"Shhhh! I'm Listening to Reason!" wrote in message
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Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 16:46:02 GMT

The obvious solution is to do something to help encourage enlistment,
something that likely would be opposed by the Democrats since it would
lessen their ability to buy votes with giveaway programs. We can
generally
count on the Leftists to be opposed to anything that strengthens our
ability
to defend ourselves.

Hm. Presidential election of last year. Kerry advocates creating two
more army divisions, one each in special operations and support.

Bush: "We're winning this thing and don't need any more help."

Since when is Bush a leftist?

He's not, he's just reacting to the politics of that moment, where the Dems
were trying to make it seem like we didn't have enough people in uniform.


There are recruiting bonuses already in place in the tens of thousands
of dollars. If they offer, say, $500,000 I might even join. Of course,
then you replace a professional military with mercenaries.

The report isn't going to be the official position of the Pentagon. It
was a third-party unbiased look. In fact, one might expect a former
army officer to write how great everything is.

I don't think there is such a thing as an unbiased third party when it comes
to the military, or almost anything else that has anything to do with
politics. YMMV

What is Rumsfeld's position? Let's look at what he said in response:

Duck #1

"This armed force is enormously capable," Rumsfeld told reporters
at a Pentagon briefing. "In addition, it's battle hardened. It's
not a peacetime force that has been in barracks or garrisons."

Translation: the military has lots of cool weapons. We're not afraid to
use them. They've been all over the world using them recently.

Sure, Clinton had them all over the place.


"Do we still need more rebalancing? You bet," Rumsfeld said.

Rebalancing? LOL! IOW, the report is essentially correct. This isn't
about 'fine-tuning.'

An opinion you get to have.

"Rumsfeld said that "retention is up" and that recruitment levels
must meet higher goals, ones raised because of the operations on the
ground."

Retention is only up because of up to $50,000 or more tax-free dollars
given to young soldiers who stay in. The interesting thing to me is how
many still walk away from the money. Hey, Rummy, you are missing your
lower recruiting goals. How will you meet higher ones? Typical Rumsfeld
doublespeak.

An opinion you get to have.

"There is no question if a country is in a conflict and we are in the
global war on terror, it requires our forces to do something other than
what they do in peacetime."

Translation: The sky is over our heads, and it rains sometimes. When it
rains, it tends to get cloudy first. Stating the obvious, not at all
related to what the report said.


"The world saw the United States military go halfway around the world
in a matter of weeks, throw the al-Qaida and Taliban out of
Afghanistan, in a landlocked country thousands and thousands of miles
away. They saw what the United States military did in Iraq.

"And the message from that is not that this armed force is broken,
but that this armed force is enormously capable," Rumsfeld said.

Transalation: In World War II we kicked butt. In Korea we kicked butt.
That was a long time ago. The world saw us go halfway around the world
and kick butt in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Who could possibly say there
are any issues in the military, given that we kicked butt as recently
as three years ago?

Soldiers vote with their feet. Recruiting missed its goal last year by
over 8%. That is a very significant number when one considers the
thousands of dollars offered in enlistment bonuses. While recruiting
apparently is meeting its goals this year, the goals were revised
significantly downward.

Retention goals are always a loss. You never keep 100%. So you have a
goal of, say retaining 30 or 50 percent.

Therefore, you have dwindling numbers. You aren't recruiting enough to
make up losses, and you aren't retaining enough to stop the flow. Given
the tempo of world-wide operations (read deployments) it isn't too hard
to see that the point of the report is true: the military could soon
reach a breaking point.

Maybe, maybe not. The people I keep hearing from who are staioned in Iraq
are very dedicated to the goals there and don't want to quit. Even if they
did the only way to make up for what you seem to think is a crisis, would be
to institute a draft, which would be one of the worst things that could be
done becuase of the lack of dedication of the draftees.


Political bull**** aside, there are large issues facing the readiness
of our military. That the leadership of the country seems oblivious to
that is alarming to me. Rummy didn't even address equipment issues.
There's no point in addressing those, since you have to have people to
operate the equipment in the first place.

An opinion you get to have. Perhaps if the Dems hadn't been systematically
trying to dismantle so many of the things that help us gather information,
things would be drastically different.

Then of course there's the fact that when Bin Ladin was offered up on a
silver platter to Clinton, he couldn't think of any reason that could be
used to hold him.

That Democrats are screaming the sky is falling about the military strikes
me as just another bit of politics played for the purpose of trying to make
Bush look bad.

They always have a double standard and pretend that they have good reasons
for their actions, case in point Judge Alito. When he was last up for
confirmation he was UNANIMOUSLY approved by the Senate. The Dems seem to
think that they have to fight extra hard because he would be replacing a
swing vote on the Supreme Court. They blank out the fact that Justices are
appointed by the President and if they are qualified they should be
confirmed, just as Ruth Bader Ginsburg(sp?) was. It seems very apparent to
me that she's more to the left than Alito is to the right, but that doesn't
seem to register with the Dems, they simply want to distort the character of
any GOP nominated judge.

The most laughable thing about this is that nobody ever knows what the hell
a Justice will do when they get to the bench. Earl Warren was a major
surprise and perhaps one of the worst people ever to be on the high court,
so it is always a crap shoot.

Hopefully, he will be as advertised, a strict follower of the Constitution.