Comments on: Top General: Army Near Breaking Point

Chief Of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker Says Army 'Will Break' Without Thousands More Troops

[frankly6]

janish

Our military has been misused in Iraq. Has the Bush administration not been able to figure out that an operation of this size cannot and will not be successfuly carried out by putting so much of the burden on national guard forces? Bush and co. didn't enact a draft and didn't send in a larger force in the beginning for political reasons not strategicly sound reasons. This mis-use and abuse of the military is what's breaking it.

[randalds]

I don't need to support or not support any of your options or indeed any of Albright's. I believe the blockade (including our no fly zone) was doing it's job and would have gone to the UN for a renewal of them when they came due. I disagree that regime change was necessary at the time when Clinton said it was needed and also when Bush launched his insanity in the region. Oh and our planes being attacked amounted to them shooting peashooters and snapping rubber bands at our planes. Certainly it was cheaper to spend millions talking then the 100's of billions we have spent on this war of choice and I suppose you'd like to argue that they are not now using our presence there as a recruiting tool?

[frankly6]

Clearly, to any objective person, Iraq, the middle east, and the world are less safe and less stable because of this boondogle.

It was ill-conceived,poorly planned and has been incompetently executed and managed.

[frankly6]

janish

I agree that we let the military become a little too weak and too small but I think that most of the current problem is not size or strength but how it's been utilized.

[janish64]

oh - you may want to read ALL of her statements because she is on record saying she is prepared to use military force.

But let's say she doesn't state this. Would that mean you prefer millions of dollars spent on PHONY diplomacy, while our planes are being attacked as we "pretend" to enforce the nofly zone, and bogus sanctions, and as a side dish, Islamic Terrorist groups use our presence, AND the sanctions as an anti-US recruiting tool?

You must support option B, if you reject the military actions used to remove the regime, because there IS no option C. Even if we broke our own rules and assasinated him, we would still be occupying the country.

So - which is it? Option A or Option B?
I think I already know the answer.

[janish64]

franlky6 - Don't confuse me with a blind Bush supporter, by the way. I'm talking about historical cuts, based on old *** opinions. People with a lot of experience were warning, back in the 90s, that we were going to be fighting new types of wars, and we should not just close up shop because of the fall of the Soviet Union. Guerilla warfare was growing in the ME, and door to door combat of a new era was on the horizon, as was extended stays as we rebuilt countries. Bush the first should have finished the job in Iraq, but would have had to do so against the world opinion. He folded to the UN. Unfortunately that left his son having to use gonads to do it. His son ran against "nation building" (why, I don't know) but had his head quickly pulled out of his arse after 9/11. Anyone who thinks Iraq was not a pivotal point in this global war has a VERY short reading list. The bottom line - there has been a long history of gaps and oversights in military planning as it aligns with foreign policy. One good thing coming out of the 2 wars in the middle east is more attention to voices on the ground, and the boots on the ground are more involved in the foreign policies.

[janish64]

read on, frankly - the post Soviet cuts recommended by Bush were reassessed, and continued to grow, as of 1997 they were still trying to cut regular forces back to guard/reserve status. It was CLINTON'S BUR, and subsequent cuts AFTER Aspin left (he was still a little conservative on the numbers compared to Perry) which resulted in big overhauls. Remember, Clinton ran on the promise to overhaul the military. If the Bush cuts were a bad idea, why didn't he stop them with his new plan? That was his job, right?

[randalds]

The statements make perfect sense to me, but no where in them does she advocate an invasion to force democracy on Iraq.

[frankly6]

George W. Bush, while running for his first term as president, asserted that US military deployments are %u201Ctoo often open-ended and lacking in clear objectives.%u201D Bush advisor Condoleeza Rice has criticized the Clinton Administration for using the US military as a %u201Cglobal police force.%u201D

QUESTION:

Bush has clearly dug us into a huge hole in Iraq. Should we give him a bigger shovel or a ladder?

[randalds]

Bravo frankly6 and thank you for taking the time to look that up. I love it when they have to face the truth, though they never admit it.