As Atrios wrote recently, somehow people manage to hear about stories published on the front page of the New York Times even if I don’t link to them. I assume you’re up on the soldiers questioning Rumsfeld about adequate equipment and stop-loss. The right wingers — remember, the guys who support the troops — are trying to downplay this in various ways. Spent some time listening to Limbaugh and glancing over the righty blogs — the main arguments seem to be that (a) the fact that soldiers are scrounging junk piles to try to protect themselves adequately is just proof that the system is working well — i.e., decent hardworking American boys don’t want anything to go to waste; (b) no amount of armor can protect them from RPG’s, so why bother to have any armor at all; and via Drudge, (c) the question was planted by some damn liberal reporter anyway. (As to that last point, only one question is relevant — did the reporter also engineer the spontaneous roar of applause from the rest of the troops in the audience?)
Limbaugh went on to liken the troops wanting decent equipment which might help them live out their tours of duty to his own employees whining because they want bigger computer monitors and the dishes in the break room aren’t as nice as they would like. Yes, that’s right. The fat junkie blowhard thinks that the life-and-death situation for troops in Iraq is no more serious than the size of his assistant’s computer monitor. It literally infuriates me, thinking about it. What a worthless piece of human debris this guy is.
As for the question of whether or not any amount of armor is necessary, I simply suggest you go read this. Read to the end. It’ll break your heart.