I'll take "Bad Planning" for $1000, Alex. (updated)
Click here to read an AP article on the meeting Don Rumsfeld had with American troops in Kuwait yesterday.
One soldier asked him "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?" Another wanted to know why the Reserve and National Guard units were being discriminated against in terms of equipment. A third asked when the stop-loss policy (aka "backdoor draft") was going to end.
Update: An analysis in today's USA Today shows that Reserve and National Guard troops "are about one-third more likely to be killed in Iraq than full-time active-duty soldiers serving there."
posted by Dan at 7:07 AM
5 Comments:
Is your point that there have been some operational problems in Iraq, which if compared to the glitches that occurred during the major campaigns of WWII, would make any problems in Iraq seem like a walk in the park? Or is it that the current REPUBLICAN administration doesn't really care about the health and welfare of our servicemen and women? Or is it an indictment on the basis that not 100% of our troops are 100% satisfied?
Try looking at this from another soldier's perspective at www.missick.com which includes some nice photos of the event.
December 8, 2004 9:38 PM
Welcome, Ric. Thanks for your comment and link.
I deliberately avoided trying to draw too much from this article and merely summarized its content. What it says for sure is that some American soldiers believe that Uncle Sam isn't doing everything he can to protect them and may not be treating them all fairly. The consequence of this meeting in larger terms isn't clear. Does it signal a growing failure in troop morale? I don't know. Just the fact that these questions were asked of Rumsfeld - to applause - indicates a level of criticism among the troops we don't hear much about.
My own belief, based on this article and others, is that the current administration relied on spin and ambition to falsely justify a hasty invasion of Iraq, and at the same time failed to adequately provide for the safety our troops or a plan for their quick return. While our American soldiers continue, as they have always done, to fight with courage and selflessness, our American leaders demonstrate both a questionable intent and a severely limited understanding of the undertaking. Any comparison to WWII suffers mightily because of it.
December 9, 2004 6:55 AM
Here are follow-ups from the Post and Slate.com.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46508-2004Dec8.html
http://www.slate.com/id/2110818/
December 9, 2004 7:31 AM
dan: i placed your site on my blogs to visit list at ReleaseTheHounds! ...i understand that many may want to believe that there was intended obfuscation in the run up to the war in Iraq but what facts on balance...not in isolation and out of context...support that view? also, i'd be interested to know what your position was on the invasion of Afghanistan and the 1991 Gulf War...thanks
December 10, 2004 9:53 AM
Welcome back, Ric, and thanks for linking to us.
I'd like to point you to an earlier post that discussed the results of a report from the Program on International Policy Issues.
http://pissedliberals.blogspot.com/2004/11/check-these-numbers.html#comments
Here's the relevant quote (from me):
"57% of all Bush supporters believe that the Duelfer report confirmed the existence of WMDs or a major program to build them. Huh? 75% of Bush supporters believe that Iraq was either directly involved in 9/11 or gave al Qaeda substantial support. WHAT?"
We could quibble about the veracity of minor things like yellowcake from Niger or would-be centrifuge tubes, but I don't think you can deny that there are two major justifications for war in Iraq that turned out to be false. How could so many Bush supporters not understand that? It's easy just to dismiss them as dumb, but that doesn't really cover it. They were deliberately misinformed. Another word for that is deception.
I think that international action in Gulf War was a reasonable response to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. I supported our attack on Afghanistan completely and believe we haven't done enough there, probably because it was never really the administration's focus. Paul Wolfowitz said at the time that Afghanistan would be "the background music" to our invasion of Iraq.
Incidentally, Pervez Musharraf announced this week that Pakistan had lost the trail of Osama bin Laden. Oh well, now that Al Qaeda's got a strong foothold in Iraq (thanks to us) I'm not sure how much it matters anyway.
December 12, 2004 10:11 AM
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