If a majority of Americans truly supported our troops, they would be protesting the Bush regime's illegal, immoral, unprovoked and imperialistic invasion and occupation of Iraq in the streets like the people of Ukraine. If they truly gave a shit about our troops they certainly wouldn't have "re"-elected "war president" George W. Bush. The ugly fact is that a majority of Americans don't give a flying fuck about our troops -- as long as it's not their ass or the ass of a loved one that's on the line, they don't really care. The yellow-ribbon stickers and magnets that we're seeing on SUVs right now ring as hollow as the "United We Stand" stickers did three years ago in this bitterly divided nation of self-interested people.
If you support the Bush regime
or drive an SUV (or both),
you don't support our troops
The stickers and magnets depicting yellow ribbons are emerging on gas-guzzling SUVs just like the epidemic of "United We Stand" stickers that I witnessed some three years ago after Sept. 11, 2001. (Magnets this time because Americans worship their shiny gas-guzzling vehicles like the Iraelites worshipped the shiny golden calf, and they don't want to risk damage to the paintjobs on their golden calves.)
What's the take-home message of the yellow-ribbon magnets and stickers? "Support our troops in the Middle East so that I can continue to fuel my own personal Sherman tank"? Whenever I see a Hummer on the streets -- which is an increasingly common occurrence -- I know that I already detest the driver, whose attitude very apparently is Fuck the troops who are dying for our oil supply, fuck the ozone layer, fuck the other drivers, children and animals who are toast should I hit them while I'm distracted because I'm talking on my cell phone.
You cannot claim to "support our troops" when you are contributing to the problem of the United States' dependence upon Middle Eastern oil.
Few Americans who drive an SUV need to drive an SUV. And no one needs to drive a Humvee unless he or she is in Iraq.
Speaking of Humvees in Iraq, when Spc. Thomas Wilson, 31, of the Tennessee National Guard, asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Wednesday during a "town hall meeting" in an aircraft hangar at Camp Buehring in Kuwait why the troops are sent on missions in Iraq with inadequately armored vehicles, Rumsfeld claimed that production can't keep up with the need for armor.
"It’s essentially a matter of physics. It isn’t a matter of money. It isn’t a matter on the part of the Army of desire. It’s a matter of production and capability of doing it," Rumsfeld said, according to a Department of Defense transcript of the "town hall."
"President" Bush also claimed that his regime is doing the best it can to protect our troops in Iraq. The Associated Press quoted Bush as saying on Thursday:
"The concerns expressed are being addressed and that is -- we expect our troops to have the best possible equipment. If I were a soldier overseas wanting to defend my country, I'd want to ask the secretary of defense the same question. And that is, 'Are we getting the best we can get us?' And they deserve the best.
"And I have told many families I've met with, we're doing everything we possibly can to protect your loved ones in a mission which is vital and important. And that mission is to spread freedom and peace."
"But two companies under contract to the Pentagon said their offers to boost production [of armor] went unheeded," USA Today reported on Friday, revealing that:
• Former Republican congressman Matt Salmon of Arizona, a spokesman for ArmorWorks in Tempe, Ariz., said his company will finish a $30 million contract with the Pentagon this month to make 1,500 armor kits for Humvees. "We are at 50 percent capacity, and we could do a lot more," he said. "They are aware of it."
• Armor Holdings of Jacksonville told the Army last month it could add armor to as many as 550 trucks a month, up from 450, said Robert Mecredy of its aerospace and defense group. "We're prepared to build 50 to 100 vehicles more per month," he said.
Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said the Pentagon had no immediate response.
[Army Lt. Gen. Steven] Whitcomb said the military is about 2,000 short of having 8,100 heavily protected Humvees sought by commanders in Iraq but is adding about 400 a month.
Make no mistake about it: The reason that our military personnel in Iraq haven't had the armor they need is that the Bush regime considers them expendable. The members of the Bush regime have had other priorities ("re"-election/election-fixing; war profiteering; cooking up a rationale to invade the next member of the "Axis of Evil," probably Iran; etc.). Adequately protecting our troops hasn't even made the Top 10 of their to-do list.
Rumsfeld also so lovingly, caringly, empathetically stated during the town hall meeting in Kuwait on the topic of inadequately armored vehicles: "As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.... And if you think about it, you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up. And you can have an up-armored Humvee and it can be blown up."
Gee, do you think that Rumsfeld goes without anything, especially anything that protects his precious ass? And fuck, let's extend Rumsfeld's "logic": There's nothing that the United States could do in the event of an all-out nuclear attack upon it by, say, Russia and/or China. So why bother to have a military at all, then? Because, as I might rephrase Rumsfeld, "And if you think about it, we can have the strongest military in the world and we can still be nuked to atoms."
If you voted for George W. Bush on Nov. 2*, by extension you voted for Rumsfeld also. I bet that a solid majority of the asswipes who are displaying the yellow-ribbon magnets and stickers on their gas-guzzlers right now voted for Bush.
They voted for Bush because they're perfectly OK with blood for oil -- U.S. soldiers' blood for the gasoline for their gas-guzzling vehicles. Apparently they think that slapping a yellow-ribbon magnet or sticker on their gas-guzzler somehow absolves them of their guilt, that it somehow ameliorates the fact that it is because of their gluttony for gasoline that our soldiers are in the Middle East in the first place.
It does not.
Here is the portion of the Department of Defense's transcript of the "town hall meeting" in Kuwait on Wednesday that deals with the issue of (in)adequately armored vehicles for U.S. soldiers in Iraq (the individual asking the questions is Spc. Thomas Wilson of the Tennessee National Guard):
Q: Yes, Mr. Secretary. My question is more logistical. We’ve had troops in Iraq for coming up on three years and we’ve always staged here out of Kuwait. Now why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles, and why don’t we have those resources readily available to us?
[Applause]
SEC. RUMSFELD: I missed the first part of your question. And could you repeat it for me?
Q: Yes, Mr. Secretary. Our soldiers have been fighting in Iraq for coming up on three years. A lot of us are getting ready to move north [into Iraq] relatively soon. Our vehicles are not armored. We’re digging pieces of rusted scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass that’s already been shot up, dropped, busted, picking the best out of this scrap to put on our vehicles to take into combat. We do not have proper armament vehicles to carry with us north.
SEC. RUMSFELD: I talked to the General coming out here about the pace at which the vehicles are being armored. They have been brought from all over the world, wherever they’re not needed, to a place here where they are needed. I’m told that they are being – the Army is – I think it’s something like 400 a month are being done. And it’s essentially a matter of physics. It isn’t a matter of money. It isn’t a matter on the part of the Army of desire. It’s a matter of production and capability of doing it.
As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time. Since the Iraq conflict began, the Army has been pressing ahead to produce the armor necessary at a rate that they believe – it’s a greatly expanded rate from what existed previously, but a rate that they believe is the rate that is all that can be accomplished at this moment.
I can assure you that General Schoomaker and the leadership in the Army and certainly General Whitcomb are sensitive to the fact that not every vehicle has the degree of armor that would be desirable for it to have, but that they’re working at it at a good clip. It’s interesting; I’ve talked a great deal about this with a team of people who’ve been working on it hard at the Pentagon. And if you think about it, you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up. And you can have an up-armored humvee and it can be blown up. And you can go down and, the vehicle, the goal we have is to have as many of those vehicles as is humanly possible with the appropriate level of armor available for the troops. And that is what the Army has been working on.
And General Whitcomb, is there anything you’d want to add to that?
GEN. WHITCOMB: Nothing. [Laughter] Mr. Secretary, I’d be happy to. That is a focus on what we do here in Kuwait and what is done up in the theater, both in Iraq and also in Afghanistan. As the secretary has said, it’s not a matter of money or desire; it is a matter of the logistics of being able to produce it. The 699th, the team that we’ve got here in Kuwait has done [Cheers] a tremendous effort to take that steel that they have and cut it, prefab it and put it on vehicles. But there is nobody from the president on down that is not aware that this is a challenge for us and this is a desire for us to accomplish.
SEC. RUMSFELD: The other day, after there was a big threat alert in Washington, D.C. in connection with the elections, as I recall, I looked outside the Pentagon and there were six or eight up-armored Humvees. They’re not there anymore. [Cheers] [Applause] They’re en route out here, I can assure you. Next. Way in the back. Yes.
*One of the many reasons I voted for John Kerry on Nov. 2 is that I knew that our troops would most likely get home from Iraq more quickly under President Kerry than "President" Bush, and I knew that Kerry -- because he, unlike Bush and most of the other chickenhawks in his regime, has actually been in combat -- would not send our troops in harm's way unless it were absolutely necessary.
As Iraq posed no demonstrated threat to the United States or its allies before the Bush regime invaded it in March 2003, the Bush regime has put our troops in harm's way for no good reason (except for the war profiteering of Halliburton and other subsidiaries of BushCheneyCorp). To support the Bush regime is to support the unnecessary endangerment of our troops.
Not only would President Kerry never put our troops in harm's way unless absolutely necessary, he certainly wouldn't send them off to war without the life- and limb-saving equipment they need.
Again, if you voted for Bush on Nov. 2, there is no way you can claim that you support our troops.
4:51:15 PM 
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