Posted on 02/06/2006 6:28:31 AM PST by MplsSteve
The Marines may be the most celebrated of the American armed forces, but it's the Army that does most of the heavy lifting, as it is doing in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the process, the Army is being battered and shattered in the same way that it was in Vietnam.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says that isn't the case; everything's fine. But a recent authoritative study says he is wrong.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
OTOH, I have been reading articles like this for some time now. Some of the articles are from sources that could not be considered liberal or anti-war. I'm not the cut and run type - but I'm now starting to winder if the Army is over-stretched.
Anyone wanna weigh in on this editorial or have thoughts about the study that was commissioned by the Pentagon?
I recommend the book "Bodyguard of Lies" that you can get from Amazon.
"...the Army is being battered and shattered in the same way that it was in Vietnam"
Yep, by media telling our citizens we're defeated, our cause is hopeless, and our warfighters are garbage.
It does seem about the same.
If, in fact, the Armed Services are stretched, then we need to invest more and build them up to the point where they can do their job on whatever fronts arise in this "interesting" world we live in ... not cut and run from where they are deployed now.
How are we over-stretched? Are we in danger of Canada attacking us from the north? I suppose you could make the case that we need to reload before we go into Iran, but the US is not at risk of being invaded/atacked by another country.
It's pretty pathetic if our army can be stretched to the breaking point by Afghanistan and Iraq. That's well short of the "two major conflicts" Clinton bragged about when the army was much weaker.
My first impulse was the same as yours.
But for me the counterbalancing notion is that we shouldn't have to be risking the lives of our guys in this kind of situation right now. My opinion is that one of "our" lives is worth a thousand of "theirs".
They should have simply bombed Iraq into submission, without regard for "world" opinion" at the minimum risk possible to US troops. And frankly, I don't really care about the civilian casualties.
The civilians there know what they have to do if the situation gets too painful. Its up to them to rise up and do it.
Freedom isn't free, and it isn't delivered to your doorstep by foreign emissaries.
From what I've heard, the DoD's plan is to REDUCE the number of soldiers in coming years and creating a smarter work force with technology.
I've also heard the retention rate among combat units is exceedingly high.
As far as social problems among the men in the Army, well, I can tell you it has always been there....is there anything to indicate it is worse now than ever before?
The press loves to focus on the negative. I can tell you the military's morale was very very low when HITLERY and her sink-staining husband were in the White House. Never saw any editorials or news reports about that, did ya? I wonder why....otoh, I don't.
Tell that to the men and women who are on their third or fourth combat tour.
It's more of a case of too few combat forces for the missions out there. Rumsfield wants to uber-tech the military, but in the final analysis, it's ALWAYS boots on the ground that win wars. And we really need about 6-8 more infantry divisions, and 2 more Marine divisions. . .
I won't even begin to address the argument that our heavy reliance on mechanized forces has ominous parallels with that of latter-day Rome: Rome only began to lose its' greatness when it began to rely on mounted forces, as opposed to legions.
In the end, it's ALWAYS the infantryman that will win you the war . . .
I recently discovered a controversial website that turns out to have the most comprehensive image coverage of the Iraq War and Afghanistan that I've ever seen:
It is "now that's f'd up dot com".
Your best source for soldiers posing with Iraqis as well as battle scenes and aftermath scenes. All the stuff that gets censored elsewhere. In fact, this site, operating out of Holland by an American, is being brought down by the US government in the next few weeks.
At the exact moment that IRAN springs their stuff, our Armed Forces in Iraq & Afghanistan have got to be where they are in order to strike back quickly & heavily.
And when the demographics started to crash, coupled with a massive influx of non Romans into the empire who would not assimilate.
Not quite, and not yet. At the end of the Vietnam War, the U.S. military was attacked on a daily basis by a Democrat controlled U.S. Congress and a communist controlled Main Steam News Media that preferred to see our soldiers killed and our country defeated than to allow a Republican President to receive credit for defeating our enemy.
We may see a repeat of this in Iraq, if the elections go badly in November and the Democrats again control Congress. If this happens, Ted Kennedy will get another chance to betray his country and our military, just as he did during the Vietnam War.
Kenneth R. Timmerman has written the defining book on Islam and our enemies - "Countdown to Crisis" - a must read for all Americans. Do not take your eye off the ball in Iraq we are winning in that theater which is causing American Marxists like the Red Star, the head Nut in Iran and the numb-skulls in Washington, D.C. to look for a non-victory over Militant Islamists. Our Army is just fine and doing one magnificent job!
SUPPORT OUR MILITARY AND SUPPORT THEIR LEADERS!
Here is a great interview with a soldier IN Iraq. Better reading than some commie enemedia article.
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/WThomasSmithJr/2006/02/06/185286.html
What they want is to bring back the draft so there can be riots in the streets and insure that our wonderful military degenerates into the drug-infested, mutinous mess that prevailed during Vietnam - but hey, no matter as long as they can finally get Bush.
It's always about getting GWB.
But first, of course, they a have to convince reasonable people that the military is "stretched too thin" before they can destroy it.
File this in the "quagmire" category. The only real roadblocks to a decisive and super fast resolution is our humanitarian stance that tries everything possible to avoid killing civilians. Turn them loose and our Armed Forces don't even break into sweat.
I love it how the left is all worried about our army now. They have spent almost 40 years trying to destroy our military capability. Now they fret they may have succeeded.
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