Reservists in a crunch

This article from the NY Times talks about the possibility of Reservists being called up for even longer periods:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/07/international/middleeast/07military.html?ex=1106081756&ei=1&en=3e201978f94c8fc3

Actually, several points are made in this article. First off:

"In another sign that the Iraq campaign is forcing reassessments of Pentagon
policies, Army officials are now considering whether to request that the
temporary increase of 30,000 soldiers approved by Congress be made
permanent.

One senior Army official said Thursday that the increase is likely to be needed
on a permanent basis if the service is to meet its global commitments - despite the additional cost of $3 billion per year."

30,000 just to meet the needs our military already has. That means we can't do anything but fulfill our existing commitments even with 30,000 more troops. Bad situation, people.

Second:

"A principal focus will be to address one of the biggest problems facing the military in Iraq today: how to train Iraqi soldiers and police officers to replace the American troops now securing the country. Commanders have expressed disappointment in the performance of many of the Iraqi forces.

The assessment of how rapidly Iraqis can begin shouldering the security burden is driving a separate set of painful, high-level discussions at the Pentagon, where senior officials are calculating how to sustain a large force in Iraq. The number of American military personnel in Iraq rose this month to 150,000, the largest deployment since Baghdad fell."

I could leave it at "nuff said" but obviously, with the limited ability of conservatives to hear anything bad about Bush or his administration, you have to say the same stuff over and over again before they admit that the situation is not rosy. They're always trying to point out the silver lining, like "Hey, the Iraqis have freedom now". I guess that's true, but over here see, we think freedom means going to vote without fear of being beheaded in the street by jihadis. So let me point out that according to Bush (aka Rumsfeld) the war was supposed be over already and we were supposed to have left Iraq a while ago.

Ok, third:

"In another move that could affect hundreds of thousands of members of the National Guard and Reserve, the senior Army official said the Pentagon leadership was also considering whether to change mobilization policy to allow reservists to be called up for more than 24 months of total active service, which is the current limit.

The policy change under consideration would allow the Army to call up members of the National Guard and Reserve for duty as many times as required, but not for more than two years at a time.

The official said that although the current mix of Army forces in Iraq is nearly a 50-50 split between active-duty soldiers and reservists, the active-duty share of the next rotation will grow to 70 percent because the Army is simply running out of reserve units to call up, given the current 24-month limit on active duty."

Well, this speaks for itself. If you think the Reserve and National Guard are going to be able to keep their numbers at this level when people know that what they're actually enlisting for is a possible 2, 4, or 6 year stint in Iraq (or Afghanistan) where they may very well get killed or badly wounded, it's not going to happen. Reference the other article I posted about the Guard not meeting it's recruiting goals for the past year. The problem with our current force structure is that we loaded all the war fighters in the active component and all the support staff in the Reserves, but we can't fight a war without the logistics!

Ok, last point:

"With American commanders in Iraq voicing growing concern over the increasingly sophisticated insurgency and gaps in Iraqi leadership, General Luck's assignment is tacit acknowledgement that the Iraq operation, including the training program, has reached a crossroads.

'This is evidence that the training is not going well,' said Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat who visited Iraq recently and was an officer in the 82nd Airborne Division. "

Uh huh. Once again, I poke the Bush supporters in the eye. Do your rose-colored glasses protect you? Huh? Same goes for all you Joe Liebermans out there. What's worse than a Republican? A Democrat who votes Republican! Have you people heard the stories recently about Iraqi National Guardsmen defecting and taking weapons to the enemy? Or how about the ones who just don't show up for duty? Or how about the ones that do and get killed for it?

Sure, there's plenty of lessons to be learned here. But basically the lesson is Bush is bad, you should never have voted for him once, much less twice. I am sick of all of you who still support the war and retroactively justify it.