While the U.S. has a Humvee shortage, the Brits are doing even worse -- they're down to a total of 8 (yes, EIGHT) Chinook helicopters, and are reduced to hiring private helicopters to ferry their soldiers around in Afghanistan. The roads are so bad in Afghanistan, and the terrain so rugged, that it really isn't feasible to transport and supply their troops via truck. It might take all day to make 20 miles by truck. So this is a Big Deal(tm).
What is the American response, when asked whether they have any helicopters to spare? "Dude, we ain't got enough for ourselves, much less you!" is their response.
It makes a penguin wonder just how bad the situation really is. It sounds like the Coalition of the Willing is more the Coalition of the Illing nowdays...
- Badtux the Military Penguin
Crossposted in expanded form at Mockingbird's Medley
I think that it is even worse than what we are hearing.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but we're winning the war, so we must stay the course. Yeah, right. We'll stay the course until we're firmly back in the stone age. I suppose then the glorious leader will be asking the troups to throw rocks at the opposition. :-(
ReplyDeleteAs for the helicopters, I hosted a distant relative who was a Vietnam era helicopter pilot. Things were pretty bad back in that era, too. One of the stories he told was that you could tell when their helicopters were coming back to the base, since the duct tape that they'd wrapped around the rotor blades to cover the bullet holes would be coming loose and flapping. It made a real distinctive sound.
Hmm, I don't suppose the British have yet had to resort to using duct tape on their rotor blades, have they? :-(
You know, more and more, Iraq is sounding like Viet Nam!
Dave
wow - i finally got it!!
ReplyDeletethe american public has been brainwashed into buying those over priced hummers
and now what's gonna happen -- is that the gov will ask for all hummers to be shipped to iraq -- you know, as part of the war effort...
so sad
Where oh where will we find the troops and money to fight those nasty Iranians? or North Koreans?
ReplyDeleteSince it was the US goal to conquer Iraq and Afghanistan, they really should be helping out their willing partners.