Cant Keep Quiet!

Sometimes you have to call them as you see them. In this particular instance, I have to say “Bull!”

Yesterday Bush held a story conference in the Rose Garden. Sorry, but I can’t call what Bush did news.

Here’s the transcript from the photo and story telling op. If you want to watch the story being spun you can watch a video of it here. Both are provided by the White House. The only problem with the video is the sirens heard in the background.

Now, Bush sprinkles in just enough truth and news to make it seem like he’s telling nothing but truth and news. Instead, much of what he says is bullshit.

Let’s just take a single paragraph. In particular, this paragraph:

The bottom line is this. Congress’s failure to fund our troops on the front lines will mean that some of our military families could wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines. And others could see their loved ones headed back to the war earlier than they need to. That is unacceptable to me, and I believe it is unacceptable to the American people.

You can watch Bush say that single paragraph if you don’t feel like reading his whole speech or listening to the whole thing by clicking on the YouTube link below.

So where’s the bullshit? Well, think all the way back to Bush’s speech in January about having a “surge” of troops into Iraq. During his speech he didn’t say how he was going to “surge” the troops, but it was discussed shortly after the speech by military officials. According to an article posted by CNN.com in January,

To implement the Bush plan, which he outlined in a speech to the nation Wednesday night, officials said soldiers will spend three or four months longer on their Iraq tours, and the Pentagon is expected to have to activate more National Guard and Reserve units. – emphasis mine

Also, back on March 16, 2007, before Congress settled on a bill, the Army announced that they were sending their 3rd Infantry Division back to Iraq ahead of its original schedule.

Since Bush was already forcing military families to “wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines” and to “see their loved ones headed back to the war earlier” in order to provide the human resources for his “surge,” how are the Democrats to blame?

Also, if Bush vetos the bill, just who is keeping the funding from the troops? The Democratic Congress that approved the bill with the needed funding and sent it to the president? Or the president who vetoed the bill because it contained non-binding benchmarks?

What was that? Did I write that the bill contains non-binding benchmarks? Why yes, I believe I did.

From an article supplied by AP to CNN.com on March 29, 2007

In a mostly party line 51-47 vote, the Senate signed off on a bill providing $122 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also orders Bush to begin withdrawing troops within 120 days of passage while setting a nonbinding goal of ending combat operations by March 31, 2008. – emphasis mine

Yes, the beginning of the withdrawal is not non-binding. However it is 4 months from the signing of the bill if Bush would stop being a petulant child and sign the bill. If Bush really wants to call this a temporary troop “surge” then beginning to redeploy troops in 4 months would be in line with his terminology. Surge, after all, means temporary not permanent.

Bush needs to stop passing the blame to others and open his eyes to the reality he is facing. 59% of Americans support a troop withdrawal bill. Not the other way around.

Cross posted on Bring it On!

A recent article in the Washington Post pointed out the problems our Iraq and Afghanistan wounded face at Walter Reed hospital. Now Newsweek has come out with another article that shows that the problems are not isolated to Walter Reed.

Our reporting paints a grim portrait of an overloaded bureaucracy cluttered with red tape; veterans having to wait weeks or months for mental-health care and other appointments; families sliding into debt as VA case managers study disability claims over many months, and the seriously wounded requiring help from outside experts just to understand the VA’s arcane system of rights and benefits.

Yes, as one commenter to my previous post about Walter Reed stated, there are veterans that are receiving excellent care. But there are far too many that are not getting the help they need from a government and their supporters that preach “Support Our Troops” on nearly an hourly basis.

Am I saying that the government is being purposely blind to the problems facing veterans? Hardly. In my eyes, this is just one more indication that this administration has poorly planned for this war from the beginning.

Linda Bilmes is a Harvard public-finance professor. In January she released a study on the long-term cost of caring for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. She projected that at least 700,000 veterans from the so-called global war on terror will inundate the Veteran’s Administration in the coming years at a cost of $600 billion for lifetime care.

One of the reasons the number of veterans needing assistance is expected so be so large is the wounded to dead ratio seen in Iraq. 16 American soldiers are wounded or get sick for every death in Iraq. This is a vast improvement over the 3-1 ratio seen in Vietnam.

We need to take a serious look at our priorities in this country. We need to ask our congress people to stop putzing around on non-binding resolutions and take a stand. We need to tell them that supporting our troops doesn’t mean making sure they have funding and numbers to continue an insane policy in Iraq (we’ve “surged” 5 times now) but means making sure that our troops and our veterans have what they need to survive.

Veritably Bare has a list of ways you can take action.

Sunday the Washington Post published a article called Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army’s Top Medical Facility. On Monday they followed up with The Hotel Aftermath. Both articles should be required reading by everyone in this country, especially if they drive around with a yellow “Support Our Troops” magnetic ribbon on their car.

I didn’t write about this sooner because every time I thought about what I had read I would cry. Then I would get so angry I had to do something else or I’d explode. I was outraged over what these men and women who had fought in Bush’s war were being subjected to in their own country.

Now there is going to be an investigation. I’m sure that the investigation will find that the conditions noted in the WP story were due to the system being overwhelmed by the number of casualties they had to deal with on a daily basis.

I’m sorry but that excuse just doesn’t even begin to explain what is happening not only at Walter Reed but at other VA hospitals as well.
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In his State of the Union address last night, Bush once again talked about his plan to “surge” troops to Iraq. It’s my contention that he should “surge” equipment before he “surges” troops.

According to an article in Monday’s Contra Costa Times, our troops already in Iraq are forced to swap access to armored vehicles because there aren’t enough to protect all forces. Not only is there not enough equipment in Iraq, the military doesn’t know if it even has the ability to provide sufficient armored vehicles needed before factoring in the “surge” of troops.

What about the troops Bush is sending to Iraq now?

On Jan. 10, the Baltimore Sun reported that most of the 21,500 troops President Bush has ordered to Iraq as reinforcements will not have access to specialized blast-resistant armored vehicles because they are in such short supply. — emphasis mine

The armored Humvees in short supply aren’t even the safest type of armored vehicle available. South Africa and other countries have been producing and using mine-protected vehicles, aka MPVs, for years. MPVs have specially shaped hulls which deflect blasts away from the vehicle.

The military plans on buying these vehicles for the troops in Iraq but they won’t start to be delivered until March of 2008. Maybe. The delivery of these vehicles depends on the military finding the funds to purchase the MPVs.

Since the proper equipment to protect the troops in Iraq was not available even before Bush began his escalation of troops, wouldn’t it make sense to postpone or, better yet, halt this escalation until the men and women fighting for this country can be as safe as possible in a war zone?

The U.S. military has announced that a helicopter carrying 13 passengers and crew has crashed northeast of Baghdad today. All 13 people are reported to have died.

According to the Associated Press release

The military did not give a cause for the crash, saying only that the incident was under investigation. But the brief statement lacked the customary comment that the aircraft was not shot down, indicating it may have come under fire by insurgents.

Not only should this raise concerns due to the possibility the helicopter came under fire, this should also raise concerns because the U.S. military relies heavily on air travel as a way to avoid roadside bombs.