Best trained, best equipped?

[Nym90]

By Mark Shields

WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) -- In the three years immediately after Pearl Harbor, the United States, a nation of 132 million people with a gross domestic product of less than $100 billion, produced the following to win World War II:


296,429 aircraft,


102,351 tanks,


87,620 warships,


372,431 artillery pieces and


2,455,694 trucks.

Compare those heroic achievements to the current, dismal supply record as the U.S. war in Iraq is fast approaching its third year and the United States, now a nation of nearly 300 million with defense spending in excess of half a trillion dollars:


Only 5,910 of the 19,584 Humvees U.S. troops in Iraq today depend upon are protected with factory-installed armor;


8,002 of the 9,128 medium and heavyweight trucks transporting soldiers and supplies in that war zone are without armor.

Because of the incompetence or indifference of this nation's civilian leadership of the war, Americans in Iraq are tonight living with an increased risk of death in Iraq.

All the official transcripts of White House signing ceremonies for every defense spending bill, all the presidential proclamations for Veterans Day and every prepared statement by the secretary of defense before a congressional committee include the same stock phrase.

U.S. troops are invariably referred to as "the best trained, best equipped" ever. Best equipped? To call today's American troops Iraq "best equipped" is more than a counterfeit exaggeration, it is bilge, baloney.

An America coming out of the Great Depression somehow found the leadership and the will to build and to deploy around the globe 2.5 million tanks in the same period of time that the incumbent American government has failed to get 30,000 fully armored vehicles to Iraq.

The Bush administration has appropriated $34.3 billion on a theoretical missile defense system -- which proved again this week to be an expensive dud in its first test in two years, when the "kill vehicle" never got off the ground to intercept the target missile carrying a " mock" bomb -- but has been able up to now, according to congressional budget authorities, to spend just $2 billion to armor the vehicles of Americans under fire.

Nobody has been more persistent in holding the Pentagon and the White House accountable than maverick Mississippi Democrat Rep. Gene Taylor, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee.

"When I visit Iraq," says Taylor, "I ride around in an armored vehicle, and I am sure the secretary (of defense) does, as well. That should be the single standard: If it is good enough for the big-shots, it is good enough for every American soldier."

The armor is truly a matter of life and death, as the Mississippi congressman explains: "Half of all our casualties, half of all our deaths and half of all our wounded are the direct result of improvised explosive devices [IEDs, or homemade bombs]." But when Washington officials visit Iraq, their traveling security includes not only heavily armored vehicles, but also radio-signal jammers, which can disable the IEDs.

What makes Taylor authentically angry is the inexcusable failure of the U.S. brass -- Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, he names -- to provide radio jammers (which cost $10,000 each) to the fewer than 30,000 U.S. military vehicles in Iraq.

How many U.S. vehicles are now equipped with jammers? The Pentagon insists the figure is classified. According to Taylor, the number is " miniscule." But because he is offended by visiting corporate CEOs and deputy assistant secretaries of weights and measures getting better protection than Marine lance corporals and Army privates, Taylor would not appreciate that funds for the jammers have probably already been dedicated to underwriting the next failed missile defense test.

"A jammer costs about $10,000, and it probably costs about $10,000 to bury a dead GI. I believe Americans would rather the spend the $10,000 to prevent the GI's funeral being held."

Gene Taylor is right. Every American has a moral obligation to make certain that the nation's troops are truly the world's " best equipped."

[Jake]

Okay, lets increase defense funding and build new factories and new equipment. I've been saying that for months.  To pay for it, chop off worthless trash like the Natl Endowment of the Arts, welfare, and federal education spending.  Problem solved.

[David S]

I have no argument with giving our troops the best equipment to protect their lives. But just to be fair, the huge production of military equipment you cited for WWII was funded with a gigantic increase in military spending.
Over 35% of GDP was funneled into the war effort. http://www.truthandpolitics.org/military-relative-size.php

[Akno21]

Okay, lets increase defense funding and build new factories and new equipment. I've been saying that for months.  To pay for it, chop off worthless trash like the Natl Endowment of the Arts, welfare, and federal education spending.  Problem solved.

Repeal the Bush tax cuts, and the people needed to make tanks would help the unemployment rate drop. Problem solved, and we can do that without neglecting our children. Remember, a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link.

[Akno21]

Okay, lets increase defense funding and build new factories and new equipment. I've been saying that for months.  To pay for it, chop off worthless trash like the Natl Endowment of the Arts, welfare, and federal education spending.  Problem solved.

What is it with you and hating programs that help people?

Note, I agree with you on the Natl Endowment of the Arts, at least as long as Lynne Cheney is the chair.

[Jake]

Okay, lets increase defense funding and build new factories and new equipment. I've been saying that for months.  To pay for it, chop off worthless trash like the Natl Endowment of the Arts, welfare, and federal education spending.  Problem solved.

Repeal the Bush tax cuts, and the people needed to make tanks would help the unemployment rate drop.

Exactly what does this mean?  I will take it to mean repealing the tax cuts would create workers out of thin air.

Removing Federal education spending puts education where it should be, under the STATES.

Okay, lets increase defense funding and build new factories and new equipment. I've been saying that for months.  To pay for it, chop off worthless trash like the Natl Endowment of the Arts, welfare, and federal education spending.  Problem solved.

What is it with you and hating programs that help people?

Note, I agree with you on the Natl Endowment of the Arts, at least as long as Lynne Cheney is the chair.

Welfare is a waste. Refprm is needed. If we're going to have it, we have to closely regulate it.  If you are on welfare and can work, you have to seek a job and hold a job.  If you don't, there is a one strike policy, screw up once you're gone.

The NEA is a waste. Art isn't going to fail if the government doesn't fund it.  There are enough liberals who can throw their own money at it.

[Akno21]

Okay, lets increase defense funding and build new factories and new equipment. I've been saying that for months.  To pay for it, chop off worthless trash like the Natl Endowment of the Arts, welfare, and federal education spending.  Problem solved.

Repeal the Bush tax cuts, and the people needed to make tanks would help the unemployment rate drop.

Exactly what does this mean?  I will take it to mean repealing the tax cuts would create workers out of thin air.

Removing Federal education spending puts education where it should be, under the STATES.

They were separate. If we open up tank making shops, more people can work. We may need to raise taxes to pay for the increased military spending.

How do you propose the states pay for it? It's the same cost, just shifted.

Okay, lets increase defense funding and build new factories and new equipment. I've been saying that for months.  To pay for it, chop off worthless trash like the Natl Endowment of the Arts, welfare, and federal education spending.  Problem solved.

What is it with you and hating programs that help people?

Note, I agree with you on the Natl Endowment of the Arts, at least as long as Lynne Cheney is the chair.

Welfare is a waste. Refprm is needed. If we're going to have it, we have to closely regulate it.  If you are on welfare and can work, you have to seek a job and hold a job.  If you don't, there is a one strike policy, screw up once you're gone.

The NEA is a waste. Art isn't going to fail if the government doesn't fund it.  There are enough liberals who can throw their own money at it.

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I agree reform is needed, but the way to fix welfare is to do everything we can to ensure people don't end up on welfare, by increasing the spending on education so they aren't ignorant and uncapable of working.

I agree, if the art can't sell by itself, it shouldn't be out there. Would cutting the NEA eliminate the Smithsonians?

[Jake]

They were separate. If we open up tank making shops, more people can work. We may need to raise taxes to pay for the increased military spending.

How do you propose the states pay for it? It's the same cost, just shifted.

Shifted onto the individual states which means my taxes are going towards my states education instead of Hawaii's or New york's.  Ideally it would be run from the local level.

I agree reform is needed, but the way to fix welfare is to do everything we can to ensure people don't end up on welfare, by increasing the spending on education so they aren't ignorant and uncapable of working.

Education spending can stay where it is now, but if improvements aren't made after, say, ten years, then we evaluate whether private run schools are better.

I agree, if the art can't sell by itself, it shouldn't be out there. Would cutting the NEA eliminate the Smithsonians?

I think the Smithsonians are mainly run from the man's contributions, but if not again, there are rich folks who would pay millions to be listed as a private sponsor.