Yes you did clear up what you meant, and it was appreciated. The amended version is more to your way of speaking so thanks for that.

Nope, you don’t get under my skin, and I wouldn’t lead a post with your words if I didn’t feel you couldn’t handle it. You add much to a conversation and you take it all in stride.

so…

“Perhaps SFL can clear it up. If he meant what you say, then he is wrong. If he meant what I interpreted as saying then he isn’t.”

I did already.

Look at #6

I said: “Yes of course most of the troops have (performed brilliantly), but the Military as a whole has been led into this disaster by incompetent civilian leadership – The Bush Administration.”

I’m pretty sure that erases all doubt about my support for the actual troops themselves.

I stand by my statement, but I suppose I should amend it a bit:

“I’m convinced that the American Military – led by the Bush Administration - would perform just as poorly in Iran, if not worse, than it has in Iraq.”

————————————

“Congrats SF Liberal .. obviously you get under the skin here enough to have engendered your own thread!”

Yeah, it’s actually my second.

No really, most of the gang here, I’m sure, are probably real nice people if we were to met them in “real life”…I hope nobody takes me serious enough to let me get under their skin.

Well done!:smile:

The reason for the terrorists themselves is a religious reason. But the motivation for the people in the region to passively support/approve the terrorists or even become themselves in terrorists, is not the religious one.
In other parts of the world also terrorism/sts exist for other reasons and there you don’t have such strong ties between terror-like fighting people and the civilian population. It is not natural for people who are pleased with their situation and are able to care for their family without threats like hunger or war, to voluntarilly bring themselves in a position that hold that risk of getting harmed. If you have nothing to lose, you are more willing to listen to people that promise to change your bad state.

I was formerly an officer in the USAR. In 1997 I resigned my commission out of disgust with Klinton and what he was doing to the military. I finally had enough and knew I could no longer serve under such a degenerate, disgraceful CIC.

Want to know WHY our troops didn’t have all of the equipment that they needed when this started? Try 8 years of the Clinton administration and all those years of Democratic control in Congress.

When I was on active duty, body armor and kevlar helmets had been standard issue to combat units for over 5 years, and we still didn’t have them, because enough money hadn’t been allocated to replace those that the front line units were using and buy them for the second tier divisions as well. Those things have a lifespan of a few years, but they weren’t able to buy enough to issue to the units who were supposed to have them before having to replace the ones that were already in service when they hit the end of their life cycle. We still didn’t have them when I got out 3 years later. The Marines were the only military service to actually be able to issue armor to all of their members because of the corps small size. The Democrats have consistently and repeatedly cut spending to the troops for the last 30+ years whenever they’ve had the power to do so. They’ve also insisted on troops receiving substandard equipment as well. The Beretta 92 FAILED the military 9mm pistol trials with a potentially fatal flaw, while the S&W entry failed for a minor field expedient repairable flaw that could’ve been solved by the addition of after market grips, or if necessary a little mil spec duct tape. The Sig Sauer 226 passed all of the tests. The Sig was deemed too expensive for purchase. The Beretta was given a waiver for a potentially fatal flaw (slides broke in half if full power ammo was used)for political reasons while the Smith and Wesson entrant was denied a waiver and hence the contract due to a minor problem despite being a superior weapon to the Beretta. 6 months after fielding, all special operations troops traded in their issue Berettas for new Sig Sauers and the contract for compact 9mm handguns for undercover Criminal investigators was issued to Sig. The US Navy Seals still carry Sig Sauer P226s, and Marine Force Recon has gone back to using refurbished 45s dating to WWII and more recently new commercially purchased 45s. There were trials being undertaken to replace the M9 Beretta with a pistol in the much more effective 45 ACP round, but for some unknown reason, the Army participation was dropped and tens of thousands of the less effective, less safe Berettas were ordered. I wonder if that decision has anything to do with the fact that the Beretta plant is located in Democratic Maryland and they don’t produce a pistol in 45?

While individual Democrats may in fact support the troops, don’t tell me that the Democratic party as a whole does. History simply doesn’t bare that out. Alexander Hamilton in Federalist Paper No. 1 wrote, “Ambition, Avarice, personal animosity, party opposition and many other motives not more laudable than these, are apt to operate as well upon those who support as those who oppose the right side of the question.” 220+ years later and the same damn motives lead people to support decisions that they KNOW to be detrimental to the health and welfare of our troops and this country, but still they support those decisions.

While the loss of the lives of our troops in Iraq is unfortunate, at least that loss is the result of enemy action versus the greater loss of life due to training accidents during the Clinton adminstration that were the result of, supposedly friendly, inaction. While the military is in combat, its needs for material support take on much greater urgency and receive much greater attention. During times of piece, those needs go unheeded or ignored. We had vehicles we couldn’t get replacement parts for because the money wasn’t there to buy them. The last month of every fiscal quarter we had to rob peter to pay paul to keep our equipment operational. I had to carry an address and phone list for every motor pool and supply room on the entire installation to insure that I could keep my assigned vehicles running safely. I became so wired into the unofficial supply network that the Battalion CO nicknamed me Lt Scrounge. We had to inspect/ patrol our motor pools every few ours at night to prevent people from other units from stealing parts from our vehicles to repair theirs. We had to allow a vehicle to sit idle because of a defective brake line for a month before being allowed to go get one from the local Chevy dealership. A task that, unlike my counterparts in other units, I undertook to get my vehicles operational as quickly as possible. Many of those vehicles were idle for months before the ordered repair parts arrived through regular supply channels.

I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly of military supply and when it comes right down to it, CONGRESS is responsible when our troops don’t have the gear they need and it takes time to equip new units and maintain the operational level of others. There is a document called “The Modified Table of Organization and Equipment.” It oulines EVRY Congress controls the purse strings and if they’d stop spending money on worthless pork projects and put it into outfitting our soldiers, they wouldn’t be short of gear. There’s also the simple fact that not every company is capable of producing adequate quantities and quality of equipment to meet demand. A company that might be able to produce 10,000 units a month, may not be able to produce 100,000 units a month, and to expect them to upgrade their facilities and capacities for a single contract is ludicrous. There is a reason why KBR gets so many military service contracts, they have the capacity to actually fulfill the requirements of those contracts.