Gallows Humor

This is a hilarious piece of video:



Here's why this is NOT the same as George W Bush saying "bring 'em on." This Marine is already in harm's way. He's already in the fight. He's already exposed to danger. And he's a swaggering badass who is ready to back it up.

I'm telling you, we do not deserve these good men and women. They are making sacrifices every single day that no one appreciates, and a little gallows humor reminds us that we are not worthy of them unless we work to bring them home and get them out of that meat grinder.

The MRAP Debacle

MRAP at Aberdeen Proving Grounds

We've said it before, and we'll keep saying it--not only is the procurement system broken, but the failure to react quickly and get the troops the equipment that they need is a shameful legacy of having the "corporate" GOP run the government. This IS a campaign issue. This IS important. It HAS to be talked about. We will continue to beat this drum until we're both too old and too out of our minds to beat the drum anymore. And then those who follow us will take up the drum beating.

You do not send people to war with shitty gear.

Marines ask DOD’s Inspector General to review MRAP allegations
By Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Wednesday, February 27, 2008

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Marine Corps has asked the Defense Department Inspector General’s Office to look into allegations that delays in fielding Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles cost troops’ lives.

The allegations were made by Franz Gayl, a Corps civilian employee, who works in the Plans, Policies and Operations Department of Headquarters Marine Corps, who wrote in a Jan. 22 report that a 2005 request for MRAP vehicles for Marines in Iraq fell victim to the Corps’ “Byzantine” procurement system.

In the report, Gayl alleged that Corps officials turned down the 2005 request for MRAP vehicles because they lacked technical knowledge on the matter and they were more concerned whether the vehicles would cut into funding for other programs than they were with Marines on the ground.

While the report cites documents that show Corps officials were looking at the financial impact of buying MRAP vehicles on other programs, such as the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, the documents do not say outright that such an impact was the reason for turning down the request.

In the report, Gayl said that the request for MRAP vehicles was reviewed by senior active-duty officers and senior retired officers now working as civilians for the Corps.

“Senior retired Marines, as permanent personnel, often have disproportionate, budget-centric influence over the UUNS [Urgent Universal Need Statement] vetting process,” the report said. “When viewed from a bureaucratic perspective, the MRAP UUNS would have had unfavorable reprogramming implications for MCCDC’s [Marine Corps Combat Development Command’s] programmatic focus.”

Based on statistics from the Web site www.icasualties.org, the report concludes that deaths from roadside bombs could have been reduced by 50 percent had the request been approved.

The Associated Press first publicized the report’s findings on Feb. 15. Corps officials have subsequently called the report a “preliminary internal paper” that represents the opinion of the author and not the Corps.

Now come the rightwing milbloggers, who will no doubt demonize anyone who points out that the Emperor has no clothes, or that the Marines are running a gauntlet with vehicles that are substandard and unsafe.

Why is the Marine Corps scaling back their order of MRAPs?

Let's just put this in the "I don't know what the hell to think about this" file right off the starting blocks. (Even though I have my cynical suspicions...)

Those who read this blog know that I have been pitching a mighty hissy-fit for two and a half years about going to war in jeeps.

Long story short: I'm against it.

Humvees aren't MRAP's. They are small-j jeeps. They are utility vehicles, built for scrambling across terrain quickly, and designed to be integral to supply lines. They are not designed to be troop carriers and they are not adequate for combat operations. They were never designed to be armored, and even when they are up-armored, the rear (where the gas tank is located) is exposed because the chassis can't handle the added weight of armoring the entire vehicle.

The bottom of a Hummer is flat, and absorbs the full impact of a mine or IED blast, and a four-pound land mine will take out the rear axle, and likely a couple of Soldiers or Marines as well.

Humvee's are decidedly ill-suited for use in urban warfare, like they are currently being used in Afghanistan and Iraq. That is why I greeted the news last summer that the DoD was going to be stepping up their purchases of MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicles with somewhat mixed emotions. On the one hand, I was glad that the Soldiers and Marines I actually support and don't resent paying taxes for would be getting safer vehicles in which to patrol. After all, not a single American life has been lost in an MRAP. On the other hand, it pissed me off because I thought it was ultimately too little, too late. And I read it as a sure sign that they are setting up a decades long occupation.

Think about it: Four years on, when we should ought to be making tangible withdrawal plans, they are purchasing 3500 MRAPs a year? Yes, that pissed me off a tad.

And now - the Marines are scaling back their order by 1300 units, from 3700 to 2400 in the current fiscal year. I can't help but wonder, just what the hell is up with that?

Just last month, Marine Corps Commandant James T. Conway said the Marine Corps has emerged as a "second land Army" and must buy heavy equipment, including the mine-resistant vehicles, for protection against IED's and ambushes in urban areas.

So what precipitated the change? Has the Marine Corps brass really decided that they want to "retain their expeditionary flavor" or is there something else afoot? Maybe politics? I'm cynical enough to believe that is possible.

The funding battle for Bush's Iraq misadventure is just getting started, and it's going to get a lot uglier.

Why don't you go ahead and bookmark this post now, because you might need it later.

Do not be surprised if, in the upcoming weeks, you start hearing a mantra that goes something like "our troops are being denied the vehicles that will keep them safe because the democrat-party controlled congress is playing politics with the war funding" - and I have no doubt you will - You can say "Oh - I have known for weeks that you lot were going to peddle this line of bullshit - and it is bullshit by the way - and this is why..."

Gates Blindsided...Again

Bob Gates got blindsided this morning with a report in the New York Times on the Marine Corps pushing to have their forces withdrawn from Iraq and redeployed to Afghanistan to take the lead in operations there.

On NPR Gates backed away from the report like both of ‘em carried a negative charge, mumbling something about he had heard…maybe it was an idea being kicked around by staffers…but really, it’s all just speculation...

Who knew that General James T. Conway, Commandant of the Marine Corps, was a “staffer”?

He is the one who raised the issue with Gates. Last week. In a closed door briefing. Just hours after Admiral Mike Mullen was sworn in as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

If implemented, the plan would transform Iraq into an Army operation. While it is nothing more than a plan right now, it has some high-powered advocates, including some in the Army.

It represents the first radical shift in thinking that has been offered, and proponents say it would be a realignment of forces that would afford the Army and the Marines to increase operating efficiency and each service could map their own path for dealing with the strains and schisms that threaten the Army and Marines that have been created by Bush’s misguided and inept war policy.

Currently, there are no Marine Expeditionary Units operating in Afghanistan, in spite of the fact that MEU’s are uniquely suited to the battlefield in Afghanistan.

Marines train to fight in what is called a Marine Air-Ground Task Force. That term refers to a Marine deployment that arrives in a combat zone complete with its own headquarters, infantry combat troops, armored and transport vehicles and attack jets for close-air support, as well as logistics and support personnel.

“This is not about trading one ground war for another,” said one Pentagon official briefed on the Marine concept. “It is about the nature of the fight in Afghanistan, and figuring out whether the Afghan mission lends itself more readily to the integrated MAGTF deployment than even Iraq.”

It is likely an idea we need to be kicking around, but I am left to wonder about something else…Who is monkeywrenching Bob Gates at the Pentagon? This is not the first time he has been blindsided by news coming out of that five-sided building that left him caught unawares in front of the cameras and mikes. Remember, in April the news of extended tours was leaked. Back then, Larry Johnson and I wagered a beer on the source of that leak. I said a low level staffer, he said maybe a General who has had enough of the mendacity.

Now it is looking to me like I owe LJ that beer. This was leaked by someone with major juice. I am reading this as the top brass at the Pentagon have little or no regard for this administration, nor the Secretary of Defense that represents it.

And frankly, if Jim Webb hasn’t already taken up this cause by the time I hit “post” I will be disappointed.

Bogged Down in Iraq, Marine Corps Readiness Suffers

The war in Iraq is degrading the readiness of the Marine Corps, the nation’s number one leatherneck, General James T. Conway, repeated on Wednesday, speaking to a group of Marines in Bahrain that were recently deployed to the Persian Gulf and will soon be headed for battle in Iraq.

“We’re not training for the other kinds” of combat that could arise at short notice, Gen. James T. Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, told a group of Marines at the U.S. naval headquarters for the Persian Gulf.

“We are the nation’s shock troops,” he said, stressing that Marines have to be prepared to make amphibious landings and conduct operations that require training they are not getting now because Marine infantry and air units returning from Iraq have time only to get ready for their next tour of duty there.

“We’ve simply got to get back some of those skills,” like firing artillery, he said.

Four years of desert warfare have depleted personnel and materiel, and compromised the ability of the American forces to respond to threats both to the homeland and to other vital interests abroad.

Responding under current conditions would be more difficult and more costly than need be – in terms of both lives lost and the financial cost – and it would take much longer to respond and prevail.

[Originally posted at Watching Those We Chose]