KRC Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 Absolutely shameful! Bush and his cronies can give kickbacks to their oil buddies, even invade a country for them, but they can't spare any money to properly and fashionably protect our kids in the Air Force! The Boy Scouts have better leadership than the US Military...even though I've never been in the Military or the Boy Scouts! That our air force isn't properly supplied with correctly colored armor burns me up. How can Rumsfeld claim not to be aware of this? 153722[/snapback] Who let Tenny back in here?
Cheeseburger_in_paradise Posted December 9, 2004 Posted December 9, 2004 Breaking story on Drudge. Reporter planted questions with soilder
UConn James Posted December 10, 2004 Author Posted December 10, 2004 The problem is primarily availability. There is only so much industrial capacity that specializes in producing the type of armor required. Reported on ABC that three companies that make the specific type of armor that was being discussed each say they are not producing at full capacity. They haven't even been asked to. That's in addition to the $70B in supplies and parts the DoD doesn't even know where it put, according to the GAO. The excuse underneath this is laughable. Fuggin' WalMart has better computers than this; they can tell you how many strawberry PopTarts are sold in the 24 hours before hurricanes. Maybe someone needs to take a look at their system, or "requisition" it under some eminent domain statute. There is also a Rosen program going on with IED detection and defeat. I don't care what you hang on the side of a fuel truck, 200 pounds of RDX going off 3 feet away is going to make it turn into tiny pieces. Necessity is the mother of invention. Good news. There's a lot of steps along the way for that. I can accept small steps and the process; it's the standing still on it and Rumsfeld acting like it's a news to him that raises my blood pressure. I daresay that not every roadside bomb has been 200 pounds of explosives in a car; have you seen some of the more recent videos the soldiers have taken themselves? Breaking story on Drudge. Reporter planted questions with soilder 153291[/snapback] In reality, it wasn't a 'planted' question. A proofreader does not make up the meat and bones of a question, simply recommends ways to phrase it that someone can decide to use or not. A reporter helped the Sgt word his question to ask one of the most powerful men in the chain of command. There's many people who, when they walk into the Oval Office, simply lose the power of speech. I guess preparing a serious question in advance is against the rules tho. And I guess the reporter did a ventriloquist act on the Sgt and forced the 2,300 other soldiers cheer and clap too.
VABills Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 Yo Uconn care to revise your story? http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/12/09/...rter/index.html To make sure the soldiers were picked, Pitts said he "found the Sgt. in charge of the microphone for the question and answer session and made sure he knew to get my guys out of the crowd." Pitts said he was told only soldiers could ask questions, so he and two GIs "worked on questions to ask Rumsfeld about the appalling lack of armor their vehicles going into combat have." Last time I checked it was a reporters duty to report the news, not make it. He fabricated this.
DC Tom Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 Yo Uconn care to revise your story? http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/12/09/...rter/index.html Last time I checked it was a reporters duty to report the news, not make it. He fabricated this. 154451[/snapback] And according to some reports I've read...the reporter brought the Guardsman in question with him to the meeting. Reporter doesn't go...Guardsman doesn't go, question doesn't get asked. How is that not a plant?
Alaska Darin Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 And according to some reports I've read...the reporter brought the Guardsman in question with him to the meeting. Reporter doesn't go...Guardsman doesn't go, question doesn't get asked. How is that not a plant? 154462[/snapback] Why does it even matter?
UConn James Posted December 10, 2004 Author Posted December 10, 2004 Yo Uconn care to revise your story? Last time I checked it was a reporters duty to report the news, not make it. He fabricated this. 154451[/snapback] Nope. (BTW -- my given name is not UConn.... My friends and enemies just call me James. ) How was he not reporting on an important issue? As has been this admin's MO, he wasn't allowed to ask a question. He helped someone else who could, ask in their own voice and words. Clever reporters find ways to get answers to their questions when they get stonewalled. "The question is whether or not the soldier who asked the question really believed in it, and my guess is that he did, or he wouldn't have asked it," said Loory.... Wow, other media outlets decide to put his name in their own papers and make a big deal of that rather than the issue in question. What a surprise. Fabrication means to make something up with the intent to deceive. Or are you just using every media criticism cliche and buzzword you've got? How does any of this make the question that was posed any less pertinent? Don't know about you guys, but when I got a math problem, I figured out the answer rather than piss and moan about the guy who came up with the question.
Berg Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 What they aren't making baby blue flak jackets, to go with those fasionable BDU's? 153592[/snapback] I guess you didn't hear. Blue - out. New wear test with pixelated very much like the new JarHead BDUs. Good thing I filled out that survey...
Mickey Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 The problem is primarily availability. There is only so much industrial capacity that specializes in producing the type of armor required. Steel plates hung over doors is not going to defeat an RPG, which is designed to penetrate that very thing. It is being produced and sent as fast as it can be made-there just aren't that many people making it. As I posted above, cargo trucks weren't designed with the current Iraq scenario in mind. Retrofitting armor when the production capacity is geared to providing armor to Combat vehicles will take time. There is also a Rosen program going on with IED detection and defeat. I don't care what you hang on the side of a fuel truck, 200 pounds of RDX going off 3 feet away is going to make it turn into tiny pieces. Still, there are hazards and always will be. No one wants to go over there and get hurt, but it's going to happen to some. 153291[/snapback] The local paper ran an article and it said that the plant that armors the Hummvees produces about 69 of them (per month?, year?) while at the same time it makes a lot more available by special order to celebrities like Arnold and also about 1,300 Hummers for the civilian market. Is that all just a lot of crap? I have no way of knowing whether those numbers mean anything, was hoping you do?
Mickey Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 Breaking story on Drudge.Reporter planted questions with soilder 153938[/snapback] Did the reporter also plant the applause that greeted the question?
VABills Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 I guess you didn't hear. Blue - out. New wear test with pixelated very much like the new JarHead BDUs. Good thing I filled out that survey... 154512[/snapback] No I had not heard that. I was told they were going to more of a tigerstripe blue. Instead of the initial woodland blue. So it has now changed yet again???? What colors in the uni's now? Pink and mauve?
_BiB_ Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 Armor The Army also field tested prototype add-on armor kits from several contractors, Motsek said, ultimately settling on one produced by O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt. Today, Army employees at four depots, two arsenals and an ammunition plant are working three shifts a day, producing the Army-designed kits to keep up with demand. Motsek said they've produced 8,800 add-on-armor kits, 8,700 of which have already been installed in vehicles in Iraq. O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt has provided 289 more kits, he said. Yet despite the progress, Motsek said employees at production facilities keep their eye on the demand for more kits. The current requirement is for 13,872 kits. During a recent visit to Letterkenny Army Depot, Pa., one facility producing the kits, Motsek said he was particularly impressed with the motivation of the workers he saw. One worker, who operated a laser-cutting machine that cuts the steel used in the kits, hadn't taken a single day off — not weekends, not holidays – since starting the job seven months earlier. "No sir, I have a mission to do" was the employee's response, Motsek said.
_BiB_ Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 The local paper ran an article and it said that the plant that armors the Hummvees produces about 69 of them (per month?, year?) while at the same time it makes a lot more available by special order to celebrities like Arnold and also about 1,300 Hummers for the civilian market. Is that all just a lot of crap? I have no way of knowing whether those numbers mean anything, was hoping you do? 154567[/snapback] There are specialty security companies that custom build armored vehicles for celebrities, politicians, etc. This sounds like what you are referring to. They are not AM General, who builds the HMMV. without the name of the company, it's hard to determine.
Terry Tate Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 Did the reporter also plant the applause that greeted the question? 154568[/snapback] Nope. But that doesn't mean the reporter was correct in his actions leading up to that. He made news. Not the question about armor, a valid storyline to follow that he was already reporting, but the coaching, the planning, to create a "gotcha" moment that he could then report. Do you disagree - do you think his actions were appropriate? Or doesn't it matter? I mean, the Q&A with the SecDef part of the story is not that big a deal to me, but the question of the reporter's integrity in performing his duties is what I'm asking about.
Mickey Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 Nope. But that doesn't mean the reporter was correct in his actions leading up to that. He made news. Not the question about armor, a valid storyline to follow that he was already reporting, but the coaching, the planning, to create a "gotcha" moment that he could then report. Do you disagree - do you think his actions were appropriate? Or doesn't it matter? I mean, the Q&A with the SecDef part of the story is not that big a deal to me, but the question of the reporter's integrity in performing his duties is what I'm asking about. 154716[/snapback] As long as he didn't lie about anything, I see no issues regarding integrity involved. If someone asked him if he talked to the soldier beforehand and he lied, that is a problem. It seems like it was a valid issue based on the spontaneous reaction of the troops so I am not too cocerned with the source of the otherwise valid question. What bothers me is that the soldiers might have brought this up on their own and now we will never know. Reporters are not supposed to be part of the story and in that sense, this guy screwed up. It was bad reporting but not in a moral sense where I call in to question his integrity. I also take a little pleasure in seeing a politician get surprised. These guys, left and right, do all they can to engineer events, images and so on to give a false impression. They hire people and pay them tons to do just that. Here a reporter gives a little of it back by answering a set up photo op with an even better set up that caught a pol off guard. Since no one really cares anymore about the canned and scripted image making and the staged events that politicians run incessantly, I can't muster too much indignation over what this reporter did. This time.
Simon Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 no one really cares anymore about the canned and scripted image making and the staged events that politicians run incessantly If you really believe that, I think you're giving a lot more credit to the American public than it currently deserves. Cya
Mickey Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 If you really believe that, I think you're giving a lot more credit to the American public than it currently deserves.Cya 154765[/snapback] I'm just a wild eyed optimist.
Terry Tate Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 Reporters are not supposed to be part of the story and in that sense, this guy screwed up. It was bad reporting but not in a moral sense where I call in to question his integrity. ... I can't muster too much indignation over what this reporter did. This time. 154756[/snapback] Agreed. Although I bet there's plenty of reporter's who think it's good reporting, and will follow his lead given the chance. I think that would be bad for the profession overall.
Mickey Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 Agreed. Although I bet there's plenty of reporter's who think it's good reporting, and will follow his lead given the chance. I think that would be bad for the profession overall. 154814[/snapback] How should they try and pierce the well crafted veils of these pseudo events? I'm stumped.
Simon Posted December 10, 2004 Posted December 10, 2004 How should they try and pierce the well crafted veils of these pseudo events? I'm stumped I always got a kick out of those guys that would throw pies ;-)
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