The John Wayne Want-To-Be

Bush’s Missing Flak Jackets

For the superficial, over matched Bush to satisfy his own ego needs by attempting to establish Democracy in Iraq and win an election for himself by needlessly sacrificing young Americans, is a cruel corruption of all that is decent. The ALMIGHTY will not allow such evil activity to continue. Especially is it blatant hypocrisy when such disgusting activity parades itself as compassion.

Is not the recent scandalous behavior by the Pentagon of not supplying thousands of vulnerable U.S. military personnel with protective flak jackets another vivid example of this cocky, out of touch with reality, American President, cruelly betraying public trust?

Despite virtually all U.S. military planners knowing for months previous to the Iraq war that close to a hundred fifty thousand flak jackets would be necessary protective equipment, thousands of these vulnerable troops will not receive their life saving jackets until early December, if then.

(Flak is the military term used for bullets and fragments flying through the air during war or during resistance to occupation, intended to kill or inflict mortal wounds. A “flak jacket” is an especially designed jacket with extra bullet proof padding that will often prevent a mortal wound. The newest design of these interceptor jackets is to have ceramic inserts. These jackets are credited with saving 30 lives in Afghanistan.)

From his appearance, I am under the impression that the President himself regularly wears a bullet proof vest that offers a similar protection as a flak jacket. The sad irony is that our President is in a far less hostile environment than the thousands of military he ordered to go to Iraq who also need maximum protection but will not until December have the benefit of flak jackets. Yet President Bush felt it necessary to rush these precious young people to Iraq in order to establish a Democratic Iraq and protect the U.S. from a supposedly imminent threat from invisible weapons of mass destruction even before enough jackets were available.

According to Democratic congressman, Ted Strickland of Ohio, interviewed on FOX News, about 8,000 of these interceptor vests were promised or presented to Mongolian and Polish troops when they were not available to American troops. Shamefully, it is reported that some of the soldiers who had the vests without the life saving inserts, were forced by these regrettable circumstances to request that their families mail them the inserts from the U.S.

It was in March of 1992 when George W. Bush suddenly made his vile , six word foreign policy announcement to two U.S. Senators and his National Security Advisor while standing in the doorway of the office of Miss Rice.

“F..k Saddam, we’re taking him out!”

From the time of that concise but unexpected foreign policy speech faithfully reported by Time magazine, which informed the Pentagon of the Bush Administration’s intention to invade, until thousands of vulnerable troops will receive their long pleaded for interceptor jackets, will be twenty-one months. This is approximately the same time period an elephant is pregnant. From the beginning of the war until all troops have their flak jackets will only be about the nine months time it takes for a woman to have a baby.

But this long time lapse until delivery by the pregnant pink elephant called the Pentagon may be explainable. The Pentagon may have had a good reason to give a low priority to supplying the life saving flak jackets. The delay may be due to the President telling them that since John Wayne did not wear a flak jacket, why should American troops enjoy such a luxury? More likely, however, is that Bush temporarily cancelled the order for the jackets after his naive, premature and unnecessarily flamboyant declaration of victory speech aboard a U.S. carrier.

The immoral treatment of American troops by the Pentagon in not supplying life saving flak jackets carries an ominous message for Middle Eastern Arabs. Since American military planners treat their own troops with such contempt, carelessness and callousness, how will they treat those bothersome Arab states that the U.S. is so enthusiastic about realigning?