Political Cartoons

Largely because you can't just wish armor onto vehicles. There's a lot of things one needs to know before ones reaction to the issue is any more than knee jerk:

Logistical issues getting the armor into the theater
Availability of people trained to up-armor a vehicle
Amount of time it takes to up-armor vehicle
Can vehicles be pulled out of service to be armored? how long can units afford to be short of said vehicle.
What are the trade-offs to armoring a vehicle? Armor reduces mobility and field of view. Are there cases when armor doesn't make sense?
How effective are up-armored vehicles? Does it make sense to spend time and money up-armoring, or just producing and deploying more armored vehicles into the theater?
How many armored vehicles are already deployed?

These are the questions I'd be asking. I don't know the answer to them, and I doubt many other people do either. But until we do, I don't think any of our opinions are worth squat.

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The top priority of the military should be to win wars. The safety of our soldiers should be a top concern as well, but it's important not to forget why we have a military.

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mid-limbo.livejournal.com

its a good point, but you have to remember this is a society which flew its flags at half-mast for a month because of a handfull of people dying in the Columbia crash.

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Sorry, I misread what you said. I agree that it should be, and think that it is one of the top priorities, which is why combat losses in this conflict have been so low given the task at hand. Could we do better? Certainly debateable, but taken in historical context, our military has generally spent substantial time and effort, quite often at the expense of combat effectiveness, to protect its soldiers.

Compare this to, say, conscripts in the Red Army, who are rarely given adequate training or equipment, and sent off to die for the motherland, or compare it to this nation's past wars, where mistakes at the top cost many times the number of lives lost in this conflict.

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ericeingold.livejournal.com

My argument was this, since the United States has a military complex with its characteristic of massive funding going to the military industry, don't you think it would have been logical for everything to have been ready, ammored, and the safest it could technologically have been BEFORE the invasion of a country. Why fool around with such things? If the powers that be--both democrat and republican--want to live in a nation with a military complex, why wouldn't they choose the route of the best one could buy in peacetime, so that when war does come about, you'd be "The best that you can be."

Instead, both sides:

Sent tens of thousands of soldiers into Iraq with Vietnam-era flak jackets that are incapable of coping with modern warfare, and over a year after the deployment into Iraq, 40,000 troops were still without modernized body armor.

And:

In April of 2004, the Army stated that nearly $6 billion in funding requests were not met in Bush’s 2005 defense budget. The troops will now have to deal with shortages in bolt-on vehicle armor, combat helmets, silk-weight underwear, boots, M249 squad automatic weapons, ammunition magazines, night sights, and replacements for equipment lost or damaged in combat. As for the Marine Corps, they cited shortages of $40 million in funding for body armor, lightweight helmets, and other equipment.

As for the trade-offs on armoring:

According to an unofficial report by a defense consultant reporting for Newsweek, one in four casualties in Iraq may not have taken place had their been stronger armor on the 8,000 of 10,000 Humvees with dated armor. What is being done to insure that the casualty count doesn’t rise? The Bush Administration's 2005 budget provides zero funding to upgrade the inadequate Humvees in Iraq

One study in this is enough for me. If one study finds any life to be possibly saved, than I say go for it. No matter what the cost or impracticality. Since my tax money puts the lives of soldiers and domestic/foreign civilians in jeopardy, I can sleep better knowing that if we are going to commit acts of war that they are done with life in mind, not with life as dispensible.

As for wishing armor on vehicles, all your questions have been taken into account by me. The bulk of my argument was that these questions should NEVER have been needed to be asked. If the powers that be want us to live in a militaristic nation, than it needs to be the best it can be. And now that they didn't plan while in peacetime, politicians have to deal with these questions now while troops lives are in danger.

As for thinking our opinions aren't squat, I'm sorry you feel that way.

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It's a longstanding, and unfortunate truth that armies have traditionally been prepared, at a moments notice, to fight the last war. Armies, particularly one as large as ours, are bureaucratic organizations that don't turn on a dime. This has been the case with every war this country has fought, and this one is certainly no exception. The military we had in 2002 was still largely organized around the idea of defeating a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.

I'm not arguing this is just to be accepted and assumptions go unchallenged, or that the loss of life that occurs because of this isn't a tragedy, but the perfection you're asking for is simply not attainable in a large organization run by flawed and fallible human beings. To demand perfection in strategy before going to war would effectively cripple us into inaction, which I'm sure is exactly what many people would hope for.

One of the chief reasons for shortages of body armor is the military, in old thinking, believed that only front line troops needed the interceptor body armor, while the rear echelon troops did not require armor. Given our nations military experience up until Iraq, this was not an unreasonable assumption.

My assertion that our opinions are largely meaningless is largely because I don't think any of us have enough information available to Monday morning quarterback many of these decisions. For instance, how many Humvees in Iraq already have upgraded armor? You didn't really answer any of the questions. I'll accept for now that there should be more armor in the theater, what I don't accept is that the military is making poor use of limited resources because they don't give a shit about the lives of soldiers.

In this conflict, casualties are the biggest political liability of the entire operation. It would make no sense for them not to do everything they can to keep them to a minimum, and I'd be surprised, the standard bureaucratic bullshit aside, if that wasn't the case.

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realityw-omusic.livejournal.com

you just made my day.

thanks a ton!!! :-D!!!

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That icon made mine.

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carlomelo.livejournal.com

hahahahahhaha! XD

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ledgehanger.livejournal.com

Yes, changes are needed as the battlefield needs change, and some things show up as needing changes that weren't previously realized.

Trivia question: at the time Rumsfield was asked the question by the soldier, what percentage of Humvees in Iraq had already been outfitted with the augmented armor package?

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How about transport vehicles?

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ledgehanger.livejournal.com

What, exactly, are you asking about transport vehicles?

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There were a lot of Humvees that were armored, but how about transport vehicles?

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What ever happened to the days when liberals opposed increases in military funding?

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chrisfrap.livejournal.com

flea, hate to burst your bubble, but the liberals care more about saving our soldiers lives then spending money.

its the lesser of 2 evils.... pay more for the military or lose good american citizens.

the choice is easy to see, and just go and ask any sane liberal.

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The thing is, although there are plenty of reasons to criticize Rumsfeld, I'm not sure if this is one of them. The army has a finite amount of resources. Is Rumsfeld being criticized for not diverting more resources from other things to go towards vehicle armor, or not asking congress for even more war funding?

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operationpetty.livejournal.com

haha, he said "sane liberal."

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chrisfrap.livejournal.com

yea, i know "oxymoron"....but i think im sane.

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mid-limbo.livejournal.com

its not a question of wanting more, its a question of where is that huge sum already paid going to if not something as fundamental as armor?

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Good question. Anyone have any ideas about how to find out how defense spending is apportioned?

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They went away when conservatives no longer wanted fiscal responsibility and smaller government.

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