he's NOT 'soft on terror'

but he (and his WHOLE F**KING COURT) doesn't (DON'T) give a flying f**k about our men and women in the armed forces. that's fo' sho'. not just because of this article. sure, this is bad enough in itself. but what about the TREATMENT of veterans once they're home? the wounded mentally and physically? they (king george and his court) just don't F**KING CARE

DOD Study: 100s of Marines dead and wounded because Bush admin dropped the ball on armor
by
John Aravosis (DC)
Gee, our president is once again calling Democrats soft on national security and at the same time an internal Defense Department study says that the Bush administration's malfeasance killed and injured 100s of Marines unnecessarily. Will the Democrats finally turn this issue around on Bush?
Hundreds of U.S. Marines have been killed or injured by roadside bombs in Iraq because Marine Corps bureaucrats refused an urgent request in 2005 from battlefield commanders for blast-resistant vehicles, an internal military study concludes.The study, written by a civilian Marine Corps official and obtained by The Associated Press, accuses the service of "gross mismanagement" that delayed deliveries of the mine-resistant, ambush-protected trucks for more than two years.Cost was a driving factor in the decision to turn down the request for the so-called MRAPs, according to the study. Stateside authorities saw the hulking vehicles, which can cost as much as a $1 million each, as a financial threat to programs aimed at developing lighter vehicles that were years from being fielded.........

uh oh

Pentagon Offers Zany Excuse for IED Foul-up

by Jacob Freeze

More than 1500 American soldiers have been killed by IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of these deaths wouldn't have happened if the soldiers had been riding in armored V-shaped vehicles. These things used to be called "Mine-protected Utility Vehicles/Rapid Deployable" (MUV-R), but now it's a "Mine Resistant Ambush Protected" vehicle (MRAP). The name changed because you can't call something "rapid deployable" when it still ain't there after 4 long years. Or can you?
As recently as October 2006, Senator Lindsay Graham was celebrating this foul-up as a brilliant success. "This is an example of where (the Pentagon) has gotten it right," Graham said. "They're doing it as fast as they can." (USA Today, 10/30/2006). It sounds like this problem just came up, and the Pentagon jumped right on it. hall
But even in March, 2004, when Rumsfeld visited Abu Ghraib, "military officials did not rely on a government-issued Humvee to transport him safely on the ground. Instead, they turned to Halliburton, the oil services contractor, which lent the Pentagon a rolling fortress of steel called the Rhino Runner." (M. Moss, NYTimes, 6/26/2005)
Nothing is too good for our boys at Halliburton, or the SecDef! But it has taken a very long time for the Pentagon to give anything like the same protection to the average grunt on the mean streets of Iraq. What's the excuse?
Unfortunately for the Pentagon, excuses for ultra-slow deployment aren't exactly easy to dream up, since MRAP vehicles have been deployed all over the world for decades. "The military in South Africa and Rhodesia have been using these vehicles for the past 30 years, steadily improving the technology," (Lt. Col. Gert de Wet, in a press release from USMC Camp Smith, Hawaii, June 24 2005) .........