...and what really burns me is that this has to be discussed in public during wartime, since our government has not been properly taking care of business.
No. It's time to reform our way of engaging the enemy. NUKE 'EM, one city at a time, and if they don't get the message, nuke another city until they get it!! It's time to stop playing "political correctness war". If you've got'em, use 'em, and we got plenty of 'em. The ONLY thing Terrorists fear is Opposition Strength & Commitment to TOTAL VICTORY AT ANY COST. If you wave a big stick, and don't use it, it only makes them laugh. If you have a big stick and use it, they will back away. If you have a big stick and use it to it's fullest capability, they will never bother you again.
Bingo. I hate agreeing with the Times, because they're not genuine in their concern. They're right on this issue, but they're only bringing it up because it's a needle they can poke the President with.
Still, we need to face the fact that Clinton badly damaged the US military and we're not prepared for the deployments required.
Bush Sr did quite a number, as well. Blaming either of them is pointless and frankly unfair, since GWB has been President more than long enough to have fixed it. Increasing troop levels is simply not a priority with this administration.
It's time to reform the system by which we rely heavily on Reservists and Guardsmen for long-term overseas deployments and authorize a larger active-duty force with larger stockpiles, etc.
That's exactly right. It's great to have the Reserves and NG, and to call on them when need be. Still, this is a failure of planning, to have so few active duty troops. The GWOT, and related wars, will be manpower intensive.
...and what really burns me is that this has to be discussed in public during wartime, since our government has not been properly taking care of business.
It would be discussed more, but people fear the political impact of talking about the Administration's military mismanagement. That's a fine thing if you're more concerned about winning elections than you are the troops, I suppose. It's just sad to see people so afraid of criticism from the other party, that they deny calls to fix at the needs of their troops as some kind of PR stunt.
The most important statistic is reenlistment. That tells you if we are losing experienced NCOs, the backbone of our army.
During the current conflict, the reenlistment rates have never been low.
Therefore, I deem the NY Times article full of crap.
For example: If as few as one man in three have body armor, you just switch it around so that the high risk men wear the body armor, and the Fobbits (mix of Forward Operating Base and hobbits who never leave the Shire) don't get any.
The US Army came up with tactics to beat the fortified lines at Normandy, beat the hedgerow defenses, and beat the Tiger and Panther tanks with Shermans and Tank Destroyers. I have every confidence that the Army will defeat these jerks. And the Arab terrorists too.