the reporter be a few dollars poorer (assuming he doesn't get fired)? My point is, theres not much repercussions from a game of 'Who really said what, and is it true?'...... thats is unless you're the president making an argument to war in Iraq but thats a whole different topic.

Originally posted by: Condor
Armor is like everything else. The use should be based on need. The more armor, the more weight to move and the less agility. The less agility, the more risk of getting caught in an ambush - and so on! I ask you, were these GI's experts on armament? Do you know? Did they know the potential mission of the vehicles? Was the opportunistic reporter an expert on armament? Was he a combat engineer? Was he just looking for fame and fortune at the cost of the administration? I think you all know the answers.

I truly wish I knew all the answers. No wait, I wish Rumsfeld knew all the answers so that he could give that soldier a straight answer and fine tune his much touted (and experimental) "Lighter is better" war strategy. I guess we'll have to wait until the dust clears to know if the hundreds of troops needed armor more than a better MPG rating on their jeep.

The liberals just grasped at an opportunity to bash the administration without thinking about what they were posting - again!

'fraid not. If Rumsfeld had given a straight answer, given us the facts (instead of lines seemingly copied from a goth kid's diary), and told us what hes going to do to make it better, this would barely make the news and fly below the radar.

Edit: spelling

Rumsfield was probably caught off his feed by the question. You have to say that someone in his position does have a lot to think about and can't focus on every detail. What I fear is going to happen from all of this is that the troops are going to get hundreds of HumV's that are so overloaded that they can't catch a cold. I saw one of those dogs on CNN tonight that was so heavy (apparently) that it could hardly make it over a curb. Perhaps the real issue is not that the HumV's aren't armored enough, but that they are simply the wrong vehicle for the combat that the enemy is bringing to our troops. Maybe we need more APC's and other armored vehicles. The HumV was designed to be a lightweight vehicle used for transportation, not a main battle tank. This issue may be the "Wag the Tail" issue that gets a lot of troops killed because of a knee jerk reaction to the press causing the wrong solution to a real problem.

 

[maluckey]

Good point.

The M113 carries more truops, has more armor, is proof versus virtuall all small arms fire, and is relatively nimble (for armor). Even the bradley carries more troops than the Hard-Top HMMWV, and it is proof versus ALL small arms fire, as well as packing enough punch to defeat any battlefield threat.

If the troops feel the need for more armor, then so be it. Give them more Armor, but make it an APC, not a HMMWV.

Until then, be aware that the majority of whining is from units without a combat mission. Also take into consideration that as a vehicle gets heavier, it becomes more of a liability, not only as far as nimbleness, but wear and tear on parts, and the speed is also greatly sacrificed.

 

[Gaard]

Originally posted by: maluckey

Until then, be aware that the majority of whining is from units without a combat mission.

Just wondering if you read this somewhere.