Comments on: Rumsfeld Hides Behind Army

By: notway

notway — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 16:45:51 +0000

Rumsfeld fought expanding the size of the army for a long time, at least until Jan 04.

The size of the army is one of the factors determining tour length in Iraq.

He must go.

By: bizutti

bizutti — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 14:21:23 +0000

Dumsfeld is probably the worst offender, but when the Bush regime can’t find a viable scapegoat they push the “it’s not perfect” excuse.

That’s a lame rhetorical device intended to cow opponents into submission with the tacit understanding that nobody and nothing is perfect. Therefore the “it’s not perfect” defense is perfectly meaningless just like most of the nonsense they cram down our throats.

By: carsick

carsick — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 21:06:07 +0000

I’m getting really tired of Rumsfeld’s use of the phrase “in a perfect world”. The military has never planned for fighting in a perfect world …ever…yet his comment implies that’s why things aren’t going our way. If anything, the administration wasn’t aware that we didn’t live in a perfect world when they made their plans but the military knew. Shinseki knew.

By: David B

David B — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 19:42:11 +0000

I’m surprised the Army hasn’t back to recall Korean Era vets. Oh, that’s next month.

By: RTO Trainer

RTO Trainer — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 19:19:08 +0000

Stop loss and extension of a deployment are two separate issues.

Stop loss, when in effect, lasts from the time a unit is placed on alert until the unit is either stood down from alert or 90 days after redeploying (returning home).

Additionally all it means is that if, during the period described above, if a soldier is supposed to End Term of Service (ETS) or retire (unless for attaining maximum age) they won’t unil the 90 days after redeployment has run. After that they will ETS or retire normally.

There’s no sinister motivation for this. It’s done solely to stabilize manpower for planning the deployment.

By: Gary Kleppe

Gary Kleppe — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 18:31:05 +0000

GGG: Only if we suddenly have honest elections again. Fat chance.

By: G. Gordon Giddy

G. Gordon Giddy — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 17:48:28 +0000

The bottom 5 governors are all Repugnicans. @006-8 are going to sweep them all out.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_17_atrios_archive.html#112196670535331303

By: G. Gordon Giddy

G. Gordon Giddy — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 17:20:47 +0000

I’ve got news for you. Joining the military doesn’t turn you into a saint. The armed forces are just like every other segment of society. Roughly 50% are decent human beings.

By: David B

David B — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 17:19:23 +0000

Steed,
Here’s what Blackbeard the pirate says about morale…”the floggings will continue until morale improves.”

The military making a statement about its own morale is meaningless. Statistics have always lied when applied correctly. Wake-up.

By: G. Gordon Giddy

G. Gordon Giddy — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 17:18:37 +0000

I read Hack and Operation Truth. Black Five is a joke.

By: Steed Lankershim

Steed Lankershim — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 17:10:52 +0000

From the report (notice the actual report is linked by thinkparanoid):

The OIF 2004 confirmed suicide rate was 8.5 per 100,000 Soldiers. This rate is lower than the 2003 OIF rate of 18.0 per 100,000 and the Army average annual rate for the 9-year period 1995-2003 of 12 per 100,000.

And…
The report said 54 percent of soldiers rated their units’ morale as low or very low. The comparable figure in a year-earlier Army survey was 72 percent.

So you can conclude that morale is improving. And here is what Blackfive says about troop morale (how many of you so-called progressives read military blogs?)
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2004/03/troop_morale.html

By: Ted

Ted — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 17:04:33 +0000

right on David B — one of the few good things Kerry did was his repeated use of “backdoor draft.” so true.

By: David B

David B — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 16:51:04 +0000

With the Army not meeting their recruitment quotas and the possibility of the states challenging the pentagon for control of the national guard, conscription as a solution seems the only answer for these long deployment problems. Once again, Kerry was correct.

By: VMS

VMS — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 16:41:23 +0000

Heard they are toying with idea of upping the recruitment age to 42 now! Will go before the Senate….you have got to be kidding…..

By: Navy Vet

Navy Vet — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 15:55:21 +0000

There is two side every story, like Rummy Dummy said you go to war with the army you have and not the army you would like. I am sure the army feels they have to go to war with the dumb leaders that says go to war and not smart leaders they would like. It’s not to late yet.

By: kindness

kindness — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 15:37:09 +0000

I feel really sorry for our GI’s over there. They have a thankless task pushed on them by unthinking leaders.

I personally am against the Iraq operation, but I’m not going to do a Vietnam era thing and hold it against the actual troops themselves. Sure, if i talk to some individually and disagree, I’ll tell them I disagree. But I won’t automatically blame them for our leaders faults. By the same token, I won’t put a support the troops ribon on my car either.

By: Ted

Ted — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 15:28:07 +0000

Bush needs to fire that guy

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 15:16:54 +0000

Remember this big distortion from 5 years ago? Irony.

“If called on by the commander in chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report, ‘Not ready for duty, sir.’”
– Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush, Aug. 3, 2000

http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/08/07/lie_week/print.html

By: G. Gordon Giddy

G. Gordon Giddy — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 15:10:48 +0000

The new Bushcon meme: “Blame the Army”

They can’t very well blame the liberals this time. I’d say they are running out of people to blame for their own failures. Headline:

“GOP hobbled by scapegoat shortage”