PLEASE help me refute this Newsmax BS about troop armor.

[Shakespeare]

I know, I know...it's Newsmax. But I have a special interest in completely refuting this, as it was emailed via my sister from a former friend who has turned into a complete, knuckledragging, mouthbreathing wingnut. I will take great satisfaction in rubbing his face in it.

I know that the bit about the reporter coaching the soldier is wrong, but I don't remember details, and I also need specifics on why the question wasn't bogus. Many, many thanks for everyone's assistance. Here's a snip from the story:

Rumsfeld's Questioner Wrong About Unit's Armor

The reporter who managed to get a National Guardsman serving in Iraq to question Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about why his unit's vehicles lacked sufficient armor coached the soldier using false information.

In fact, by the time Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter Edward Lee Pitts rehearsed Spc. Thomas "Jerry" Wilson on what to say to Rumsfeld, the Pentagon had already up-armored 97 percent of the vehicles in Thomas' 278th Regimental Combat Team, senior members of the Army's combat systems development and acquisition team said Thursday.

Further undermining the premise of Pitts' question, orders to up-armor the last 20 of the 278th's 830 vehicles were already in the pipeline when he engineered the bogus inquiry.
According to the Maryville, Tenn., Daily Times - a rival to Pitts' paper - Army Maj. Gen. Stephen Speakes and Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson said during last week's Pentagon briefing that routine pre-deployment preparations before proceeding to Iraq included adding protective armor plates to the last 20 vehicles of the Tennessee-based 278th Regimental Combat Team's 830 vehicles.

more...

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/12/19/102144.shtml?j=670125

[Richardo]

1. Why did it take so long to reveal this little nugget?

Seems like they would have made that announcement immediately after the press conference, if true.

[underpants]

3. RW radio was on it real fast

I have no idea if it is true but I doubt that it is.

[sniffa]

2. just a friendLy heads up

prepare to get fLamed.

- this is fLawed; it's framed too much in their favor.

the onLy thing i'd say is: "so, the entire regiment was wrong as weLL, eh?"

[Shakespeare]

5. Yeah, I know that....

But a flippant answer won't do in this case.

[jdj]

22. try this. they were sent over there without armored vehicles.

that is all that matters.

Is the this admin trying to blame reporters for this? Is it saying the soldiers are whining? Is it saying the soldier's can't think up questions for themselves? Is it saying that the soldiers can't or shouldn't care about hundreds if not thousands injured because of lack of body armor and armored vehicles?

I don't think the "when" part matters. They sent them over there like sitting ducks because the boy genius said there would be no casualties. They need to grow up and stop trying to pin the blame on Kerry (for his no vote on the 87 Billion) or Edwards, or democrats, and now a freaking news reporter, that they put the soldiers in harms way. Not only did they not have an exit strategy, they didn't have ANY strategy at all, and soldiers have the right to ask questions about why their comrades got killed because of this.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

4. Well if you recall, Rummy made the statement

and even the company that outfits the humvees said they had their production line ready to make more but that they had not gotten the order. The Newsmax article is wrong...btw..you might ask your sis why her friend hates the troops and doesn't support them since they all cheered when the guardsman asked the question...I thought righties support the troops.....I guess that's only if the troops are supporting their boy king and dying rather than speaking out.

[Shakespeare]

8. Here's the fun part--he's a Navy officer.

And one who has no chance of being sent over to Iraq (he's in New Orleans), so it's easy for him to play armchair general.

[tanyev]

6. Does this help?

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1210armor10.html
Valley firm disputes Rumsfeld, is ready to supply Army armor

Joseph A. Reaves
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 10, 2004 12:00 AM

A Valley firm that provides critical armor for military vehicles in Iraq is operating at only half-capacity despite complaints from soldiers who say they are being sent into combat without adequate protection.

[Shakespeare]

9. THANK YOU!! Excellent link. n/t

[underpants]

7. If any of this was true why was the question so popular?

I also think this is a matter of degree

what exactly do they mean by "armored up"?

[Shakespeare]

12. Exactly my thoughts, too.

I thought I remembered somebody posting something a few weeks ago that refuted the BS about the reporter "coaching" the soldier. That's the bit of info I'd REALLY like to get.

[underpants]

13. Lou Dobbs paraphrased

the day after the question was asked and the shocking fact about the reporter being involved got all the way from Rush to CNN within an afternoon----~"Surely they are more worried about the troops being protected than about how the question came from".

Something like that. His own reporter was taken aback that this zinger really didn't mean a damned thing.

[meegbear]

10. 2 links ...

hope they help

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/12/10/us_stance_on_armor_disputed/
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=271083

[Shakespeare]

11. Beautiful. Thank you. n/t

[ConservativeDemocrat]

14. Ask this: Did the reporter COACH the spontaneous cheer?

Watch him squirm.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

(on edit: fixed grammar to account for gender, as follow-on stated)

[Shakespeare]

15. No, it's a "him." My sister's on MY side.

The guy is a passive-aggressive jerk. I haven't been in touch with him for YEARS, but she's still friendly with him. She forwarded him something political I'd sent her about a year ago, and he's had a hard-on to prove me wrong ever since.

He made the mistake of including me in one reply--after not so much as a "hello" for over 10 years--and proceeded to condescendingly tell me what a misguided liberal I was. I ripped him such an incredibly large new asshole (on both his bad manners and his freeper BS) that he has since avoided all contact with me, even by email. But he continues to send stuff to her, knowing that I'll get it and respond via her.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

17. So what 's your goal?

I've found that "ripping people new assholes" doesn't really convince anyone: it doesn't matter how right you are, changing minds involves changing emotions, and that doesn't happen in the presence of hostile argumentation.

So what does work? Questions. Hard, uncomfortable, questions. And facts, presented in an emotionally neutral dialog. Things like this:

Do you believe the 1200 American deaths in Iraq has made the U.S. any safer? If so, how?

Does the U.S. government waste money? If so, why do you believe the military is exempt from this?

If Presidents don't affect the economy, why do Republicans try to change economic policy at all?

Is the economy better under Bush than it was under Clinton?

Do you believe a half billion dollar deficit is good for the economy?

How about the plan to borrow a further two trillion dollars to try to "privatize" Social Security?

If retirees lose their privatized Social Security nest egg due to fraud, like what happened at Enron, should we allow them to starve?

If no, who will replace the money that has been stolen and wasted?

Are you aware that there have been 60,000 more abortions per year under Bush than Clinton?

Do you believe that if you keep birth control out of the hands of teenagers and just tell them not to have sex, they won't?

Try to think back. Did you?

- - - -

Of course, this takes a lot of effort, and it may not be worth it. Many are people are simply not savable. They're so wedded to their fantasies, that they're completely immune to any sort of reason. If you back them into a rhetorical corner, they simply stop talking.

People like to call these Republicans "idiots", but that's not really very descriptive. It's more that they're (poisoned) cool-aid drinkers, ala Jim Jones.

Republicans are full of them. But they've hardly got a monopoly. We've also got more than a few outspoken ones on the far-left side here in the D.U., too.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[Shakespeare]

19. My goal is to do what my sister requested, which is refute this story.

As I said in another post, the only time I've responded to him was when I got an unsolicited and extremely rude email from him.

My sister occasionally asks for my help in refuting things he sends her, and that's what I'm trying to do on this story. I've also suggested she ask him some of the same questions you ask above--the usual response, predictably, is either silence or a knee-jerk "that's just liberal media" cop-out.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

21. Great arguments..small correction (or big correction)

half TRILLION dollar deficit

[Kingshakabobo]

16. On a side note.....

Get a load of the advertisements on the website!!! They look the like ads in the back of porn magazines (or so I am told). Shows you the mentality they cater to.

Although......I am thinking of learning how to fight Israeli style.

:mad:

[mainer]

18. Guardsman denies that reporter coached him

NEW YORK In his first public account of last week’s controversy, Spc. Thomas Wilson says that he came up with the now famous armor question for Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld on his own, without the help of oft-criticized reporter Edward Lee Pitts. And he adds, "If this is my 15 minutes of fame, I hope it saves a life."

Wilson, who serves with Tennessee’s 278th Regiment in the National Guard, tells Time that he befriended Pitts, an embed for the Chattanooga Times Free Press, at California's Fort Irwin, where his unit trained. Later, in Kuwait, after Pitts learned that only soldiers could ask questions at the upcoming town hall meeting with Rumsfeld in Kuwait, he urged Wilson to come up with some "intelligent questions."

After his convoy arrived at Camp Arijan in Kuwait, Wilson found hundreds of fully armored vehicles promised to another unit months down the road. Wilson says he asked if the 278th could use them in the meantime, and was told no. That inspired his question about the shortage of armor, which he showed to Pitts.

The reporter, far from being the protagonist, suggested that he find “a less brash way of asking the question," but Wilson “told him no, that I wanted to make my point very clear."

Wilson says he also came up with three alternate questions on his own.



http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000739870

[Shakespeare]

20. You are my new best friend. THAT is the story I was looking for!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[jdj]

23. you can always count on there being gross mistruths in

stories from these sources.

It is so obvious that from these #'s quoted they think that this is acceptable, and it belies an appalling lack of concern for the lives of these soldiers.

Now? They are putting armor on them now?? Unfreakingbelievable.

They thought Iraqis had WMDs, yet somehow failed to guess that they might also have guns and bombs. There are no words...

If Bush had any cattle on that "ranch" of his, he might understand that armoring the vehicles NOW, almost 2 YEARS after the start of the war, is called closing the barn door after the cows get out.

We have 10,000 wounded...unbelievable.