What I want to know — since the United States is starting to look more and more like the German goverment of the late 1920s to the late 1940s — is did Army Spc. Thomas Wilson of the 278th Regimental Combat Team fighting in Iraq get sent to the Russian front after he pissed off Rumsfeld?
After the 2,300 fellow-soldiers burst out in cheers over Wilson’s question, Rumsfeld replied that the soldiers were going to get blown up anyway, so why did they need armor?
3 responses so far ↓
1 Mr. M // Dec 8, 2004 at 8:27 pm
Here’s an interesting context. As reported in the NY Times version , “It was highly unusual for soldiers to dare to confront Mr. Rumsfeld directly on the readiness and equipment issue in such a public setting.”
At first reading this story, my jaw dropped. Let me tell you a little something from experience. This never happens.
There’s no such thing as a “town hall meeting” in the military. At least not in the fashion that you may think.
The military has a habit of not just keeping problems in house, but in basement… under stairs… in a fortified steel box… under cypher lock. Open mic night in the military is highly regulated. The higher ranking the presiding officer, the more stringent the controls.
For as low as Commanding Officers and their constituents, questions are typically submitted prior to the event, and heavily screened so that a heavy eye doesn’t fall on a particular division or platoon.
For Rummy, I would have expected questions submitted and checked in triplicate. Photo id required for a shot at the mic, and snipers with the question list and orders to pick off anyone deviating from script wouldn’t necessarily be out of the picture either.
So considering the seriously damaging questions and the forum, it would only lead one to believe that the problems are real,and the troops are really not happy about it.
Mr. M
LOFC.BLOGSPOT.COM
2 Bob // Dec 10, 2004 at 11:15 am
Worth checking out …
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/12/10/chattanooga.paper.ap/index.html
3 Silvie // Dec 10, 2004 at 4:33 pm
Mr Rumsfeld’s answer also shows that he either doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about, or is hoping that his listeners don’t, and he can fake his way through.
“You can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can (still) be blown up”?
Well, yes. Pretty much anything can be blown up. But anyone who’s ever been inside an armored tank knows just *what* it takes to blow up one – and that Iraqui insurgents on the streets couldn’t even scratch the polish. And a humvee with extra armor is a very different animal from a regular one.
Complete non-argument. From the Defense Minister, who planned this entire f***-up operation? Pretty much an admission of incompetence.
Strictly from a military point of view, you can see the fingerprints of someone who doesn’t have the first bleeding clue all over this so-called war. I’d call it dirty disorganized trench fighting, on both sides.
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