Isn't there some shady connection between vest manufacturers and the BushCo?

Please note, this was a secret study.

I'm sure this has been said before, but I firmly believe Bush's adherence to classification comes not from respect for national security, but from a position that is meant to keep attention away from incompetence.

Expect another call for investigation to uncover the leakers of this information that surely compromises either national security or someone's valuable assets.

Classifying documents to avoid embarrassment is a crime itself, Rich.

Though proving such a crime would require breaking through the loyalty to The Party and fear of retribution to provide a public accounting of what's been sent down the memory hole and why.

And of course Loyalty to The Party and Dear Leader is the reason that Rums-failed has a job. No more, no less.

Any possibility that you could find out what kind of body armor, if any, administration offcials wear when they visit Iraq? Do they get the good stuff or do they wear what the troops wear?

Also, somebody needs to do more work on how that SC company got the contract for the armored vehicle -- something really smells there.

Quick! Prosecute the leakers!

Explanation is simple. Halliburton doesn't sell body armor.

Well, the simple truth is that they really just don't care whether the troops live or die. Unless there's some money to be made from it, of course.

(Wasn't that guy who threw the obscenely expensive Bat Mitzvah for his daughter a defense contractor making body armor? There's part of your answer - yeah, we could spend lots of tax dollars making GOOD body armor, but it wouldn't be nearly as profitable as spending lots of tax dollars making CRAPPY body armor.)

Steve,

Following up on semper fubar's comment about defense contractors expenditures for congressional perks --- then getting lucrative defense contracts...... Well, the consequences of that kind of behavior weakens our National Security, lowers the safety of our troops and puts them in harms way, making civilian population here at home more vunerable etc. The fact that we have not had attacks here at home is because Ossam and the terrorists said (if only dubbya and his neocons would read) in his pronouncements after 9/11, they will turn their attention to our allies and near allies. it makes me ill every time i hear dubbya and his neocons spew that rhetoric about no attacks at home and claiming credit for that.

Looks like there is a line of connection between all this corruption scandal with perks to congress members leading to directed contracting with either sub-standard or no supplies, equiment, munitions (e.g. the contractors padding Cunningham's pockets). This is beyond cynical. This has direct consequences to our foreign policy (yeah.... strengthen only companies that lavishly pad congress members pockets) The Iraqis and for that matter the rest of the Middle East are not blind, are not stupid. They see all this going on. This ha direct consequences to our National Security. It's making us a debtor nation---- keep on borrowing. If that is not precarious, i don't know what is.

Steve, Bush doesn't give a damn about the American soldiers killed in Iraq, the displaced and demoralized people of New Orleans, or the dead coal miners in W VA.

He is a cold, selfish, ruthless sociopath, and we are stuck with him.

On the other hand, Steve notes that the President's office has offered up a timorous and halfhearted condemnation of Pat Robertson, which neatly repositions Bush as a 'reasonable and constructive guy'.

yes, it's the right question but, for god's sake, why the hell are we having to ask it in the first goddam place...? and why do ANY of those s.o.b.'s still have their jobs and why can't we get 'em out, like yesterday...?

http://takeitpersonally.blogspot.com/

Curious as to why Democratic senators are not making policital hay out of this. Any thoughts?

Seems to me that strong pro-vet stances would innoculate anti-war, pro-sound policy, and/or pro-civil liberties Dem nominees for POTUS, and alter the erroneous perception that Dems are weak on defense simply because they aren't for every reckless war that comes down the pike.

So, why haven't Feingold, Kohl, and other thoughtful Dems, who may or may not run for Prez, exploited this for max political gain? I use 'exploited' in the most positive sense of the word.

Wow - Susan' pretty harsh.

I think you should stop by my blog and read what Bush says to Bill Kristol in his chat.

Then you may think he is more or less harsh.

Steve- You may wish to check out the chart we have posted on our blog, called Metric 1965. It deals thematically with what you are saying.

Also, would like to know who you you think should play Kristol, McClellan, and Hitchens, when we go into production

OT:

CNN reporting that DeLay is stepping aside as Majority Leader.

I think, upon reflection, that this sort of thing is illustrative of the Administration's real attitude towards Iraq. The actual war is merely a sideshow. The real action is elsewhere.

This reminds me of the late phase of decaying empires, like the Byzantine, the Ottoman, the old Romans, the Tsarist Russians and others. Essentially, internal politics and graft took priority over dealing with real enemies.

So long as the enemy was only pretend, everything worked out fine. The Iraq insurgency, Al Quaeda, in terms of the real damage that they can do, are 'pretend' enemies.

Oh granted. American soldiers are dying in Iraq, tons of money is being spent there, Iraq civilians are getting caught in the crossfire. Al Quaeda has proven able to kill thousands of Americans and blow things up around the world. But let's face it... More people get killed in car accidents each year. More people die of inadequate medical care in America each year. The hardships and casualties inflicted are, in the minds of the people running things, entirely acceptable, and of no consequence in the greater scheme of things. Neither is an immediate threat to American global power, to the American economy, or to their own personal power within America.

So, they're acceptable 'pretend enemies' as they go about their real business, of graft, corruption and the steady accumulation of power on all fronts.

But what's the real agenda, the real target, the enemy they're really after?

It's very simple...

It's the American people. The war is on you. And you are losing.

Here's a quick thought.

The publication of the quadrennial defense review (QDR) is coming up in a couple months. Wouldn't this be a good time to connect defense contact corruption, to body armor incompetence, to our real national security planning.

We can't leave America's national security in the hands of these corrupt, incompetent Republicans.

After 9/11, we should have learned that submarines and fighter jets should no longer take such an overwhelmingly dominant role in our defense spending and planning. Rather, what's needed are small war, peacekeeping, and counterinsurgency equipment, along with human resources like language skills and additional special ops recruits.

Did 9/11 happen? Because these corrupt Republicans in Washington make it seem like nothing at all has changed. Maybe that's to protect their lobbyist buddies.

Curious as to why Democratic senators are not making policital hay out of this. Any thoughts?

Ans 1: Possibly because the Dems in the Congress and Senate are NOT hearing from their constituents.
**** REminder: write and call your Congressman and Senator to let them know your views, questions and positions.

Ans 2:Possibly because there's scant media coverage on these issues.

Sadly, the Democratic Congressional Leadership has never supported military reform. I is still dedicated to a bi-partisan concession-tending regime in which the GOP gets core participation and they get petty set-asides.

This is a very old, essentially post-Civil War problem.

There are is one old problem with this: It now provides for a high-level of expenditure but mostly on high-priced crap.

The other problem, since 1994, is that there is really no longer anything bi-partisan about all this crap.

So, the Democratic Leadership are now cowardly, as well as corrupt. They are ineffectual in opposition and remain unfit to govern. They will not be rewarded for the GOP incompetence and scandals they were complicit in and have no alternative to. Remember the "Ethics Truce" they are a party to.

They are, after all, still the Hold Harmless Democrats. They whine but the never cut anything and, with our growing debt burden, can do nothing about this or anything on the margin.

They have their paychecks, their generous retirements to look forward to, their personal staff, a full schedule of undemanding busywork. They find the extreme GOP rhetoric bothersome but they are uninterested in alternatives.

What the GOP is doing is crazy but makes sense to its adherents. What the Democrats are doing makes no sense to even its most loyal adherents, me, for instance, it is completely discounted by people disenchanted with the GOP but offered nothing otherwise but costumed leftists and a soft, lazy, useless center.

::JRBehrman

Josh,

The fact that this is the Marines is important. The Marines have vast procurment discretion and powers the other services lack. This would hardly be news if it was about the Army. But, it is news relative to the Marines.

There may be a new "Ill Wind" in this story.

::JRBehrman

It's the American people. The war is on you. And you are losing.

Posted by Den Valdron

Bingo.

This explains John Murtha's livid reactions to the entire mess.......he's actually been in situations where bullets whizzed by him frequently enough, unlike our civilian managers who supposedly protect us from overzealous military managers?

Explain this report to families of the National Reserve who've lost sons and who will now know that even if the Pentagon had sent these SAFER vests on time in larger numbers to American troops, THEIR sons would not have gotten them anyway.

If it is true that our Constitution protects this Pentagon from these criminal actions, then I want a new Constitution.

The Spec.Insp.Gen'l in Iraq has reported on related issues in their quarterly reports to Congress. It's about time this issue of the DoD incompetence gets much wider distribution.
This was part of the tack,although he focussed on it differently, that Murtha was addressing.
I have thought Mr. Rumsfeld should have been sacked long ago.

Sometimes I just run out of thoughts, words, feelings...HOW MUCH WORSE DOES "IT" - ALL of "IT" - have to get before we see something being done to STOP "IT"?

Where are our Congressional "Good Guys" of BOTH parties? Where HAVE "they" been? WHERE ARE "THEY" NOW?

Are "they" just so overwhelmed by all the CORRUPTION and DIRTY DEEDS - as I am and many of us are - that "they" hardly know which way to turn? But they are OUR LEADERS - THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO STOP THINGS LIKE THIS and all the other outrages.

I'm a "LIBERAL". I'm a 62 year old mother of three grown "children" and have always been a "LIBERAL. It just always made more SENSE to me - having a "LIBERAL" point of view.

I "think" it does to a lot of women, although I have never seen a poll taken - but when you bear a child, somehow you become more aware of LIFE, the MEANING and sanctity of LIFE. I'm NOT pushing an agenda...just making an observation of my own.

I realize what I said is a tremendously broad statement and not necessarily true across the board. However, it was for me, but I was one of those people who loved all living things way before I had kids anyway - so I probably would have been a "LIBERAL" - a BORN LIBERAL.

I had adapted a soldier last year until she finally got out of the Army. I saw no conflict in doing this BECAUSE I wanted to HELP these young guys & gals caught up in the the lies and duplicities of "THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF" and his Gang of Thugs.

What totally flabbergasted me, at the time, was a CRY for BOOTS at the web site where I adopted my GI! I didn't mind one bit but aren't Army Boots (you know the kind kids used to accuse your mother of wearing!) STANDARD ISSUE for the Military? BOOTS? And then there were the special "desert socks" - also something that these KIDS SHOULD have had - STANDARD ISSUE???

The BOOTS cost over $100 and the socks were costly too. What was happening to the boots they supposedly were given when bush sent them off to take all the WMD away from Saddam? This was not WWII - years into a South Sea Jungle war or marching in the permafrost of a European Campaign.

I remember my father coming back from the Pacific War after about 4 years with all kinds of military stuff INCLUDING BOOTS and socks, shirts, blankets...the list was endless and our family used it all the way up until I went off to college. Some of it is probably STILL around. That stuff never wore out.

WHY not enough DECENT VESTS? WHY NOT ENOUGH VESTS AT ALL?

80% of the DEATHS COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED - IF - our soldiers had had these KEVLAR VESTS.

I can't stand to read about that but I force myself because IF I hide my head in the sand because it hurts too much to know the truth - it will only get worse.

I don't know what to DO with this information. Where does one go to WAIL for all the LOST LIVES... I don't even know a soldier PERSONALLY who died but I WAIL for all those who did and ARE.

They are DYING FOR NOTHING except bush's huge ego and, of course, OIL. Just like Vietnam - OIL.

I think of Cindy Sheehan and other parents. Maybe Cindy and other's knew already about the 80% and the lack of vests. I hope they did because I can't imagine the horror of that information hitting them NOW.

I'm almost afraid to read the NEWS. One thing after another. Our great guys & gals in the military used for WHAT?

Coal miners used for PROFIT - regulations that COULD keep them SAFER being brushed off the table since G.W. swaggered his way into the W.H.

"Clean Air Initiatives" named DELIBERATELY to MISLEAD the American people into thinking our AIR is actually becoming CLEANER when the OPPOSITE is the TRUTH.

TAX breaks going to bush's Filthy Rich Good Ol' Boys - who DO EXACTLY WHAT for our country - while the rest of us slide down that slippery slope into oblivion. The List is endless...

I live in San Diego County and travel the 5 freeway. Yesterday as I went South I noticed huge TRASH HEAPS scattered here and there as I drove along. Those of us who are OLD ENOUGH remember the big CLEAN-UP Ads on TV in the 1970's. We had a CLEAN countryside THEN. Americans PAID ATTENTION. The Ads worked. We had LEADERSHIP who CARED. Now we live in a cesspool.

The TRASH is not new - I just happened to notice a huge INCREASE - I noticed THAT at the same time I noticed SUV Heaven. Here we are DYING for OIL (LITERALLY) and people are still buying huge BARGE CARS - that have been PROVEN NOT TO BE ANY SAFER.

Wouldn't you think, IF bush had to have his war...send our decent sons & daughters over to the land of OIL & dust, he'd ALSO roll out a CONSERVATION PROGRAM, after all - he's so conservative, is he NOT?

N O T H I N G - we hear N O T H I N G. When OIL was "supposedly" scarce in the 70's we had a HUGE OIL CONSERVATION PROGRAM. That was the BIRTH of the small CAR AND LOWER SPEED LIMIT. And guess what? We SAVED HUGE AMOUNTS OF gas & oil!
H U G E. Not only that - because the speed limit was LOWER - there were FEWER ROAD ACCIDENTS - FEWER DEATHS...

But WHY don't we do that now? If you can't even care enough to armor up your soldiers who are FIGHTING for YOU, then sure as HE__ you're not going to put tried and proven CONSERVATION methods into place to keep us SAFER by CONSUMING LESS NATURAL RESOURCES. BE A LITTLE MORE CAREFUL...

No instead go into Alaska, one of the few - if not the LAST, remaining place, of untouched beauty and natural resources - and RAPE IT like everything else. There isn't even enough oil in there to make a difference for ONE YEAR - but our "THINK NOTHING" Congress voted it in. Go in, disturb the whole ecosystem for less than a year's worth of OIL but ruin the place forever. Brilliant strategy - it's ALWAYS the way the guys in Washington have thought.

RAPE IT - TAKE IT and don't look back...only one problem, we are running out of space. In the days when men did that as a way of life - resources seemed endless. They weren't but it SEEMED like it because people hadn't been everywhere yet.

Well, NOW we have. We've even been to Space. We'd be RAPING Space off by now, if it had been easier but we will sooner or later. Hopefully we MIGHT LEARN something in the meantime about being CAREFUL USERS of "THE SUPPLIES".

That is something I can't get past with the so-called Evangelist Christians. I'm a Christian, myself, and we are called by God to be GOOD STEWARDS of the Earth's Resources. God almost WARNS us about it. He gives careful instructions on use of the soil and field rotation, etc.

God NEVER, at any time, even gives us a hint of OVERDOING IT or RAVAGING the land, seas, skies, forests - EVERYTHING belongs to Him - so WHERE this notion of OVERKILL comes from or ALLOWING IT in their Leaders - Government or otherwise - is a profound mystery to me. Do "they" just pick and choose what "they" FEEL like? It IS for our USE but that doesn't translate into ABUSE.

But I'm preaching to the choir here. Most of you already either know this and agree with me, if you are old enough or have read about these conservation measures and are PROGRESSIVE/Liberal ENOUGH to understand HOW this all works as it did, at one point, in the recent past.

I hope you neo-cons out there get a massive headache reading this. Because IT IS LOGICAL and it has worked before and who, in God's Name would ever want to deny our WARRIORS PROTECTION - especially when IT can be made so easily?

Someone earlier said it much more succinctly - bush Inc. doesn't care one bit about ANY of us. Use & Abuse and IF we are STUPID ENOUGH to keep getting pushed around and getting licked in the shins - then I guess we just keep getting "IT!

Of course, these blogs must be being monitored as well as the phones tapped, etc. or do you suppose, "they" have cut back on all that since that nefarious business came to the light of day?

It matters not to me. My poor name has been tossed around since my anti-Nuke Days 30 years ago. When I was told that my name was on a list, I was so shocked. I just didn't want a Nuke power plant in my backyard that was all but OTHER's saw my actions as so DANGEROUS - I HAD to be WATCHED!

So much for DEMOCRACY, Iraq - sorry that's what it's like, here anyway! A Commander in Chief who not only won't provide proper equipment for his military but sends them into harms way unprotected, this same Leader who trashes his citizens by lying and cheating them every chance he gets, this same person has many people working for him who are dangerous and cunning - this is all connected in the issue of not caring enough to provide enough vests for his YOUNG soldiers for a war he made up. If you (bush) would do such an awful thing, think what else he is capable is and he's already done it, doing it.

To go back to the beginning - I guess I said much more than I thought possible. I didn't think I had any words left - I was so sick at heart... I'm so sorry to have taken up so much space but I hope it touches one person.

There's nothing quite like going to fight a discretionary war without the necessary equipment to protect your troops.

And those of us who are against this war are criticized for not supporting the troops? We want them back home, alive and well with their families. Apparently the Pentagon doesn't care so much.

Pathetic!

Susan,

maybe you have,... but if not, put your heat on your Representatives and Senators in Congress. It is the constituents that put the fire under these folks.
At the Town Meeting that Moran held on Friday, with Murtha as guest, one of the things Moran suggested to the crowd (since a number of them were not in his district) .... Moran suggested
** write to your Representative
** write letters to the editor
** write to your Senator

Steve I usually agee with your insightful posts. However, we are way past where resignation of Rumsfled or any of this crowd will solve our problems.

Cheney and Rumsfeld have been "tinkering" with America's "National Security" for the last 35 years whether they are in government or out.

I have been spending some time researching the Constitution and the Federalist papers. It seems the only constitutional way to permanently FIX these and other problems is to IMPREACH and Prosecute. Only then can we be sure they will not be back.

80% of our best and brightest sacrificed for lack of equipment is, at a bare minimum, criminal negligence, if not out right manslaughter. Sorry, but for crimes of this magnitude, resignation would be a mere slap on the wrist.