From: Steve Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Tue Oct 19 2004 - 08:40:36 PDT
Cliff,
>And how many of you believe the picture painted in this article? How
>many think that what the news portraits is the full story? And how many
>believe that there is more to this story?
There is more to the story. Leaked memo from GEN Sanchez (from last
year) was just uncovered that shows a long list of equipment shortages
and complaints, yet the very next day Bush said at a press conference
that our guys had everything they needed in field.
As far as I know this is the first POSSIBLE case of a mutiny of a US unit
in combat since Vietnam (I can't think of something specific there, but I
am sure there must have been). The Army is going to make an example of
this unit, even if their refusal to follow orders was justified. No
matter what the truth of the matter is, this is a VERY SIGNIFICANT event
and people should sit up and take notice.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that high stress levels, extended
tours, conflicting missions, prematurely ended offensives, inadequate
manpower, inadequate training for anit-insurgent ops, a lack of
translators, daily casualties, underperforming friendly Iraqi units,
inadequate funding on the ground, and an enemy that appears to be getting
more organized and sophisticated by the day (not less) is going to lead
to morale problems. And I'm usually labeled an optimist...
>Its against my good Commander-in-Chief who IS doing THE best job.
I'm a business owner and entrepreneur. Last year we fired a CEO, who
incidentally was making almost as much money as Bush (direct payroll that
is), for poor leadership. He assured us he was doing "the best" and
nobody could be expected to do better in this lousy economy. But after a
year of watching him closely we decided change was needed. And whadda ya
know... one year later and instead of losing millions we are profitable
again, yet the economy is as bad as it was last year. Just because
someone says they are doing the "best job" doesn't mean that they are.
I the edited words of a LT COL friend of mine at the Pentagon "I can't
believe how badly we are fudging things up over there".
Steve
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat May 07 2005 - 20:36:51 PDT