(no subject)

[digitaldiscipline]

Monday, the Bush administration downplayed the threat posed by the missing explosives and tried to shift the responsibility for safeguarding them to the Iraqi military. White House spokesman Scott McClellan pointed to the "more than 243,000 [tons of] munitions" already destroyed by U.S. forces. "The sites now are really ... the responsibility of the Iraqi forces," he added.

What's left unstated here is the fact that the U.S. is supposed to have trained / be training the Iraquis. Or didn't you remember that little factoid, Mr. McClellan? It's part of those billions and billions of US citizens' tax dollars you're not spending at home, or putting towards balancing the budget, remember?

Out. Out of my (oval) office! I don't want to clean up all your lying, misleading detritus when we take the oath in January '09.

Asshats, begone!

Comments

[nancyblue.livejournal.com]

You mean the same Iraqi forces that have been completely infiltrated by insurgents? Gee, I feel so much better now!

Yeah, 340 tonnes of explosives don't just "go missing". Keys go missing.

It's blowing my freaking mind.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

The keys are probably under the couch or behind the telephone stand. I'm not sure how physically large 340 tons of *DX is, but I bet it's not the sort of thing you can, you know, inadvertently drop behind the fridge or something.

[nancyblue.livejournal.com]

Yeah, strikes me as slightly beyond "oops".

[theonebob.livejournal.com]

Even the Mord doesn't know where the keys are.

[gruamach.livejournal.com]

While not defending any person or the administration, I do feel the need to respond to this particular point:

What's left unstated here is the fact that the U.S. is supposed to have trained / be training the Iraquis. Or didn't you remember that little factoid, Mr. McClellan?

Dude, you have *NO* idea the dificulty of that task. Take the problems we have training our own troops (and police) and amplify them at least 100 fold. You can spend an entire week on just *ONE* simple task, give them just one day off, and you'll be starting all over again.
Plus, when they DO get out on the street, they almost never do anything! I'm serious. I've watched them all standing around their little police stations, have some shooting start up, and they just looked at us and then turned and walked inside.

It's really hard to put it into words, but I experienced some of these training efforts, and the people these poor trainers are working with. (I was offered the job at $130,000 a year...it's not worth it)

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Gru, you're absolutely right, I don't know how hard it is. It still floors me that you were over there.

But when W and his spin patrol make it a point of saying "We've got X Iraqi troops/police/national guard trained, and will have Y troops trained by Z date" to make themselves look good, to then turn around and denigrate those same folks when something that makes the administration look -bad- comes to light. . . they can't have it both ways. They either have to say "We're going to -try- and train these dipshits," or admit that their training thus far has been less than successful, and own up to the fact that maybe they should have had some well-trained personnel watching over the oh-so-'splody stuff so that it didn't grow legs.

The fact that there are reports that the Iraqi forces are riddled with folks playing for the other team is also not precisely reassuring. *sigh*

[gruamach.livejournal.com]

But when W and his spin patrol make it a point of saying "We've got X Iraqi troops/police/national guard trained, and will have Y troops trained by Z date" to make themselves look good, to then turn around and denigrate those same folks when something that makes the administration look -bad- comes to light.

Ok, this I will not disagree with at all. Course, my bitter cynical ass would expect *ANY* administration to do the exact same thing.

Make no mistake...I'm not a Bush supporter. But I'm no more so for Kerry, either. I have issues with both. I just don't like to see people's problems with one or a few of the top-level leaders get dumped down onto the grunts who're just trying to get impossible missions accomplished. *SIGH*