Malkin ping!
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Posted on 01/10/2006 8:52:48 PM PST by smoothsailing
Hillary Wraps Herself In Armor
By Michelle Malkin
January 11, 2006
Move over, Joan Rivers. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is vying for the title of undisputed queen of the cosmetic makeover. Having undergone a cultural warrior collagen injection with her recent crusades against violent video games and flag-burning, Hillary has traded in her ratty black pantsuit for a new politicized accessory to enhance her electoral figure:
Body armor.
Last week, a group called Soldiers for the Truth leaked results of an unpublished Pentagon study that reportedly found that as many as 80 percent of a random sample of Marines killed in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if they had had extra body armor. On Friday, the New York Times seized on the study.
Faster than you can say "quagmire," Hillary landed on ABC's "Good Morning America" to lambaste the Bush administration as "incompetent" and its failure to provide more armor "unforgivable."
"We perhaps could have avoided so many of these fatalities with the right body armor," concluded Brig. Gen. Clinton, who immediately dashed off letters to Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Armed Services Committee; Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee; and Francis J. Harvey, Secretary of the Army. Smarter-than-thou Clinton is, of course, demanding an investigation (highly recommended by image consultants to boost one's pro-military posturing).
Hillary bashed President Bush and Vice President Cheney for callously letting troops die and said she was "just bewildered as to how this president and this vice president continue to isolate themselves from different points of view."
Well, I am bewildered, too. Bewildered at how such a supposedly brilliant and savvy woman -- who is supposedly in tune with American troops -- can so blithely ignore the grave trade-offs involved in this matter.
You want different points of view? Listen to soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division's 3rd Brigade, who must don some 40 pounds of protection and gear while fighting in the desert heat. Capt. Jamey Turner, 35, of Baton Rouge, La., a commander in the 1st Squadron, 33rd Cavalry Regiment bluntly reminded the Associated Press: "You've got to sacrifice some protection for mobility. If you cover your entire body in ceramic plates, you're just not going to be able to move."
Second Lt. Josh Suthoff, 23, of Jefferson City, Mo., said: "I'd go out with less body armor if I could."
There is a legitimate debate to be had about the Army's supply system, military procurement, and contracting squabbles over body armor. However, challenging the leaked study's premises, Spc. Robert Reid, 21, of Atlanta, commented: "It's the Army's responsibility to get soldiers the armor they need. But that doesn't mean those deaths could have been prevented."
A military blogger at Baghdad Guy (web site) who serves in the U.S. Army, 101st Airborne Division, 506th Infantry, sums it up:
"Body armor has saved numerous lives in Iraq and Afghanistan and it will continue to do so, especially as it is modified to better meet the threat we face.
However, there are limitations as to how much armor you can add onto an individual and maintain his effectiveness as a soldier: when I step out the gate I am wearing on my person body armor, a kevlar helmet, my M4 rifle with a few hundred rounds of ammunition, my M9 sidearm with another hundred rounds of ammunition, 2-3 quarts of water, a portable radio, night vision equipment, and numerous other odds and ends ...
" ... Too much weight means a soldier moves slower, tires more easily, [maneuvers] less stealthily and spends more time feeling sorry for himself instead of focusing on the mission. And then there's the bulkiness that becomes an issue as you move through tight space and wedge into the seats of military vehicles that were not designed with comfort and/or legroom in mind. All these tradeoffs must be addressed before you make the decision to add armor, it must be determined that the armor will be effective, and then it must be designed in a way that minimizes impact on our ability to do our job."
Alas, fund-raising, spotlight-grabbing, 2008-planning Hillary isn't interested in sober analysis of trade-offs on the battlefield.
She is too busy playing dress-up to listen to the troops she says she cares so much about now.
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Michelle Malkin is author of the new book "Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild." Her e-mail address is malkin@comcast.net.
COPYRIGHT 2006 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.
Please FReepmail me if you would like to be added to, or removed from, the Michelle Malkin ping list...
Unfortunately for our soldiers, the Clinton Administration only replaced a small percentage of the existing humvees with the new armored humvees, so we went to war in Iraq in 2003 without the vehicles our soldiers needed for urban warfare. So indeed the safety of US soldiers was not a priority of the Clintons in the 1990s.
I do. :D
And THANK YOU for including Michelle's name in the title - much easier to find and ping out to her list... Bless you!
Hillary & the DNC must be sending out 'talking points' on this 'body armor' issue via emails.
Several letters on the topic have appeared in my local liberal rag this week!
And the writers are including the usual Bush Bashing!
BTTT
Hillary could wrap herself in Armour bacon and she still wouldn't sizzle because she's a ham.
Sorry, I wrote that reply too fast. IIRC, the armored humvee is equipped with ballistic glass and one ton of kevlar armor, not two tons. But it still provides much greater protection than the standard humvee from small arms fire and other light weapons.
Plus Ms. Hillary has been on the Military committee for several years now. Why hasn't SHE done anything to solve the issue?
The democrats and their media whores totally abused the body armor story for two weeks during the 2004 campaign, and they still failed miserably to make any political gain. This time they are repeating the same lies and they will be crushed again.
Ms. Hillary doesn't actually do anything in the senate, she just attacks the Bush Administration. She thinks her job is to spend lots of taxpayers money on secret service protection and pork spending for NY state, while backstabbing the CIC during wartime.
heh heh....you said, "pork". LOL ;)
I'm going to dash off a letter to them tonight in the hope that I can pre-empt the DNC focus group bunch that will probably be showing up.
Dishonesty in public is the steady diet from the Democrat regulars. Assume that, at any time on any subject, and you'll seldom be surprised by the likes of those two Senators, Rep. Pelosi, and others, and of course, Howard ("the Scream") Dean.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column on Newsbusters.org: "AP Poll Biased: Anti-Bush, Anti-Republican"
Good article. But how dare you post that biased poll on the website! Are you just another partisan conservative? Don't try to lie your way out of this one, CB.
:)
Yeah, I was only kidding and was referring to the Newsbusters website. And in Nevada, it's evening.
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