Back from the march to end the war, where one of the best speakers I heard was Tim Robbins who said, "We're here today for the same reason that you're here. It's our job. We're Americans."
He then told a story that I can hardly credit, but it must be true. He said that on the train this morning he'd talked with a young woman whose 20-year-old brother had just been sent to Iraq. In order to implement Bush's escalation, however, he'd received not the standard 12 weeks of training but A MERE TWO WEEKS. Are we really sending American soldiers into harm's way with a mere two weeks of training? Apparently. That makes no sense to me. That's the sort of thing that you do when the enemy is two or three weeks from your border; you round up the farmers and the teen-age boys and you show them how to aim and fire and you send them off to defend their homes. That's not what you do when you're the United States of America engaged in a war of choice millions of miles from home. There can't be a single serious general who thinks this is good practice.
How do you even learn how to fire a gun in a mere two weeks? Surely there's NO time for training concerning the Iraqi culture so that you can understand the people you're supposedly going to be simultaneously "liberating" and fighting. Why should we be surprised if green, untried soldiers sent into a horrific war with only fourteen days' worth of training crack under the pressure, massacre Iraqis, torture, rape, and generally act the way any scared teenager with no training would act in such a situation?
Shame on the Bush junta and shame on every Congressperson who doesn't vote immediately to cut off funding for this exercise in insanity. Bring our troops home now. Stop the escalation immediately. Clearly, we don't have the (trained) troops for it.
3 comments:
If there is any truth to this we are doomed. Even after eight weeks of basic training one isn't anywhere near ready for combat. Been there, done that.
WilL
I heard him relate this encounter
Thinking ... "We have been training
Iraq Troops over 4 years"
Or so the " Story Goes..."
I've never been one to read horror
Stories,and yet all of America is
Forced to live the worse one ever
HR-508 was recommended (Rep.Woolsey)
Have you read it yet ?
World war two at the height 4 to 5 week training Vietnam 12 week cut to eight weeks does this mean that johnson and Nixon had more moral fiber than a Bush which is a plant that can and is Hell bent on producing vegeatables. I fear going to the VA Hospitals in the future.
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