Richard WarnickObama Listens to Army Captain
During last night’s debate, I heard something from Senator Barack Obama that I hadn’t heard before. The candidate and his staff are in touch with some members of the military, and listening to what they say. This is a necessary quality for anyone who wants to do well in the job of Commander in Chief.
“You know, I’ve heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon — supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon,” he said. “Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq. And as a consequence, they didn’t have enough ammunition, they didn’t have enough humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.”
I know, it sounds fishy because platoon leaders are typically lieutenants, not captains. Turns out the officer Obama talked to (who doesn’t want his name used) has been promoted since his combat tour in eastern Afghanistan from the Summer of 2003 through Spring 2004. He was with the 10th Mountain Division.
ABC News Senior National Correspondent Jake Tapper interviewed Obama’s source and it all checks out…
Prior to deployment the Captain — then a Lieutenant — took command of a rifle platoon at Fort Drum. When he took command, the platoon had 39 members, but — in ones and twos — 15 members of the platoon were re-assigned to other units. He knows of 10 of those 15 for sure who went to Iraq, and he suspects the other five did as well.
The platoon was sent to Afghanistan with 24 men.
Vehicles and spare parts were a big problem, due to the way the Army’s supply system operates. Iraq got first priority.
“We should have had 4 up-armored humvees,” he said. “We were supposed to. But at most we had three operable humvees, and it was usually just two.”
So what did they do? “To get the rest of the platoon to the fight,” he says, “we would use Toyota Hilux pickup trucks or unarmored flatbed humvees.” Sometimes with sandbags, sometimes without.
Also in Afghanistan they had issues getting parts for their MK-19s and their 50-cals. Getting parts or ammunition for their standard rifles was not a problem.
“It was very difficult to get any parts in theater,” he says, “because parts are prioritized to the theater where they were needed most — so they were going to Iraq not Afghanistan.”
“The purpose of going after the Taliban was not to get their weapons,” he said, but on occasion they used Taliban weapons. Sometimes AK-47s, and they also mounted a Soviet-model DShK (or “Dishka”) on one of their humvees instead of their 50 cal.
After years of phony yellow ribbon magnets and “support the troops” garbage from people who never listen, imagine a President who does listen and might even care if our soldiers have what they need to do their jobs. “Support the troops” usually means “support the war(s) and stop asking questions.” Imagine a President who would make sure veterans get medical care and the other help they need after coming back from fighting our wars.
Starting to warm up to this Obama guy…
UPDATE:
It’s hard to believe, but the Bush administration is actually trying to push back on this story. From Talking Points Memo:
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman is telling reporters he doesn’t think it’s true and that of course they can’t confirm it unless the soldier — still on active duty — comes forward to discuss the issue with the Pentagon brass, a step that would surely do wonders for his future in the Army.
UPDATE: Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey confirms that troops were sent to Afghanistan in 2003 faced shortages of necessary equipment. Hardly a secret, but it’s nice someone wants to be honest about it.
February 22nd, 2008 at 4:41 pm
I caught just a smidgeon of Rush Limbaugh this morning (before I had to take an Excedrine and change the radio station to something else) and he was “all over” this one, alleging that he wanted proof, and that no one would be able to corroborate Obama’s statement.
Well, Rush. You have your corroboration. Do you have any room on your next show to apologize?
…………………….I didn’t think so.
BTW, this is one of the things I’ve always admired about Barack Obama (listening to the troops), and it’s the same thing (among many) that I admire in Ron Paul.
February 22nd, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Words have power - whether you’re speaking them, or listening to them.
February 22nd, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Words have no power other than that power one attributes to them. Charge them up and shine them on a reflector, and voila light and animation. The words aren’t the power, people tendencies being utilized are. Words are just the key to the door. Use the right key, open the door. The key is to determine if the speaker is genuine in his words.
If I speak to you in language you don’t understand, my words have no power, they are just gibberish. Kinds like a Latin mass. What did mean by that I used to think? In some I attended as a child, I figured that the guy was saying that the place smelled bad, that was why he was swingin’ the incense ball. Words are what you make of them.
February 22nd, 2008 at 6:37 pm
STFU RICHARD! I made a shit load of $$$ off those yellow ribbons. Cost me 15 cents, sold ‘em all day for $2 bucks.
The American Dream ROCKS!
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Translation: Obama does not want to preside over a bloodbath in Iraq by pulling troops out too early. He will come to you with hat in hand saying how much he wanted to pull troops out but since obtaining office he had learned the realities of the situation which does not allow him to pull troops out at this time. Just you watch it will happen if he is elected. The same thing will happen if Hillary wins.
Cliff
I bet those yellow ribbons are made in Chinese sweatshops. Probably child labor in which you are profiteering from. Sleep well on that thought my friend.
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Ken, I believe your translation is spot on! That is, as a take on Condalizas’ statement (which like so much of this administrations blather is, how do you say…Bullshit). Just as the Chimp brought his ’style’ and basically overthrew everything Clinton, fair game for the new dem prez will be whatever he or she wants it to be. Get out of Iraq, file charges against the war criminals, abandon torture and spying without warrants, get on with energy conservation and sensible renewables, restore habeas corpus, curb cluster-bomb manufacturing and use, restore respect for the constitution and thier oaths to defend it from ALL enemies, and on and on! All is possible.
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:37 pm
I have another prediction. If Democrats win the presidency, especially if they control both houses of Congress, you will see the end of global warming. Not that they will solve the alleged problem rather it will cease to be pushed by the left since it would have served its purpose of putting Democrats in office. With Democrats in power they are not going to cut their own throats by destroying the economy with draconian laws in the name of climate change.
February 23rd, 2008 at 7:46 am
Ken,
You are shamelessly uninformed about global warming. It is already too late. If you don’t know that, you are not paying attention.
So now you can change your tune and explain to your kids that since its already too late, there is no reason to do anything about it. Just enjoy the sub $5/gal gas while it stays there.
February 23rd, 2008 at 9:40 am
Bush had no problem at all presiding over a bloodbath. Thanks to the so-called “surge,” 2007 was the bloodiest year of the occupation. Iraq will be a lot more peaceful when we leave, although still worse than it was under Saddam. America’s legacy.
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:38 am
Yes, it is too late, global warming has been a catastrophe for well over 13,000 years. There was absolutely nothing primitive man could do to stop the melting of the continental glaciers that had grown to the extent that they lowered sea level by 300 FEET. Then the ice, in places 10,000 FEET thick melted. Without our help.
It will be funny to see what the cassandras of warming will say in the next few years. There is currently no sun spot activity, and we are entering a period of solar minimum. The next few years are going to be extremely cold. In this winter temperature records that are 40 years old in North America have been broken. China is buried and freezing, and the Colorado Rockies have not seen this much high country snow in decades. In fact it is so deep, that it is raising levels of groundwater in abandoned mines, to the extent they could spill over and wash their toxic load into the River.
Keep in mind Newtons Law, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. More warmth, more evaporation, more vapor, bigger storms and the related effects. The tremendous exchange of heat is being manifested in a thermodynamic mechanical energy event, called weather.
Once the snows pile the rains fall, there will be cooling, and the system will approach equilibrium. The edge of our border with space, is absolute zero, and much of our heat simply dissipates into space. With our pollutive activities, the increased weather if anything will have a cleansing effect, like the Gians say.
Doesn’t mean it won’t rock our world in the meantime. Should be great, we are going get to see some of the show.
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:44 am
Richard, we’re not leaving, no matter who becomes President.
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:49 am
Ah cliff, selling cheezy ribbons made in china by slave labor, right up your ally. You serve the progressive cause well.
King of Krap in more ways than one. I’m proud of you, at least you stay true to your dreams.
February 23rd, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Cliff
I have shoveled a lot of global warming this winter. Scientists are not seeing the warming predicted by their computer models. In fact the warming trend reached its peak in 1998 and since then temperatures around the globe have actually gotten cooler. It is theorized that climate runs a 70 year cycle and we are now on the downward slope. The icecaps that have receded in the last decade are now reforming leaving many scientists scratching their heads and revising their models.
I give the global warming hoax about 2 years before it completely unravels, that only gives the UN and a possible Democrat President and Congress about a year to enact as many socialist policies as possible in the name of global warming before the jig is up. That is why the rhetoric is so high and global warming proponents are getting increasingly desperate because they know they only have a short window of opportunity. Years from now the global warming hoax will be looked upon in the same manner as believing the Earth in flat. One of those times in history that man’s arrogance and egocentrics got in the way of common sense.
sources:
http://www.helium.com/tm/540228/heres-things-people-because
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Columnists/1037604.html
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2008/2008-02-19-092.asp
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-opkea045563549feb04,0,251708.column
February 23rd, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Ken My Sweet Lover, We have been assured by the scientists that climate change will cause even more snow in some areas, but less in others.
Do not make the mistake of inferring your personal empirical evidence upon the planet.
That would make little sense now don’t you think?
PS: The links you provided have all been debunked as any caring person (with values like truth and integrity) would have discovered with little effort.
Does TRUTH mean ANYTHING to you LOVER?
You are my big hunk ‘o MAN!
February 23rd, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Every major political, academic and political institution in the world holds the IPCC report as the gospel.
I realize it might me more painful to read this than it is to pull propaganda from RedState but I thought you should know about it.
February 23rd, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Ah, now it is no longer called warming but climate change. Anyone that has studied geology for any length of time knows that climate change is the norm. It occurs for a host of reasons, most not clearly understood by man.
I don’t think anyone argues that we are and have witnessed warming, it is obvious from the moraines laying about all over the Earth from the melt off of the recent ice age, and the tremendous rise in sea level beginning 13k yrs. ago.
What people are disputing is the idea that the warming is anthropogenic.
The IPPC, during the 70’s this same crowd clamored the alarm that the Earth was headed into a new ice age. As for climate change which is constant, and often very rapid, I’ll take the warming over the cooling myself.
It does not take much cooling to render vast areas of the Earth to be non viable for agriculture, and with the cost of energy, viable for habitation at all. Potatoes are growing in Greenland again after being impossible to be grown since 1200 AD. It was warm enough, then it got cold, now it is warm enough again. Recorded history, no carbon inputs, slightly problematic for the anthropogenic crowd. What to do? Lie.
There was a time when the prevalent science believed the world was flat, that the Earth was the center of the Universe, and the bleeding of people would cure their ills.
There is increasing evidence that anthropogenic warming will yield a tax, that will bleed humanity, and serve as the means of draining impurities from the “patient”…directly into government pockets.
Ocean levels rose 2 inches last century, while in the previous 130 centuries, it rose 3600 inches, for an average of 27.8 inches per century. That isn’t from Red State, that is from the plain old facts.
February 23rd, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Global warming proponents have bet the farm on the Earth warming. They may try to repackage it as “climate change” thus allowing for warming or cooling, but the public has been sold on warming so if it doesn’t happen you will see support for global warming policies evaporate.
When they have enacted their socialist policies and the warming fails to occur they will claim it was their policies that turned the tide therefore their draconian measures must remain in effect forever to avoid warming in the future. I can already see it now.
By then, unfortunately, it will be too late to fix the real effects of global warming which will be less freedom, poverty, and a massively bloated government. Not to mention the UN granted the authority to tax every “citizen of the world”.
July 4th, 2008 at 6:10 am
used toyota pickup trucks…
Sounds interesting but not for every one….