Monday, June 05, 2006

Lions/Donkeys Note

Hey, two things. First, I've dropped the reference to food issues for the troops -- there are ambiguities about the story, and so it doesn't deserve to be in a section with the word "inarguable" in the title. So, we'll just have to settle for shitty water in a desert war, and shortages in body armor and Humvees. Which is no big deal at all.

That was the nice part, now for the annoyed. Some people in e-mails have taken issue with the word "inarguable" when it comes to the troops not receiving proper armor/vehicles/support.

I thought that the lack of body armor and armored hummers was settled as fact as soon as Gen Abizaid ADMITTED that it was an issue, and the Secretary of the Army admitted the Humvee armor had been shanked, and the Marines recalled 10,000 suits of body armor ... etc. etc. basically, once the Army itself started admitting it had screwed up, I figured we could call that a fact and move on.

I will say this slowly, and in large font:

Once the PENTAGON ITSELF ADMITS IT FUCKED UP, you can no longer defend the point.

Oh, and for the odd "cuts of the Clinton era" are to blame idiots: first off, you know how that argument flies here. "You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want." Yes, but it's RUMSFELD'S JOB to make sure he has the Army he wants. We're not talking robot warriors here, people, derailed during R&D , we're talking body armor. Purchasable at yor local Walmart in the finer hunting states. Report after report -- most of them from the Pentagon itself, or the GAO -- have shown that the stuff was out there, but the Administraition, in the considerable amount of time it had to prepare for the war (a war started on its own timetable) shagged the dog.

Just more of the Special Olympics Government. Were supposed to be WMD's -- not our fault, bad intelligence. Was supposed to plan for the post-war -- not our fault, bad advice from expats. Was supposed to get armor for the troops -- not our fault, Clinton cuts (I cannot emphasize how retarded that particular line of reasoning is on the body armor issue, and I didn't even like Clinton.). Was supposed to prep for Katrina -- not our fault, no way to know the levees would break. Supposed to get Osama -- not our fault, Pakistanis helped him. Ports and airports not secured -- not our fault, because ... actually, we're just going to go with a generic "not our fault" there.

The buck stops -- OOO! SHINY!!

78 comments:

  1. I love when people try to say that the facts just aren't the facts no matter WHO those facts come from.
    There's a frighteningly large number of people out there who feel that there were/are WMDs, even though BUSH HIMSELF said that there weren't.
    Its as if they grab onto a particular fact and hold it as if it were a life-preserver.
    Because, of course, if they didn't, they'd have to take their share of responsibility for the nightmare we are in today.
    ANd the lives lost.
    ANd the blood spilled.
    It is MUCH easier to live in a lie than to live in the real world.

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  2. Anonymous11:14 AM

    Noooohhh, not "Oh, Shiny!"

    More like:

    "Ahhh! Look behind you! Fags and dykes gettin' hitched! Quick, let's do an amendment before our marriages dissolve into postmodern meaninglessness!"

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  3. Anonymous8:33 PM

    (Disclaimer: this may be the cold medication talking.)

    The problem I have with the Lions/Donkeys post isn't in the details (on which you are 100% correct), but in the narrative that it assumes it operates in, one where the military is a value-neutral tool of the state, to be used for good or ill by whichever party is in control, and which objectively evaluates how it is used by those parties.

    It's a lovely idea, and I wish it were so.

    But back here on the earth where I live, it's a stretch to say that America has a military at all, and in my opinion a pretty clear statement of fact to say that the Republican Party has a military wing.

    In just about every way that counts: affiliation of the officer class (overwhelming), support of the rank and file (ditto), alignment of the contractors (ha-ha-halliburton!) and (most important of all) the willingness of the leadership to suck it up and tough it out through dangerous missions with hazy end dates (*cough* Somalia *cough*), the American military operates as an arm of the Republican party... a party which is unsurprisingly ecstatic about using that military to achieve its domestic as well as foreign political objectives.

    Maybe this would have changed somewhat if a Democrat had been in office during 9/11: common enemies and all that. But instead it served to perpetuate trends that had been rolling along pretty well unopposed since the Nixon years.

    Bush may be a sonofabitch, but he's their sonofabitch, and if you think pointing out piddling facts like how he's getting them slowly ground to death out there are going to change more than a fraction of their minds (especially after a mere 3 years), then I'd like to re-introduce you to a guy named John O'Neill.

    It's not crocodile tears, precisely, to worry about the Bush administration fucking up the war and the occupation in terms of the effect it's having on American troops. But it's kinda disingenuous to pretend like the average soldier would receive such concern from a leftist (Democrat, progressive, liberal, whatever we're calling ourselves this week) with anything other than scorn -- and (crux here) the rest of the electorate knows this. We don't win by convincing them we care more about the state of the military than the GOP: it doesn't matter that it's true, they'll never buy it in this lifetime. We win by convincing them that Bush has made them less safe than before. ($5 gas wouldn't hurt either.)

    Hopefully it's obvious here that I'm not denying that there are a ton of soldiers who don't fit this characterization at all -- In a multimillion-man-and-woman army there'd have to be, and you and I both know some of them personally. I just think it's a romantic dodge to not acknowledge that they're outnumbered 10-to-1 by the ones who hate our guts on principle and that everyone else knows the score. We're not going to win this fight on their backs.

    (There's an interesting thought in the back of all of this about how any Left worthy of the name should have a highly ambivalent relationship with military power... but I've dripped enough ichor on your blog tonight as it is. :)

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  4. apparently with this administration it's all excuses. Ohh it's because of this, and that not our fault. It's not our fault that we're stupid, not our fault that you voted for Me to be your President AGAIN.... actually I thought he can't do anything worse than the 1st term. I didn't vote though, I knew Kerry would win Cali.

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  5. Anonymous10:56 PM

    His Kung Fu is much stronger than anticipated.

    Yes, we must order more mirrors and smoke producing devices.

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  6. My Dad (a Viet Nam era vet) was in the local VA (Veteran's Administration) hospital rehab unit a few months ago. He said there was a sad joke going around there where one (GI) joe with no arms or legs says to another joe with one leg and two arms, "How'd you manage to get full disability? I could only get 40% of full disability at 10% for each limb." The other replies "Non-combat injury."

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  7. Anonymous5:36 AM

    Mr. Rogers,

    I am the first to admit that I am largely ignorant of much technology and the "Intarweb" (as I've heard it described, and which makes me chuckle), but does it seem like your getting a lot of spam in the comments section of your blog (q.v. anonymous at 1:44 a.m.)?

    And how does that happen, anyway? Is there some ragged, worn-yet-dedicated spammer out there caffeinated to the gills, obssessively stopping at each blog like some sort of post-modern advertising-abomination Santa Claus to tell the world, tell the WORLD, I say!, about that for which the globe has waited, namely the meaning of baby names and attendant web sites?

    Also, continued great posts. Somedays, I'm scared to read the latest, because somedays it feels like going down the rabbit hole, with non-Euclidean angles, the sounds of colors, and all the rest.

    Thanks,

    Rob

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  8. Doctor Memory, I suspect the military rank and file lean far more Democratic at the moment than you imagine. Just as Vietnam seemed to turn a generation of the military against the Dems, I think Iraq is turning a generation of the military against the Republicans. The troops know who is responsible for them being in this crapfest, and I think as we start to hear their voices over the next few years Bush's folly will have a lasting impact among how the rank and file military view all Repubs.

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  9. very interesting blog, thanks...

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  10. Anonymous9:45 AM

    Doctor memory:

    the willingness of the leadership to suck it up and tough it out through dangerous missions with hazy end dates (*cough* Somalia *cough*)

    The willingness of the leadership to follow Clinton's orders on Somalia shows that the military is a Republican tool?

    Or are you saying that they actually didn't "tough it out" in Somalia, because they didn't like a Democratic president ordering them around?

    Either way, it doesn't make sense.

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  11. Anonymous10:01 AM

    Besides, wasn't the magnificent military effort that took Baghdad in 2 weeks Clinton's military?

    Then the Republicans tried to use it for something it wasn't meant to do (peacekeeping).

    Just sayin'. Why is it Clinton's military when it doesn't work, and Bush's when it does?

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  12. Anonymous12:22 PM

    'Sup Dweeze.

    This administration just has what I like to call a culture of convenience. The military. Gay marriage. Facts. All these are little things that they just are disposable to them.

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  13. Anonymous4:39 PM

    Dweeze: I really, really, really hope that you're right. But I can't say I'm optimistic. Again, John O'Neill is an instructive example: the dolchstoss is an easy sell to a lot of people.

    Gaijin Biker: the Somalia operation was, if I recall correctly, rife with leaks to the press about how unhappy the Pentagon was with the whole idea of the mission. Now, as it happens, they were quite correct: the mission was a botch, and the blame for that lay correctly at Clinton's feet. I just find it instructive to compare the organization discipline with that around Iraq, where it took years for retired brass to consider saying something.

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  14. Anonymous8:33 PM

    i'm all about bush being an idiot and the war being a waste of national resources and a waste of human lives, but it's pretty common knowledge that the sad state of marine corps gear has been an issue, democrat or republican president, since the day the marine corps was founded in 1776. in my youth i was in the suck (marines), and i learned early on that the corps always got the crap the army didn't want. our hmv's, rifles, flak jackets, you name it.....we either get used army gear or crap they don't want.
    so while it is a tragedy that the marine troops in iraq had and still have shitty gear, it's nothing new. my grandfather who was a marine in wwII talks about the same problem....defective gear handed down from the army, as being the cause of marine corps casualties. my uncle who was in vietnam talks about the same thing.
    it's just the way the shit flows...downhill, i suppose. rumsfeld probably couldn't do anything about it if he wanted to. the marine corps will always be first in to die and with the shittiest gear to die with.

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  15. Anonymous10:14 AM

    Hey, Adam here. What's really ridiculous is there there's a complany here in my town that makes body armor that's vastly superior the the stuff the army APPROVES, but it's been banned by the armed forces because it's not from one of their vendors.

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  16. Anonymous7:34 PM

    i like monkeys

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  17. That's not fair, John. The Special Olympics is an impressively well-organized series of events.

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  18. Two questions for you:
    1) You are aware that Zarqawi is dead, right? Remember that Teddy Roosevelt quote about pointing out both the good and the bad? Big kudos to our Troops for giving us one less sorry bastard to deal with. Job well done!

    2) Have you tried running around in body armor in 130 heat when someone is shooting at you? From what I've heard from the Troops (my brother served in Saudi) is that most of them wouldn't wear the body armor if they had it. It seriously reduces your mobility because of the additional weight and it's 130 freaking degrees outside.

    If you want to help the Troops, find the name of a soldier and send a care package. They really appreciate the everyday stuff that we take for granted: magazines, coffee, sun screen, music CDs, snacks, toilet paper, etc. You can get standard freight Priority Mail boxes from the Post Office, and they only charge you domestic rates because they ship to an APO.

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  19. On the shortage of armor -
    I just left my job at a company that sold armor for humvees to the DoD.
    The METAL for the armor is almost impossible to get (blame the Chinese!)
    Seriously. Although I'm usually for LESS regulation by government, in this case, they need to jump on the mills and MAKE them mill out the alloys needed. It took 3 months of bidding to be awarded the contract, and then 8 MONTHS before the metal was available to actually make the darn things.

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  20. I totally agree with this post.

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  21. Anonymous3:18 AM

    Penyakit ini umumnya muncul karena penderita mengejan terlalu keras pada saat buang air besar. Dengan mengejan terlalu keras, maka pembuluh darah di sekitar anus dapat melebar dan pecah menimbulkan infeksi dan pembengkakan yang berakhir pada masalah wasir atau ambeien tersebut.

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  22. Anonymous6:57 AM

    Penyakit ini umumnya muncul karena penderita mengejan terlalu keras pada saat buang air besar. Dengan mengejan terlalu keras, maka pembuluh darah di sekitar anus dapat melebar dan pecah menimbulkan infeksi dan pembengkakan yang berakhir pada masalah wasir atau ambeien tersebut.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Penderita Penyakit kondiloma atau Kutil Kelamin yang telah terinveksi disarankan untuk segera melakukan pengobatan secepat mungkin sebelum Virus HPV penyebab kutil kelamin makin banyak berkembang biak di dalam sel darah makin lama dibiarkan akan memperparah kondisi organ vital karena kutil kelamin akan terus membesar sehingga terlihat seperti jengger ayam untuk penderita yang baru tertular kurang dari satu bulan biasanya akan lebih cepat ditanggulangi obat kutil kelamin Paling ampuh dari De Nature dan terbaik ada hanya di http://obatkutildikemaluan.blogdetik.com/ untuk mendapatkan informasi yang lebih jelas mengenai pengobatan kutil pada kelamin silahkan kontak langsung di nomer 0852 808 77 999 atau 0859 7373 5656 Bagaimana mengobati Ambeien itu sendiri. pengobatan yang terbaik untuk Ambeien adalah dari luar dan dalam sehingga Ambeien benar benar tuntas dan tidak akan kambuh lagi. obat Ambeien terbaik "Ambeclear dari De Nature" AlamiAdalah obat Ambeien herbal yang memang terbaik untuk mengobati Ambeien, dan sudah terdaftar di badan obat dan makanan (BPOM) dengan nomer registrasi POM TR: 133 374 041. terbuat dari bahan alami antara lain terdiri Daung Ungu, Mahkota Dewa dan Kunyit Putih.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Penderita Penyakit kondiloma atau Kutil Kelamin yang telah terinveksi disarankan untuk segera melakukan pengobatan secepat mungkin sebelum Virus HPV penyebab kutil kelamin makin banyak berkembang biak di dalam sel darah makin lama dibiarkan akan memperparah kondisi organ vital karena kutil kelamin akan terus membesar sehingga terlihat seperti jengger ayam untuk penderita yang baru tertular kurang dari satu bulan biasanya akan lebih cepat ditanggulangi obat kutil kelamin Paling ampuh dari De Nature dan terbaik ada hanya di http://obatkutildikemaluan.blogdetik.com/ untuk mendapatkan informasi yang lebih jelas mengenai pengobatan kutil pada kelamin silahkan kontak langsung di nomer 0852 808 77 999 atau 0859 7373 5656 Bagaimana mengobati Ambeien itu sendiri. pengobatan yang terbaik untuk Ambeien adalah dari luar dan dalam sehingga Ambeien benar benar tuntas dan tidak akan kambuh lagi. obat Ambeien terbaik "Ambeclear dari De Nature" AlamiAdalah obat Ambeien herbal yang memang terbaik untuk mengobati Ambeien, dan sudah terdaftar di badan obat dan makanan (BPOM) dengan nomer registrasi POM TR: 133 374 041. terbuat dari bahan alami antara lain terdiri Daung Ungu, Mahkota Dewa dan Kunyit Putih.

    ReplyDelete
  25. obat kencing nanah De Nature

    Obat Kencing Nanah Gang jie dan Gho Siah.Gonore adalah penyakit menular seksual (PMS) yang disebabkan oleh bakteri  Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Bakteri ini dapat ditularkan dari orang ke orang selama aktivitas seksua.Untuk Pemesanan Obat Penyakit Kelamin Kencing Nanah di 0812-2854-1999 atau Pin BB 53E87F23

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  26. Penyakit kencing nanah bisa disebabkan oleh beberapa faktor seperti seks bebas, penularan, virus hpv, lingkungan, gaya hidup dan lainnya, Maka dari itu kita harus waspada dengan penyakit kencing nanah ini, karena penyakit kencing nanah sangatlah berbahaya, Namun untuk anda yang menderita penyakit kencing nanah, maka anda tidak perlu khawatir,

    ReplyDelete
  27. Penyakit kencing nanah bisa disebabkan oleh beberapa faktor seperti seks bebas, penularan, virus hpv, lingkungan, gaya hidup dan lainnya, Maka dari itu kita harus waspada dengan penyakit kencing nanah ini, karena penyakit kencing nanah sangatlah berbahaya, Namun untuk anda yang menderita penyakit kencing nanah, maka anda tidak perlu khawatir,

    ReplyDelete
  28. Bukan hanya pengobatan medis saja tapi ada juga pengobatan rumah alami yang dapat digunakan untuk menyingkirkan penyakit kutil kelamin ini. Intinya, karena kutil ini muncul di daerah yang sensitif, maka anda harus mencari pengobatan yang terbaik pada kulit Anda dan jika diperlukan juga dibantu dengan tenaga medis yang professional. Sebab dokter akan menjadi sumber informasi yang baik untuk mengobati penyakit ini.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Bukan hanya pengobatan medis saja tapi ada juga pengobatan rumah alami yang dapat digunakan untuk menyingkirkan penyakit kencing bernanah ini. Maka anda harus mencari pengobatan yang terbaik pada penyakit Anda dan jika diperlukan juga dibantu dengan tenaga medis yang professional.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Bukan hanya pengobatan medis saja tapi ada juga pengobatan rumah alami yang dapat digunakan untuk menyingkirkan penyakit kencing bernanah ini. Maka anda harus mencari pengobatan yang terbaik pada penyakit Anda dan jika diperlukan juga dibantu dengan tenaga medis yang professional.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Sekitar Vagina Tumbuh Daging, Berbahayakah? Kutil Pada Kepala Penis mirip bunga kol atau jengger ayam, Merupakan Penyakit Yang diakibatkan Oleh Virus.Kutil kelamin, atau disebut juga condyloma acuminata, adalah kutil atau daging berwarna kulit atau keabuan yang tumbuh di sekitar alat kelamin dan

    ReplyDelete
  32. Sekitar Vagina Tumbuh Daging, Berbahayakah? Kutil Pada Kepala Penis mirip bunga kol atau jengger ayam, Merupakan Penyakit Yang diakibatkan Oleh Virus.Kutil kelamin, atau disebut juga condyloma acuminata, adalah kutil atau daging berwarna kulit atau keabuan yang tumbuh di sekitar alat kelamin dan

    ReplyDelete
  33. penyakit yang ditularkan melalui hubungan seks : vaginal, oral dan anal. Juga dapat menular melalui persentuhan kulit dengan daerah yang terinfeksi.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Sebelum kita membahas tentang pengobatan ambeien, dalam kesempatan ini
    saya ingin menjelaskan sekilas tentang ambeien, agar kita semua bisa
    memahami benar apa itu penyakit ambeien

    ReplyDelete