Not sure if you have paid attention, but a remote outpost in Afghanistan was assaulted this weekend by Taliban forces, and they breached the perimeter and killed a bunch of our guys. This write-up at CNN sounds like something out of Platoon or We Were Soldiers Once and Young:
The battle Saturday in which eight U.S. troops were killed was so fierce that, at one point, U.S. forces had to fall back as attackers breached the perimeter of their base, a U.S. military official with knowledge of the latest intelligence reports on the incident said.
***The United States now believes that about 200 insurgents — mostly local fighters, with some Taliban organizers and leaders — had been planning the attack for days, hiding mortars, rockets and heavy machine guns in the mountains. Sources said the Taliban may have been watching the troops make preparations to depart and launched their attack at a time of vulnerability.
The Taliban were able to use their higher positions to fire into the base, pinning down the troops. As the attack progressed, the troops were forced back when enemy fighters managed to breach the outer perimeter of the outpost, the source said.
The story itself is disturbing enough, but then in the comments here there is a link to this website, soliciting donations to replace the… SOCKS AND BALACLAVAS for these guys.
You have got to be shitting me. What exactly is going on in this damned country? This can not be for real. We have two damned wars running, spend over a half a trillion annually on defense, and that is before the supplemental bills for hundreds of billions every year, and we need to pass the fucking hat to buy our troops socks? Seriously. What is going on? I’m seriously about to blow a damned gasket. I bet the lads working for Xe/Blackwater don’t need donations for socks.
Christ on a crutch. This country is just completely screwed. Please tell me this is a hoax or a misunderstanding and our soldiers aren’t relying on donations so they don’t freeze to death in Afghanistan.
Emma
Well, not so long ago we were asked to help buy body armor for them, so socks and balaclavas are an improvement, I suppose.
snailbiscuits
They should not need donations, but at these remote outposts I am sure it is pretty difficult to get resupplied. In the downrange locations the Army has a program called ADO, Army Direct Ordering where the supply sergeant for the Company can go online and order socks, boots, and new uniforms for their soldiers. I used this program pretty extensively during my 15 months in Iraq.
Ajay
Why are you surprised? These wars are for pure American capitalists and no one else.
We are doing nothing over in Iraq and Afghanistan other than making enemies and giving money to mercenaries.
Omnes Omnibus
When I was in the Army, a good portion of the equipment I carried was privately purchased ( better boots, thermal underwear, decent socks, etc.). My guess is that these soldiers are being reissued standard TA-50 and uniforms, but are asking for donations to replace the privately purchased gear.
noncarborundum
Another case where private charity is preferable to government handouts. [/snark]
Comrade Dread
Socks aren’t as glamorous and lucrative a trade as unnecessary F-22 stealth fighters and stealth destroyers that have no missile defenses, John.
Lupin
Wake me up when Obama wanders the WH shouting “Give me back my legions!”
Xecky Gilchrist
Please tell me this is a hoax or a misunderstanding and our soldiers aren’t relying on donations so they don’t freeze to death in Afghanistan.
I wish I could. This is another huge shoe that has to drop in the USA – where exactly the mountains of cash nominally for “defense” actually go.
General Winfield Stuck
Unfortunately it is very real. I was looking at some pics of this outpost and could not believe the stupidity of putting it in such rugged terrain with higher peaks surrounding it. I was just a Spec 4 but would’ve known this was like painting a big bullseye on these troops. Reminded me of the idiot French building Dien Bien Phu in a valley surrounded by mountains, like shooting ducks in a pond.
And yes, this country is fucked to the hilt. There were a lot of problems, but the Bushies seem to have fucked up every possible thing they could have, and to the max. I’d say it’s no more, and likely less than 50/50 odds they can be unfucked in the next decade, if ever.
Ash Can
Ike had it right.
(You didn’t think “supporting the troops” meant supporting the troops, did you?)
trollhattan
When I read the early accounts from last weekend I couldn’t help thinking “mini-Tet.” We’re so screwed there–we can’t control it yet it’s risky to leave. I sure hope we’re properly supplying and far more importantly, properly placing and directing our troops. When you look at a map showing who controls what bits of the country it’s hard not to think it’s already a done deal.
In the meantime we have wingers mewling that insufficient F22s will leave us vulnerable to aerial domination by…uh…somebody with a really sophisticated air force. Ya know, Air Queda or somesuch. At something like three per billion that’s an expensive imaginary war considering we have two very real ones going on.
Keith
I wonder how many soldiers are gonna wind up getting care packages filled with baklava.
Ron Beasley
You are finally beginning to see that this country is not a Democracy but a Corporatocracy. Comrade Dread is right:
Violet
@snailbiscuits:
If resupply is so difficult, why would private donations have a better chance of getting there? Is it the supply that’s the problem, or the getting the supply to them that’s the problem?
In any case, it’s horrible that they have to get people to donate basic supplies. Where is our money going?
Brick Oven Bill
The face of the person hosting the collection is blurred out, but this person is wearing a skirt, and wearing a helmet. Therefore I conclude that this is a female with a relative in harms way. It is her nature to try to nurture her loved one as best she can, from the distance she is at. This is her outlet.
The most likely reality is that the supply officer will get the soldiers socks and pillows long before this well-meaning lady will. Good for her for trying to help though. It will make the guys feel better after the traumatic event they just went through.
We have no business having troops on the ground in Afghanistan. Either ban political Islam and install and support a dictator, or just get out. The mission makes no sense.
Jager
My nieghbor’s son is in the 173rd Airborne, he has been in Iraq, is now back in Italy and is headed for Afganistan next month. It will soon be winter there and it gets damn cold in the mountains along the Pakistan border. Standard Army issue gear is “all purpose”, worthless in the mountains. So he loaded up on on mountaineering underwear, thermal socks, fleece, mountain gloves, etc. This kid spent probably $500.00 at the climbing store. He told me he has invested all kinds of personal gear in the three years he has been in the Army, everything from flashlights to rifle slings. He has invested well over 2k in gear since he has been in the Army. Think of it this way, 40 guys in his platoon times 2k, 80 grand for one basic building block unit in the Army…I would think we could afford to buy them proper personal gear. He shrugs it off as “part of the deal”… he is a damn good kid, a 20 year old corporal, smart and tough as hell. I’m proud to know him!
SpotWeld
B.O.B.
Shut up. If there ever was a post where your buffoonery was not wanted it’s probably this one.
No more BOB posts on this thread, take it elsewhere.
Ash
All (or a large majority I guess) of these donations for equipment (body armor, socks, etc) go toward buying those things privately. I’m pretty sure there’s not a sock shortage or anything. They just don’t have those really comfy kinds that are made of wool/silk blend. Those are the best.
Eric
A quick glance at Wal-Mart’s site shows that for the price of one stealth bomber we could give every single NATO soldier in Afghanistan 24,566 pairs of Hanes Cushioned Crew Socks.
But then we couldn’t nuke the Chinese, who actually paid for our B-2s with all the government debt they’ve bought.
So, uhh…Amurica, fuck yeah!
scav
maybe the Sock money went to shoring up Goldman bonuses. Jesus I miss logic applied empirically to the physical world.
slag
Yes. And our schools have fund drives in order to purchase books. Welcome to the land that libertarianism built.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
How is it possible that we haven’t caught Osama Bin Laden yet?
The Moar You Know
@Brick Oven Bill: For the first time ever, BoB, I agree with you. 100%. This mission makes no sense whatsoever, and all we’re doing there is getting Americans killed. Get ’em out. Now.
soonergrunt
I wouldn’t send anything through that website. I’ve never heard of that person.
Look, here’s the deal–
That unit has been withdrawn–after that many casualties, it’s combat ineffective. Once withdrawn, they will most likely go to the base at Jalalabad. It’s a Brigade HQ, a Battalion of Infantry, some engineers, an airfield, and so on. There’s about 1500 troops there. They will be resupplied with socks, sleeping gear, uniforms, equipment, and so on.
I spent over 14 months in that region of Afghanistan. We used to stop at J-bad all the time to rearm/refuel.
I don’t know specifically what unit was hit in this action, but if you want to help these guys out specifically, find their point of contact on http://www.anysoldier.com/ and work through them.
Most of the things these guys will need that the supply system won’t give them will be extra socks and t-shirts above the standard issue, and personal gear, such as MP3 players and so on.
AAFES Gift Cards are the best gifts, as they are portable, flexible, and one size fits all.
slag
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
No profit in it.
El Cid
The history books have lots of neat examples of when British or French colonialist forces were suffering quite serious attacks from the natives resistance whom they were assured would fold quite quickly, and how the troops on the ground got into quite desperate circumstances while the private interests and that day’s contractors were profiting handsomely from the colonialist government’s largesse.
But reading stuff like that instead of inspiring stories of how those Brits won handily against the Mau Mau and in Malaya makes you an evil hippie.
matoko_chan
I know you guys don’t like me talking about the bellcurve of IQ…but….for the past 40 years this country’s foreign policy has been wholly shaped by by the leftside of the bellcurve.
That is why we went into Iraq, why we went into AfPak, why we designed a soft target in the mountains, why nearly 5000 american troops have died in Iraq for nothing, and why hundreds of thousands of MENA civilians have died.
It is because Evangelical Christian is synomynous for Meddling Retard.
scav
I’m holding my breath for BoB’s militant support for banning political Xtianity. Granted, I’ve just been searching for a sure-fire means of committing suicide today and somebody’s gone off and padded my cube.
donovong
I am reminded of the M*A*S*H episode when they are freezing their asses off and receive a shipment of something like badminton supplies instead of warm clothing.
I can attest to the fact that there were similar issues when I was in the USAF in the 70’s.
Some things never change.
Slugger
Twenty years ago the Soviet Union had around 100,000 soldiers in Afghanistan. They got beat. What did they do wrong? What are we doing differently?
Ash Can
The Afghanistan mission made all the sense in the world right after 9/11, but thanks to the incompetence of the Bush Misadministration (motto: “There ain’t nothin’ we can’t fuck up”), it tailed off into failure after a promising start. Now that the military’s a smouldering wreck, who knows whether even partial success is possible?
snailbiscuits
@ Violet
I think the problem is getting the supplies to the guys in these remote places. Most of the time they can only be resupplied by air. I am not sure why they would need to have socks and small items donated. The ADO program that I was talking about sends all orders priority mail directly to the unit. We would start getting orders 2 or 3 days after placing them into the system.
IndieTarheel
@slag: Also, we’re eight years behind in having someone in charge who, you know, would actually be interested in it happening.
matoko_chan
soonergrunt,
my friend that is postbacc in psych says 75% of american soldiers returning from combat have PTSD, and the overloaded system can’t deal with that.
We have been fighting expensive pointless unwinnable wars for 8 years in MENA and all the wingnuts can do is impotently scream like cats dipped in turpentine because Obama refuses to throw more bodies into the Graveyard of Empires without a little strategy.
El Cid
We need to have another 8 to 10 million troops in Afghanistan. This would help.
General Winfield Stuck
I’ve thinking about what we should do in Afghanistan and this is what makes sense to me.
I think we need to dial back to just after 9-11, when the Northern Alliance in that country, or anti-Taliban forces, held the northern third of the country. No one was helping them with any substantial support for weaponry or any other way,
But still they were an excellent fighting force on their own, and held their own against a larger and much better funded Taliban army of sorts. Mostly they were financed by the Paki ISI and other actors like certain Arab states.
I think we need to pull back to one of more airfields and concentrate on killing AQ leaders and leave the fighting for Afganistan proper to the Afghani’s. We should also be willing to lend air support when needed for a resurgence of the Northern Alliance that will form and fight when left to their own devices. They know how to. We should provide other support, such as weapons, training, and such.
What likely will happen, is the Pashtun tribal regions will remain in Taliban hands, and that is natural, since it really is a separate country now that extends into Pak. The other ethnic Afgani’s will defend the rest of the country in their own way, including Kabul, along with ISAF forces, possibly. AQ will likely concentrate in the Pashtun area of AFGAN. and we can deal with them there.
My opinion is likely full of shit, but there it is.
DougJ
The troops don’t need socks. They need you to put a yellow ribbon magnet on your car.
I thought you’d know by now.
handy
@El Cid:
Don’t be ridiculous. We don’t need anymore than 6 or 7 million. 7 1/2 tops.
nikkos
“The facility had been scheduled to be closed within days, CNN has learned. The closing is part of a wider effort by the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, to cede remote outposts and consolidate troops in more populated areas to better protect Afghan civilians.”
Seems to me that somebody out there wants to make a point about base closings, troop drawdowns, etc. and put a reporter onto this story to make the point in print. The desired takeaway is that we need an Afghan surge.
matoko_chan
They would have to outlaw membership in the Republican party.
;)
Heres one of the funniest threads evah!
Wow…..yah think? The GOP has selected for people-too-stupid-to-understand-ToE for years, and it’s a Big Surprise to these guys that the base is homogeneously IQ-challenged?
lulz, gotta love the Right.
Even their smart people are retards.
IndyLib
@soonergrunt:
What exactly is being provided to these guys as standard gear? Were you buying your own cold weather gear? I’ve got contacts at Naval Station Great Lakes, we could organize something to help out. God knows we’ve got access to cold weather gear here.
Joe Beese
Still, it will be a grand pipeline someday.
linda
yeah… read the friggin description of the vulnerability of their base — instead of mcchrystal speechifying against the president, perhaps he should have been paying more attention to just where he’s placed these troops. and,yes, i’m aware that they were scheduled to be pulled back within days — but what friggin genius thought a muddy hole surrounded by sandbags in a remote and hostile part of afghanistan would be an awesome place to set up camp.
GregB
How many millions of tax dollars were spent in order to build that new billion dollar latter coliseum in Texas for Goddamn football games.
Look around, the roads and bridges are rusting and rotting in front of our very eyes, yet every gas station, drug store, bank and casino are revamped and sparkling new.
We are an empire in decay, there’s no way around it.
Half of the people hate our government so much they want to overthrow it, yet they are willing to send their children abroad to help our government create new governments for people who they deem to religious fanatics and heathens.
It’s a pretty damn sad spectacle.
-G
catclub
Slugger@30
They Soviets ran up against rebels armed with anti-helicopter missiles supplied by
the worlds biggest economy. (See: Charlie Wilson’s War)
So at least we are not (directly – see: drug war, opium profits)
supplying the rebels with anti-helicopter missiles this time.
tim
John, it seems to me that because of your past in the military and your past as a wingnut war cheerleader, you have no right whatsoever to feign outrage and incredulity as you do today.
Instead of cynically doing so for the benefit of melodrama and blog traffic, why don’t you FIND OUT THE FUCKING ANSWERS and report back to us.
You must have contacts all over the military. Use them and let us know what you discover. Until then, I don’t buy your faux-rage. Please.
WyldPiratd
Here’s a plan for “victory” in Afghanistan.
The appropriations for Afghanistan and Iraq next year are 150 billion. Let’s be conservative and allocate 50 billion of that for Afghanistan.
The total GDP for Afghanistan last year was ~24 billion, or ~$1000.00 per head.
Pull the troops out. Tell the Afghanis that we will give every swinging dick thatt draws a breath a $1000.00 per year. If they fucking even give the Taliban or AQ the time of day, the cash ends AND we blow them even further into the Stone Age than they already are.
Basically the same thing we did in Iraq as we’ve been paying off the Sunnis since before the surge in Iraq.
General Winfield Stuck
@tim:
Now comes the tired old Cole was a wingnut shit. Please take it elsewhere numbut.
Cat
I am not sure why anyone is shocked at this. The military has been supplying the wrong gear for the wrong wars.
I’m no expert but I think our military kit is appropriate for a cool summer in western Europe as long as we are in by spring and out by fall.
Its not their fault exactly if you think of the scope of this. Lets pretend you can clean your socks every day and had a spare set to wear while the others were drying, but in doing so reduced their lifespan to 3 months. So for a deployment of 100k troups you are turning over 100k pairs of socks a month roughly.
Now that would be easy if you could get FedEx to deliver and route them since thats their business. Sadly, the military’s logistics aren’t up to that level. If they could I’m sure they’d love that level of staffing, but that level of staffing won’t last through program cuts in peace time.
Thats just the problem of getting socks to the troops, that doesn’t even begin to address the military procurement issue. In a rational world they’d goto some high/medium end winter wool sock maker and ask for them in olive drab. In our world they make a 300 page RFP which probably specifies the genus of the cotton plant and which mine supply the chemical for the dye will come from so ‘our’ congress members can steer business to their districts.
slag
@IndieTarheel: Ain’t that a fact.
I have to say, when Obama talked about “finishing the job” in Afghanistan, I desperately wanted that to mean “getting Osama bin Laden”. There are few things that would please me more than bringing that asshole back here–to quote our previous president–“dead or alive”. But apparently, some of us would rather pay lip service to that prospect and instead use Osama as a flimsy excuse to go next door and steal some oil. (Bastards. All of them.) Now, we’re stuck in two stupid endless wars that have no real mission or measures for success. Mission f*cking accomplished.
I do think Obama’s smart enough to avoid hanging around this quagmire for too much longer and to find other ways to shut down Al Qaeda. I hope.
Chaz
Waittaminute…. B.O.B. just posted something — and I agreed with it? I can’t decide if this means he’s making sense or if I need to examine my opinions on Afganistan more closely.
catclub
Gen’l Winfield Stuck@36
Pulling back but also supplying air support has issues.
Who do you trust enough to actually support?
One warlord has a gripe with another (they are (in principle) both on our side)
and calls in a strike on the other guy. Big problem.
Outsourcing the attack on Tora Bora did not work too well.
It is only to the extent that goals of the Northern Alliance (or its new version)
are IDENTICAL to ours that the proxy method works.
I am not saying not to do it, just don’t expect it to produce Jeffersonian democracy anytime soon.
tim
General Winfield:
Now comes the tired old “My Cole Right or Wrong.”
You’re a blog groupie douche.
El Cid
@handy: Sending any less than 20 million more American troops to Afghanistan would give the world’s evildoers the message that we’re not fully committed to this viable counterinsurgency project.
General Winfield Stuck
@catclub:
Good points all. You are likely right about that, and maybe we should just concentrate on AQ, Though that is where I draw the line and why I think we can’t or shouldn’t pull completely out.
Michael Scott
Don’t you see? This is the GOP “stealth” healthcare plan:
1. Start another land war with Iran.
2. Draft all remaining civilians into the U.S. military, so that we can fight three (or more!) wars simultaneously.
3. Universal, single-payer healthcare for all, bitchez!
General Winfield Stuck
@tim:
jaysus, we got weak trollery.
Ash Can
@tim: Your purity is dazzling. We are not worthy. Really, we’re not. You should find a more worthy audience than us.
The Grand Panjandrum
I can tell you from personal experience that I have chipped in to pay for high quality body armor for all four of my family members who served in the military. The military did NOT, at the time (2003-2005) issue them decent body armor.
You know what is most fascinating about this is that DOD does have money to make sure that the REMF’s can get Pizza Hut crap and other fast food from private contractors. It’s a fucking disgrace the way all the outsourcing has funneled money to the corporate whores.
OT: Senator Al Franker just had a very important amendment added to the DOD Appropriation bill SA 2588. It was passed by a 68-30 margin. All 30 votes against were MALE Republicans. A few Republicans voted for it including Kay Bailey Hutchison whois by all accounts very conservative. So what did these ratfuckers vote against?
.
Al Franken has done more for vets in a couple of months than most of the sweaty palmed fuckers in the GOP ever did in an entire career. (Recall his first legislation was to help get vets companion dogs. I think you posted about this some time ago.)
slag
@tim: Actually, I have a metric ton of respect for people like John who learn from their mistakes. It happens so rarely. You should try it some time.
MH
What, you thought the military industry would behave with any less sociopathy than the financial industry?
scarshapedstar
One of the ultimate aims of the neocon project was to, in an odd sort of way, bring symmetry to an asymmetric war: by dismantling the United States armed forces and replacing them with nominally stateless mercenaries, thus freeing the hand that the Geneva Convention tied behind our back. The other side of the “shovel billions to Soldier of Fortune-loving sociopaths” coin is “encourage soldiers to unenlist and, if necessary, to die”.
This shit is nothing new. I remember when we were first shocked to learn that soldiers’ families had to hold bake sales to get them flak jackets and that soldiers were welding scrap metal onto their tin-can Humvees to serve as makeshift armor. The right-wing response was that flak jackets are heavy, and armored humvees roll over, so really liberals were plotting to kill the troops by demanding they be supplied with armor. Oh, and what about the freshly painted schools! and cell phones! and democracy and whiskey and sexy!
And that was, what, 5 or 6 years ago? I’m not surprised at all that they’re out of socks. It’s Starve The Beast 101.
celticdragon
Ex-fucking-actly.
Dien Bien Phu. I started yelling at the TV screen when I saw the footage on CBS. The Goddammed base was surrounded on three sides by cliffs and mountain slopes. Christ on crutch! Who the hell put our people in a damned death trap like that?
Stefan
I am reminded of the M*A*S*H episode when they are freezing their asses off and receive a shipment of something like badminton supplies instead of warm clothing. I can attest to the fact that there were similar issues when I was in the USAF in the 70’s.
I’m curious as to what kind of supply mismatches the 1970s Air Force experienced. They resupplied you with tennis shoes when you actually needed golf cleats? The hammocks never arrived? The officers’ club ran out of little umbrellas for their pina coladas?
snailbiscuits
One more thing about the equipment issue. The Army has had for a while a program called RFI, Rapid Fielding Initiative. Units have to go through this before each deployment to get the most up to date gear for their deployment. I just went through this for Afghanistan and we were issued new cold weather gear made by Polar-Tec and civilian hiking boots by Danner for the mountains. I think they are trying to take of us on the equipment side as best they can because as soon as something better comes out they get it out to us as quickly as possible.
General Winfield Stuck
@scarshapedstar:
If Rumsfeld were still around, we would likely hear something like “We go to war with the socks we have”
wilfred
Oh, the villains! And they said insightful commentary was dead.
@tim:
Don’t be too hard on Cole. He’s put together the on of the best “Sarah Palin is one stoopid fucking ‘ho” blogs on the intertrons. If you want analysis by people who know what they’re talking about – including a retired Pakistani Brigadier, visit http://turcopolier.typepad.com/
Mr Furious
@celticdragon: When I first heard the report about this battle, the base in the valley was the first thing I thought of too. you’re ceding momentum and vantage points to the enemy from jump.
Christ, the fucking Taliban could’ve just rolled rocks down on ’em.
Midnight Marauder
@slag:
This. It’s like the anti-Sullivan, especially after reading this piece of shit earlier this morning.
He’s got some brass ones, I’ll at least give him that.
soonergrunt
@indylib 41–
Standard issue for US Army personnel is four new uniforms, two pair extreme cold weather gloves, 7 pairs of wool/acrylic socks, 7 moisture-wicking T-shirts, two pairs of boots. Everybody gets new issue of all of the above when they deploy, whether or not they have it on hand already, so most personnel in country have 1.5 to 2 issue sets.
Additionally, all active units are currently fielding the following, with emphasis on units deploying into theatre:
http://www.armyproperty.com/Resources/NSN-Listings/ECWCS.htm
Gen III ECWCS is a layered system. They were just getting it when I left Afghanistan in August, 2007. Now everybody in theatre has it.
At mid-tour, soldiers get to order new stuff for delivery. Some of this stuff, like uniforms and ECWCS requires a one-for-one turn in or statement of destruction, other stuff like gloves, underwear, and boots are simple end-item issue.
I’m not a supply guy. I’m a platoon sergeant in a Cavalry troop, so I have to understand supply whether I want to or not.
nitpicker
This is b.s. Soldiers get paid well enough to buy their own goddam socks. I’ve been at these outposts and helicopters fly in at least once a week. This is a ridiculous thing to be outraged about.
Napoleon
Jesus John, we would have to roll back 1/10000 of the tax cuts to the wealthiest 1/10% of this country to pay for stuff like socks for soldiers and then those rich peoples kids could only order 4 margaritas and not 5 on their next spring break trip to Cancun.
Where are your priorities?
John Cole
I’m kind of chuckling at the notion that I have contacts all over the military. I left active duty in 1992. The only people I know who are still in are the Sergeant Major of the Army, Ken Preston, and a guy named Eppler who was an E-5 but is now a CSM somewhere. I’m not in touch with either one.
And Pat Lang is on the blogroll, Wilfred.
celticdragon
@ Mr Furious
No doubt. How the hell do you effectively return fire up the side of a cliff? Put the .50 cal on an anti aircraft mount??! I saw where the Talis were shooting RPG’s right down into the compound from a thousand feet above. Unbelievable. No cover or concealment at all. The rescue Blackhawk was taking fire from above and below on approach to the base to medevac the injured.
Kennedy
You go to war with the socks and balaclavas you have, John, not the socks and balaclavas you want.
Also:
You mean we’re doing something other than hunting terrorists right now? What the fuck are we doing then? I hear nation building works out well and is a good use of our armed forces.
Demo Woman
I have not read all the comments but Steve Coll has a good site about foreign policy.
wilfred
@John Cole:
Doesn’t appear on my screen. Used to appear on the right but is absent.
Kennedy
@General Winfield Stuck: Damn. Didn’t see General Winfield beat me to my comment.
The Other Steve
Obviously we need more F-22s.
Keithly
@63
As Rumsfeld noted in the run-up to Operation Iraqi Liberation, er, Freedom, Afghanistan wasn’t a target-rich environment. Looks like the brass have successfully addressed that issue, just on the wrong side.
/snark
El Cid
@John Cole: Yeah, but you’re supposed to keep making up suggestions that you have deep contacts ‘in intelligence’ or in ‘certain unnamed battle groups’ or the like. It’s the intertoobz rule.
trollhattan
An interesting article from the wilds of Afghanistan from today’s Seattle Times.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2010012443_hal07.html
Every war is unique, but this one seems uniquier.
slag
@Midnight Marauder: Give Sullivan a break. He’s British. The pillars of tradition are strong with those people. Next to “God save the Queen” in Sullivan’s mind comes “God, I hate Hillary Clinton!”.
celticdragon
Considering that Russia is selling high end Sukhoi fighters tor hard cash to every third world shithole they can (along with supplying mercenary ex-Soviet Air Force pilots)…we may end up wishing we did buy more F-22s. The F-15s we have are old and literally falling apart. Better hope that the F-35 can actually fly…
Demo Woman
Somebody needs to keep “let them muddle through” McCain off the TV set. How he became to go to guy on Afghanistan after his TV Debates is beyond me. Maybe some one can explain that to me.
soonergrunt
@Indylib 41,
Continuing the thought–
When I went to Afghanistan, I had a few items that I bought myself. Magazine pouches for ammo, my own GoreTex jacket, etc. For my part, it was mostly stuff that I liked better than the issue equipment enough to pay for it.
Merino wool socks, and Underarmor brand t-shirts come to mind immediately. I also paid extra money for a nomex flight suit after some guys I knew got burned pretty bad in their humvee. Right after I got that, the Army announced they would issue nomex/fire retardent stuff, but I didn’t see any issued while I was in-theatre.
And of course, I had a laptop that I used when we were in the rear, a small Garmin GPS (there weren’t enough of the gov-issue units,) an MP3 player, and a digital camera, just like everybody else.
John Cole
@soonergrunt: Been so long, but the only stuff I remember buying out of my own pocket was some super thin but really warm and comfortable patagonia long underwear. Would put on pantyhose, then the patagonia, then the wool longjohns, then the bdu bottoms, and that would keep you warm as hell. I had those matterhorn boots which were so warm your biggest problem was your feet sweating and then getting cold, so you just changed your socks a ton.
Original Lee
The son of a friend was deployed to Afghanistan last year. They were initially supposed to start their deployment during the summer, IIRC, but they were delayed. They had a list of the supplemental gear they were supposed to get once they got there, and balaclavas were not on the list. So I went to this website and got the pattern and requirements for a balaclava, got the wool, and made a balaclava for him, which I finished in time for him to have with his gear when he left. It seems ridiculous that we need to do stuff like this, but OTOH I’ve heard from older vets that it was very common for soldiers to have hand-knitted socks, scarves, and balaclavas during WWII and Korea.
El Cid
@celticdragon: Even with the current order for 180 odd F-22’s, and only 1/3 or 1/4 being active at any one time, this seems to me quite a lot, more than enough for any likely air combat scenario, in my non-expert view. Then there’s these.
LD50
@tim:
Sweet. Did you just make that up, or is that an Internet Tradition I wasn’t aware of before?
p.a.
I know in 2003-2004 there was an organization called anysoldier.us that solicited care packages for servicepeople without families here to help them out. Most of the requests were for personal comfort items; wool socks, chemical handwarmers, powdered gatorade. And personal hygiene items, especially for female soldiers. I don’t know if our military’s supplies were of poor quality or not supplied at all; I didn’t have the heart to ask. But I got warm thank-you notes from troops for sending such basic shit as bug dope, sunscreen and toothpaste
wilfred
When I was in the Army we also had wool fatigues, John Wayne thermals and those heavy rubber boots with the valve on the side that we called Mickey Mouse boots. It was enough.
Pashtuns have corduroy shalwar/khamis and little more – maybe an old shawl.
Doesn’t campaigning season end before the really cold weather comes in? Don’t tell me they leave those outposts functioning in winter with all that snow. I can’t believe that.
Mnemosyne
@Eric:
Do not — repeat, do NOT — send cotton socks for winter in Afghanistan. Cotton does not insulate worth a damn and doesn’t wick particularly well, either. Wool is the way to go, something like Smartwool.
(Not a soldier, just a sock knitter.)
IndyLib
@soonergrunt: Thanks for the info.
soonergrunt
@John Cole, 88
I first joined up in 1988–Panama for a year then Fort Ord. I learned from the old hands to do exactly what you’re talking about.
Today, we have these multi-layers things that make GoreTex look like hand-loomed wool. Of course, it’s all very expensive as well, but hey, we don’t shine boots anymore.
They can have my field jacket liner when they pry it from my cold, dead torso!
Ryan
Why should we be giving money to our socialist military? Pure market capitalist organizations, like the stalwart XE, are much more efficient and therefore don’t need government handouts.
Svensker
@LD50:
.
That’s Little Latin Lupe Loop’s big brother.
Richard Bottoms
I thought you were in the Army. Every soldier is given$300 a year for uniform replacement (might even be more now).
Despite that, you never have enough socks or underwear in the field even on plain old exercises. Sounds like more of a show the troops we love them type of project.
soonergrunt
As I said before,
if you want to help these, or any other guys downrange out, go to http://www.anysoldier.com and find a point of contact for a deployed unit.
Remember that getting Army issue equipment is not hard, especially if the unit’s supply sergeant is on the ball.
PX gift cards, which can be purchased at https://thor.aafes.com/gcs/default.aspx
are the easiest for the troops to use, and they can be reloaded, just like other gift cards.
The gift cards always fit, and can also be used for things like massage services, if the base has such.
One of the best things I did for myself in Afghanistan was to pay $20 for a half-hour massage at Bagram Air Base once when we were stopped in there for refuel/rearm. I felt like a new man afterwards.
Catsy
@tim:
Douchebag is as douchebag does.
For my money, lecturing someone that they’re not allowed to express outrage about a wrong because two years ago they were on the wrong side of only loosely-related issues falls pretty firmly into the camp of unmitigated douchebaggery.
Heaven forefend that someone might realize they were wrong and change their mind–and woe be to them if their previous experiences give them particular insight into said wrongs.
Catsy
The “your a blog groupie douche” should of course have been in blockquotes, were WP’s abominably poor text editor not compelled to reinterpret perfectly sound HTML in its own twisted idiom.
BubbaDave
@Stefan:
I know in the 80s on Okinawa my mom’s Air Force medical unit was driving down to the local civilian hospital to barter tongue depressors for antibiotics so they’d have something to treat infections while they waited for resupply. (The Navy didn’t have that problem, because they flew pharmaceuticals in. The Air Force sent theirs by ship. Go figure.)
donovong
@Stefan:
Fuck you, douchebag. Typical groundpounder bullshit. I carried a goddam M-16 and/or M60 in the rain and/or fucking forty-degree below zero weather, played shoot em up in the fucking jungle with people who wanted to do us harm and saw and did more than most Army and Navy REMF’ers did in a 20 year career.
Michael
Contractors are sucking up all the money. I know for a fact that a former warrant who retired into contracting wound up siphoning off 200K annually to run a repair depot in Iraq.
Think about it – this guy was paid more than Petraeus to run a repair depot.
Ex soldier
This is a supply breakdown. What the troops need to be comfortable is outstripped by the ability of their supply section to give it to them.
Procurement is broken–we can get a shiny new drone over their heads in a matter of hours, but they can’t get GoreTex and mountain-quality comfort gear in the right camo pattern?
How about we build a few fewer airplanes and restructure supply for the soldiers so that a basic kit–essentially, everything that’s on their packing list, augmented with winter weather gear–is stored forward in deployment kits. You lose your gear, someone takes your supply records with all of your sizes listed on it and puts a deployment kit on a chopper or on a truck and you sign for it. You break it open and you have uniforms, underwear, boots, GoreTex, body armor and even a balaclava.
Also, please note–when the Marines went through Helmand this summer, the long march tore up their uniforms so bad, many were without pants–look it up.
PanAmerican
Profiteering and bone-headed leadership go back to the founding of the Republic.
NYT Feb 3, 1918:
MOTHAX
The request for equipment comes directly from the CSM of this battalion. Yes, the army will replace TA50, we can do it quicker.
The American Legion is working with this lady who volunteers her free time and excessive amounts of money to get DVD players, iPods and other stuff. It’s not just the gear, it’s letting these guys know that some of us back here care about them.
OEF 11B, CIB, 04-05
soonergrunt
UPDATE–the unit in question is 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry, 4th BCT, 4th Infantry Division.
The report did not identify the specific Troop these men were from.
Catsy
Thanks for your help in getting all of that info, sooner.
chrome agnomen
banging the same old drum here:
bring the boys (and girls) back home.
/the DFH
scarshapedstar
“Infections”, eh?
mai naem
It goes further than socks. I sent money to AnySoldier.com a few years ago. You can send money or care packages. They have requests from soldiers. What blew me away when I looked at the requests were stuff like anti fungal creams and powders for athlete’s foot? What? the army doesn’t provide this. They would also ask for certain protein bars because they would hold up better in the heat -the army didn’t figure this out? Other requests I remember – sports bras,cotton socks, lip balm.coffee, coffee makers,jerky wtf the army didn’t think of any of this stuff?
soonergrunt
If that’s the fact of the situation, then people in that squadron are not doing their jobs. I’m sorry but there it is. The Command Sergeant Major, for the unintiated, lives in the rear with the gear, and the S-4 (Supply) office, most likely walking distance from their opposite numbers at Brigade.
If civilians and others can get stuff to them faster, given the mail system and the week to two weeks to ship stuff there, then they’ve probably got some other problems which might go a long way towards explaining how the situation got as bad as it did.
Troop Supply Sergeant didn’t have a 10% overage on uniforms, socks, boots, TA-50, etc? My Supply Sergeant in Afghanistan was practically buried up to his eyeballs, and that didn’t include the mid-tour replacement stuff that each soldier got to order special. It was the emergency replacement cache that existed for just such a contingency. It’s a Cavalry Troop. If it’s one of the mounted troops, that’s 74 men so 10% overage is 8 men worth of stuff (they actually have a formula for figuring out the sizes of stuff to keep on hand.) If it’s the dismounted troop, that’s 140 men more or less, 14 men worth.
The Squadron S-4 and the Brigade S-4 didn’t have the 5% overage for this stuff like they’re supposed to? Squadron should be keeping 20 men worth of uniforms, boots, socks, PT uniforms, and so on. Brigade should be keeping somewhere around 100 sets for a BCT (Heavy) which is what that unit is.
These guys have lost things like MP3 players, DVD players, laptop computers, personal GPS, running shoes, digital cameras, leatherman tools, flashlights, extra ammo/load pouches that were private purchase, and various and sundry that can equal several hundred dollars per soldier.
If the guys need the stuff, they need the stuff, but this isn’t the Army falling down on the job and having Rumsfeld’s “the army you have and not the army you’d like” attitude that basically boiled down to “fuck the joes.” This sounds like the unit is not taking proper care of their soldiers. These guys get more stuff today than we did two years ago, and we got so much stuff that we couldn’t carry it all–two duffle bags, a rucksack, and a large wheeled plastic box about twice the size of a foot locker. There are huge warehouses at Bagram and Kandahar full of this stuff as well as in Kuwait.
soonergrunt
@mai naem:
Anti-fungal cremes/powders for athletes foot, lip balm–these things are dropped to each unit weekly, with bars of soap and tubes of shampoo–it’s cheap stuff but it works.
White socks you have to buy yourself, along with coffee and coffee makers, but you can get them at the PX for not a huge amount of money.
It’s why I only ever asked for things that I absolutely couldn’t get and were relatively cheap, like drink mix packs in the skinny tubes for adding to bottles of water. I saw guys in country telling these bullshit sob stories to people and getting new DVDs and iPods and cameras and other such.
Sports Bras (and other sundries for female servicemembers) can be a problem forward sometimes. I spent a lot of time forward from my unit in Afghanistan. The camp we were quartered at was run by a Marine Artillery unit running the Embedded Trainer mission I was on. When they got female personnel attached to them, they forgot to order things like sanitary products and so on. They forgot once, I should say. Between “counselings” by the Marine Colonel and the ranking female servicemember, a Navy Commander, the supply section got their act together right quick.
Thadeus Horne
@Chaz: How many drinks have you had? I find that sense from BoB is directly proportional to how many drinks I’ve had. The drunker I am, the more sense that asshole seems to make. I don’t know if that says something negative about me, or something positive about BoB. None the less, he’s an asshole.
Thadeus Horne
@The Grand Panjandrum: How many people on this site will understand what a REMF is, do you suppose?
Keithly
@106
Rumsfeld f*cked with the TIPFDL; do a search on ‘TIPFDL army’. We are merely reaping the foul harvest.
Julia Grey
Pronounced “tipfiddle,” if you want to ask out loud about it.
Maggie
I assure you that the post is no hoax. The person collecting donations to replace what was lost is very serious. And so are the people helping her. In just over 35 hours she has gathered enough goods to replace everything.
The military has a list of basic things they make sure a soldier is supplied with. Then there are the things that make life easier. Extra items. Upgraded items.
This group of people, led by Leta has stepped forward to offer all they can in this time of great stress and sadness for these soldiers.
Perhaps you could look at this from a different angle and you would see what I see – a great outpouring of love and support for these soldiers.
The post you link and the comments left there state over and over that these people want those soldiers to know that they are not alone in this tragedy.
dave
Nobody appears to have any clue what the mission is in Afghanistan. This control of central Asia BS has been around since the end of the 19th century. It’s got nothing to do with catching a useful bogeyman named bin Laden.
“Nor with the world so enraged and engaged, did there seem to be much public expression of concern that the proof offered to date of bin Laden’s direct role in 9/11 (as distinct from a propensity to indulge his ego after the fact) consisted of rumor, hearsay, and innuendo. This would be troublesome enough as the basis for criminal prosecution of a single individual, no matter how seemingly culpable. It was far more so as justification for unleashing the most awesome murder machine in history against one of the most wretched places on Earth, where a handful of people who had seized power at gunpoint harbored a fugitive from US law. This was particularly true since the US had refused to extend to the wanted man’s hosts the diplomatic recognition required for formal extradition and admitted publicly that its evidence would not stand up in court. That those hosts, unsavory though they may have been, had been desperately trying to find a way to quietly hand over or otherwise dispose of their guest also went conveniently ignored.”
from Satanic Purses, Money, Myth, and Misinformation in the War on Terror by R. T. Naylor
John Rohan
Hmmm, but with Rumsfeld and Bush gone, who do we blame for this??? Damn.
1. These accusations were silly during the Bush era and are still so now. Soldiers don’t need civilians buying them socks or anything else. Ordinary people want to help, that’s all. But their help really isn’t needed. In fact, like those ludicrious bake sales to buy body armor (which Michael Moore tried to get huge mileage out of) it’s actually counterproductive.
2. In 2007, the US Army currently spent a staggering 100 times more than what it spent per soldier in WWII. And I don’t recall anyone accusing the President then of skimping on equipment. So, so much for the dumping on Rumsfeld (or Obama and Gates).
3. The last time I was deployed in Iraq, I had two large boxes of socks that I hadn’t even touched! And people were still sending more. Well-meaning, but misguided people kept sending me not only socks, but stuff like CDs of obscure music (mosty gospel), hand sanitizers, playing cards, Bibles, hard candy, and envelopes. Any of the stuff I might have needed, I already had. I ended up giving most of these to the Iraqi soldiers instead. They needed it much more than I did.
Basically, I don’t want socks from civilian charities or from the US Army. I had a couple brands that I preferred, and I bought those instead. Most soldiers felt the same way.
4. In the very, very rare cases where soldiers do need to buy their own gear, they either get reimbursed through the military for it, or they can claim it as a tax deduction as a business expense.
bob h
And what’s with these mini-Khe San’s in the first place?
Lee
Here is a good blog and it explains that it is not the issued equipment but their personal belongings that they are trying to get replaced.
Army of Dude
Curtis
Keep it in perspective. My son was over there and yes we had to send better gear. It is not anything new. Remember, government always goes to low bidders.
Even when I was in the Navy forty years ago (or is it 50) we had to go out and buy better stuff if we didn’t want to wear the cheaper stuff.
Jane
Mr Rohan
If you went to the link or read all the comments here you would have found that the request for equipment came directly from the CSM of this battalion. That the Army was replacing issued items. And it wasn’t just about socks but items of comfort / personal items that keep up their morale.
It’s not like they have a local walmart to go to replace these items to later be reimbursed.
Then I read things like this:
http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=LatestNews.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=2bfee414-802a-23ad-4eed-f822551021bd
and everyone’s wondering why?
Last week, the Senate stripped $900 million from the administration’s request to train and equip Afghan security forces, even as Armed Services Committee chairman Senator Carl Levin (D) declared that training should be our focus in Afghanistan
Why everyone else is playing politics or bitching how much the government spends on defense but yet does nothing but blow hot air, a lonely American rallies and gets the job done.
Doesn’t matter for this battalion WHY there’s a shortage, it only matters that there IS a shortage, and the fastest way to fill that gap is by the American People stepping up and taking action themselves.
John Rohan
Jane wrote:
Actually, they do. Literally. You can order anything you want from Wal-Mart online.
No matter where they are, every soldier has access to mail, and at least limited access to the internet. Even in the most remote areas, you can set up a satellite dish to get it (although the connection may be slow).
Scamp Dog
@Keithly:
OK, I googled “TIPFDL army” and got 6 links, none of which told me what TIPFDL stood for. TPFDL did lead to a definition “Time Phase Force Deployment List”, is that what you meant?
It sounds like a schedule for deploying troops–could somebody fill us in on the details of what it was used for when Rumsfeld was running things into the ground?