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Saturday, October 30th, 2004

National Geographic Supports the Troops

So why doesn’t the Pentagon?

(I know, I’m supposed to be finishing my novel rewrite this weekend, but I had to post this.)

I just got my November 2004 National Geographic (which, by the way, has an excellent series of articles on the different sciences affected by Darwin’s Theory of Evolution), and found this picture in the Behind the Scenes section (16th page from the front, no page number, high res, full page JPG here, 1.2 MB):

natgeophotocrop (103k image)

Now, I’m sure Nat’l Geo intended this as a “wow, isn’t it cool that our magazine went to Iraq” moment, but my first reaction was

Why the fuck did a Marine Corps logistics officer have to bring his own map????

Um, hello? Pentagon? CIA? Aren’t you guys supposed to give our troops the information and tools they need to get the job done? Why in [pick any] god’s name did the Marine who “was directing convoys to military bases” have “no maps to guide him”? Why did he log “3000 miles on the road during three months in the desert, navigating with a GPS unit from home and his National Geographi map. Why was he not given the most up-to-date maps, satellite images, and intelligence? What the hell do you guys get paid for anyway?

This story puts this report by Peter Galbraith into a larger context (emphasis mine):

I also described two particularly disturbing incidents — one I had witnessed and the other I had heard about. On April 16, 2003, a mob attacked and looted the Iraqi equivalent of the Centers for Disease Control, taking live HIV and black fever virus among other potentially lethal materials. US troops were stationed across the street but did not intervene because they didn’t know the building was important.

When he found out, the young American lieutenant was devastated. He shook his head and said, “I hope I am not responsible for Armageddon.”

Yep, we really are fighting a “war on the cheap.” Apparently, Bush and Rumsfield and Wolfowitz support the troops by putting bumper stickers on their cars. With this administration’s gross incompetence, it is any wonder 8 more Marines died this morning?

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 30th, 2004 at 10:36 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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