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For some time now, I've wondered why we can't re-fit some of those captured Iraqi tanks as armored personel carriers.
Not quite as fuel efficient, probably, but a lot more cost-effective, wouldn't you think?

And although I'm no expert, it seems that they might be a little more roadside-bomb resistant than a Humvee.

Oh; wait!; We blew them all up, didn't we, so that some Contractor can get filthy rich providing brand-new gazillion-dollar tanks for the new Iraqi Army at American Taxpayer expense.

And so we keep sending our Soldiers out in humvees into hostile territory by twos and threes for the ElQuida and Baathist savages to take pot-shots at and lay mines for at their leisure, and we lose two or three more a day, it seems.

Didn't we learn ANYTHING from Vietnam?

I hope that these expensive tin-can-on-wheels "Strykers" have better luck, but I think intuitively that the poster who opines that they will become flaming coffins for our troops may be all too right. The Jihaddists, I predict, are going to come to like them a whole lot better than our Troops, as they will be a whole lot more fun for them to blow up.

For one thing, all of those big, fat, fluffy tires hanging out all over the place make me nervous. I think we'll find that a WW-II surplus Half-Track might have better "survivability" in combat. If the first RPG or mine does not do the job, they will have plenty of opportunity to administer a Coup de Grace to finish it off while it wallows around like a grounded carp.

Sadly, in this as in all War in seems; there is far too much money to be made from it to allow the application of any more common sense than the politicians and top brass can officially prevent.

And although I'm all for Capatilism, I sure hate to see heroic young lives sacrificed in the interest of some big-wheel's profit margin.

Late in the American Civil War, John HALEY, a Private in the 17th Maine Infantry, wrote that "This war would have been over three years ago, if there were not so much money to be made from it."

Money indeed was made... and over 660,000 Americans perished in that conflict, from 1861 and 1865.

There are some parts of History that I sure wish we could get over repeating.