cabaca
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I found the editor's note "Support Our Troops?" in a local weekly newspaper (it's not available on Internet). I find this appalling and disgusting for the Bush administration:
"Supporting our troops in Iraq has nothing whatever to do with putting little magnetic ribbons on our cars. It has nothing to do with putting signs in our yards or flying the flag.
An administration that sends our soldiers out to get killed for a bunch of lies could at least support those troops by making sure they have the best equipment available. An administration that has gotten more than 1,500 courageous soldiers killed for a fictitious threat to our nation could, at the very least, support our troops by making sure that their efforts to rebuild a shattered country are well managed and effective.
This sort of support, to put it mildly, has not been forthcoming.
It took a tough-minded Army National Guardsmen to blow the whistle quite publicly last December on the criminally inadequate $140,000 Humvees our troops have been given to fight this war. The Guardsman, during a live telecast, asked Defense Secretary Rumsfeld why our troops have to scrounge for makeshift armor to get some protection for these coffins on wheels.
Rumsfeld blandly replied that "you fight with the army you've got" or some such astoundingly disrespectful comment. For that alone, he should have been fired on the spot. :rl: Fired, because the real story - as exposed in a lengthy probe by the New York Times - is a tale of knowing indifference to the lives that would be lost by combat soldiers dependent on a vehicle not designed to protect them in combat.
For at least ten years, the Pentagon has known that the Humvee would be a death-trap under fire and when exposed to mines and rocket-propelled grenades. The flat under-chassis of the vehicle is a perfect and wholly unprotected target for explosives, even if the sides are armored. A Humvee is not a tank or an armored personnel carrier. Yet in Iraq, every day, our soldiers are patrolling in these vulnerable tin cans, which administration officials and members of Congress are too frightened to ride in themselves.
When Rumsfeld makes one of his secret forays into Iraq, he travels around in $250,000 super-armored bus called a Rhino Runner, bought by Halliburton for its contractors. The Rhino Runner is built to withstand the explosive equivalent of 1,000 pounds of TNT. The Army has refused to buy Rhino Runners because its manufacturer won't let military procurement officers blow one or two up to verify how tough they are.
Members of Congress on tour favor another armored vehicle, widely available to troops, the $700,00 M1117 A.S.V., which looks like a small, streamlined tank and is built to withstand a 12-pound mine blast to any wheel and shrug off 50-caliber armor-piercing bullets. Another troop carrier in great demand, but in very short supply in Iraq, is the $630,000 Cougar H.E.V., which looks like a heavily armored truck and can take a 155 mm artillery air burst and 30 pound mine burst to its axles and keep on going.
Our troops do not have adequate armored transportation in a vicious war zone because of Pentagon stupidity, congressional bungling, and an administration that does nothing about any of this. Support Our Troops?
Amazingly, in spite of this empty support, a great many troops remains convinced that they are doing the right thing in helping to rebuild a country the U.S. has largely destroyed. Many talk about how worthwhile the multiple efforts are to restore the political and physical infrastructure of Iraq.
There is now a special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, whose office is charged with monitoring how the billions of dollars pouring into the country are spent. His name is Stuart Bowen, and having been a Bush crony, little was expected of his efforts to audit the reconstruction effort. The scandals, however, were so outrageous that his office is now working overtime.
Bowen discovered, for example, that the $9 billion - that's billion with a 'b' - that had been transferred to the new Iraqi government has simply disappeared and was probably embezzled. He found too, that at least a third of the government-owned vehicles and equipment Halliburton was paid to manage are believed to be lost.
Of nearly $120 million to be used for regional reconstruction projects, the Wall Street Journal reported, nearly $90 million was handed out with no contracts or documentation. Another $72 million of the total simply could not be found at all. One Iraqi ministry billed the U.S. government for 8,206 guards when it actually had no more than 600.
This is what our troops are fighting for. This is how the administration that marched them off to die supports them. Support Our Troops? What a terrible joke."
Sorry, this is a long reading (I copied/typed this up myself :-o
) and I do care alot for the soldiers... 
"Supporting our troops in Iraq has nothing whatever to do with putting little magnetic ribbons on our cars. It has nothing to do with putting signs in our yards or flying the flag.
An administration that sends our soldiers out to get killed for a bunch of lies could at least support those troops by making sure they have the best equipment available. An administration that has gotten more than 1,500 courageous soldiers killed for a fictitious threat to our nation could, at the very least, support our troops by making sure that their efforts to rebuild a shattered country are well managed and effective.
This sort of support, to put it mildly, has not been forthcoming.
It took a tough-minded Army National Guardsmen to blow the whistle quite publicly last December on the criminally inadequate $140,000 Humvees our troops have been given to fight this war. The Guardsman, during a live telecast, asked Defense Secretary Rumsfeld why our troops have to scrounge for makeshift armor to get some protection for these coffins on wheels.
Rumsfeld blandly replied that "you fight with the army you've got" or some such astoundingly disrespectful comment. For that alone, he should have been fired on the spot. :rl: Fired, because the real story - as exposed in a lengthy probe by the New York Times - is a tale of knowing indifference to the lives that would be lost by combat soldiers dependent on a vehicle not designed to protect them in combat.
For at least ten years, the Pentagon has known that the Humvee would be a death-trap under fire and when exposed to mines and rocket-propelled grenades. The flat under-chassis of the vehicle is a perfect and wholly unprotected target for explosives, even if the sides are armored. A Humvee is not a tank or an armored personnel carrier. Yet in Iraq, every day, our soldiers are patrolling in these vulnerable tin cans, which administration officials and members of Congress are too frightened to ride in themselves.
When Rumsfeld makes one of his secret forays into Iraq, he travels around in $250,000 super-armored bus called a Rhino Runner, bought by Halliburton for its contractors. The Rhino Runner is built to withstand the explosive equivalent of 1,000 pounds of TNT. The Army has refused to buy Rhino Runners because its manufacturer won't let military procurement officers blow one or two up to verify how tough they are.
Members of Congress on tour favor another armored vehicle, widely available to troops, the $700,00 M1117 A.S.V., which looks like a small, streamlined tank and is built to withstand a 12-pound mine blast to any wheel and shrug off 50-caliber armor-piercing bullets. Another troop carrier in great demand, but in very short supply in Iraq, is the $630,000 Cougar H.E.V., which looks like a heavily armored truck and can take a 155 mm artillery air burst and 30 pound mine burst to its axles and keep on going.
Our troops do not have adequate armored transportation in a vicious war zone because of Pentagon stupidity, congressional bungling, and an administration that does nothing about any of this. Support Our Troops?
Amazingly, in spite of this empty support, a great many troops remains convinced that they are doing the right thing in helping to rebuild a country the U.S. has largely destroyed. Many talk about how worthwhile the multiple efforts are to restore the political and physical infrastructure of Iraq.
There is now a special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, whose office is charged with monitoring how the billions of dollars pouring into the country are spent. His name is Stuart Bowen, and having been a Bush crony, little was expected of his efforts to audit the reconstruction effort. The scandals, however, were so outrageous that his office is now working overtime.
Bowen discovered, for example, that the $9 billion - that's billion with a 'b' - that had been transferred to the new Iraqi government has simply disappeared and was probably embezzled. He found too, that at least a third of the government-owned vehicles and equipment Halliburton was paid to manage are believed to be lost.
Of nearly $120 million to be used for regional reconstruction projects, the Wall Street Journal reported, nearly $90 million was handed out with no contracts or documentation. Another $72 million of the total simply could not be found at all. One Iraqi ministry billed the U.S. government for 8,206 guards when it actually had no more than 600.
This is what our troops are fighting for. This is how the administration that marched them off to die supports them. Support Our Troops? What a terrible joke."
Sorry, this is a long reading (I copied/typed this up myself :-o
) and I do care alot for the soldiers... 
Those US troop support magnets are made in CHINA!!!! That's not very patroitic. It makes me angry because it's not made pride by the US!