Is it getting Drafty in here

There has been a lot of justifiable concern, regarding a return of the Draft. I have stated, in no uncertain terms, that Bush will call for the draft if re-elected, regardless of his statements to the contrary. RummyCO and the NeoCon Blowhards at the pentagon have quite simply killed the army. But I'll let veteran and Hero David Hackworth, in an article titled: "Uncle sam will soon want your kids", explains the relevant details.

Recently, when John Kerry brought up the possibility of a return to the draft, SecDef Donald Rumsfeld was quick to respond that Kerry was full of it.

But my take is that Kerry is right on the mark. Not only because Rummy has been flat wrong on every major military call regarding Iraq, but because this is a war that won’t be won by smart weapons or the sledgehammer firepower we see every night on the tube.

Right now – with both our regular and Reserve soldiers stretched beyond the breaking point – our all-volunteer force is tapping out. If our overseas troop commitments continue at the present rate or climb higher, there won’t be enough Army and Marine grunts to do the job. And thin, overworked units, from Special Forces teams to infantry battalions, lose fights.

Clearly, this war against worldwide, hardcore Islamic believers will be a massive military marathon, the longest and most far-flung in our country’s history. By Christmas, more troops could be needed not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but wherever the radical Islamic movement is growing stronger, from the Horn of Africa to Morocco, Kenya, Somalia, Yemen and across Europe – remember Spain?! – to Asia.

Accordingly, we need to bring our ground-fighting and support units to about the strength they were before the Soviet Union imploded, especially since the proper ratio of counterinsurgent-to-insurgent in places like the Middle East should be around 15 to 1. You don’t have to be a Ph.D. in military personnel to conclude we need more boots on the ground.

Most of our warriors – who are mainly from blue-collar families from Small Town, USA – have few political connections and few conduits though which they can effectively sound off. So when they get screwed over by a desperate Pentagon’s makeshift policies – such as the “Stop Loss” program that’s holding over large numbers of our servicemen and -women well beyond their contractually agreed-upon terms of enlistment, or the widespread calling up of out-of-shape, ill-trained citizen soldiers from the Individual Ready Reserve – these “volunteers” salute, suck it up and lay their lives on the line.

But like elephants, they won’t forget that they are “backdoor draftees,” as Kerry and John McCain call them. Which means that when their hitches are up, they won’t be rushing to re-enlist. And they’re also warning their younger brothers, sisters and pals to stay away from recruiting stations.

Although Pentagon puff artists insist they’re making quota, recruiters are already saying it would be easier to find $100 bills on the sidewalk outside a homeless shelter than fill their enlistment quotas, even with the huge bonuses now being paid.

So the draft – which will include both boys and girls this time around – is a no-brainer in ‘05 and ‘06.

Send this one to your friends and family, especially those that have teenaged kids. Bush can try to convince us that we will all be eaten by alligators if Kerry is elected, and claim against all evidence that things are proceeding swimmingly in Iraq, but the Army is broken recruiters can't make their quota's (the above quote about 100$ bills outside of a homeless shelter is quite telling) and we need alot more boots on the ground. Oh and speaking of boots on the ground, Viceroy Bremer took a stroll off of the reservation during a speech given to students of Depauw University Sept 17th. Damn I did not know that the bastard was in my home state. via Digby, and the LA Times (reg req'd)

L. Paul Bremer III, former head of the U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq, said Monday that the United States did not deploy enough troops and then failed to contain violence and looting immediately after the ouster of President Saddam Hussein.

Bremer, administrator for the Coalition Provisional Authority until the hand-over of political power June 28, said that he still supported the decision to intervene in Iraq but that a lack of adequate forces hampered the occupation and efforts to end the looting early on.


"We paid a big price for not stopping it because it established an atmosphere of lawlessness," he told an insurance conference in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. "We never had enough troops on the ground."

Bremer's comments echoed contentions of other critics of the Bush administration, including Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry, who say the U.S. government failed to plan adequately to maintain security in Iraq after the invasion.

On Sept. 17 at DePauw University, Bremer said, "The single most important change --- the one thing that would have improved the situation --- would have been having more troops in Iraq at the beginning and throughout" the occupation, according to the Banner-Graphic in Greencastle, Ind

Wow that's news, cause I think he characterised the situation differently in June of 2003.

Responding to a question about troop strength, Bremer said: "I think
we have an adequate force level here." Troop levels in Iraq should be driven by security conditions, he said. He expressed the hope that in the coming months "we are successful in imposing our will on this small group of people who are attacking us and causing us casualties."

I guess you were wrong then, eh, Pauly. Good thing you got yer ass out of there two days early. Needless to say, the Administration and its operatives will say anything to get re-selected. And chances are good that if they hurl accusations, they are really just admitting that they are guilty of that which they accuse. Projection, vaccination, and prevarication are the tools of their trade.