Shorter right-wing blogosphere: LALALALALALALALALALA!!  I can't HEEEEEEEEEAR YOUUUUUUU!!

Seriously, who's in denial now?

They are trying to make the point that, when it comes to military affairs in the real world, they are ignoramuses, just like their CIC, George W. Bush.  All of them think war is one big John Wayne movie.  "Bring 'em on!"

The other point they are trying to make, in their typical crypto-fascist style, is that any criticism of anything having to do with the military -- even criticism that says the military is being short changed -- is tantamount to treason and heedless of the sacrifice of our troops.

These self-proclaimed super-patriots are content to throw our youth onto a pyre for no reason, in Iraq, and then accuse others, loud and long, of failing to support our troops.  They are disgusting, not patriots, just disgusting.

Josh,

Your headline sounds like you expected the story to be false.

Just keep hoisting yourselves by your own petards, conservatives.

Remember: you are the party of the military. You are their protector.  You know everything about them through mental telepathy. Anything you ever say about them will be true, even if your statements contradict each other.

FUBAR. It often is. This is a pretty good knock on our provisioning practices. We'll get top people on this right away.

I just realized something.

That army captain is a traitor! We better find out who this guy is, before he can give more aid and comfort to the enemy.

I can't get enough of these guys.

"Well, captains command companies, not rifle platoons. A rifle platoon is normally commanded by a 2nd lieutenant, sometimes (if short handed) by a senior sergeant. So for starters, Obama betrays a woeful ignorance of military organization and the chain of command. Then he remarks that the platoon was under-strength because 15 of its men had been “sent to Iraq.” Sorry, the Army doesn’t work that way. Platoons are organic units, consisting of three rifle squads, a heavy weapons squad, and a headquarters section. You can't break it up."

www.weeklystandard.com/.../post_14.asp

Obama wouldn't open himself up to attack like this unless he was ready to fight that battle.  The Wingers are rabid about it, amazing.  But like the SCHIP fight, each time they discover information that backs up the story, there won't be retractions, but retrenchments: "This was 5 years ago", or "That Capt. should be talking to his chain of command", or "OK, so the anonymous Cpt backs this up, who is he?  Coward, won't use his name" (remind us of Beauchamp?) or "OK, the Capt said it, but did anyone fact check the capt and make sure it really happened?" and on and on.  It is an article of faith that anything that appears to point out the painful ridiculousness of this war MUST be false.

Fifty points from Slytherin for failing to beat down other side.

Now that the captain in question has confirmed Obama's anecdote, it turns out that it's not logically possible to confirm, because anyone who tries would be a lying commie:

"When a soldier, ESPECIALLY an officer, contacts an anti-war political campaign but refuses to be publicly identified I think there's a reason for that.

"The DOD, my husband in Baghdad, who is a subject matter expert in the GWOT, and every other soldier I've talked to said the story is incredibly suspect."

amyproctor.squarespace.com/.../soldier-refutes-obama-assertion-that-under-equipped-us-troop.html

Can we do away with the myth that the Republicans are the pro-military party? Their leaders and pundits typically have no military experience -- and the ones that do (Hagel, McCain) are generally considered heretics by the base. When veterans come out against the war, they attack them savagely, and the only time they seem to get up in arms is when an out-of-the-line-of-fire general, not a G.I. on the ground, gets attacked. They enjoy taunting vets who are Dems or heretics specifically on their military record or foreign policy (see Cleland = Osama). They treat returning veterans like shit, ignoring problems in Walter Reade, refusing to up benefits. Anytime a soldier acts like a complex human being rather than a cardboard G.I. Joe cut-out (Scott Beauchamp) they rip him to shreds. Look at one side and look at the other. Who put up two Vietnam veterans in a row (Gore was in 'Nam though I don't think he saw combat)? Who gets the most donations from the troops themselves (I believe it's Obama and Paul, a heretic if there ever was one in the GOP, at least on FP)? Who brings up veterans issues? Who has made a real effort to recruit and exhibit veterans on the campaign trail, and running for office?

Republicans are the party of businessmen. Remember the consternation when McCain used his "for patriotism, not for profit" line? I don't think this is even a Michael Moore-esque contrarian position any more.

Look at how Obama & Hillary were all over including ROTC on campus in a recent debate. Democrats are seeking to make veterans & even soldiers a vital part of their coalition. God bless them for it, and they may be succeeding.

To paraphrase Kanye West, the GOP doesn't like veterans, or even soldiers.

Though I should add that their position on Iraq is too simplistic and has too much of a ring of defeatism (no matter how they try to sell it) for them to go all the way with the "bring troops into the party" drive.

Makes me wonder. We've been fighting one of our two current wars for more than six years, the other for five. We whupped the Confederate traitors in four years, and both the Nazi and Japanese fascists in barely over three. Yet we haven't won either of our current wars.

So what exactly is the conservative explanation for why they aren't winning their pretty little wars? It's not because it's hard to fight two wars at once, because of course that's absurd and the CIC would never risk victory against the Taliban to fight Saddam. It's not because there aren't enough toops to go around, and it's not because they don't have enough equipment, because of course that's absurd and conservatives would never let the military starve on their watch. And it's not because of the military or political leaderships have made bad decisions, because the generals are brilliant heroes whose word is holy writ and the political leadership is made up of conservative true believers who are all military geniuses of Clausewitzean intellect.

So that pretty much leaves the enlisted soldiery to take the blame, doesn't it? If you're a conservative, we must be losing because the soldiers (and junior officers) are cowards and traitors.

They won't be doing this when General Clark is on the ticket.  Clark has been firmly in Hillary's camp for years and was her presumptive running mate, probably picked 3 years ago, but I wonder if Obama would think about recruiting him onto his ticket.

If Obama were clever about this, he'd neutralize the cut-and-run charge by scrapping the word "withdrawal" and using "redeploy" instead-- maybe a pledge to shift soldiers from Iraq _to Afghanistan_ so that we can avoid losing that war-- the good war, remember?

Also, didn't Gore have more money allocated for defense in his 2000 prospective budget?

Clark is an incompetent politician. Obama should get someone like Edwards, who can carry the Democratic party for another eight years.

Check out the "Free Republic" talkback section. Then this one. Compare and contrast.

The great and wonderful prize -- and the most difficult task -- is to kill the meme of the Republicans as the party of "national security" and make sure it doesn't get up.  Any party that lives in a world of self-delusion is ultimately -- and that doesn't necessarily mean tomorrow -- going to make itself superfluous to requirements.  The Republicans cannot articulate a strategic/FP program for the 21st century because they have zero idea about how the global politics of the 21st century will operate and no idea how to restore America's relationship with the world in a situation where we have lost credibility and leadership vibes.

Or for that matter Jake Tapper's talkback.

Personal favorites:

"Only liberal brainless cum would not realize that the information this dumbbell captain released was used by the enemy to cause more Americans to die"

and

"Jake Tapper let us know that Captain's name that revealed this SECRET information to the enemy. He should be put up on charges of TREASON, and if found guilty suffer the fullest penalty allowable by law."

The latter by Southern Hitch (I'm picturing Christopher Hitchens on a front-porch in a rocking chair, dressed all in white with a Col. Sanders beard, cradling a shotgun in his lap as he scowls and spits into a spittoon decorated with Mother Teresa's visage).

"This set the conservative blogosphere in a tizzy"

Well of course it did.  What other group of knee-jerk jackasses think they're the He-man heroes of the universe?

teplukhin2you

Now that you mention it, I recall that he was doing that back in Iowa. I suppose he shifted for the primary and will therefore pivot back.

One of the realities of US troop weaponry, is that the AR-15 is an inferior weapon in a desert and mountain environment where you are often engaging your enemies at longer ranges.  The Kalashnikov AK-47 class of weaponry fire a larger heavier 7.62 x 39 round that carries better over distance.  It's very effective at 300 m and beyond in the hands of someone who knows how to use one, while the U. S. 223 (5.56x45mm) is much less so, though it is arguably a better round for close up fast work, at ranges under 200 m., the AR-15  is also significantly lighter which matters a great deal when you're humping through the mountains all day. The army is actually considering converting over to a larger round that is very similar to what the AK-47 fires as a result of our experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Also the AR-15 needs to be kept perfectly clean, and does not respond well to sandy dirty environments.  It's better than it once was during the Vietnam era, but you can bury a Kalashnikov in the sand, dig it up and immediately start firing without any problem.  Try that with an AR-15 and you'll wind up with a jammed weapon after two or three rounds.

If I were a US soldier in Afghanistan, I'd immediately swapped my army issue carbine for a modern lightweight Kalashnikov, or even better an Israeli Galil in 308 (7.62x51mm) (world.guns.ru/.../as23-e.htm) a far superior weapon in my opinion, especially for adverse mountainous environments. If I could get away with it.  :-)

"Jake Tapper let us know that Captain's name that revealed this SECRET information to the enemy. He should be put up on charges of TREASON, and if found guilty suffer the fullest penalty allowable by law."

hahahahahaha....are these guys conservatives, or do they just parody conservatives on the blogosphere?

A cursory glance on right-wing blogs shows the attack on Obama is gathering steam and it all centers around hooking up to the very hard-core left that his campaign has sought to overcome with its post-baby boomer, post-racial vibe. On a number of fronts, all pretty weak: Michelle's comments (and now her Princeton thesis, about - horror of horrors - feeling out of place as a black person in America), Obama's "mentor" being a Communist poet, Obama's very tenuous ties to Bill Ayers of Weather Underground fame.

Actually I'm somewhat relieved; though I'm sure they'll come up with worse, I doubt this "Obama's a red-diaper baby" meme will stick. (Incidentally, I give Lisa Schiffen credit for rebuking the nastier implications of her rancid post the other day, see here: corner.nationalreview.com/post

If conservatives are the protectors of the military, then are they also the protector of the precious gays?

www.theonion.com/.../gays_too_precious_to_risk_in

AaronBBrown says:  "if I were a US soldier in Afghanistan, I'd immediately swapped my army issue carbine for a modern lightweight Kalashnikov, or even better an Israeli Galil in 308 (7.62x51mm) (world.guns.ru/.../as23-e.htm) a far superior weapon in my opinion, especially for adverse mountainous environments. If I could get away with it."

Sounds like a convincing argument.  The only nasty thought that occurs to me is this:  if the Russians had the better weapon for relatively close-quarter combat, and ours is not as effective, and the Soviets got hammered and harried into retreat over 10 years, how do we look after six years of partial peace and limited conflict.  Not that there's any real direct parallel, as there's simply no equivalence to be drawn between U.S. forces and a late-80s Soviet military dogged by authoritarian brutality and gross failures of command and logistics, but nonetheless . . .

We're not in a major conflict in Afghanistan, but rather a set of regional sub-conflicts connected to a larger war on terrorism that is complicated on the ground by the current dynamics in Pakistan and the nature of the territory.  If that changes for the worse, we may have problems that will confront Obama (or whomever) with an early test of the "Afghanistan/Al Qaeda is the real war" theory.

this is all so stupid.  This nation fought in multiple theaters in WW2.  Europe, North Africa, the Pacific.  We had troops, ships, and aircraft deployed from the Aleutians to the South Pacific to Italy, across the top of Africa, throughout the British Isles, and from France, ultimately into Germany and Japan.

All that when our economy was 30% of what it is now and our population less than 40% of today's.

Don't tell me we don't have the resources to deal with Afghanistan and Iraq at the same time.  It's just a moronic clain.

Why does everyone love the word "meme" at TNR?  I never see it anywhere else.  Is this some sort of showoff word in academia?

Chan:  We also had a substantial draft in operation and a war economy in which almost all significant industrial sectors were designed to contribute first and foremost to the war effort.  Significant government control of manpower deployment, media, and other key areas of national life was functioning and broadly accepted.

I didn't introduce the term "moronic" but, you know, certain blustery and shoot-from-the-hip comparisons between WW2 and now . . . .

ChanRobt,

Come on, you can't really compare the two. In WWII, the entire nation was mobilized, auto factories started pumping out planes and tanks, there was rationing and an actual "war effort" on the "homefront", not to mention a draft to make sure we weren't undermanned! The point is that Bush chose to fight two wars (and "chose" is the correct war since prior to his administration beating the war drums, no one outside of the neocons was calling for an imminent invasion of Iraq) without asking the country to make any sacrifice, and it puts the lie to all his superpatriotic, pro-military rhetoric.

As for "meme" I never saw it until I came to this site either, but it's pretty catchy.

Yep, I love the argument that a Capt would not command a platoon (turns out he was a Lt. then!), oh, well this honorable soldier who has been deployed in Iraq is a lying traitor then (even though he apparently got promoted!).  Soldiers are honorable until they say start talking about what's really going on...

Or, as John Cole put it:

   "Now granted, Phil Carter has some military knowledge, so I would take this a grain of salt when you compare it to the vault of information these bloggers have procured over a lifetime of arranging GI Joe dolls while watching betamax copies of Uncommon Valor in the basement apartment they rent from their parents. I know it is a tough call, but I am gonna go with Obama, Tapper, and Phil Carter on this."

AaronBBrown,

I generally only shoot single-action firearms -- kind of an aesthetic thing. But my impression from talking with guys at the range is that the closer-fitting manufacturing tolerances make American combat rifles like the M-16 and its successor the M-4 both more accurate and dependable for engagements at distance and also more likely to fail during normal use, especially in desert or dry mountainous conditions, than the Kalashnikov family. Using the M-4 as a single-shot or short-burst weapon is said to reduce the chance of jamming, and better suits American training to fire aimed shots. The Kalashnikov would be preferred for medium-term reliability in conditions that don't allow clean disassembly, and its looser manufacturing tolerances make it more useful in closer engagements.

Just secondhand impressions I've gleaned, though. Care to set me straight on any of the above?

Also, stories of American soldiers ditching their tightly manufactured, easily jammed weapons for found or captured Kalashnikovs go back to Korea and every war since. Don't know how often it actually happens, but in my experience every combat veteran can tell some variation on the "our rifles were jamming, so we picked up Charlie's AKs and used them" story.

What is so funny is how the conservative blogs all contain comments to the effect "if this were true, it would be a huge scandal, but it's not." Well, now that it is looking more and more true, are conservatives going to raise Hell?

Also, it seems that we're still issuing 9mm sidearms from the Beretta family (the M-9) instead of .45 ACP sidearms from the 1911 family. Talk about giving soldiers the wrong equipment for the job at hand. The 1911 was developed with the lessons of close-quarters counterinsurgency in mind following the Philippines War. I know Marines who have been able to get away with ditching issued 9mm pistols for purchased .45 ACP 1911s or Heckler & Koch USPs, but as far as I know the Army allows no such leeway.

There's just a lot of bad equipment decisions going on in the military. That's always the case, but it's the kind of thing that any opposition party ought to harp on constantly. For one thing, it's good for the military to have politicians pressuring for better weapons decisions, because the institutional inertia is always against innovation. For another, it hits straight at the governing party's credibility on security.

I would love it if Barack posted something like the following to the standard or review:

I know there's been a lot of controversy about comments I made, etc

I heard AND BELIEVED this story from a serving officer in our military who had been deployed to combat.  I have no reason NOT to believe a uniformed member of our armed services.

However, knowing the turmoil this might cause, I contacted another member of his platoon to check out the story details and it was confirmed.  I also checked his deployment order and noted they were deployed at reduced strength as the Capt (who was a Lt. at the time) had indicated.

I bring this story up not to disparage the best efforts of our uniformed services, but to point out the costs we've imposed on these fine men and women because of our ill-advised fighting of multiple protracted wars, one of which I strongly opposed.  However, I SUPPORT increased troop strength, in public, and would continue to strengthen our armed services for the continued battle against terrorism as their CiC.  What I find inexcusable is the performance of this CiC in pushing our military beyond its capabilities because of political calculations.  If we did not have the troops or equipment to fight this war, then it is the CiC's JOB to put those resources in place before battle.  That is how I at least would approach the responsibility.

I'm sure he could come up with better words, but can you imagine the impact if that just dropped in the middle of the Standard or Review hyperventilation about this?

irony, "moronic" wasn't meant as a personal aspersion, but I ought to have been more careful.  I apologize.

Yes, I am well aware that the nation and its industries were fully mobilized in WW2 and that we had a draft.

But WW2 was also a war on an enormously larger scale than this one.  Even with two theaters.  We do, after all, have a military that was designed to fight two large wars at the same time, against a Soviet Union and a something else that might come up.

My real point is, that compared to other wars in which we have been involved in our lifetimes, or not long before, whether WW2, Korea, or Vietnam, the scales of operation were much larger, the enemy formally organized and state backed.  

We are more than capable of handling Afghanistan and Iraq without WW2 style, or Korea style, or Vietnam style mobilization.

And by the way, where the f***k are the Europeans in Afghanistan.  Supposedly everyone agrees that our intervention there was fully justified.  And that European interests are as fully involved in Afghanistan as are ours.

But, Europe, in its typically cowardly fashion is not contributing its weight in either material or manpower.  They pick and choose which part of the country they will fight in, if fight they do at all.

With there being talk of the Euro taking over as the prime world currency (which with their Muslim problems, I doubt) let them start paying some bills, at least.  

We probably can't expect much from their "men".

Chan, I fully agree with you that there needs to me a more engaged European commitment to getting Afghanistan right.  However, it's not entirely the fault of the other NATO countries (including, substantially, Canada) that the operation has not worked out well.  It's also the fault of this administration which has seemingly lost all ability to forge an intelligent strategic policy for multilateral military/civil intervention in crisis areas.  A whole mix of things, from the restriction of the UN mandate to Kabul to the dithering about disarming the Northern Alliance to the fumbling over Al Queda, played a negative role.  Another problem is that European countries are democratic too, same as us, and at some point governments have to answer the question from their electorates, why are we there?  And if the answer is, we came to the aid of the U.S. as NATO partners responding to an attack on another member, somebody's going to say OK, but when is this thing going to end?  Even sympathetic European governments have to point to a prospective conclusion to the mission.

However, the question of fighting two wars interests me, as I just don't see how the WW2 comparison works except to somewhat undermine your basic argument.  If the Army and the USMC have, between them, around 700,000 (I'm willing to be corrected on the numbers), and the number of troops in Iraq at any given moment (post-surge) is about 140,000, then one can assume that an ongoing operation will have roughtly the same number of troops within a few months of returning from Iraq and a substantial number who are going to Iraq in the coming 12 months.  Assuming around 100,000 in each pre- and post-deployment status, added together that means that around 350,000 troops are involved in the Iraq mission.

Which leaves around 350,000 for another theater.  There are however other commitments around the world, in Europe and Korea for example, that eat up some of that number.  There are also training and equipment bottlenecks that affect deployability -- and indeed the relative suitability and availability of occupational specializations can have an effect too.  A sudden major crisis tomorrow that needed large numbers of U.S. troops on the ground would be a potential manpower catastrope.  As somebody said on tv a while ago (Bill Odom, maybe?) the U.S. has generally fought short wars with a draft and increased taxation to drum up the resources to win them quickly.  This might be the first time in which an administration has wanted to fight a short war (or wars) with no draft and cutting taxes, and when the short war turns into a long one, carries blithely on in the same mode.

To put this simply, to assert that the armed services are in the position to fight two wars simultaneously on the basis of an equivalence between now and WW2 is to ignore the fact that the crucial elements of WW2 (total war economy, draft, taxation, govt control of media, broad international coaliition under American leadership, socially progressive and internationalist goals, etc) are utter anathema to the Republican Party of the present day -- except possibly the desire to control the media.  Your point about the scale of WW2 is well-taken, but you're forgetting that for the U.S. the war began in 12/41 and ended in 8/45, three years and eight months later.  The larger geographic scale was balanced out by a shorter time scale.  We are coming up to the five-year mark in Iraq now.  We also knew back then with whom we were at war, and had a pretty good idea what would constitute victory, and how we would handle the post-war world.  None of that obtains at present, I'm afraid.

Expect any anecdote you tell to be tested and retested, especially if you are a politician. Barrack Obama is a storyteller par excellence and so when he recounts a story you can bet there is an army of doubters checking...