"It's a cluster f***, sir.

[jody]

Newspapers report six soldiers being court-martialed for scrounging equipment. The six soldiers from the 656th Transportation Company, U.S. Army Reserves, Springfield Ohio cannibalized abandoned Army vehicles so they could deliver fuel needed by U.S. forces in Iraq.

I'm a logistician with experience in combat and I know first hand the pressure to accomplish a mission at any cost that obviously motivated the six soldiers. If Defense Secretary Rumsfeld or our Commander in Chief understood the fog of war, then they would commend the six, not punish them.

I recall a Clint Eastwood movie about President Reagan's invasion of Grenada, (Heartbreak Ridge, 1986). Eastwood playing Gunnery Sergeant Highway repeated the military phrase "Improvise. Adapt. Overcome" and that's what the court-martialed six did!

In that same movie Col. Meyers asked, "What's your assessment of this situation, Gunny?" and Highway (Eastwood) replied, "It's a cluster f***, sir. Marines shouldn't be sitting on their sorry asses filling out requisitions for equipment they should already have." Col. Meyers said, "An astute observation."

Highway's astute observation applies to things in Iraq today.

[Leilani]

1. It's very sad.

The entire Iraq fiasco is a clusterf***, & our troops are bearing an impossible burden.

[Wonk]

2. Support the troops (but not with no-bid contracts to the Carlyle Group)

[eleonora]

3. Great cartoons!

Thanks!

[rndmprsn]

4. Haha...very cool cartoons. n/t

[TreasonousBastard]

5. COURT-MARTIALED!!!!

Must be more to this.

Seems like every war we've we've ever been in, the company scrounge was the hero of the day.

A lot of the preparation for this war was inept, but the fact is that even with the best planning, wartime logistics just doesn't work all the time, and soldiers scrounge and make do. Cannibalism is fundamental to keeping things working.

[Karenina]

6. This makes no sense.

:crazy:

[quaoar]

7. I'm sure this will all come out

during Rumsfeld's trial in 2009.

[indigobusiness]

8. Catch 22 in Orwell's upside down world.

We were warned.

[Debbi801]

9. A local talk show had an excellent take on this...

They said that they weren't not being court marshalled for scrounging the equipment. That they were being court marshalled for daring to bring it to the public's eye that they were so pathetically armored and protected that they had to "steal" another groups abandoned vehicles.