Posted on 02/22/2008 8:01:39 AM PST by HD1200
OBAMA: You know, I’ve heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon — supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq.
OBAMA: And as a consequence, they didn’t have enough ammunition, they didn’t have enough humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.
OBAMA: Now, that’s a consequence of bad judgment. And you know, the question is, on the critical issues that we face right now, who’s going to show the judgment to lead? And I think that on every critical issue that we’ve seen in foreign policy over the last several years — going into Iraq originally, I didn’t just oppose it for the sake of opposing it. I said this is going to distract us from Afghanistan; this is going to fan the flames of anti-American sentiment; it’s going to cost us billions of dollars and thousands of lives and overstretch our military. And I was right.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
YEP. Scum of the highest order.
Yes, that is true and we saw the results. Thank you for the clarification on the subject matter.
Respectfully,
NSNR
Here’s more:
The Army captain, a West Point graduate, did a tour in a hot area of eastern Afghanistan from the Summer of 2003 through Spring 2004.
Prior to deployment the Captain — then a Lieutenant — took command of a rifle platoon at Fort Drum. When he took command, the platoon had 39 members, but — in ones and twos — 15 members of the platoon were re-assigned to other units. He knows of 10 of those 15 for sure who went to Iraq, and he suspects the other five did as well.
The platoon was sent to Afghanistan with 24 men.
“We should have deployed with 39,” he told me, “we should have gotten replacements. But we didn’t. And that was pretty consistent across the battalion.”
He adds that maybe a half-dozen of the 15 were replaced by the Fall of 2003, months after they arrived in Afghanistan, but never all 15.
As for the weapons and humvees, there are two distinct periods in this, as he explains — before deployment, and afterwards.
At Fort Drum, in training, “we didn’t have access to heavy weapons or the ammunition for the weapons, or humvees to train before we deployed.”
What ammunition?
40 mm automatic grenade launcher ammunition for the MK-19, and ammunition for the .50 caliber M-2 machine gun (”50 cal.”)
“We weren’t able to train in the way we needed to train,” he says. When the platoon got to Afghanistan they had three days to learn.
They also didn’t have the humvees they were supposed to have both before deployment and once they were in Afghanistan, the Captain says.
“We should have had 4 up-armored humvees,” he said. “We were supposed to. But at most we had three operable humvees, and it was usually just two.”
So what did they do? “To get the rest of the platoon to the fight,” he says, “we would use Toyota Hilux pickup trucks or unarmored flatbed humvees.” Sometimes with sandbags, sometimes without.
Also in Afghanistan they had issues getting parts for their MK-19s and their 50-cals. Getting parts or ammunition for their standard rifles was not a problem.
“It was very difficult to get any parts in theater,” he says, “because parts are prioritized to the theater where they were needed most — so they were going to Iraq not Afghanistan.”
“The purpose of going after the Taliban was not to get their weapons,” he said, but on occasion they used Taliban weapons. Sometimes AK-47s, and they also mounted a Soviet-model DShK (or “Dishka”) on one of their humvees instead of their 50 cal.
The Captain has spoken to Sen. Obama, he says, but this anecdote was relayed to Obama through an Obama staffer.
I find that Obama’s anecdote checks out.
Some are quibbling about whether or not the “commander in chief” can be held responsible for how well our soldiers are being equipped, since Congress provides the funding for the military, but the Pentagon (and ultimately President Bush) are in charge of the funding mechanism.
I might suggest those on the blogosphere upset about this story would be better suited directing their ire at those responsible for this problem, which is certainly not new. That is, if they actually care about the men and women bravely serving our country at home and abroad.
- jpt
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/02/from-the-fact-3.html
OBL is room temperature, and it has zero to do with this issue anyway. Why did you bring it up?
War has many faces. Door-to-door fighting is one of them. Occupying pacified areas is another.
Ronald Reagan loved and respected the troops and they knew it. He got them modern arms,and more importantly, respect. Do you know how much of a military expert he was? He was apparently enough of one to understand the importance of having an effective one.
Nobody gives a RATS ASS about “judgement” in this thread.
This thread is about the propensity of liberals who lie about the military, make up stories about the military, slander the military, all the while knowing absolutely nothing about the military, detesting the military and wishing they could find ways to defund it and steer the money towards ludicrously inept social engineering programs that suck up money with no return on the investment.
Military Industrial Complex? Careers? Profits? What the HELL are you talking about, and how does it relate to the subject at hand?
What you insinuate isn’t Devil’s Advocacy, it’s Moronic Idiocy.
Sorry if I came on a little strong. I have a major woody about how Clinton let the guys down in Somalia.
Sounds like a Congressional Investigation is in order. We need to bring this young man in front of Congress and find out just what is going on and what the truth is.........
Did I forget to mention this was FOUR YEARS AGO.
Obama spoke of it as IF IT HAPPENED LAST MONTH!!!!
He (Obama)is a manipulator of information and a scoundrel. Can you imagine the (lack) of reaction in the debate if he had bothered to tell us this “story” was from FOUR YEARS AGO!
I have nothing but respect for the military. I have seen it abused...that's all...deployed to 'defoliate' Southeast Asia to enhance profits at Dow Chemical Corp. Soldiers ordered NOT to shoot unless shot at first. Enemy (Viet Cong) EMPLOYED on base (Danang) during the day (cutting hair at the base barber shop among other things) then lobbing mortars onto the base at night...Military Police at the perimeter WATCHING them set up the launchers but under orders not to engage. Same with the Ho Chi Minh Trail...
Our troops have performed magnificently in Iraq. I will not stand idly by & watch them eventually deployed to 'foliate' the Middle East desert...planting ivy, then fertilizing & watering same...to enhance the profits of corporations who supply the ivy, fertilizer, and equipment...while the troops are told they're on an endless search for Osama bin Laden.
It took less time for American troops to bring BOTH Hitler's Third Reich & the Empire of Japan to the Surrender Table. Our troops today are just as good (if not better) & definitely better equipped...
For 15 years, I've longed to see the Clintons where they are today: on a gurney being wheeled to the Emergency Room...near political death. There will be plenty of time to deal with Obama (the Mastermind of the Clintonian demise) once Hitlery & Slick Willie have definitely EXPIRED...
What a POS O’Bama is for leading the American people to believe that this has just happened when infact this happened at the beginning of the war in Iraq when a lot of things were screwed up then...
I can agree with you on the Clintons, but the damage they have done to this country is going to extend far past their political careers.
They are all birds of a feather on the Left, and their mistreatment of our military that began in the sixties is still held up as a badge of honor by those in power on the left. That has not changed.
I don’t see our troops being used as a tool to extract profits for big corporations. Are they engaged in humanitarian and pacification operations and not total war? Sure.
But the model of counterinsurgency that has been followed by the US Marines when they weren’t involved in a full blown war is still the best way to go. They wrote the manual on it. We could bomb them into rubble, but it won’t solve anything, and it isn’t the way we work.
Can we do better operationally? Yes. Can we supply our troops better and pay them better? The answer to that is ALWAYS yes.
No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy applies, and it is a microcosm of the USA in general.
“We need to bring this young man in front of Congress and find out just what is going on and what the truth is.........”
A Congressional investigation to find out the truth about a MSM hatchet job?
WTF are you smoking?
"They were actually capturing Taliban weapons..." Well, if they are good enough to do that without their own weapons, maybe they don't need any.I was being facetious...
My apologies for popping off at you.
This whole deal has got on my very d*** last nerve.
Roosevelt didn't have to fight the MSM, academia and the Republicans during WWII. Those who opposed the war effort disappeared and spent the remainder of the war in mental insituttions.
Of course, I am thinking that might be dangerous in certain situations...someone might fire at the sound of YOUR weapon...:(
Perhaps that's why, in 1948, I was born in a place called a "Hostpital & Sanitarium", but never told exactly which wing my mother was in...
You're right, it's not a truly fair comparison...and I'm plenty willing to give Gen. Petraeus & the Administration the benefit of the doubt...for awhile. But I know that corporations from Haliburton to Boeing to Martin-Marietta, all the way to those who make the commodes & supply the beef & K-rations, are rooting for another 100 years of extraordinary earnings from sales to DoD.
And JUDGMENT in how those tax dollars are deployed to keep us safe, while maximizing military effectiveness (& minimizing American causlties) will be very important to me in the upcoming election (which I am hoping will feature no one named Clinton). Obama addresses this issue & I'm looking forward to hearing John McCain's position, too...
You are most welcome.
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