[Theophilus]

I don't know/agree about/with most of Haney's comments. I've seen "The Unit" and I think it really stinks. However, I think I agree with him on this point:

The reasons of this administration for taking this nation to war were not what they stated.

I think our administration has spent too much time worrying about what the coalition, our allies, the UN or the rest of the world thinks when the only thing that matters is God and the American public.

My fantasy Declaration Of War: "We have been at war with Radical Islam since the sanctity of our embassy in Iran was violated. Now that our homeland has been attacked, and our citizens slaughtered, our enemy has taken this war to another level. We will ruthlessly attack him and whoever supports him wherever they may be found. Saddam Hussein, after invading two countries, lost the first Gulf War. At the surrender, Iraq agreed to terms, all of which have been violated. He has flagrantly supported the families of suicide terrorists. Therefore, we will depose Saddam and invade and divide Iraq. We will establish and maintain permanent bases there to establish security in the region and to support future offensive operations when needed. The future security, prosperity and freedom of the people of the former Iraq is in their hands and they are in the hands of God. May he bless them in their new countries, as he has blessed The United States of America."

[familyop]

"Eric Haney, a retired command sergeant major of the U.S. Army,..."

Who, from his Era, doesn't have the common sense that our Greatest Generation had. I hope that late 1980s changes in initial training (to use WWII Era wisdoms) for selected combat specialties will be propagated to all parts of the Army and will finally take us away from Nikita's exported indoctrinations of US hippies.

[RetSignman]

"The Unit" is one show I watched, just because it was in HDTV, now that I know this moron is involved with this production...I'm not going to watch it again, it wasn't that well made anyhow.

[TalBlack]

"...and I think Bush may well have started the third world war, all for their own personal policies."

Wow. Pretty F*&#ing stupid.

This guy likes to hear himself talk but apparently only up to the point that he actually says anything. For instance he forgot to mention all the proper things he thinks we should have done in the WOT.

I gotta wonder if this piece is for real?

[robowombat]

I keep seeing statements of this ilk "Our military is completely consumed, so were there a real threat - thankfully, there is no real threat to the U.S. in the world, but were there one, we couldn't confront it. "

Either those making them are ignorant of the facts or are deliberately lying.

At the end of FY 04 the total regular forces only were about 1.4 Million adding in Guard and Reserve was about another 300K. Total US forces at peak deployment in 04 were about 150K, with Afghanistan consuming perhaps another 30K.
Today total deployed is about 130K in Iraq and 20K plus in Afghanistan against a total force strength of about 1.6 M.
Iraq currently absorbs about the equivalent of about two Army divisions + and a Marine Division with Afghanistan absorbing about another division equivalent composed of Army and Marine personnel. Air assets tied to these two regions represent somewhat less of a slice of tactical air than was devoted to enforcing the embargo regime on Iraq before 2003. The significant logistics shortages and dislocations of the first two years of operations are now history and Southwest Asia is now a matured theater with a well articulated supply and support structure providing timely logistics support to the deployed forces. Indeed the Army is in the middle of a massive restructure of its organization known as 'resetting the force' that is, among other things, pushing large quantities of heavy equipment back to the states to be reshuffled among Army units world wide or be used to reestablish prepositioning stockpiles within theater.

This man has enough contacts inside the armed forces that he has access to the same information on a more detailed level that i have just discussed. He is either being willfully ignorant or deliberately misrepresenting conditions out of partisan political venom. In either case what he is saying has zero credible basis and should be confronted in the media.

[Phsstpok]

Ah yes. This is Jimmy Carter's kind of soldier!

Claim to fame (as listed in the article)? He was part of that well known success Desert One. How much you wanna bet he was the one urging President Jimmuh we had to pull out via satellite link?

Either that or he was the guy in charge of moving the aircraft around. 

[No Longer Free State]

His one claim to fame is the debacle he headed for Jimmy Carter in the deserts of Iran and we're listening to him because...?