There Is Not Anger Enough ...
To express my outrage over this:
Pentagon Study Links Fatalities to Body Armor
The New York Times
By MICHAEL MOSS
Published: January 7, 2006
A secret Pentagon study has found that as many as 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if they had had extra body armor. Such armor has been available since 2003, but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field for additional protection, according to military officials.
- snip -
The vulnerability of the military's body armor has been known since the start of the war, and is part of a series of problems that have surrounded the protection of American troops. Still, the Marine Corps did not begin buying additional plates to cover the sides of their troops until September, when it ordered 28,800 sets, Marine officials acknowledge.
The Army, which has the largest force in Iraq, is still deciding what to purchase, according to Army procurement officials. They said the Army was deciding among various sizes of plates to give its 130,000 soldiers, adding that they hoped to issue contracts this month.
***
Any American who claims to support our troops in the field must feel outrage at this. The Generals, Don Rumsfeld, and the entire Pentagon bureaucracy are at fault in this. Our troops are wounded and dying while denied some of the basic protection any fighting force requires. And what's worse, the Pentagon KNEW this going in.
***
And this caught my eye as well:
Basis for Spying in U.S. Is Doubted
The New York Times
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and SCOTT SHANE
Published: January 7, 2006
WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 - President Bush's rationale for eavesdropping on Americans without warrants rests on questionable legal ground, and Congress does not appear to have given him the authority to order the surveillance, said a Congressional analysis released Friday.
- snip -
The report was particularly critical of a central administration justification for the program, that Congress had effectively approved such eavesdropping soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by authorizing "all necessary and appropriate force" against the terrorist groups responsible. Congress "does not appear to have authorized or acquiesced in such surveillance," the report said, adding that the administration reading of some provisions of federal wiretap law could render them "meaningless."
***
The Congressional report did not actually come out and say that Bush has violated the Constitution, but it came close and it was amazing that it even addressed the question. More is at stake here than just the power of the Congress to declare and wage war (which is its Constitutional prerogative).
What's at stake here is nothing less than the Constitution itself, and the framework of rights and liberties that Americans have fought and died for for the past 230 years.
Wake up, America. The enemy is closer than you think, and it is not the enemy you've been told is out to destroy you.
Pentagon Study Links Fatalities to Body Armor
The New York Times
By MICHAEL MOSS
Published: January 7, 2006
A secret Pentagon study has found that as many as 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if they had had extra body armor. Such armor has been available since 2003, but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field for additional protection, according to military officials.
- snip -
The vulnerability of the military's body armor has been known since the start of the war, and is part of a series of problems that have surrounded the protection of American troops. Still, the Marine Corps did not begin buying additional plates to cover the sides of their troops until September, when it ordered 28,800 sets, Marine officials acknowledge.
The Army, which has the largest force in Iraq, is still deciding what to purchase, according to Army procurement officials. They said the Army was deciding among various sizes of plates to give its 130,000 soldiers, adding that they hoped to issue contracts this month.
***
Any American who claims to support our troops in the field must feel outrage at this. The Generals, Don Rumsfeld, and the entire Pentagon bureaucracy are at fault in this. Our troops are wounded and dying while denied some of the basic protection any fighting force requires. And what's worse, the Pentagon KNEW this going in.
***
And this caught my eye as well:
Basis for Spying in U.S. Is Doubted
The New York Times
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and SCOTT SHANE
Published: January 7, 2006
WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 - President Bush's rationale for eavesdropping on Americans without warrants rests on questionable legal ground, and Congress does not appear to have given him the authority to order the surveillance, said a Congressional analysis released Friday.
- snip -
The report was particularly critical of a central administration justification for the program, that Congress had effectively approved such eavesdropping soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by authorizing "all necessary and appropriate force" against the terrorist groups responsible. Congress "does not appear to have authorized or acquiesced in such surveillance," the report said, adding that the administration reading of some provisions of federal wiretap law could render them "meaningless."
***
The Congressional report did not actually come out and say that Bush has violated the Constitution, but it came close and it was amazing that it even addressed the question. More is at stake here than just the power of the Congress to declare and wage war (which is its Constitutional prerogative).
What's at stake here is nothing less than the Constitution itself, and the framework of rights and liberties that Americans have fought and died for for the past 230 years.
Wake up, America. The enemy is closer than you think, and it is not the enemy you've been told is out to destroy you.
posted by Walt at 6:44 AM
1 Comments:
What can you expect from a trio of morons who never saw action themselves - Bush, "five deferments" Cheney and Rumsfeld. I get so angry when I think of Rumsfeld's statement that "you go to war with the army you have." Unfortunately, we went with the Secretary of Defense we had. And far too many men, women and children have died as a result. This administration has far too much blood on its hands.
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