On Last Night's Debate

While the media is enjoying going after Hillary for her comment "Change you can Xerox" (hey, don't you know that Xerox is not a verb, but a trademarked word by the Xerox corporation who has fought tooth and nail to keep it), the real story is that Barack Obama doesn't know the first thing about the US military and its inner workings. This is from last night's debate:



This comment by Chris G. at Flopping Aces sums things up perfectly. Obama doesn't get the leadership ranks correct, ignores basic facts about how units are sent into a theater of operations - individual companies are not split up between Iraq and Afghanistan, and the 10th Mountain never operated at all in Iraq.

What a crock of outright lies and BS!!!! Platoons are not split up along theater level lines. A Platoon is the smallest tactical element commonly employed. Normal Squads, which make up Platoons, do not go out alone unless covered by something big (Tank/Infantry squad teams for example).

Units are not halved for combat!! Units in Afghanistan were not used in Iraq and the two events occurred almost a year apart!! 10th Mountain went into Afghanistan fully manned. 10th Mountain was not used in Iraq. Also, all units have organic vehicles. Divisions are not stripped of vehicles for another theater operation. We have APS fleets to cover this (pre-deployed assets in Kuwait)!!! Obama should know about this as funding for the APS fleets are in the appropriations bills.

In other words, Obama doesn't know or doesn't care that he's attacking the military based on a lie. And there's no way to fact check his claims in their entirety because he simply sourced this as an Army Captain who was leading a platoon (which in itself is a giveaway that he's not being straight since platoons are led by 2nd Lieutenants).

As for whether individual units ran low on ammo and had to scavenge from captured weapons, it is certainly possible. Units will often gather up captured weapons and equipment, including ammo, so that they too can be used in the fight. Each unit has only so much it can take with them, so that if they're in a firefight, they'll make do with whatever they have at hand.

Ace is skeptical. CF is skeptical.

And if all of this were true, what exactly is Obama doing about it? He's seeking to cut off funding altogether and end the mission, which would put those in the field in an even more precarious position. He's been against funding the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Far from having those soldiers interests in mind, he's showing his ignorance on military affairs and the ramifications of his actions in Congress.

UPDATE:
Obama explicitly states that he said that this unit thought it easier to capture the weapons from the Taliban than it was to requisition ammo from unit commanders. How exactly was it easier for this particular unit to capture Taliban weapons than to ask their unit commanders for resupply? You can't get those Taliban weapons without killing them, and what exactly are you using to kill them? Harsh language? Photos from Playboy magazines? Photos from Goats Illustrated?

It simply doesn't make any sense. You need ammo and weapons to kill the Taliban in order to capture their weapons and ammo. That, and US weapons use a different caliber munition than Taliban use - they use completely different guns, so scrounging doesn't make sense, although special forces units will often use Warsaw Pact weapons (AK-47/74 or variants) to blend in and to take advantage of weapons and ammo they capture along the way since they can carry only so much.

UPDATE:
The Weekly Standard calls Obama's comments pure BS. So, who in the big media outlets will take him to task for saying it? Anyone?

UPDATE:
Here's a transcript of what Obama said:

OBAMA: 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.

Hot Air has much more, and the skepticism is definitely growing. Flopping Aces, AJ Strata and Protein Wisdom also weigh in.

UPDATE:
Someone at the Pentagon was paying attention last night and managed to get Reuters to pick up a story about it. (Via Gateway Pundit)

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.

"Despite the stress that we readily acknowledge on the force, one of the things that we do is make sure that all of our units and service members that are going into harm's way are properly trained, equipped and with the leadership to be successful," he said.

Whitman's remarks were unusual as the Pentagon often declines to talk about comments from political campaigns.

Obama said the captain was the head of a rifle platoon, which should have had 39 members -- but 15 were sent to Iraq so the unit deployed to Afghanistan had 24 soldiers.

Several Army officers said a platoon is normally commanded by a 2nd lieutenant -- two ranks below a captain -- but the size of a platoon would indeed be around 40 soldiers.

Obama went out of his way to mention this specific anecdote, which means that others in his campaign knew or had reason to know what he was going to say.

UPDATE:
ABC News's Jake Tapper has apparently been in contact with the Captain involved - and he was indeed a lieutenant at the time the incidents allegedly occurred, which would explain the discrepancies about the rank. Tapper's report says that the Captain corroborates the story of splitting up his unit.

That remains to be seen.

The question of being low on ammo depended on the kind in question. Some was unavailable for training, but not once in theater. Complaining about the lack of humvees is a problem, but as I note above, Congress is in charge of appropriations and Obama was a Senator at the time, so if there were problems with the lack of equipment, Congress should have had the money available to correct them. Obama opposed the appropriations.

UPDATE:
Sen. John Warner (R-VA) wants to get critical information from the Obama campaign as to the allegations made in last night's debate.

What I need from you are the essential facts of when — the dates — the unit was deployed, to which brigade combat team, or other unit it was assigned, the name and current location of the captain, or other military personnel who shared the alleged facts with you, so that committee staff can debrief them.

He's asking questions that Tapper doesn't exactly answer in his supposed confirmation of the story. Note to Tapper: if you want to actually confirm the story, you have to do more than simply find the guy who told the story; you have to confirm what he actually said. What Tapper has done is simply retell the same story that was originally mentioned by Obama during the debate.

And if you try to track what the captain said to what Obama did say in the debate, there isn't exactly a 100% correlation. There are discrepancies and there is definitely reason to pursue asking more details about the supposed problems with supplies and claims that the unit was broken up to ship off members to a different theater of operations.