Hindquarters: "Troops (should) protect themselves." GOP troop support!

[ProfessorPlum]

via Atrios, I found this:

http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=644

quote

The backstory: in late-March, Minnesota native Cpl. Travis Bruce was killed in Iraq “by a rocket-propelled grenade while standing watch on the roof of a Baghdad police station.” The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that Bruce had called his girlfriend the night before his death “and said that he was stationed on the rooftop and increasing the height of the sandbag barricade. ‘He said they didn’t have enough sandbags up there,’ she said softly.”

Based on this account, Sen. Dayton sent a letter to President Bush calling it “immoral for our command not to provide our soldiers with absolutely everything they need to give them maximum protection: body armor, armored vehicles, sandbags. ” Hinderaker had heard enough.

“First it was body armor, then armored vehicles,” Hinderaker complained. “Now it’s ‘immoral’ that our soldiers don’t have enough sandbags. Am I missing something, or is this ludicrous on its face? I can understand a soldier in Iraq being short of armor. But sand?” He continues: “It is up to soldiers in the field to protect themselves. If they want more sandbags, they should get more sandbags, as Cpl. Bruce apparently did.”

So, according to Hinderaker, the idea of a sandbag shortage is “ludicrous” and it’s Cpl. Bruce’s fault that he couldn’t get his hands on enough bags to save his life.

end quote

Way to support the troops, assrocket.

One commenter posted Orwell's quote about this: "One of the most horrible feature of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting."

Sorry for the cross post in GD, but no one there seems to care.

[MissWaverly]

1. this is a bizarro war

why should we have 13 million dollar drones for a war to be fought mostly in urban areas because this is a desert country, and we can't provide bags for the solders, to put sand in, what is wrong with this picture.

[JeebusB]

2. could be taken 2 ways

"‘He said they didn’t have enough sandbags up there,’ she said softly.”

Either they didn't have enough sandbags in Iraq, which seems unlikely, or they didn't have enough sandbags around that particular position. If it's the latter (which seems more likely) then it's the fault of the person(s) that constructed the barricade in the first place and those that allowed the condition to remain unchanged. From the minimal information provided in the quote, it sounds like they were working on strengthening their fortifications which seems to indicate that they had enough bags but needed to put them in place.

And it's a sizable supposition that more sandbags would have even helped in the first place. Given that the position was on the roof, it's entirely possible that the blast could have come through the ceiling of the room below - As in, the RPG was fired through a window on the top floor.

[ProfessorPlum]

3. I think the point was the conservative blogger's reaction

to the soldier's death.

In this case, the soldier died when an RPG hit a water tower above the station, and shrapnel from the tower killed him.

However, it is the soldier's perception that he didn't have what he needed to survive which is truly horrifying - that he didn't feel that he had been provided for.

You seem to think Assrocket's response is somehow humane or something. Or that Dayton's call for more supplies was way out of line. Either way, I don't get you.

[ET Awful]

4. Evidently this asshat doesn't realize that sand doesn't exactly stay

where you put it unless it's in bags. He seems to believe that sand can just magic itself up to the roof and form itself into a perfectly tight little mound that won't blow away at the first gust of wind.

What a fucking nimrod.

[adwon]

5. That guy is a moron

If I remember correctly, the sand in the area is not suitable for sandbags. It's too grainy. As a result, sand had to be imported during Desert Shield. And no, I'm not kidding. You'd think a wingnut would know that much.

If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me. This is just one of things that stuck in my mind.