I am taking a slightly different approach to the Obama weapons story.

If you didn’t know, this was a product of the debate the other night, where Obama said:

You know, I’ve heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon — supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq.

And as a consequence, they didn’t have enough ammunition, they didn’t have enough Humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.

Now, that’s a consequence of bad judgment. And you know, the question is, on the critical issues that we face right now, who’s going to show the judgment to lead? And I think that on every critical issue that we’ve seen in foreign policy over the last several years — going into Iraq originally, I didn’t just oppose it for the sake of opposing it.

OK, aside from the body armor rumors a few years ago, and the factual complaint that there are not enough armored Humvees to go around, this is really the first serious accusation of underfunding I have heard.

The Pentagon, of course denies it:

Pentagon doubts Obama account of equipment problem

The Pentagon on Friday cast doubt on an account of military equipment shortages mentioned by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama during a debate with rival Hillary Clinton.

…

“I find that account pretty hard to imagine,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters.

So is it true?  Yes and no.  What it seems to boil down to is a nuanced account of one platoon in Afghanistan.

Obama took several anecdotes and merged them into a single tale which made it sound worse than it was.  He deliberately spun this make it appear that our troops were struggling for survival armed with Swiss Army knives and rocks, and only the availability of captured weapons gave them any hope of survival.

This is blatantly untrue, and the fact checking proves that out.

According to the Captain, they were short ammo for weapons prior to deploying when they needed it for training.  They did have a hard time getting parts in theater, and they were short of vehicles.  The captain was clear however that they never had a shortage of normal weapons or ammo, so the captured AK-47s used were not in the category of must have use or die.  The captain admitted to mounting a captured machine gun onto a Humvee as well.  This is not desperation it is innovation.  Any good field commander will leverage any resource they can to drive to victory.

The pragmatists note that in battle there are always shortages, and troops always take advantage of weapons in the field if they can.  So none of that is really severe.

The only serious aspect is the manpower shortage and the lack of parts and vehicles once in theater.   The rest of this is really not a story.

Are the shortages true?  Parts, I would not doubt.  Shortages happen.  Manpower, possibly.  

But it is important to remember that all we really have is an unsubstantiated story, so how can we truly prove it?

He tells us nothing about the unit he was in, in the larger sense.  Were the other units able to back fill and cover?  Does he have actual documentation of being ordered to do something he did not have the resources for?  All we have is anecdotal stories.  No platoon is an island.

And with all due respect, have we not heard too stories about events in theater from the left that have turned out to be completely bogus?

So, I admit to treating this with a grain of salt.

And all this was reputed to have happened in Summer of 2003 through Spring 2004 when the war in Iraq had just begun, so finding out that Afghanistan had some shortages as we ramped up is hardly breaking news anyway.

Now admittedly, I was not a fan of going into Iraq in 2003 in part because fighting a war on two fronts is always a struggle.  So I guess I have to agree with Obama that this account may have been a consequence of that decision.

But the fact is that he presented it in a very irresponsible manner, and did so to make political hay, and that is essentially typical politics.  So I question his concern in relating this story.  His concern was beating Hillary for the nomination, not in the plight of the troops he recounted.

If you want to read more, look here, there is a ton of sites making all kinds of waves over this.

http://www.memeorandum.com/080222/p74#a080222p74

Rather than engage in that, I want to consider this: Obama shows a sense of not wanting to fight a war when necessary and not until all conditions are perfect.  He seems to not understand that no war is done so under ideal conditions, that shortages will happen and that the enemy gets a vote too, so no war plan is ever perfect.

My question to Obama:  In the face of a serious threat to our nation, knowing we were going to face shortages and hardship fighting a determined enemy, would he have the guts to order us to fight anyway to save our nation, or would he waver and dither and vacillate and allow us to be overrun because we didn’t have enough Humvees to fight the war?

Had he been in the Whitehouse would he have ordered the landing on Normandy where we faced the certainty of horrible losses?  The raids on Tokyo which succeeded against all odds?  The war in the pacific where we seemed outnumbered and overwhelmed including the horrible losses at Pearl Harbor?

Could he have done as Truman did?  Would he have dropped the bomb?

Part of the qualities in the CIC are the resolve to fight when fighting is necessary, not when we are sure we can win.

Yes, we plan to win, we strategize to win and we train and equip to win, but there are never assurances we will win.  Some of history’s greatest victories were those where a vastly overwhelmed and outnumbered force won anyway.

Some of those battles were won due to gross mistakes by the enemy and some by luck.  Some via grim determination and desperation.

None were won by staying home because we were 15 guys short of a platoon.

I am not making any claims about Mr Obama’s potential to lead.  Great men rise to the occasion sometimes. 

But I can and will ask you to ask yourself this question.  Can he be trusted to lead when it is necessary, as opposed to easy?

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