Jesus Tapdancing Christ, is Donald Rumsfeld not the biggest prick you've ever seem? My God. First he tells our soldiers to "go to war with the army they have"...the one that he neglected to supply with body armor and the correct number of rounds. When soldiers complain about having to dig through dumps (which may or may not have live land mines in them) to find scrap metal to use as armor for their Hummers, Rummy basicaly tells them too damn bad. Now it comes out that he is far too important to be inconvenienced by having to sign three or four condolence letters a day to the families of soldiers killed in his needless war, so he uses a machine to do it. God, what an asshole. What war did he fight in? In what country are his kids getting shot at? Fuck Rummy and fuck George Bush. God, I can't believe they are still using this "we support our troops" bullshit. Yeah right. Dubya doesn't give a rat's ass about our troops, or else he wouldn't have put them in harm's way so carelessly and with such complete disregard for their lives.

I support our troops: BRING THEM HOME!

-- Anti-Bush (comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), December 20, 2004

Answers

As usual, you didn't do your homework and neither did the vaunted but repeatedly shamed and proven wrong Main Stream Media (liberal media) who despises the military.

Last week the Pentagon briefed the media on the history and current status of armoured vehicles in Iraq. Few showed up at the press conference because the Media had already decided what the story was and didn't want facts messing their fiction up.

Facts like the fact that the National Guard unit in Kuwait had ALL its vehicles armored 2 days after the private was fed a question by the media hack... 2 days of work that had been previously planned - and would have happened regardless of media firestorm.

In short, a made up problem hyped beyond all sense.

But don't believe me, here's the link and actual text.

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2004/tr20041215-1801.html

The purpose of the press conference was to address the issue of "un- armored" vehicles that was raised by a National Guardsman in a question directed to Donald Rumsfeld a week or so ago. The overall impression I get is that the Army is responding appropriately to the risks posed by improvised explosive devices, and there is basically no story here.

The facts regarding the Guardsman's own unit also appear to be quite different from what has been reported:

The first point is that you'll recollect that one of the questions was the status of the 278 ACR; in other words, the date that we had the visit by the secretary of Defense, we had a question about their up-armoring status. When the question was asked, 20 vehicles remained to be up-armored at that point. We completed those 20 vehicles in the next day. And so over 800 vehicles from the 278 ACR were up-armored, and they are a part now of their total force that is operating up in Iraq.

Q On the 278th, can you repeat this? At the time the question was asked, the planted question, the unit had 784 of its 804 vehicles armored?

GEN. SPEAKES: Here is the overall solution that you see. And what we've had to do is -- the theater had to take care of 830 total vehicles. So this shows you the calculus that was used. Up north in Iraq, they drew 119 up-armored humvees from what we call stay-behind equipment. That is equipment from a force that was already up there. We went ahead and applied 38 add-on armor kits to piece of equipment they deployed over on a ship. They also had down in Kuwait 214 stay- behind equipment pieces that were add-on armor kits. And then over here they had 459 pieces of equipment that were given level-three protection. And so when you put all this together, that comes up with 830.

Q At the time of the question -- summarize this, now -- that unit that the kid was complaining about was mostly armored?

GEN. SPEAKES: Yes. In other words, we completed all the armoring within 24 hours of the time the question was asked.

Q If he hadn't asked that question, would the up-armoring have been accomplished within 24 hours?

GEN. SPEAKES: Yes. This was already an existing program.

The General answered questions such as why they are ordering "only 450" per month when the armor factory claims it can put on 100 more per month... Answer: the factory that produces the actual HUMVEE only produces 450 per month! You can't armour what isn't made yet!

But what is common sense and logic to reporters and their mind-less liberal minions who hate so don't want reasons?

Somehow hating Rummy is supposed to make it all better? Hating Bush rather than terrorists is supposed to make us safer? Hating Catholics is supposed to make HIV and STDs less deadly?

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), December 21, 2004.

i think this whole thing is fucking stupid...."not enough armored humvees" when i was active duty, the only people that had armored humvees were the MPs for the most part. it wasnt designed to be a battle tank or a gun platform.....it CAN be...but thats not its primary role......its primarily a transportation vehicle....so FUCK yeah...most of them are NOT armored....you cant blame the military for that...if they want the troops to be in armored vehicles...you might as well be asking why they arent sending over more APCs......the fucking press will try to take ANYTHING and turn it into something....idiots....what next "not enough armored blackhawks and apaches"??

-- Veteran (anonymous@yahoo.com), December 21, 2004.

Hold on, Joe...the "liberal" media hates the military, so they criticize Rummy for not protecting them?

"Hating Bush rather than terrorists is supposed to make us safer?"

Yes, because it's impossible to hate terrorists AND not like George Bush, right? EVERYTHING ISN'T BLACK AND WHITE!! This is the same mistake you've been making over and over...you're either with us or them...that's not always how it works. Earlier you made the assumption that because I hated Augusto Pinochet (the ruthless former dictator of Chile, for those just tuning in now) I must have supported the Soviet Union. WRONG. I hate human rights violators of all stripes. You just hate the ones that don't agree with you. Then you tried to counter my anti-Bush (no pun intended) rants by attacking Clinton, assuming that if I'm not a Republican, I MUST be a Democrat. WRONG AGAIN. There are more than two parties in this country, you know, despite the best efforts of the Republicrats (as long as the Democrats and the Republicans are absicaly the same party, we might as well save syllables). Now you assume that because I hate Bush, I must just adore Osama bin Laden. That's just plain stupid and I am really offended by it. I'm an American, just as much as you are. I watched those towers come down just like you did. And now I want the bastard brought to justice, just like you do. Don't ever, EVER, accuse me of supporting terrorists again.

By the way, not all terrorists wear turbans. Some wear suits. I don't really care for them either.

"Hating Catholics is supposed to make HIV and STDs less deadly?"

Wow, could you get a little more off topic?

No, I do not hate Catholics. Why would you say that? A good chunk of my friends and family are Catholics...delightful people, all of them, except for Uncle Danny, but I won't even open that can of worms. Anyhoo, what makes you think I hate Catholics?

-- Anti-Bush (comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), December 21, 2004.

Veteran,

That's right, and I'd bet any Humvee is better than sitting wide open in a Jeep.

Anti,

Hold on, Joe...the "liberal" media hates the military, so they criticize Rummy for not protecting them?

They hate President Bush and his staff more, is all. Heck, some liberals are saying they are so traumatized by Bush winning the election, they need to go into THERAPY! Rest assured 4 years from now we'll be back to the evil military again.

Now you assume that because I hate Bush, I must just adore Osama bin Laden

You really adore Osama? You make me sick! Don't you care that his psychos killed several thousand Americans?

Bazooka Joe

o.k., so the second part was supposed to be a joke, don't get your nose all out of joint...

-- 2 (1@3.4), December 21, 2004.

Ha ha ah ha ha! Lovin Osama! Good one! Bush n Rummy are just chasing the almighty oil money and will say or do whatever is in their best interests. They say to hell with a few soldiers or beheadings, or spending time writing out condolences, just keep the almighty money machine rolling and continue to crush what ever gets in it's path or way!

-- F. U. Bar. (foo@bar.com), December 21, 2004.

I wonder if our leader ariel sharon has told bush and rummy to start backing out after the election. I think Israel is concerned with Iran so I guess we will attack them soon. I hope it is just an air war. I don't think Sharon understands that when we do attack Iran we will be stepping on russia and china ushering in wwIII. This world would be so much more peaceful if there was no Israel. If russia or china eliminated Israel I think this would be a blessing for the future of the planet.

-- Bill Brasky (brasky@wwIII.com), December 23, 2004.

If Bush was chasing the oil he'd have made more money at less cost by simply lifting the oil embargo on Saddam. So...THAT crazy idea that this is merely a money gambit is wrong.

Look at it this way: after you get done taking apart the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2002, you look around and see which way the rats fled from battle. A good number run to Iraq.

About the same time, most of the security council nations are calling for sanctions to be lifted (and you know that they're cheating on the UN oil-for-food program to the tune of billions).

What do you do? Vote to lift sanctions and allow what was illegal to now continue as a legal trade?

How would that solve the problem of international muslim terrorists?

With sanctions lifted, the UN mandated overflights would also stop and the US would have to pull out of the region.

But what about going after the terrorists who got away or who never were in Afghanistan to begin with? (AL Qaeda had trained over 10,000 guys from all over the M.E.)

By focusing on oil or Haliburton you guys miss the point: how do you finish the war on terror by pulling out of the area in question?

If we can't drill for oil in ANWR, or increase domestic production in the Gulf of Mexico, and Nuclear Power plants are forbidden by a powerful Green party domestically.... and no one wants wind-mills put up their back yards or off the coast of MA where it's windy... what do you do?

Leave the world's largest supply of oil - a commodity that is essential to the world's economy - in the hands of raving lunatics now flush with pride and cocky, thinking they kicked out the US?

Or do you invade the biggest, baddest Muslim nation on the block, kick a** and occupy it for 50 years, thus making all those kingdoms into democracies, reduce their poverty levels, improve their education and de-militarize their cultures?

Long term solution is what Bush is all about - solving the problem FOR GOOD, not for his next election cycle as dip stick Klinton or Karter would have done.

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), December 29, 2004.