On hiatus

This blog is on hiatus until further notice. I haven't run out of irritation, just have a lot of other things going on. All is well.

Politicomedy

Yes, I am still alive! Two folks have gotten on the IV's case in the last 48 hours wondering if I still have a pulse. Indeed, I do!

So, this is a fine time to fire off a short missive confirming that I'm still irritated as ever and also am getting ready for tonight's Round 2 between Obama and "The Maverick."

Judging by McCain's performance two weeks ago (snarling, refusing to look at Obama, changing the subject with every question), I would not be too surprised if McCain enter's tonight's town-hall meeting and becomes visibly upset at some point. The question is, is he ticked that Obama's starting to trounce him, or is he really coming to regret his choice of campaign staff and his VP choice?

I hope to be back later this evening with some observations on both candidates during the debate...and I've added another rule to the debate drinking game: Every time McCain says he loves the vets, helps the vets, ALWAYS stands up for vets, I'm downing a beer.

Gawd knows I was positively hammered after the Sarah Palin show last week. And that was just from watching her interview with Couric.

Perhaps I will be a bit squiffed when I return, but such is par for the course when McCain takes his stand-up act on national TV again.

I'll catch ya later.

On the road again

Jeez, I'm trying to figure out if I ever really left the Army. I sure move often enough to think I'm still in. More often, really.

My wife and I are headed for the political wilderness (or zoo) known as Washington, DC, over the next couple weeks. It's going to be a bit of adjustment for this small-town guy, but my wife - a big-city girl - will be in heaven as far as she's concerned.

I will too, I bet: There may be no better time to see how our nation really works, up-close, by living in perhaps the most important metro region in the world. I've got a lot on my plate for now: Moving, new job, grad school in the near future (next year) and a host of other opportunities I'll likely be knee-deep in before too long.

It should be an interesting journey, and I swear I'm going to try to keep this site alive. Yeah, I know, it's CPR-time for this thing, but I think I can keep it going.

Well, stay in touch. Maybe I'll redo the site after the dust settles and keep a running commentary on the election, the wars, the state politics and patriotism and the world in general from the IV's perspective.

Meanwhile, I comment on VetVoice fairly regularly (when I'm not loading boxes and such), so take a trip over there and see what the great minds of that organization are saying.

Until next time...

Commo check

"Any station, any station, this is IrritatedVet, over..."

Ah, geez, here I am again. Trying to revive this place after, uh, a month and a half of inactivity.

Yeah, good luck with that, eh?

Not much happening here at the ol' IV, other than this recent gem of a comment (for a July, 2006 posting). Thanx Gary, it's good to know that someone out there still drinks the Kool-Aid. I lost my taste for it several years ago.

Been spending a lot of time trying to get things lined up for the future - as in grad school - and working with various groups, namely VoteVets, to effect positive policy change as regards Iraq.

And Hillary's on her last gasp - attempting to do everything possible to whine, cajole and threaten her way to the Dem nomination and destroy the party in the process. Because that is EXACTLY what would happen if the DNC hands it to her.

On Thursday night, an open letter from Clinton to Obama began making its way around the net, and it's just a hoot.

My favorite line of her (not well edited) letter:

One of the foremost principles of our party is that citizens be allowed to vote and that those votes be counted. That principle is not currently being applied to the nearly 2.5 million people who voted in primaries in Florida and Michigan.

Um, uh, let me think for a sec here. Oh, yeah, I remember. Seems that Sen. Clinton, Obama and all the rest of the hopefuls agreed with the DNC last year that those two state's Dem committees had violated the rules, therefore their respective primaries would not count. The people of Florida and Michigan should be raising hell with their state committees, that's for damn sure.

That's what was agreed to, hence the fact that Obama and the others spent little time campaigning in those states. I've corresponded with DNC chief Howard Dean about this (here's his response, for the record).

Since then, it's become apparent neither state will hold another primary. It's become an integrity issue more than anything else - Sen. Clinton has demonstrated that she has little when it comes to abiding by the previous agreement, and the DNC has every opportunity now to demonstrate that they do have the integrity to uphold the ruling and agreement.

So let's see how things go over the next week - and hopefully, by then, the DNC will be geared toward fighting John McCain, not each other.

And on the next fun-n-happy edition of "CSI: IrritatedVet," we solve more of the mysteries of my favorite Middle East tourist destination, Iraq.

Dear Dr. Dean, Part II

As I promised some time back, I would post the reply from the DNC re: the Michigan and Florida issues as relates to the Obama-Clinton standoff.

And, get this: It wasn't a form letter! Holy cow!

Without further ado....

March 12, 2008
Dear (IrritatedVet),
Thank you for writing to the Democratic National Committee. I am glad to hear that you participated in the Democratic caucus in Maine.

I understand your concerns regarding the delegates from Folrida and Michigan. As of this time, both states remain in non-compliance with a 100% loss of their delegates. The results of the January primaries in either state cannot count towards the nomination because the January dates violate the DNC's rules. However, if Florida or Michigan chooses to hold new primaries or caucuses they may regain their delegates. This is a move the DNC would welcome because we know how inportant it is to the Party that these two states play a meaningful role in the nominating process. If they do not hold new primaries or caucuses then this issue will ultimately be resolved by the Convention Credentials Committee after we have a nominee.

Thank you for writing and for your brave service to our country. Please feel free to contact us again in the future.

Sincerely,
(signed)
Governor Howard Dean, M.D.
Chairman

Well, there you have it. We know now that FLA and MI will not have a re-vote, but I'm waiting for Sen. Clinton - who went into this fully expecting that the nomination was already hers - to find another way to have those states counted. I wonder if she's gonna pull an Al Gore and go to court over this...and I think that it's pretty clear that her case would be pretty weak.

After all, she, Obama and the other candidates agreed to the FL and MI penalties in the first place.

Sorry, Hillary, the coronation is off.

I'm still alive!

Whether that's a good thing or not depends on your perspective, I suppose.

But I have not abandoned this little soapbox in the vast wilderness...but have been spending a lot of time at VetVoice.com, the online blog of VoteVets.org.

For those of you who are looking for a great place to vent frustrations about the war in Iraq - and more importantly, GET INVOLVED in ending it and restoring a decent, well reasoned and beneficial set of foreign and military policies.

I had the awesome opportunity to go to DC earlier this month and meet fellow VoteVets members - about 25 of us - and spend a couple days getting familiar with VoteVets' core mission.

In short, we are a pro-military organization - with around 15,000 Iraq and Afghanistan vets (and thousands of spouses, family, supporters and everyday civilians) - that takes issue with the current administration's policies that led to a disastrous, failed war in Iraq while the real war on terror was ignored and military readiness has fallen like a stone.

While our nation pursues two separate wars, no serious effort has been made to upgrade, expand and prepare our military to fight the protracted conflicts that will undoubtedly continue over the next decade at least.

We also support and endorse veterans running for Congress and state-level office who seek a better way in terms of our nation's policies.

Unfortunately, my time is short tonight. Just wanted to drop by and shout into the ether for a few minutes and let you all know I'm alive.

And tired. Heading for sleep.

Dear Dr. Dean

Well, I couldn't help it.

After thinking about the latest issues regarding Ickes' call - on behalf of Hillary Clinton - for the DNC to go back on its word and reverse last year's vote re: Florida and Michigan (a move that was subsequently agreed to by all Dem candidates), I had to write the DNC Chairman, Dr. Howard Dean and share my feelings about this matter.

I post it here for everyone's benefit, now that the DNC has received it and has had some time to digest it.

February 19, 2008
Howard Dean, M.D.
Chairman, Democratic National Committee
430 S. Capitol St. SE
Washington, DC 20003

Dear Dr. Dean:

I write you to share my concerns about a crucial debate and decision that, in my estimation, will dictate the future of the Democratic Party.

I am an Iraq War veteran, a former independent voter, and a newly minted member of the Democratic Party. I changed my affiliation on Feb. 10 in order to take part in the Maine caucus, and am very glad I took the time to participate in that process.

However, my newfound excitement at being a Democrat has been tempered in recent days, stemming from what appears to be a growing call from certain DNC members to overturn last year’s decisions by majority vote to strip Florida and Michigan of their delegates over those states’ early primaries in violation of established party rules and policies.

My concern is that the party, if it were to overturn the previous decision this far into the primary/caucus process, would send a signal that it cannot abide by its own decisions; such a move will be widely interpreted by members of both major parties – and the American public in general – as a signal that the DNC can’t enforce its own policies.

The backlash of such a move, I am convinced, will be catastrophic for this party. I believe it will drive Independents away from casting a vote for the Democratic candidate, and it will further polarize the Democratic Party itself. In light of the trying times we face - and the common belief that there needs to be a leadership change in Washington - this is not the time for a major rift to be opened among Democrats.

Furthermore, the opposition will exploit such a decision for maximum effect throughout the remainder of the campaign – including pointing to such a move as evidence that the DNC cannot abide by its own decisions and policies, therefore making the Democrats incapable of holding the highest office in the land.

We have seen what the opposition can do in terms of exploiting lies about others for political gain. I shudder to think what they can do with a situation like this, should it come to pass.

Our party cannot risk losing this election, and I’m convinced that if the DNC reverses its prior decision, such a result will become much more of a likelihood.

I’m speaking neither in support of (or on behalf of) nor against either major Democratic candidate for the presidential nomination. (I’d also like to add I am not actively involved in any campaign.)

I have my own preference, but the process of choosing our delegates and our nominee – and the integrity of that process, abiding by all previous DNC decisions – is more important to me.

And integrity is so sorely needed in Washington now, more than ever!

I’d also like to make clear that in no way do I seek to disenfranchise any voters in the primary process – but the decision has very publicly been made by the DNC. I submit that the DNC must abide by that decision, enforce it and choose a presidential candidate based on the will of the voters in the rest of the nation – whomever that candidate may be.

I write to you as a voter, a new party member, and a concerned American citizen who desperately seeks an alternative to the Republican party that since 2001 has put our nation’s military, economy and very future at risk with policies based on lies.

I respectfully submit that the DNC must remain bound to the decision it made last year regarding the 2008 presidential candidate nomination process.


Very Respectfully,

(IrritatedVet)

If I receive a reply, I'll let you know. If it's a form letter, rest assured I will send it back and demand - on behalf of all voters - an honest, original reply.

The Ickes Shuffle!

Looks like one of Sen. Clinton's guard-dogs, Harold Ickes, a former deputy Chief of Staff for Bill Clinton and a current DNC member, is having a change of heart about the DNC's move to bar Florida and Michigan's delegates.

Let me get this straight: Ickes voted as a DNC member months ago to disallow those delegates after those states' parties committed scheduling violations for their primaries. He, along with other DNC bigwigs, including Howard Dean, vowed to uphold and enforce this decision.

So far, so good! But wait, there's more!

Now that Ickes is deep into the campaign as a member of the Clinton camp - and Clinton's certainly not having the easy time she so confidently predicted many months ago - he's now calling to overturn a national-level decision that he himself played a key role in authorizing?

WHOA! Back the truck up, Chief!

Isn't that a conflict of interest? Major-leaguer, big-time?

It's like voting to make something illegal, then pushing to have that rescinded or repealed when you realize your son or friend is about to get busted under that statute.

NOTE TO DNC: Wanna lose the election AGAIN? Go back on your word on this and see what happens. And we, America, cannot afford another four years of the current administration's policies.

If the Dems allow this, it will prove that the party has no real interest in the actual process of democracy. Yup, there's the democratic process, and then there's the Democratic process.

I truly believe, to my very core, that if the DNC reverses its previous decision with regard to Florida and Michigan, it will be suicidal to the party. The Democrats have struggled for years - a decade, really - to regain the sense of party unity of pre-1994.

The party has proven on many occasions since 2001 to have a limp dick when it comes to challenging the GOP, and flip flopping on this issue is not exactly the Viagra it so sorely needs now.

If the Democrats are to be trusted with the executive office, they had better adhere to their own decision - lest they prove that - like GWB and Co. - they are not capable of following the rules.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess I am a new Democrat (as of 10 FEB 08, the day of the Maine Caucuses).

The Dems will make the decision soon as to whether they keep me or lose me. It's not about Clinton/Obama. It's about enforcing party policy. Accountability, you might say.

Yes, I voted Obama. I cannot vote for someone who voted for the Iraq War, period. No way, no how. That includes Clinton and McCain.

***On a side note, this marks the 100th posting here. Yah, whoop-tee-friggen'-doo!
Geez, I better get with the program and start cranking out more here. I've been hanging out at VoteVets way too much - which is a good thing! Go check it out!

When all else fails, PUNT! (Or run away!)

Have been reading with much amusement the extent to which our GOP members of Congress have been going lately to distance themselves of the pressing matters of the day.

Take, for example, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who has over the last couple weeks seemingly become a one-track guy: Going after the NFL over the 'Spygate' issue.

OK, for you non-football types: it was found that the N.E. Patriots had used videotape to spy on opponents and divine their coaching calls during games, which is a form of cheating. Yes, the Pats were properly punished.

At any rate, this happened in September...now that the snow flies and the Super Bowl is over, Specter - an ardent Eagles fan - seems to forget that there's a war or two going on, and is fixated on trying to force the NFL to punish the Pats further.

Two questions, Sen. Specter: A) Since when does Congress regulate the NFL's rules, and B) Don't you have, uh, more pressing needs to attend to?

Same goes for this whole sham of the baseball steroids hearings. This is a matter for MLB and the courts, NOT Congress! Seriously, gang, what's more important, Clemens taking a jab in the butt so he could win one more game, or the fact that our nation is still losing blood and traesure in Iraq?

But I save the best for last...

In the truest spirit of the GOP's reputation for toughness, most of the Republican House members decamped the House chamber Thursday in search of safe haven - led by Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) - when it became apparent that the Democratic majority was going to commit the ultimate act of treason:

They held Bush administration officials in contempt for REFUSING to tell the truth.

So, knowing that the motion would pass, Boehner bravely stood up to the challenge and led his fellow yellow elephants out of the room in "protest."

Mr. Boehner, that has got to be the all-time most pusillanimous, spineless, shameful thing I've ever seen on the House floor.

He and his colleagues, as I noted at VetVoice yesterday, have given a new meaning to the old phrase, "When the going gets tough, the 'tough' get going."

In their pants, apparently. Truth hurts, doesn't it? Go change your Depends, Boehner.

Shame on them. They abandoned their posts, and no longer deserve to be called leaders. Just try that in the military and see what happens.



IV

The 'Maine' event; voting problems?

Until yesterday, I was undecided...as to whether I would take the time to participate in the Maine Dem Caucus this Sunday.

Seriously, I thought things would be pretty cut-and-dried by then, so what would be the point, other than being able to say I participated in it.

Not so fast, all! As we all know, things are clear as mud right now, and apparently Maine just became a key state for both Sens. Obama and Clinton...so much so that BOTH of them will visit our fair state this Saturday.

What I'm saying to those of you in Maine and the other 20 or so states yet to caucus/primary, your vote apparently does matter, and I urge you to participate.

Who knew that my humble little state could suddenly matter? It's nice to know that my vote may actually mean something!

(As a colleague of mine recently quipped: "I'm gonna rock out with my caucus out!!!")

ON A RELATED NOTE:
Am curious as to how many readers here have had problems with primaries/caucuses (waiting in line for hours, finding out that voter rolls were inaccurate, elections officials running out of ballots, etc.)

This is an issue that were all going to need to be hyper-aware of as we go through this process - especially those of you stationed in Iraq, A-stan, etc.

I had a pissing match with my local election board in 2004 while I was in Iraq - we received absentee ballots for the municipal elections a full week AFTER the election was over.

I sent mine back with a letter urging the board to get absentees ballots out to Iraq asap for the November elections, lest those of us defending the right to vote be disenfranchised in the process. (I got mine on time and was told that my vote for Kerry WAS counted in my county's results.)

I know it happened in 2004, and I think we can make a concerted effort to try and prevent that this year. Just a heads-up.

(Cross-posted at VetVoice.com)

It seems like the Democrats, as can be expected, are up in arms about El Presidente's latest attempt to present himself as having a strong bond with the so-called Iraqi government - one that will keep American troops there for as long as John McCain thinks they should be.

Among the top critics is Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). She has used the past two Democratic presidential debates to blast President Bush for his effort, as she put it Monday in South Carolina, "to try to bind the United States government and his successor to his failed policy."

Her concerns have been echoed by Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and other Democratic lawmakers who are focusing their fire on the administration's plans for a long-term commitment to Iraq, after gaining little traction for their efforts to force a faster withdrawal of U.S. combat troops there.

(Somewhere, in the back of my mind, a little voice tells me how easy I was told the Iraq operation was supposed to be. We were supposed to be down to 30,000 troops there by the end of 2003. The President, after all, stood in front of a banner proclaiming to the world, "Mission Accomplished!"

Another little voice reminds me that I spent most of 2004 in Iraq, as casualties mounted, the Iraqi economy declined and my nation got sucked deeper into a quagmire, and it hasn't gotten any better, surge or no surge. Thanks for the reality check, other little voice!)
So here we are in 2008, nearly five years after the Iraq War started, and the Bush administration - one which equates rational problem-solving with defeat - is doing everything it can to basically say "not OUR problem!" They are setting up the next administration - assuming it's Democratic - for failure.

...Bush and his advisers express the private conviction that any presidential successor will find it hard to disengage from Iraq, no matter what is said on the campaign trail. One senior official, not authorized to speak publicly, said Clinton or any another would-be president will eventually welcome the agreement that the Bush administration intends to negotiate with the Iraqis.
"Is the next president going to say, 'I don't want to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq'? Maybe," this official said. "But I think they are going to want to, and we will give them the proper authorities."

I'm calling bullshit on this one. What this guy is really saying is that the only administration capable of working on a deal with Iraq is the current one, and what they are doing is locking Bush's successor into an agreement that won't give him/her any wiggle room to end the war.

Besides, "al-Qaeda in Iraq?" Really? No such animal existed until 2003, and even then, it's still a stretch to assume everyone there is AQI.

So, without further ado, I challenge all of our Senators and Congresspersons - of BOTH PARTIES - to challenge the administration on this.

BushCo's gone too long unchallenged, and when they are, it seems that all too often Congress caves.

It's time for this to end.

If the Dems are so up-in-arms about this, they must carry out their Constitutionally mandated duty and force the administration to run this agreement - which sounds more like a treaty - through the Senate.

Random thought of the day: Mayday is May 1, which happens to be the anniversary of the infamous speech on the deck of the USS Lincoln.

Has anyone given any thought to rebranding Mayday as 'Mission Accomplished Yet?' day ?

Also, I saw this little gem on the MNF-I Web site:

In August, electrical production of megawatts exceeded 5,000 for 25 days – producing enough power for approximately 450,000 homes.

That's it? After nearly five years?
Mission Accomplished, my ass.

A tour is still a tour...

Yeah, sure, I'll take 12 months over 15 months any day, but the fact remains that our policies in Iraq - the Mission that Has Not Yet Been Accomplished - is still requiring men and women to go over again and again.

GEN Casey tries, I think, to sound magnanimous about this, but the statement he gives the AP gives me pause:

Gen. George Casey, chief of staff of the Army, said that as the number of brigades in Iraq comes down from 20 to 15 over the next several months, officials will be able to begin increasing the amount of time soldiers spend at home between tours.
But Casey cautioned that he is "not going public with that or final with that until I'm sure we're not going back'' on it.

So, if he's not going public, why in hell's he talking to AP about it?

And it seems that our intrepid reporter from AP didn't ask the pertinent questions regarding our previous commitments in Afghanistan (anyone remember that?), or the fact that President Bush seems hellbent on firing up yet another war with Iran. Let's see what that does for rotation schedules, General!

America's current rotations are barely tenable as is - I know of a Navy officer doing ground duty in Iraq because there basically wasn't an Army/USMC person to fill that billet - and now GWB is doing all he can to falsely ratchet up the stakes in the Persian Gulf and Straits of Hormuz, as evidenced last week.

With the new, contrived threats showing up on the military's radar screen - and sooner rather than later, methinks - I'm gonna go back to a long-held position of mine and see if it passes the IV test:

(From the AP story)
Plans are to increase the number of the active-duty Army, Army Guard and Army Reserve by 74,000 overall, with the active-duty force growing by 65,000 to a total of 547,000. In October, top Army leaders said they planned to move faster to increase the size of the force - adding the full 74,000 soldiers by 2010, two years sooner than originally planned.

OK...America's fighting two wars. One's got a pretty large contingent in one nation (Iraq, about 130,000 troops, plus contractors, diplomats, engineers, etc.).

The other war, the GWOT (or the RGWOT, Real Global War On Terror, as Brandon Friedman of VoteVets accurately calls it) requires about 30,000 US troops plus attendant CIV personnel in Afghanistan, plus others (hard to tell how many thousands) deployed worldwide in fights against Abu Sayyaf and other anti-US groups.

Keep in mind the US is done with one surge in Iraq, and is trying to mount another in Afghanistan (the "oh, yeah, that war!" response).

The current state of the Army and USMC - end-strength, equipment, OPTEMPO (operational tempo) and strain on soldiers/Marines and their families is running those services into the dirt.

And the Navy and USAF, I fear, are not far behind.

All the while, our nation - involved in two separate and distinct wars - chooses to increase the Army by a paltry 74,000 Soldiers over three years? While the specter of a new war hangs over America's head?

Seriously? War with Iran will force America to institute a full-scale, no-holds-barred draft. As in all males 18 to 45. Because it won't just be Iran that America fights - it will be World War III. The implications are global.

GEN Casey, SecDef Gates and (most of all) the President are more out of touch than we really realize.

It's indicative, yet again, as to how little planning went into the Iraq War. It's coming back to bite our nation - you and me - in the butt.

We're in a bad spot...

...and it's getting worse by the minute, methinks.

With the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan on Thursday, I'm not sure whether this event will go down in history like the death of Kennedy...or the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914.

An already precarious situation has just gone critical - with all parties in Pakistan already furious with Pervez Musharraf's conduct this year - and conditions are ripe for the populace to make a serious stab at removing Musharraf from office.

The big question, of course, is who will come out on top after such a coup (or all-out civil war) - and who will control Pakistan's scores of nuclear weapons?

John Yaukey of Gannett News Service published an analysis today that covered the bases pretty accurately, and I quote below:

Bhutto's assassination also could crush hopes for democratic reform in Pakistan and could badly damage relations between Washington and Islamabad -- especially if anti-Western forces prevail in the chaotic aftermath, experts said.

Indeed, the followers of Bhutto have been - for the most part - peaceful, civilized and working for democracy in a nation that is known more for coups and corruption than any semblance of democratic rule. It even makes America's current leaders look downright good.

There's going to be more violence in Pakistan, and that will come very soon (I'm checking reports as I write this). The nuclear issue is definitely the most troubling. I've mentioned on this blog here, here and here that a nuclear-armed Pakistan in the hands of Taliban-style mullahs is a scenario that should make anyone shake in their boots, and I fear it will happen sooner than later.

Pakistan also has an estimated 50-100 nuclear weapons that could fall into radical hands if the government and army lose control of the country. But analysts say the military has firm control of the weapons, at least for now, and retains close ties with the United States.

Let's hope that cooler heads in Pakistan's military are able to safeguard the knowledge needed to use such weapons, prevent terrorists/extremists from accessing the sensitive materials that could be used to make a "dirty bomb" or other such device, and can somehow prevent such forces from initiating a wider or nuclear war, which would involve - at the very least - India, Iran, Afghanistan and the U.S.

But there's one more BIG issue that no one in Washington has dared mention: The United States Armed Forces are not large enough - and are too bogged down in Iraq - to adequately provide any security in Pakistan should things get bloody very fast.

The War on Terror has just taken a turn for the worse. A BIG turn for the worse.

And because of America's connection to these events, the ongoing war in Iraq and the uncertainty of what the victors in the Pakistan fight will do, America finds itself in a very precarious situation.

And under the "leadership" of George W. Bush, America finds itself completely impotent.

America's bullied itself into a corner.

Happy Holidays/VetVoice

I'll be in and out over the next few days, what with Xmas and such.

I'm actually enjoying three days off for the first time in quite a while. Just wish I could say the same for the folks in Iraq/Afghanistan.

If you are looking for something to do over the holiday - if you have even a scant few minutes to kill - head on over to VetVoice.com, read what people are saying, and take the time to weigh in yourself.

I've a feeling that VetVoice - part of VoteVets.org - is about to take off and become THE place for Vets, families and concerned Americans to stay truly informed about the war in Iraq and what it has done to our nation and Armed Forces.

But it's not just Iraq - it's Veterans' issues, Afghanistan, the 'War on Terror,' what our leaders and candidates are telling us, as well as various discussions on the state of our Armed Forces and sharing ideas on what to do at this critical juncture in America's history and future.

I'll be posting here again soon, but until then, I invite you to take a side-trip to VetVoice.com.

You may see a familiar name there.

And to all, Happy Holidays and good night.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul

(Also posted at VetVoice.com)

This is an interesting piece in the WP for Monday morning.

It seems remotely possible that administration leaders - under pressure from the military and other political forces - are awakening to the fact that the US has neglected the justified, neccessary war in Afghanistan while pursuing folly in Iraq.

I'm not sure where US forces will come from, as the surge winds down and units return to base to rest/refit/retrain. I foresee some serious shuffling of the latest Pentagon deployment schedules in the near future.

What struck me, though, was the description of the usual foot-dragging in cases like these:

Administration officials said the White House could start to debate the future of the American military commitment in both Iraq and Afghanistan as early as next month.

Time to quit pussyfooting around and get to it! The surge has been on for nearly a year, while Afghanistan's been going to heck in a handbag. The time to debate was before the Iraq surge.

I was also struck by this:

Bush's decisions on Iraq and Afghanistan could heavily influence his ability to pass on to his successor stable situations in both countries, an objective his advisers describe as one of the president's paramount goals for his final year in office. They say Bush will listen closely to his military commanders on the ground before making any decisions on troops but is unlikely to do anything he believes could jeopardize recent, hard-won security improvements in Iraq.
Administration officials say the White House has become more concerned in recent months about the situation in Afghanistan, where grinding poverty, rampant corruption, poor infrastructure and the growing challenge from the Taliban are hindering U.S. stabilization efforts. Senior administration officials now believe Afghanistan may pose a greater longer-term challenge than Iraq.

Given Mr. Bush's track record in listening to his military commanders, I've gotta see it - and results - to believe it. And this bit about Afghanistan posing a greater challenge than Iraq? Yeah, I seem to recall something about guys with airplanes a few years ago who trained in Afghanistan. Most of them were Saudis, but I won't delve into that right now.

And I've seen little evidence that he wants to pass a more stable situation on to a successor - especially if he/she is a Democrat.

Richard Holbrooke, at the bottom of this story, summed up the mindset of this administration very well, in that it just can't deal with reality-based criticism:

A new White House emphasis on Afghanistan would probably expose Bush to even more criticism from Democrats, who have long accused him of taking his eye off the hunt for Osama bin Laden with the invasion of Iraq.
"It's about time they recognized the problem" in Afghanistan, said former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke, a Democrat, who says Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley called him last spring to say that a newspaper column he wrote raising concerns about conditions in Afghanistan was too pessimistic.

While I'm glad the administration is starting to refocus on its priorities (and actually concentrating on Afghanistan again), it will never, ever admit that it's in a real pickle right now, and has yet to take any real action to mobilize the nation to help get the job done.

NIE FIASCO

The administration's in a bad spot right now. It really is. The NIE fiasco has caused it to backtrack and stumble all over itself in trying to explain what the heck they are really up to these days, while the American Armed Forces are already mired in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now that the administration can't use the threat of Iranian nukes as much as they would like - and that the US Intel community has essentially rebuked the administration - I wonder what's next.

Three words: Gulf of Tonkin.

With America's beefed-up naval presence in the Persian Gulf, the administration could seek to induce a greater level of tension that may include actively pursuing low-level hostilities with Iran's navy; such an incident would certainly fan the flames for retaliatory strikes against Iran, precipitating a wider war with them. It would be 1964 all over again.

But has the administration considered its true military options in the Gulf? Surely, Navy and Air Force assets in the region could do some serious damage to Iranian infrastructure; likewise, Iran has been preparing for just such a thing since 1979 - there is no doubt they are prepared.

But can America marshal a ground response to a war with Iran? I contend America can not do so at this time - and would not be able to within five years. Our nation is overcommitted as far as ground troops are concerned - I'm talking Army and Marines here - and the key to winning a war with Persia, if it can be done, is on the ground.

The administration - and Congress - must step back from the abyss and take a hard look at not only the implications of a war with Iran, but also the benefits so far of the war in Iraq. Having been there and having followed that war closely since my tour there, I daresay America's none the better for it. Sure, that may change, but I'm not feeling really good about it right now.

If the Administration is truly committed to war with Iran, and I believe that Messrs. Bush and Cheney are, they absolutlely MUST be ready to expand America's Armed Forces to a sufficient level in which it can meet such goals.

Given the fact that the Army and Marines are hitting their operational limits in Iraq and Afghanistan, with no end in sight, I've got my doubts that Bush and Cheney will take any action to ensure this nation is well-equipped to meet any other goals that may be dictated in the near future.

In short, here's my prognostication: Navy 5th fleet has a 'Stark'-like incident, in which a missile hits a US ship, causing many casualties. Needless to say, Navy/Air Force assets are called in to strike Persian Gulf coast military bases. Iran then sends ground forces to strike American bases/FOBs in Iraq (more importantly, Iran calls on Iraqi Shia forces to declare war on Americans), a full-on civil war in Iraq takes hold within 24-48 hours, and America has no other option but to continue air strikes versus Iranian forces....and how long would it be until the nuclear option is exercised?

Military suicides

RIP Tyler Curtis, 22 NOV 2007, Maine.

Tyler Curtis, 25, died on 22 NOV 07 in Livermore Falls, ME of wounds suffered figthing a war in Iraq.

Curtis, having been home from Iraq several months, took his own life.

There is a problem out there, and I don't think the government - at least this administration - wants to face up to those facts.

Men and women are coming back, as they do from all wars in foreign lands, with unseen scars. My father still comes to tears on occasion when he thinks of of Vietnam, and his tour was nearly 40 years ago. That point was driven home to me in 2004 when I came home on leave from Iraq. It was hard on him, and he's not one to tear up in front of others.

My grandfather does not talk about his participation in WWII as a Naval aviator. At 87, I don't know if he ever will.

I tear up on occasion when I think guys in my unit who didn't come back, or when I see the pictures of the funerals that pop up on the news wires every day.

I rarely went on any patrols. I never killed anyone. Hell, I never fired my weapon in anger.

But it was a life-changng experience, for better or for worse.

For Tyler Curtis, it was worse. I just wish he would have reached out more.

But the men and women who planned the Iraq War - and I use the term 'planned' loosely - failed to consider the effect on the Armed Forces in general or what it might do to the average Joe, like Tyler Curtis, during their time in-country.

How many Tyler Curtises will we have from this war?

Blackwater, Contractors, Mercenaries oh my!

Gage posted a great question re: Blackwater/other mercenaries in Iraq, as follows:

Hi, I.Vet. I have another question, off the subject that I'd like to ask. I'm
wondering about how the average GI feels about outfits like Blackwater. I know
that in Nam there were some Australian mercinaries, but to my knowledge, the
U.S. hasn't ever used private armies in a theatre of war before now. (Maybe we
have, but I don't know of any.) I know the mercinaries are very well paid
compared to an enlisted man, and I can imagine the GI's grouse about that, but
the money isn't really what I'm asking about. I'm wondering in general how the
GI's feel about the presence of private armies in Iraq. How do they feel about
the fact that these armies aren't accountable to the same chain of command that
the enlisted are, and do the mercinaries make things easier or harder for them?
Just wondering. Blackwater's been in the news a lot lately and it seems that the
Iraqis hate them a whole lot more than they hate the regular GI's. To me,
though, it seems outfits like Blackwater make life a hell of a lot more
dangerous for our guys in Iraq. True or not?

Gage, first my apologies for the late reply.

Next, excellent question. I never had to deal with those guys in Iraq myself, and I admit that my perspective is a few years old (3 as of 29 DEC 07). However, as a taxpayer and a vet, I'll give you my unvarnished opinion, as always....

First, it never made sense to me that our nation would rely on mercenaries - paid upwards of $80,000/year - to do the same job we pay $30,000-$40,000/year to do. I'm not talking about care and feeding of anyone, just straight up salary. Our nation has a rich tradition of charging the government a lot more than a part/service/humanoid costs, so who's to say Blackwater and their peers aren't doing the same now?

What I'm getting at is this: Say a Blackwater guy costs $100,000 in wages. There's also care and feeding/housing...there's also equipment (weapons, ammo, kevlar, vehicles, IBA/flak jacket, clothing, electronics, etc...). Per peson, I'd wager this comes to a total of maybe $200K/person (wages plus feeding plus supplies).

So we're paying $200K for someone we already trained (most are ex-military) to do something that the military pays about $80K-$100K to do (again, total costs) over a one-year tour.

(That said, I always had problems with KBR contractors who got paid five times as much as me - while they worked 4 hours a day and did what they pleased.)

Furthermore, Blackwater, etc., is not beholden to military Rules of Engagement (ROE) or Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). This leads to - as we saw recently - paid mercenaries acting outside the stated goals of the military's justification/ground rules for conduct in Iraq, possibly with little course for retribution.

The short answer: If we are going to fight this war, we fight with the professionals who are trained to fight AND are subject to a high standard of conduct....all at the same general price.

The administration has erred greatly (depending on who you ask...the Blackwater Corp. is making TONS of money) in hiring others to do the jobs the military should be self-sufficient enough to do.

BOTTOM LINE: If the administration felt it would come up that short in terms of enough soldiers to fight the war, it should have taken steps BEFORE the war to fill the ranks out and go in with enough to do so.

The current administration - and its enablers of both parties in Congress - have been remiss throughout in guarding this nation's blood and treasure, and it has resulted in great detriment to both our military and our economy.

Hope that answers your question.

IV

Iraq Vets in Maine?

A brief post aimed at my fellow Mainers - even though I'm not a true (native) 'Main-ah,' I make my home here now and enjoy it, even if they tax the holy hell out of us here!

If you are an Iraq/Afghan vet in Maine (or VT/NH) and are as sick of what's going on, politically and strategically speaking, as I am, I'd love to hear from you! Drop me a line (either through comments or my email address), and maybe we can get together and share views over a beverage of choice.

I'd also direct you to VoteVets.org and its newly launched blog, VetVoice.com. The blog has been "live" since 20 NOV, and seems to be gathering a lot of steam in its infancy.

VetVoice launches; McClellan confirms obvious

An interesting day indeed!

VetVoice launched today with posts from several of our presidential candidates, including Senators Edwards, Clinton, Obama, Biden and Dodd, Rep. Paul and Gov. Richardson.

While all the participants outline a number of ideas in terms of rebuilding and retooling our nation's priorities and policies concerning veterans' care, the Armed Forces, Iraq, the War on Terror and the other issues discussed here and on many other blogs, one stark fact jumped out at me.

All, save Rep. Paul, are Democrats. Ron Paul was the only GOP hopeful (and all were invited, as VV is a non-partisan group) to participate in the forum.

I, for one, am particularly peeved that the vast majority of the GOP candidates would not respond to the valid concerns of a growing number of veterans who believe that our nation's policies are not carrying us in the right direction.

It underscores the obvious: The GOP has no intent on leading a nation "Of the People" through actually hearing from the very people (taxpayers) whom they supposedly serve.

I have one hard, fast maxim when it comes to politics: If a candidate chooses not to debate the issues or listen to his/her potential constituents, that candidate chooses not to get my vote.

As of today (unless one of the following changes position), Giuliani, McCain, Hunter, Huckabee, Romney, Tancredo and Thompson are completely out of the running in my book.

Of course, McCain's nonsense in Baghdad earlier this year sealed the deal on that one already. If you have to walk while wearing a flak vest, it's not safe. Duh!


McClellan confirms obvious

President Bush's former press secretary, Scott McClellan, now writes that Bush, Cheney, Rove, Libby (he of the presidentially commuted sentence) and Andy Card were definitely behind the Valerie Plame issue.

There is still no accoutability - zero - within the Administration; we've reached the point in which impeachment is almost moot....unless of course, Mr. Bush wants to take us to Iran.

Who in Congress has the stones to stop him? Anybody...anybody? Bueller....Bueller?

Also - any vets in or near the Lewiston/Auburn, ME area who want to get together and discuss the issues over beverages of choice (any choice, of course)? Drop me a line and we'll get in contact soon.

VetVoice

I have a lot of hope for this project, in that it can become a great place for reasonable discussion among vets and our supporters (and those who pine for a rational 'strategery' in the Middle East).

I've spent too much time on this blog in the past using four-letter words and other turns of phrase that I certainly would not use on TV or in front of an elected/appointed official, and my word to the wise is simple: Let's keep it clean, well thought out, rational and with a focus on pressure and change. Using 'rough' terms isn't going to help - leave that for your own blog posts about "that time when we were downrange..."

I'd also caution editing posts/using spell check before you send, as well as staying away from military-speak (the type of stuff you have to explain to others when you use that term). The broader the audience we can connect with will translate into more success down the road.

Just my quick two cents.

So if you get a chance, head on over and see who's got something to say. I've heard around the campfire that some big names will make an appearance soon.

As for me, I will launch a new diary soon there.

Also - just wondering if anyone out there is familiar with American Military University, and if so, what you have to say about it, good, bad or ugly. I may take a class or two there toward my Masters, and the more input, the better.

Brief apology...

To Army of Dude...I tried to link to his site a few nights ago, mistyped it, and got some other site I have no interest in.

Sorry, Army of Dude!

No free lunch!

Here we go again...the chickenhawks, going bullshit with rage over not getting their way, slam Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) over his post-vote comments that the administration's "days of a free lunch are over." This after competing Dem and GOP military spending bills failed to clear the Senate on Friday, setting up a possible budget crunch for the Pentagon if nothing happens in the next month or so.

I was struck by Rep. Heather Wilson's (R-N.M.) comment that Schumer should immedately apologize to the troops for his 'insensitivity.' "Sen. Schumer only wants to fund pay, body armor and chow for the troops if he can put conditions on the money so that they cannot do the mission they have been ordered to do," she said.

Right...this after a GOP-led Congress signed billions and billions of America's dollars over to the administration, which has made a career of fighting an ill-begotten war in Iraq that is systematically destroying America's Armed Forces and leaving our flanks exposed to another 9/11 and/or inability to fight if, say, something really bad happens with Pakistan, North Korea, China or Russia...not to name any of a dozen other potential combat scenarios worldwide.

The Democrats have an extremely valid point: Yes, the military must be funded well, trained well and...here's the part the Bush faithful have yet to grok: USED IN A REASONABLE MANNER THAT BENEFITS AMERICAN INTERESTS.

Then again, if 'American interests' mean chucking blood and treasure into unneccesarry operations, destabilizing the Middle East and leaving America vulnerable, then I guess Rep. Wilson and her colleagues have done a damn fine job.

Bra-vo.

In slightly better news, the Army is taking the unusal step of having a theater commander, GEN Petraeus, (perhaps the last, best hope among senior officers) help select some of out Army's future leaders. This story is a small glimmer of hope that the Army is starting to listen to officers and NCOs who know well that things are a bit different where the bullets fly and the IEDs detonate than they are in a well-secured palace in Iraq. At least SOMEONE out there is thinking of the Army's future.

I don't see much thought of the future coming out of the current administration. Besides, it won't be their problem...they'll just blame someone else, as they always do! Accountability be damned!

I'll be posting soon on a new intiative coming out of VoteVets.org, which is launching VetVoice.com next week. I haven't looked at it much yet, but I think it's going to be a good place for those of us who are in the know - and care about it - to share ideas on what needs to be done in Congress and the Executive as this nation faces God-knows-what in the coming years.

Long post...time to hang it up and go nighty-night.

Back in the saddle again

Yeah, it's been a while...time to get this old warhorse going again and hopefully bring back some readers. It's been an incredibly busy year - getting married, moving, changing jobs and coming to grips with some of the anger issues I've been dealing with since 2004.



I've recently come to the realization - a moment of clarity, if you will - that I've spent entirely too much time in recent years being frustrated about the past, without making any real effort to change things in the future.







Another outfit I've discovered more in depth lately is VoteVets.org. Sure I've heard of them over the past couple years, but never really took the time to 'get to know them,' so to speak. Of course, they regained national attention after the Rush Limbaugh "phony soldiers" fiasco, panning the so-called 'pro-military' radio rambler's dismissal of Iraq Vets who criticize the war as 'phonies.'



(My favorite response to Rush and his ilk comes from Army of Dude, a blog much greater than mine.)



Anyway, I think VoteVets is gaining steam and will have an impact on the outcome of the 2008 elections - getting the word out that being pro-military doesn't necessarily mean toeing the GOP/GWB line at all times.



Pro-military means supporting a strong defense, using the military in a smart, well-planned, well-reason fashion - and only as a last resort. It also means ensuring the military is staffed, funded, rested, trained and ready to respond to the needs of defending the nation. Furthermore, pro-military means supporting care of our veterans who have answered the call to service, not turning their back on them as the Decider did on Monday, the day after paying lip service to vets.



Pro-military, to most of the GOP, means hiding behind the flag and calling into question the patriotism of those who dare to challenge this administration's flawed policies.



I'm saying stuff that's been said ad nausem in many other ways by thousands of others, but the reminder needs to be there that those of us who truly love our country and are alarmed by current policies must take a stand. Bumper stickers just don't cut it.



Fed up with W's careless and reckless policies? His administration's complete lack of accountability? The endless lining of Halliburton's pockets? The slow destruction of our military?

Write your Senators and Congressman! I did.



This is America, and the more we participate in it, the better off we may be.

Rebounding

Doubt anyone will see this soon...but the IV is about to come back. A lot has happened - for the better, I believe - and I'm changing gears. There will be more later.

Hope all is well out there.

IV

Namby-Pamby Basic

Still here, folks, ranting when I can.

Was sent an NPR link a couple days ago re: Army Basic Training at Fort Jackson, SC. I was taken aback at how "mellow" the Drill Sergeants were, allowing privates to do things I never would have dreamed of, such as refuse a direct order to pick up headgear. (The private cited in that case was discharged). My recollection is that if I would have done the same thing, I would have had an Article 15, made to repeat Basic and had a black mark on my record for the remainder of my enlistment.

Hey, I know the Army's hard up for folks to serve in a war zone. Note to Pentagon: Let's cut the touchy-feely shit and get these guys and gals up to speed for the war zones, and if they don't want to do what THEY SIGNED UP FOR, make them face real, lasting consequences.

War zones are stressful, kids! Let's make sure our new soldiers can handle it. Kid-gloving isn't doing anyone any good.

I went through Jackson back in 1994, during the drawdown/early Clinton years, and - while it certainly was challenging - it just didn't leave me feeling like a warrior. No, I felt like an Army 'employee' more than anything else. (I look back and refer to Basic as "Bill Clinton Summer Camp")

Just after I left Jackson, co-ed Basic was instituted there. I have been, and remain, dead-set against this. It's certainly nothing against women in the military - my mother was an Army nurse in Vietnam - but Basic is the one time where Soldiers (sailors, airmen, Marines, etc.) MUST be focused on training and nothing else. (The same argument can be applied to a war zone, for sure).

At any rate, the upshot of the gender integration of Army Basic at places like Jackson was that by the end of 1995, discipline and physical fitness problems were becoming apparent with young privates reporting to permanent-duty stations (I was at Bragg with a year under my belt during that time).

Sure, there are bad apples everywhere, but in my observations, the problems definitely increased, especially, I believe, in support units such as the one I was in.

A brief rant, but much-needed. I'll be back when I can, as time permits.

IV

Pakistan

From NYT, 27 JUL 07, "Saudis’ Role in Iraq Frustrates U.S. Officials"

This concisely encapsulates the obvious - that US policy has undermined our (ahem) 'alliances' in the Middle East, and that a proxy war is in the making between Sunni (Saudi) and Shia (Iran), drawing in other ME players (UAE, Syria, eventually Jordan and Turkey).

Still awaiting our friends at NYT an WP to make the Pakistan connection. Just got done suggesting that to Ms. Cooper.

I doubt that Cooper will get back to me, I'm sure she gets enough mail daily; I just hope she sees what I see. I hope I'm wrong...well, wrong in that my vision of how this unfolds is worse than what comes to pass...but I fear I'm not far off th mark. I am convinced that the worst thing that can happen, politically, right now is for Pak to suffer another coup, giving the madrassa-trained zealots a chance to put their finger on the nuclear button. Question is, will they go after US forces in Iraq or the people of Mumbai/Calcutta/New Delhi?

Unfortunately, I think that they will have access to enough - and to the techs who can do this - to launch against both...with Iran caught in the middle (and they will, in true Muslim fashion - blame the Americans).

China will be none too happy about this, neither will Russia. I think China's stable enough to keep itself under control, provided no nukes hit them or overfly their turf...Russia's the wild card. GWB has fouled up with Russia, and Russia's military is still populated with senior officers who still think of US as the bad capitalists (plus, they've been embarrased in Chechnya - their own back yard - twice so far. It's like the US Army getting kicked hard in, say, Arkansas).

Yeah, yeah, full of good tidings as always, but back in the saddle with my views on the world today. Pakistan, of all places, makes me lose sleep.

REALLY irritated

Folks, changes are in the air soon. The IrritatedVet is working up an OPORD to relocate to a new AO in cyberspace. This after our friends at Google/Blogspot are caving in to the demands of a certain UNNAMED dude in Florida and taking down certain of my posts that seem to somehow get under his skin. Some folks 'just can't handle the truth.'

Along with that, I read on the Guardian's Web site last night that Deadeye Dick Cheney is making progress with the Decider as far as military options against Iran are concerned.

So, Dick, when's the invasion, and who will we use to do the invading? The Salvation Army Reserve? The Moral Majority? The VFW Ladies Auxiliary.

I don't see the United States Army or Marine Corps taking the lead on this one, and the Navy and Air Force are ill-equipped to sustain occupations of more than two acres at a time. BTW, Dickie, an air campaign just won't cut it.

I could go on, but not now. However, the IV will be reborn soon in another AO.

Alive and well, in a bad mood

Greetings all...hope someone reads this. After a LONG month of moving, starting a new job, etc., I'm back in cyberspace. My wife and I aren't really even set up because of a crazy series of delays, stupidity of others, etc. We'll get there.

Am watching the events in DC with a rueful laugh...both in terms of Iraq and the saga of Scooter. No accountability on either front, really.

Was very saddened and angered to read about the bombing in Armili, near my old base near Tuz Khurmatu. About 150 dead there, making it one of the deadliest events of this war. The area was relatively quiet, by Iraq standards, until the surge began...that forced out all the bad guys in Baghdad to little towns like Tuz and Armili, with predictable results.

All we've done is spread the war around, like throwing a flaming gas can.

I will be back soon...just wanted to let you all know I'm alive and doing fine.

IV

On hiatus

Well, good and loyal readers, I've obviously not been blogging much lately for a variety of reasons...work, moving, etc.

I'll make it official tonight, tho: I'm on hiatus for at least the next three weeks as my wife and I go through a lot of changes (namely, relocating and starting a new job).

I will be back, though, and I hope to find the time to make this little tiny corner of the Internet bigger, better and badder than it's ever been.

To those of you who've been keeping up (and I admit the numbers are dwindling right now), thank you.

I've got a lot to say, and I'll keep saying it, but damn, I sure do get exasperated on some days by the drivel coming out of D.C.

Meanwhile, the shiny, flag-draped coffins keep coming home.

All the best - the Irritated Vet

Presidential Directive hell

Yeah, I've been away for way too long. Intensemystery, thanks for the look-out a couple days back. I'm fine, just busy as hell.

Anyway, I see the Dems totally caved on the issue of forcing the current administration to wake up to the realities of Iraq.

Then again, perhaps it would have been moot, anyway.

I've caught wind of a very sinister-sounding Presidential Directive that pretty much gives GWB whatever powers he wants in the event of a "national emergency," which could be interpreted as 9/11, Katrina, or the impending 2008 election which will take him out of office. I highly recommend reading this analysis of this new directive.

It may sound a bit over the top, but please keep in mind, this is GWB and Uncle Dick we are dealing with. I would not put it past these Constitution-ignoring clowns.

Meanwhile, the US Navy is carrying out another series of exercise off Iran, doing everything they can to provoke another Gulf of Tonkin incident with the Iranians.

The current administration is hellbent on leading the USA into yet a third, and ultimately most disastrous, war. Our nation does not have the military wherewithal or the public support wherewithal to pursue such an unprecedented run of follies (Operation Barabarossa on steroids is what comes to mind).

Is it possible - think about it - that the recent directive is designed with a sudden spike in hostilities with Iran in mind? In other words, that the timing of the recent order is such that...whaddya know? Gee, we have a new national emergency!

Looks like the 'decider' just became the dicktator-in-waiting. (Misspelling was intentional. )

This gives new legs to the old saying, "I love my country, but I fear my government."

Busy, busy times for all

Sorry so long since last post - got a lot of irons in the fire right now. May be changing jobs, locales, etc. And so it goes...

Anyway, I recently finished Frank Rich's 'The Greatest Story Ever Sold,' and am about to tuck into Tenet's latest book, his perhaps McNamara-esque tell-all of the lead-up and execution of the Iraq War. I'm sure it will make me scream a couple times.

Had a good discussion on an airplane recently with a fellow who reads a lot of military history (much more than I do, and I read a lot)...he was of the opinion that indeed, we are in a dark time in this country's evolution, and that the current leadership is "sub-par," to say the least. It's good to know I'm not the only one out there.

I could go into the last week's events, but you've probably read all about it by now, so I won't. I'll just pick up the drumbeat from here.

On a sad note, I note the passing of another of our Mercury astronauts, Wally Schirra (the only man to fly Mercury, Gemini and Apollo). Yah, I'm a space nut, and it's a bummer seeing the pioneers - American and Russian - dying off.

Not much to say tonight, yet there is a lot on my mind. Just wanted to let you good readers now I'm still here.

OH, and the fake vets are still out there...one of my older posts was removed per court order of a 'vet' I've blogged about before - but it seems a LOT of others are going after this guy. He's a gasbag, and he will get his. Yeah, the guy, whom we will call "PH," is an Iraq Vet, if only for having spent about a month there before being disarmed and sent home by our unit's chain of command.

I've yet to see PH submit proof of his SF training.

Yep, the IV is still here, full of piss and vinegar as usual.

More evidence Army is dying:

Seems the Army is so stretched that Air Force personnel are being sent to guard convoys and such.

No slam on the USAF, of course, but that's not exactly what they are normally trained to do. If the Army's really that bad off, then the USAF needs to just give up several thousand folks to the Army for good. Same for the Navy.

Meanwhile, Congress and the current adminisatration have no plan for strengthening the Army and Marine Corps in light of the OPTEMPO of the last 5.5 years. No one has a plan, apparently.

Sorry, soldiers and Marines, it's going to be a long two years before reinforcements start to show up.

Interesting

I see NASA is paying $26 Million to survivors of the 2003 Columbia disaster.

That works out to about $3.71 million per family.

I'm a NASA/spaceflight nerd, one who mourns the loss of these men and women in their pursuit of spaceflight and science.

But is there a real difference between them and the 19-year-old Private who goes to Iraq and gets killed?

The families of our combat dead certainly don't get $3.71 million each.

Think about it.

Bear with me, please

Well, I'm trying to update this a bit. May take a day or two, please bear with me. I'm hoping to add some stuff, update pix and make it a bit more fun.

(Pic at left is me in APR 04, lookin' real tough, mustache and all, holding captured weapons in Iraq. I'm holding an AK-47; on the ground are, from left, an RPG7 launcher, BKC machine gun and a very rusty small -I think 60mm Soviet -mortar tube)

While you are awaiting the 'improved' IrritatedVet, write your Congressman and Senators and ask them the million-dollar question:

What is the Congress doing not only to meet the needs of Iraq, but to shore up a military that is smarting from the demands of the past five years?

Bear with me, folks...I feel like my father did when I was 12 and thought a VCR was SO simple, why couldn't he understand. I'm that way now with HTML, RSS, uploading photos, etc.

I'll get better.

Digressing from Iraq

I briefly digress from the Iraq issues...

OK, we all know eyes have been taken off the war in Iraq recently by such things as Anna Nicole's baby's father and the now-ended saga of Don Imus...yet, America goes on, oblivious of the ramifications of what has happened globally over the past 5.5 years or so.

And for all my banter about our geopolitical situation, I'm gonna have a quick banter about Imus.
I don't listen to Imus. I don't get up that early. When I listen to the radio, it's almost always to rock out or listen to a real news program. I almost forgot Imus existed until this week. (I'm still trying to forget Howard Stern exists, too).

Imus definitely screwed up last week in his comments about the Rutgers womens' basketball team. In turn, Imus has admitted very publicly that his choice of words was pretty crass, and asked for the forgiveness of a 'man of God,' namely the Rev. Al Sharpton.

Afterward, instead of a public announcement of forgiveness, Sharpton proceeded with his effort to get Imus fired, and Sharpton was successful on Thursday.

Later, Sharpton went on TV and said something along the lines of being disappointed that the airwaves are being used to promte sexism and racism.

Sharpton went on to say, "This is only the first round...there are others as guilty as Imus, and there are others in the music world..."

WHOA! Now Sharpton wants a blank check to go after anyone he feels doesn't toe his line? He's starting to sound like Dick Cheney's long-lost twin!

I have to call it as I see it, Rev. Sharpton: Watch MTV for a few minutes sometime, will ya? The racism might not be as overt, but rap videos, 90%-plus of which are made by African-Americans, ooze with blatent sexism. It's not normal or prudent to call women 'bitches' or 'hos,' regardless of skin color. Indeed, my wife would 'correct' me rapidly and painfully if I were to refer to her as such.

If Sharpton wants to go after modern music, go watch MTV. I wonder who he will go after. This could be interesting.

I am not prejudiced, biased, hateful or discriminatory as regards race. I am, on the other hand, very keen on looking out for both double-standards (example: 'diversity' is a code-word for 'freedom of expression, as long as it conforms to leftist views') and doing my best to find political grandstanding and hypocrisy when I see it.

I'm seeing both now.

Back to the war in Iraq, where American men and women -- of all races and ethnicities -- are dying every day for a neocon pipe dream that will cost America unimaginable amounts of blood and treasure in the years and decades to come.

If you aren't interested, go back to your bubble, with your Paris Hilton, your (dead) Anna Nicole, your latest millionaire in rehab.

Your empty-headed paradise.

"Czar" to run Ministry of Peace?

Just when I thought the absurdities generated by the current White House could not get any deeper, we learn of this gem in Wednesday's Washington Post.

OK, OK, let me get this straight...The President wants to hire someone to make the big decisions regarding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and have the authority to issue orders to State, Defense, etc. to get the job done.

Quick question: ISN'T THAT THE PRESIDENT'S JOB?

The Post article states that the issue that spurred the search for such a czar - which at least three retired generals will have none of - was to settle the the long-standing blood fued between State and DoD on who does what in Iraq.

George W. Bush has had years, and two secretaries of each of the respective agencies, to resolve those problems. The time to resolve them was before invading Iraq - It all comes back to going in without any plan whatsoever after Saddam fell.

I'm calling it as I see it: 1) If Bush can't solve these problems and get everyone on the same (any) game plan, why does he think someone lower than him can do it? 2) The poor schmuck who takes the job is ultimately signing up to be a whipping boy; when it gets worse in Iraq, the more Bush will lean on his 'czar.'

Bush is bending over backwards (with Cheney at his ear) to abdicate his responsibility for the unbelieveable mess he's thrust America into in Iraq. I wonder what he'll "decide" next...

Funny, we have a drug 'czar,' too, and we can see how well the "War on Drugs" has gone.

National Guard Alerts

Just saw on an AP story that 39th (Arkansas), 76th (Indiana), 45th (Oklahoma) and 37th (Ohio) National Guard Infantry Brigades have gotten the call to go to Iraq in the next year or so.

Am still wondering if the 30th Brigade (North Carolina) is on the short list still...I'm rather surprised they haven't gotten the call so far. We went to war at the same time as 39th, back in 2004, and have actually been back a smidge longer than 39th.

30th is heading for AT at Camp Shelby, Miss. this week. Why in April, when many Guardsmen are still in college, I'll never understand. Anyway, I bet there are a bunch of anxious Soldiers getting on a bus right now, wondering whether they'll be getting on another bus bound elsewhere later this year.

Because 30th - which, before the 2004 deployment was ranked as the premier Brigade in the National Guard - hasn't gotten the call this time, I'm now curious as to whether 30th has lost prestige.

I'll tell you one thing we did lose because of Iraq, though: Equipment! We lost our Bradleys (they were kept in theater as replacements for other units), much of our heavy weaponry (machine guns, grenade launchers, etc.) and general field equipment (tents and such).

The 30th finally got 'new' Bradleys a few months back, but the crews are likely woefully behind on regular training. Ammo's been an all-around issue, I hear from former colleagues.

So, what's the deal with 30th? Are they out of the loop, or is the Pentagon just waiting for them to come home from AT to spring a new surprise on them?

It's a small piece of the bigger picture known as the decline and fall of the world's greatest Army.

Here's your sign...

NYT has a report in Monday's paper that the Army is finally beginning to crack down on deserters...the facts that are discussed paint what I believe is a snapshot of an Army that is coming apart at the seams.

Recruiting standards are as low as they can be, desertion/AWOL is up, Soldiers are being deployed to a mismanged, poorly executed war again and again...and there is no end in sight.

And speaking of things that should have been done long ago...

CNN reports that ol' Muqtada al-Sadr is alive, well, and in an effort to re-assert his power over the Mahdi Army, calling for everyone to forget the sectarian violence and fight only the Americans.

The thing is, if I had been the theater commander in 2004, Muqtada al-Sadr would be long dead by now. Remember when he and his ilk were using a mosque as a firebase against U.S. forces? A single well-placed 2,000-pound bomb would have ended that little siege. Unfortunately, the US balked at the time, fearing bad press by so publicly obliterating a bonehead.

So now, in 2007, more Soldiers will perish because al-Sadr is still around to spread his brand of Islam and violence. Someone, please, take that dude out.

BOHICA alert, 30th Brigade

(BOHICA = Bend Over, Here It Comes Again!)

I saw on MSNBC tonight that the Pentagon is awaiting Sec'y Gates' signature to order four NG Brigades to Iraq for another tour. I'm certain that 30th Heavy Separate Brigade, my old outfit in North Carolina, will be one of them.

(To a good friend and fellow vet: Andy, looks like you dodged a bullet! Timed that ETS just right!)

The latest news is only another symptom of the current administration's continued abuse of the United States Armed Forces since 2001. The administration suddenly realizes that they're short on regular Army to fill the staffing gaps in Iraq, so it's back to a 2003-style National Guard call-ups.

This time around, however, the military is far shorter on readiness overall than it was three and a half years ago, when I was called up with 1/120IN, 30th Brigade, NCARNG, to serve in Iraq. I've heard reports from my buddies still in the NCARNG that they've had little field training (range time, exercises) since our return in Dec 04 - Jan 05. The Bradleys have been long in returning, the ammo's been hard to find. Sounds more like the Ugandan military than the American, if you ask me.

A very telling indicator of how bad it's gotten is when the Washington Times - that bastion of pro-GOP everything, including delusional foreign policy - comes out with an editorial like this, today. Gen. McCaffrey is on point, on target, I fear; without the significant expansion of our military (personnel as well as materiel) to meet the needs of our wars, what's the point of continuing the farcical war in Iraq?

I just hope that my friend Andy doesn't somehow get jacked by the Army into another call-up. I have too many friends going back there as it is, it seems.

Look to the right of this column to see today's KIA count in Iraq. It's not getting smaller, folks.

C'mon, John, who are you kidding?

Sen. John McCain took an unannounced trip to Baghdad this weekend, and has pronounced sections of Baghdad to be so secure that "Americans can travel safely." Meanwhile, the CNN report about this states several times that the Senator traveled in a very heavily armored convoy.

Sen McCain, if it's that safe, why not travel in a regular car...or walk along the streets without body armor? If it's as safe as say, New York or Phoenix, then put your money where your mouth is.

Also, apparently a CNN correspondent, Michael Ware (according to Drudge) heckeled Sen. McCain, calling it as he sees it (and as American troops see it on a daily basis): “I don't know what part of Neverland Senator McCain is talking about when he says we can go strolling in Baghdad," he was quoted on Drudge as saying.

In the main CNN story about McCain, the city of Tuz Khurmatu is mentioned...there was a bomb there today, killing three people...this after a week of several bombs and shootings there, perhaps the most violent eweek that city has had since before I was stationed near there in 2004.

Between that and violence elsewhere in the country, it indicates what the "surge" in Bagdad has been successful at: Driving the insurgents/terrorists out of town to wreak havoc elsewhere. When the "surge" is over, Baghdad will get nasty again. And while the blood-letters are doing their elsewhere, they will train more to continue their work when they go home to the big city.

In other words, the violence has been spread and magnified by the "surge." Nice going.

Any bets on Iran?

Anyone up for another war? I'm getting a worser and worser feeling that we may have a new one on our hands pretty damn soon, especially given some of the actions our carrier groups (Stennis, Eisenhower) are undertaking off Iranian shores.

OK, those crazy Persians have taken 15 Brits hostage, supposedly because of some incursion into Iranian waters on the Shatt-al-Arab. It's hard to tell now whether this could be a repeat of the 2004 incident in which a few Brits were let go after a few days, or if it could be another full-blown Hostage Crisis of 1979-81.

While the UK and Iran are dancing around the diplomatic table, America's flattops and other ships are doing the muscle-flexing thing...strangely similar to what they did before the Iraq invasion kicked off. In return, Iran's been touting its military capabilities over the past year or so, and is especially doing so now.

So what's going to happen? Hard to tell, but I think we may be seeing the equivalent of an Cuban Missile Crisis in Middle Eastern terms. Both sides have just enough hardware for a good-old-fashioned aerial/missile fight, but the advantage goes to the Iranians, who can, you know, sneak over the porous Iraq border and kill all the Americans (and other non-believers) they can lay their hands on.

And sadly, I think there are factions in both American and Iran who are itching for this to become a new war. One of them may be a guy named Bush who is looking to duck and dodge that pesky ol' Congress and all that Constitutional razzmatazz. There's a bit of heat on GWB now, and if he can find the means to bring up a new issue, he's likely to do it.

If he intentionally starts a war with Iran, it would be criminal folly.

Sure, the US Navy/USAF can wreak some havoc...but the Iranians have plenty of goods as well. Maybe not the best, but enough to hit the US Navy. And I still don't know where America will get the GROUND TROOPS to fight anyone, anywhere. They just aren't available.

Other than those with their hands full already in Iraq.

It's gonna be an interesting week.

Accountability? There's a concept!

Am watching with amusement and amazement as the House is preparing to serve subpoenas on Rove, Miers, et al. in the Gozales/attorney firing scandal.

The WH last night offered Rove and Miers - not under oath - for 'interviews with the House. As is the House was 'Vanity Fair' doing a spotlight on what might have happened.

Thankfully, the House is calling BS and serving actual subpoenas to the above-named. Needless to say, the WH will balk at this and do what they can to escape justice, as always. I understand that Bush will go to court to try to have these subpoenas blocked....

How in hell can ANYONE trust the current White House? WHAT ARE THEY HIDING?

Speaking of accountability, I'm reading Andrew Cockburn's book on Donald Rumsfeld's career in public service. It confirms what we already know: Rummy is a lousy manager; he cannot listen to the advice of others if it even hints at deviating from his set ways; he, like Bush, values loyalty much more than reality; accountability for mistakes always rolls down as far as possible (see 'Abu Ghraib.')

I've just gotten to the point in the book where the Iraq invasion is discussed...I'm sure I'm going to heave this book on a couple occasions. Rumsfeld is the worst SecDef this nation's ever had...and we got him twice, dammit!

It's been four years since the Iraq invasion...three years since I trucked into that place. Had to roll my eyes at Bush's speech a couple days ago - he's toned down the language a bunch. I have no doubt that his intent is to keep the war as quiet as possible for his remaining 22 months in office, so he can hand that hot potato off to his successor.

Gen. Petraeus - perhaps our last, best hope in Iraq - wants more troops (from where?) for the surge in Baghdad. The surge is having some effect, but it's only a matter of time before the violence in Baghdad begins returning to earlier levels. Of course, it seems the violence in other parts of Iraq is rising as the surge progresses.

Tuz Khurmatu, the town near which I was stationed, had its worst attack in months last week. About 10 were killed at the market by a car bomb. Tuz is relatively quiet, but there have been telltale signs of it getting more violent. More shootings, ets. on the road between Tikrit and Kirkuk, that kind of thing.

And the war goes on...and on...and on.

Cheney -- the new Brezhnev

Noted a couple days ago that Mr. Cheney has a blood clot in his leg and will be receiving more medications for that. The White House has otherwise had nothing to say about the VP's health.

OK, here's Cheney, notorious for being pretty tough on his critics ('allies' too), never deviating from his core views, being a notorious recluse and having a long history of health issues.

I suddenly have this vision of Cheney with a big, furry Russian hat on, reviewing the troops and missiles from atop some important edifice while stirring music is playing...and then retreating back to his undisclosed location.

Yes, Dick Cheney is the new Brezhnev, alive and -well, breathing - in America, 2007. Brezhnev suffered from dementia his final several years of office, and I wonder if Cheney's heading that route.

There's been some discussion as to whether Cheney would resign because of his health. I think Cheney regards the VP seat like an NRA man regards his weapons.... 'You'll have to pry my cold, dead fingers off of it...'

I'd rather see Cheney resign now, before he gets us all killed.

On another note: Any bets on Scooter Libby's pardon? I say he'll serve 3-6 months in prison, then gets pardoned in the middle of the night one night and is a free man by sunrise.

And a final note: I've been following the Walter Reed scandal...wow. We've been at war in Iraq for four years, and that's how long it took to get things up to snuff at WR? OH, wait a minute...that's right, I forgot, the mission was accomplished back in May 03. Obviously no need to keep the hospital clean, right?

Silver lining: Heads, for once, are rolling in the Pentagon. Too bad we did not see this with Abu Ghraib. More on this later.

Cheney, neocons defined

"Wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in government. It consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts. It is epitomized in a historian's statement about Philip II of Spain, the surpassing wooden-head of all soverigns: 'No experience in the failure of his policy could shake his belief in its essential excellence.' "

-- Barbara W. Tuchman, "The March of Folly," Knopf, 1984

The above passage came from the first chapter of the book, in which Tuchman describes folly and how nations find themselves in the midst of such debacles. Not long after that passage, she wrote, "Wooden-headedness is also the refusal to benefit from experience, a characteristic in which medieval rulers of the 14th century were supreme." Seems 21st century 'leaders' show the same characteristics.

I read parts of this book about 13 years ago, and it's been living in a box since then. I happened to come across it a few days ago and am re-reading it in light of recent examples of sheer folly perpetrated by folks named Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith, Wolfowitz, and of course Bush.

Cheney said today (Thursday) that the "enemy opened another front in the war on terror in Iraq."

Wait, wait, wait! ...Mr. Cheney, those weren't American forces entering Iraq in 2003? Who was it then, the Mahdi Army?

Ah, wait, I get it - it's just like the old saying: "We have met the enemy, and it is us!"

All eyes on Gen. Peter Pace?

Came across an interesting piece by Gwynne Dyer, a London-based columnist, and his take on the current situation as regards Iran.

Dyer hits it right on the head when he flatly states that an air campaign will not be enough to take out Iran, and that the bulk of available US ground troops are committed to Iraq and cannot be spared for a campaign against Iran. I might add that by extent that also means the stateside military folks either recovering from, or commited to, an Iraq rotation.

He also notes that in the event of an American air campaign against Iran, Iran would flood Iraq with volunteers and weapons/equipment to fight the ground forces already there.

I'd like to take that one step further and suggest that such an air campaign by the U.S. would result in Iranian regulars crossing the border with impunity, headed toward the nearest American base. (FOB Caldwell, aka Kirkush, my first station in Iraq, is about 12 miles from the Iranian border, and the terrain would allow the Iranians to roll on that base with a quickness).

Enter Gen. Peter Pace, the Chairman of the JCS - the man who is finally reporting to his superiors exactly what the I've been saying all along - that the military is at the breaking point, if not flat-out broken. Seems his days of being the SecDef's lapdog ended when Rumsfeld left.

Dyer postulates that Pace, who on Tuesday categorically denied plans to attack Iran (contrary to Seymour Hersh's New Yorker article), may be faced with one hell of a choice if Bush & Company choose to attack Iran: Either follow orders or turn in his stars. Dyer correctly assesses that such a conundrum on the part of Pace may be the biggest military-civilian conflict since Mac Arthur v. Truman, and the situation certainly bears watching as America is seemingly headed toward armed confrontation with Iran.

If the order comes down, can Pace make the right call? This may be something worth watching over the next weeks and months.

Bottom line: 1) Air war will not win overall campaign in Iran. 2) American military is woefully overstretched and not capable of committing to any new war, whether it be in Iran or Fiji. 3) The American people will not support an escalation of the Iraq fiasco into Iran. 4) The resurgence of al-Qaida and Taliban in the Afghan/Pakistan region is a direct result of America's blunder in Iraq.

We'll delve into the al-Qaida issue at another time, exploring all of the Iran/Afghan/Pakistan dynamic in the current series of wars. I think the sun's about to set on relations between the U.S. and Pakistan. That, friends and neighbors, would be bad.

Joining Milblogger

View My Milblogging.com Profile

Neal Boortz: Drunk on GOP Kool-Aid

I tortured myself for about 15 minutes tonight on the way home from work by listening to the Neal Boortz show on talk radio. Man, this guy is one of the die-hard true believers in the cause of Iraq, and he'll say the stoopidest things to try and justify his case.

I'm surprised he doesn't work with Dick and George. (Oh, wait, Tony Snow already has that position).

Anyway, the tactic du jour of insurgents in Iraq is to detonate a bomb next to large quantities of chlorine gas, a crude form of chemical weapon that on Wednesday killed several and sickened more than 100 in Baghdad.

Boortz, in a back-and-forth with one of his guests, said the media wouldn't describe such bombs as "WMD" because (I paraphrase here) 'the media is afraid to give credence to the justification for the 2003 invasion.'

WRONG, Neal! The reason that 'WMD' isn't being applied is beacuse these are not state-made weapons that were being used en masse on a particular ethnic group. They are not made to take out entire cities. It's one hell of a stretch to imagine that these crude, basic devices are the very same weapons that GWB and Company were looking for four years ago...the ones that have yet to be found. Nice try, Boortz.

I saw on Boortz's bio that he thinks Clinton was the most corrupt and dishonest president in history. I'm no big fan of Bubba, and he lied to Congress about getting a honker...

...but invading another country based on cherry-picked raw intelligence, fabrications and outright lies - to the tune of 3,100-plus Americans dead - doesn't count as dishonesty?

I'll check back with Neal's take on that after it's all said and done. Bush wins the dishonesty prize, hands down. People are still dying because of it.

I wonder what Neal thinks we should do about Iran... *shudder*

Got Banned, Got busy

Greetings all...been a busybusybusy week for the IV, haven't had a chance to post since learning of the DoD's recent move to prevent truth-seekers from accessing this blog (and like-minded sites).

Anyway, was darkly amused to death on Wednesday to see that Dick Cheney is referring to the UK's decision to begin withdrawing as a...."Sign of progress." Ever the optimist, are we, Mr. Cheney?

Sure, southern Iraq isn't quite the bloodbath that Baghdad and surrounding areas are; Perhaps, if the Coalition was still intact, we would get some of those Brits up north to lend the overstretched, undermanned U.S. military with getting the job done.

Oh, and the UK will be sending Prince Harry to Iraq (with his personal security contingent) as a tank commander. As several folks have observed in the last 24 hours: Does this mean the US can send Jenna and Barbara????

The IrritatedVet will be back much sooner this time - am hoping that things cool down a bit schedule-wise.

Flash: I.V. banned by the military!

A reliable source tells me that the National Guard Bureau (and presumably other branches of the military) have banned this blog from appearing on NG servers.

I'll have more on this situation as it develops.

Note to the military censors: Geez, guys, you missed the point! I'm here in SUPPORT of the military - it needs help, given the current administration's blunders and parade of folly of the last 5 years.
Oh, and what about the old First Amendment? My views not cheery enough? Truth hurts too much? What's the deal?
"Support and Defend the Constitution," my foot!

The IrritatedVet will not be silenced. Nor will I toe the line because I was told to.

Folly Alert!

Seems as if the powers that be in DC are beating the war drums again, with an eye toward Iran.

And who, exactly, are we going to use in this bold new operation? The Boy Scout Reserve? The Salvation Army National Guard?

Sure, we can use the Navy and Air Force to blast the hell out of pinpoint targets, but if we're going to square off with the Persians, we better have our flanks covered. And our flank is very exposed in Iraq right now. Hmmm, let's look at a map...Iran...Iraq. They not only have similar names, they are indeed next to each other. Oh, and Iran's a lot bigger and more mountainous, too.

We have 140,000-plus troops in Iraq now, taking heat from both Sunnis and Shiites, and they could face an en masse border crossing by the Iranian Army if America were to launch a strike. Brilliant!

And while ordinary Americans (and from what I know, ordinary Iranians as well) are getting very nervous about the prospect of war, guys like Bush and Ahmadinejad and Khamenei continue with the rhetoric of fighting, rather than making an honest-to-God (or Allah) effort to prove they are capable statesmen by initiating some serious, direct diplomacy.

So how did we get to this precarious spot in which Iran undoubtedly holds the most influence in the region, while the U.S continues to spend mind-boggling amounts of blood and treasure in Iraq? As we can see by reading the news, the 'noble experiment' by force in Iraq has been a failure through and through.

What the heck makes anyone think America will have an easier time with Iran?

The situation in Iraq - in which Iran is now a major player - may have possibly been avoided through diplomacy in 2003, according to several news sources. Condi Rice, now the U.S. Sec'y of State, claims now that she doesn't remember an Iranian overture (sent through Switzerland) to assist (or at least remain out of) the Iraqi situation. She even talked about it on NPR last year.

But it would be politically incnvenient for her to recall that now.

Anyway, I'm waiting to hear terms and phrases like 'pre-emptive' and 'get them before they get us' applied to Iran. Meanwhile, our military continues to struggle under the latest 'surge' plan that the Decider has ram-rodded through, Congress be damned!

Sure, we can send the Stennis carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf. We can get a few more Air Force jets in the region, too. Hell, we can even point a couple nukes at Iran...but if we are going to launch a war against them - which would be suicidal - we had better have the ground forces to do it.

Guess what? We don't have the groundpounders to make Iraq a success.

What the heck makes anyone out there think we can engage another country (or even sustain the current wars) without a truly significant expansion of our forces?

It does not work, it won't work, and it's sheer insanity to think it will.

23 minutes of agony!

I listened to GWB's interview with NPR's Juan Williams a couple nights ago, and I was utterly blown away by how unprepared he (the Decider) was for some of the questions...and equally blown away by his almost incoherent responses.

It's very hard to describe how it sounded...two things are apparent to me: 1) GWB didn't have Dick Cheney whispering in his ear for this one, and 2) He has no understanding of how deep the U.S. is in it with Iraq right now. Not a clue, whatsoever. He also is raising his bluster on Iran, sending indications that he's thinking about expanding operations against them...it's like the Iraq run-up all over again.

Anyway, if you are feeling up for some torture, and have most of a half an hour to kill, have a listen to this.

I guarantee you'll be as irritated as I was after hearing it.

Protests: Refreshing, except for 'Hanoi Jane'

It was very refreshing to see today's mass protest in Washington, along with a smattering of other protests nationwide, namely in California. I always take heart when I see the spirit of the First Amendment is still alive and well in America.

A colleague and I were noting that the demographics of today's protests is certainly different than those during the Vietnam War. Instead of mostly college- and draft-age folks out there, the average age of the demonstrators was pretty hard to pin down. Seems that everyone from tots to octogenarians were represented, and I was glad to see it went off pretty peacefully.

I can't say I agree with everything that was demanded at today's gatherings, but we all certainly agree on this: The war in Iraq was launched on lies, predicated on prevarications and fabricated as a forgery. Enough with the alliteration already...

I wasn't too surprised to see Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, well-established celebrity anti-war activists, making speeches today...but the 'star of the show,' unfortunately, was a person who makes me just about as mad as Dick Cheney or George Bush do: 'Hanoi Jane' Fonda.

Note to well-meaning protesters: DROP JANE FONDA! Even the most ardent anti-war folks I know want to keep their distance from her, given her traitorious track record. I half expect her to be shouldering an RPG with the Sunnis in Fallujah sometime soon.

All-in-all, I think that the outrage about the war that I've thought was MIA finally materialized today, peacefully, in Washington.

Let's hope the protests stay peaceful...at least this time around, people are directing their anger at the administration, not the troops who have to fight the damn war.

On a final note tonight, an alert reader took mild umbrage at my use of the "F-Bomb" in the title of my last posting (re: Dick Cheney).

I was pretty bent out of shape by Cheney's obtuse dismissal of the vast majority of Americans on CNN, but the reader correctly pointed out that the wording I used didn't carry much credibility to it. Point well taken, and thanks for reading.

Better toe that fucking line, Wolf!

Dick Cheney is making multiple appearances on CNN today in a new interview with Wolf Blitzer, in which Cheney refers to ANY talk of blunders having been committed in Iraq as "hogwash." (VIDEO LINK)

Cheney seems to discount every question that Blitzer asked him, retorting in his usual sneering, gruff fashion with phrases like "I don't accept the premise of that question" or calling Blitzer "out of line."

NO, Mr. Cheney, if ANYONE in this nation is out of line right now, it is you.

Never in my life have I seen a public official - an elected one at that - so callous and dismissive of the media, the rest of our government, our laws and the will of American people. Cheney is out of control as well as out of line.

Cheney has no understanding of what our nation has gotten itself into, will not listen to experts who've spent their entire careers studying such scenarios (Colin Powell comes immediately to mind), and dismisses as 'unpatriotic' (if not downright treasonous) those who raise concerns that things aren't quite as rosy as Cheney paints it.

And I'll say it here and now: Cheney despises America's current form of government. What's up with that pesky checks-and-balances bit, with Congress and courts and laws? And freedom of the press? C'mon...that's so 1789!

Cheney also despises the American people, except Republicans with more than $1 million in assets.

And the saddest part is that GWB keeps listening to this clown! Then again, GWB doesn't know any better. There's some kind of Ed Bergen-Charlie McCarthy thing going on there, methinks.

It's gonna be a long two years until those two are outta there...and in Nov. 2008, I may just vote NO for president.

Meanwhile, in Baghdad...

Try again, GWB

Not much time this evening - long day, am rather beat. Bushed, you could even say.

Got to watch GWB state tonight exactly what folks like me have been saying for years: America's facing one hell of a problem in Iraq, one with global implications. Too bad he couldn't outright admit he and his cronies screwed it up bad.

He correctly stated that the military needs to be expanded...and went on to suggest 92,000 for the Army and Marines over five years. Nope, sorry, Mr. President, wrong answer.

The correct answer is that we need vastly more than that over the next five years, something approaching 400,000 to 500,000 at a minimum. The situation we are potentially facing - destabilization of the Gulf region, instability on the Pacific Rim (N. Korea, perhaps China) as well as other possible hotspots (coup in Pakistan, for starters) - will require a vast American military response, as well as troops to get the job done here (Katrina, other disasters).

As usual, he's trying to do this kind of thing on the cheap, as he did with the initial invasion of Iraq.

Of course, the problem is now that the Democrats don't want to be seen as rubber-stamping Bush's ideas, so they won't go along with it. In short, Bush's window for this kind of expansion slammed shut about a year ago.

I challenge the Dems to take a reverse-psychology tack here: Authorize vastly more than what Bush seeks, with the proviso that he's not allowed to launch any more wars until he's safely tucked away back in Right Armpit, Texas.

I'm not going to get started on the Iran thing right now. Just too tired and exasperated to even go there. I'll be back tomorrow night.

Back in "the World"

Greetings all...after getting 'hitched' and following that with a honeymoon to the Dominican Republic, I am back at my humble home. Plenty of sun and "Cuba Libres" ('Free Cuba,' or rum & coke) for this gringo.

A lot has happened in the past couple weeks, and I will say my piece as soon as I can catch my breath.

The big issue, in brief: troop levels in Iraq. Too little, too late. I didn't get to see Bush's speech last week, so I can't say a whole lot; I'm just still crunching the numbers to try to figure out how this will be effective without further degrading overall US Army readiness. I'm still not seeing it.

Unfortunately, I'm pressed for time right now. I hope to be back either tonight or tomorrow night with a more complete take on things as I see them.

Adios, Amigos

Happy New Year, right?

What a night. Got home from work, only to find the neighborhood sounded like a bad day in Iraq (New Year's revelers firing off inordinate amounts of ordnance in celebration). Had to go outside and cheer them on a bit.

Well, sure was glad to see that Saddam was sent off in grand style a couple nights ago. That means the war's over soon, right?

Yeah, OK, just kidding. Damn, I wish it really were over...at least 'W' isn't out there making a big deal out of it for once.

I was taken aback (having seen the videos of the execution) at how unprofessionally it was carried out...totally a Shi'a-run deal. The executioners and witnesses were going nuts over Muqtada Al-Sadr just before the floor fell out from under Saddam, lending way too much credence that the Shi'a alone (and, unspoken, with help from Americans) were exacting revenge for his various crimes.

What about the Kurds, Assyrians, Kuwaitis and so forth?

But it's not just the offended parties I refer to...I believe the several videos I saw shows how fractured Iraq truly is - and how far removed from peace all parties really are at this point in time.

Of course, some of it is a cultural gap...I'm sure many in the Middle East look at a solemn, subdued, precisely choreographed American execution and think we're a bit nuts as well.

In the end, though, the exuberance of those present at Saddam's demise was too obvious, too uncontrolled to not be clear to everyone in Iraq: The Sunnis have been relegated - on video - and the Sunnis will not consider working with the Shi'a for a very, very long time.

It's one more nail in the coffin of any hopes that the aftermath of the Iraq War will be good for anyone in the Middle East.

I still call it this way: Iran vs. Saudi Arabia (and Syria v. Israel) sometime soon. Look for US to aid Israel and Saudi (barring a coup in Saudi)...while Jordan circles the wagons and hopes nothing lands on their turf. Kuwait...right in the middle, perhaps a key battlefield. We'll see how grateful they are for American "assistance" after this goes down.

Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong. We shall see.

America hit 3,000 and climbing in the last 24 hours or so. I'm sick of this stinking, misguided war. The five I knew (or was in the same unit with) who were killed - SPC Jocelyn Carrasquillo, CPT Christopher Cash, SPC Daniel Desens, SSG Michael Voss and SSG Eric Steffeney - are .1666 percent of Americans who died there. Fucking unreal.

Happy New Year's, all.

Git A Rope, Boys!

Seems that good ol' Saddam's death sentence has been upheld by Iraq's highest appeals court a couple days ago. In short, the court's order is that Saddam will swing from the gallows within a month.

Well, I'm sure glad that will be the end to the war in Iraq. Saddam will be dead; the Sunnis will go home quiet; the Shi'a, Kurds and Assyrian Christians will take a small bit of pride that their agressor over three decades is history; and the healing will begin. Iran may even back off a bit in Iraq.

HA! Don't we wish!

While it's a no-brainer that Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (his full name) truly deserves a painful death, all it will do now is re-inflame the minority Sunni population into new heights of savagery against Americans, Shi'a and anyone else they deem 'bad.'

Expect major-league attacks on non-Sunni mosques, churches, shops, etc; Also expect a spike against Americans who are seen as the real reason for Saddam's impending death, rather than the so-called Iraqi government that is signing off on his demise.

Things are bad now, and they won't get better after Saddam is hanged.

BTW, my prediction is we will see him dead by New Year's Day...a symbolic thing, to not let him live into 2007. As of this posting, we're down to about 49 or 50 hours.

Maybe I'll be wrong, I've been so before. But hanging him soon would not surprise me at all.

PS: I will likely be out for the next 2-3 weeks, or at least sporadic at best during that time, as I am about to be married and go on honeymoon. Will do my best to stay with the worries of the rest of the world (as is my nature), but I've gotta go relax with my wife for once!

I'll do the best I can.

Happy New Year's, all (If I don't hit this blog before then).

Merry Christmas, all (and Somalia)

Well, the holidays are upon us, Merry Christmas to all.

I'm getting married in 10 days (6 JAN 07) and then going on Honeymoon, so will likely not be here much over the next 3 weeks...however, that may change depending on internet connections where my wife and I go for our Honeymoon. I hope I have access, especially when the Congress changes hands.

On to the latest: Ethiopia and Somalia are really getting into it now, aren't they? Shit, this is one of those scenarios (on a smaller scale) that I envisioned as far as something the US military can't respond to properly. The LA Times has a good editorial that sums up the position we are in now....'Black Hawk Down' through today. Dunno if I ever did mention Horn of Africa here, but it's certainly coming home to roost. The Islamist folks - that is, the hard-core, religion-driven, Sharia-espousing, women-killing, ignorant assholes - are in a great position to really dominate in Somalia...and the U.S. can't do a goddamn thing about it.

America's military needs help. It has the best men and women, the best equipment, the best pay and best training in the world, but it is weak. America is overcommitted...and will likely prove itself to be so again as shit flies somewhere else in the next 3-6 months.

The Pentagon/White House is talking about a surge to Baghdad? Think again. America needs a lot more than that...and shit's getting baddder and badder by the day.

Yeah, so much for Merry Christmas.

Season's Greetings - The IrritatedVet

Is there a Draft in here?

Fun times, all. Fun times indeed.

George W. Bush today said that he's planning to expand the American military to continue to fight the ongoing war against 'turrurists' as well as aim for that herd-to-define victory in Iraq.

Well, George, it's about time you started getting with the program. Truth be told, America should have considered this seriously about 10 minutes after the second plane hit the World Trade Center. Instead, what America got was false confidence (otherwise known as lies) that our nation could simultaneously fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - one going badly, the other seemingly forgotten - without any significant expansion of the military that IS REQUIRED OF A NATION AT WAR.

So, we find ourselves at the end of 2006, with the deaths in Iraq piling up, the situation there deteriorating and a recent sea change in our own government, hearing the president finally start to come to grips with the fact that our military-the best in the world-just isn't big enough to get the job done and protect our flanks.

But now that the Decider has decided that he must admit this fact, he has yet to divulge any details of how he will accomplish this new task. He said he's waiting for new SecDef Gates to return from Iraq (a come-to-Jesus meeting if there ever was one) - but I think many of us know that he knows what he faces.

I don't know how much more the Pentagon can sweeten the pot for new recruits. I do know they can't relax peacetime standards much further in terms of age limits, education, criminal records and so forth. In short, simply upping the recruiting goals isn't gonna cut it this time.

It's time to roll out the "D-bomb," yes, the dreaded Draft. As I called for several weeks ago here, America is overdue for reinstating at least a limited draft (up to 500,000 over the next, say, four years or so) - at least with the intent of getting our forces the strength they need to get the job done.

Will it be popular? Hell, no! Is it truly necessary in terms of defending a nation that is becoming more vulnerable by the day? Absolutely!

Army Chief of Staff GEN Schoomaker hit the nail on the head recently when he said publicly that the Army is broken. The Marine Corps isn't far behind. And I must reiterate here that it's not the soldiers or Marines that are broken, it's the institution. They're overtapped, overstretched and seemingly always "over there."

The BIG question now is this: Are the Army and Marines ready to handle such an influx of new recruits or draftees, in terms of training facilities, trainers, support staff, training equipment, ammo, supplies, etc? Will the Army (in particular) need to re-open a dormant post somewhere as a basic training facility? Is the cadre available to do the best job in getting these guys up to speed?

The other big question: Will the powers that be end the easy deferments available to up-and-coming politicos during the Vietnam era (Cheney's deferment for child notwithstanding).

A draft will be a double-edged sword for the Bush administration: First, it will, to some extent, fill the gaps that need filled in terms of fighting these wars and coming to some semblance of "victory." However, and Bush & Co. are KEENLY aware of this, the outrage which has lain dormant among Americans of this era will come to the surface as soon as a draft takes place, resulting in a stiff resistance.

I'm at odds with myself on this point: While I support a sensible, take-only-what-we-need-and-no-more kind of draft, I know that it opens a whole new set of problems; It will be an admission of a HUGE mistake by the Bush administration, and the obvious will be shouted in the streets of America: Bush lied to America, and he can't run a war worth a damn.

Dammit, I wish it didn't have to come to this...but it does.

Get ready for some rough years ahead on the streets of America.

What will happen? (The million-dollar question)

Intensemystery posted a comment on my last post that I just had to respond to...it's the million-dollar question.

"Please explain to me what will happen if we lose this war? "

Well, I'd like to preface the rest of the response by stating that we've certainly lost a lot, whether we wind up 'winning' this war or not.

Of course, the words 'winning' and 'losing' are up to ideological definition and debate, but my basic yardstick is this: Is the U.S. (and the world) a safer place now that hostilities are over than they were before it began? We can base our conclusions on the varying results of U.S. wars (WWII being the most decisive victory, while Vietnam - or even the Cold War in general - are the most questioned conflicts).

So, based on that, we are in a situation where America has upset the apple cart on the Arab Street (i.e. the Middle East in general), and the ramifications of this will be felt for generations to come. The war is not going well - America went in with little real plan of what to do after the invasion, did not take into account the internal and regional forces at play (political, sectarian and tribal within Iraq; also the interests of Iraq's neighbors, particulary Iran).

Internal strife in Iraq is ramping up steadily, and every passing month seems to result in more and more Iraqi casualties. November was a horrible month for the U.S., casualty-wise, and the American position in Iraq has been seriously degraded as a result of the overall violence and growing political instablity.

Meanwhile, Iran is exerting more pressure on America than at any time since the hostage situation in 1979-81, knowing full well that America's in no position to be as forceful as needed - militarily - to take decisive action. On the diplomatic front, the Administration is loath to open any meaningful dialogue with either Iran or Syria on either Iraq or the nuclear issue (or Hezbollah/Israel issues with Syria).

And diplomacy in this case also means Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Turkey must be in on it. Saudi Arabia's got a lot riding on this as well. Oh, and don't forget the so-called Iraqi government. They are in the deepest s**t right now.

Back to the basic question: Are we 'winning' the war in Iraq? No. We are not. And the stakes are very, very high.

{I am purposefully excluding Afghanistan in this discussion, as I consider it a separate and distinct war under different circumstances. In other words, Iraq under Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. }

And to come around to the answer to Intensemystery's question: What will happen if we lose?

It depends on what happens in the next three months to six months. 1) America MUST get Arab/Iranian diplomacy cranked up again. 2) America MUST come up with a cohesive plan to get Iraqi security forces up to speed - perhaps concentrating on that rather than day-to-day counterinsurgency. Only when there is success in that part of the overall war can America concentrate on truly rebuild what it broke in 2003. 3) America MUST take a hard, honest look at the state of its military and its ability to respond to other crises in the region and the world (or even another major natural disaster in the U.S.).

If we 'lose,' a la the precipitous pullout from Vietnam in 1975, Iran will immediately become the dominant power in the Middle East, pitting it against the Iraqi Sunnis in the battle for oil and theocratic domination of the area...and this will lead, almost immediately, to a showdown with both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia (a nation widely known as unfriendly to Shiites).

Meanwhile, Hezbollah's position will be greatly enhanced as the proxy of the most powerful nation in the region, putting further pressure on Israel - a nation that doesn't take much guff from anyone.

America not only will have lost Iraq, it will have lost (and arguably has already lost) a great deal of its status as a superpower...look for China, which recently announced plans to expand its military, to take a keener interest in all things Middle East. Same with Russia, which lost a lot of influence after the fall of the Soviet Union; Russia's advantage now is that they have a pretty vast oil supply to begin with.

With the added Iranian influence in the region, nations like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will feel pressured to raise oil prices. Their fellow OPEC nations - including Venezuela - will be forced to react to the new order and uncertainty, resulting in very high costs at the gas pump here and in Europe. The economic waves will be felt throughout the world, and America stands likely to take the heat for it.

Even if America is able to inject some sort of stability into the area before a "graceful" pullout(as President Bush recently called it), Iraq's sectarian and political wounds of history, laid bare by the American invasion, will take decades - if not centuries or millennia - to heal.

In conclusion, I will go back - briefly - to the Afghanistan issue: Those who brought terror to our shores on 11 SEP 01 will claim the Iraq debacle as a great victory, one which "validates" their positions. This should not have happened - the current administration chose to open a second war (not a second front, a second war).

America's position as a result of the deep quagmire in Iraq, along with the deepening quagmire of the real war on terrorism (the one we had global support for, remember?) is one this country will have a hell of a time recovering from in decades to come.

America went into Iraq with scripted assumptions, firm in its resolve that the invasion would be the hard part, not the occupation. My nation has committed too much to not try to finish the job - that is, get Iraq back to being civil, rather than in a Civil War - but the fact is, we are already in deep, and the key to getting the situation resolved will rely on some hard-core diplomacy; I don't think that Dr. Condoleezza Rice or President Bush has it in them to make that happen.

Now that Rumsfeld is gone, Rice is next on the chopping block.

What it comes down to is the President choosing people he MUST hear from, not those he WANTS to hear from.

Well, Intensemystery, I don't know if this helped, but it's the way I see it from here. I realize that I sound like I'm not full of hope for the future right now, but with a different set of folks running Congress, some change - hopefully positive for all parties - will come about in the next year or so.

And to answer another question I've heard many times in recent months: "Is it possible to be against the war and still support the troops?"

Yes. Keep reading this blog - written by a dyed-in-the-wool Army nerd and Iraq Vet - and all will know that it IS possible.

America (the current administration) screwed up this war, and is screwing up the Army and Marine Corps (in particular) in the process...and it hurts me every day to see it. America can do better.

Rummy Gets Final Fellatio, er, Farewell

Seems Donald Rumsfeld is taking advantage of his last week of seemingly unlimited access to all things Pentagon by taking a farewell tour of Iraq. The pictures are pretty bad...Rummy hanging out with the troops as if they were old war buddies, getting his ego stroked one last time, etc.

I've just got to find out how much it cost to send Don and his entourage to Iraq for a few days of 'tearful' goodbyes to the troops and the military he fucked for several years before he rides off into the sunset.

I'm trowing a party next Monday evening after Rummy's gone and Gates takes over...not that I'm doing cartwheels about Gates, but it's just that Rummy's going to the garbage can of history. And yes, that IS where he will go.

In better news, Ike Skelton has been selected Chairman of the House ACS. If anyone's going to really lead this most-important panel - one who really understands war and military matters - he's the one to do it. And he's got enough clout to start lighting fires under the right asses.

Haven't said much here about the ISG report. Glad it came out, glad someone out there is saying publicly what needs said (Things are bad, military's getting weaker, and for you Mr. President, Iraq's the country just west of Iran).

In all seriousness, I have all doubts that Bush and Company will take the ISG into serious consideration (although, sir, they were right about Iraq's geographic location). After all, Bush is the Decider, and so he's likely already Decided, with the help of Deadeye Dick Cheney, that ISG doesn't have a clue. Hell, they don't even all follow Bush politics, the heathens.

Anyway, Go deep, go long or go home...Just do SOMETHING else, please!

Meanwhile, in Iraq, the kidnappings, killings, massacres and mayhem grows every day.

Truth? Before the Senate?

Well, before I get into the latest on all things Iraq, let me apologize for being away so long. Been a rough week weather-wise here in Missouri, and I spent a lot of time dealing with bad drivers, crappy roads and schedule changes as a result. Sorry for the delay, folks.

And now, on to the big events of late...

Robert Gates had a pretty candid appearance before the Senate ASC today, telling them that, indeed, America's not winning in Iraq. It certainly didn't take Gates to tell them that, but it was certainly refreshing to see that someone is candid enough to call it as he sees it when the cameras are rolling. I still have some issues with Gates' past (Iran-Contra, being a Bush 41 old hand, etc.), but he has, I believe, a pretty clear picture that he's not walking into McDonald's Playland right now.

The sooner Rumsfeld is put to pasture, the better off this nation will be - I hope.

Speaking of big Don, I was amused by his "Gee, things ARE pretty fouled up in Iraq" memo, a convenient two days before his departure was announced. The truth as I see it is plain and simple - he knows how history will treat him, so he had to put out something that showed he was thinking about 'alternatives' before he got the soft boot.

I wager this: From the historical perspective, Robert McNamara will feel like he's been treated like a king compared to what Rummy's gonna get, especially as he will be spending a lot of time in the hot seat over the next couple years. Sadly, I think he will be the only one of the big three answering questions before Congress.

So, when's Rumsfeld going to get his McNamara-like "mea culpa" book deal? I won't pay for it. Might use it for toilet paper, but I won't pay for it.

And speaking of books, the Baker-Hamilton Commission report will be released on Wednesday. Of the big three options they came up with, it seems they are pushing "Go Home." I'm still iffy on that, as the Iraqi security apparatus - which would have a hard time keeping order at a county fair - is nowhere near ready to take over.

Regardless of what The Decider decides on (not that I expect him to take the work of scholars seriously), the bottom line is still clear: America's forces are tired. They are still stretched thin. They can't handle another war, if it were to happen. Can the commission, Gates, and the Congressional ASC's get on the same page and call for an expansion of the military to allow it to be able to truly defend America?

Two guys who hit it right on the head were GEN Barry McCaffrey (Ret.) and MG Robert Scales (Ret.), who spent about 8 minutes on NPR today analyzing the situation. It's definitely worth the listen...my only disagreement was with McCaffrey when he said the U.S. could fight North Korea with 250,000 troops. This, right after he said we didn't have enough troops for Iraq.

Before he said that, though, he was abundantly clear: The Army and Marines are worn the hell out, and it's time to do something about it.

The ball's in the court of the new Congress and SECDEF.

More on the Elephant

It's been a few days since I've been here - holidays will do that. Sorry for the absence.

Anyway, I received a very interesting comment last night from RPH on my last post that begs for some clarification in the hopes of making things crystal clear.

My last post was in favor of Mr. Rangel's proposal to bring back the draft. I should have made it clear that I am not doing backflips and cartwheels about doing so (and it won't get serious consideration in Congress), but Rangel is making the point that America's Armed Forces are overstretched to the point of not being able to effectively respond to other conflicts. We're running out of options.

Why should we expand further? If America is to secure "victory," or anything that passes for it, in Iraq, it cannot do so with the present troop levels. It goes back to the Shinseki statement of early 2003 that America needed as many as 500,000 troops to do the job right. He was canned, the U.S. went in too light, and we find ourselves in a quagmire now.
The Iraq War was an unnecessary expansion of the "War on Terror," and the results of Iraq have opened the door to a wider regional war involving at least Iran, Saudi Arabia and possibly Syria. If that happens, anyone want to wager against Israeli involvement?
(The regional war is the potential larger defeat I spoke of in my last post).
My point is this: We must expand the military - and troop levels in Iraq - as a matter of necessity brought on by American failures to establish security in Iraq at the very outset. Cutting and running - or even a phased withdrawal - are not viable options at this point. Read the news of the last 48 hours, and you will see why.
A non-democratic government would be OK now, if it could provide security, but the sectarian and ethnic wounds are still too fresh to allow for any real semblance of security to be established anytime soon. One group or another will be in power, and no one in Iraq will accept a Saddam-style (or theocratic) government aligned against his/her sect or ethnicity.

Do I know the draft will cause much consternation/conflict in the U.S?
Absolutely. I'm well-versed on my Vietnam-era history, and am well aware of the fact that the draft would be exceedingly unpopular (demonstrations, riots, men moving to Canada, etc.). However, the administration erred by not calling for a draft within a week of Sept. 11, 2001.
On that day, America lost more people than at Pearl Harbor. If that isn't draft-worthy, I don't know what is anymore. The window to implement a draft was wide open just after 9/11, but no one seemed to realize that America was, indeed, at war.
Five years later, America is fighting two wars (Afghanistan and Iraq) without any significant increase in military strength, which I can sum up in one word: MADNESS.

It doesn't take "being in the sandbox for too long," as RPH put it, to see that America's forces are too small for the current tasks and that the forces are being worn out. I'll post some handy links on that issue soon.

I was in the "sandbox" for 10 months, and I've seen what it takes to alert, train, deploy, sustain and redeploy a unit for a combat tour. It takes much more than just the deploying unit, and that adds to the strain on the military.

There much more to this than just Iraq and Afghanistan: Pakistan is just a coup away from putting nukes in the hands of mullahs; North Korea has detonated a nuke and could destabilize the Pacific Rim very quickly; Iran is defiantly working on acquiring nukes (and is supporting many of the Iraqi Shi'a); and as I said above, the Middle East really isn't too far from erupting into a wider regional war that will pit Sunni v. Shi'a in a big way.

Such a war would make the current events in Baghdad look like a Boy Scout camp.

America is extremely overdue in being ready to meet these challenges. While our military must expand now, we can only hope that the administration will endeavor to employ some real diplomacy in a concerted effort to avert war in all cases.

Acknowledging the elephant

Rep. Chuck Rangel of New York is making another push for a draft. Rangel, a Korea Vet, is the first to publicly realize that America can not fight the two current wars - and be ready for anything else - with the U.S. military's current size.

Now that the dreaded "D" word is again out in public, let's get a little perspective on how this could work out, what needs to be done, and what it means.

First, I don't foresee a total draft, a la WWII or even quite the level of Vietnam. I can only foresee, say, 300,000 to 400,000 being called for service in the next 3 or 4 years. Yeah, it's a bunch, and would entail calling more than 500,000 total, allowing for those who don't qualify. We'll get into deferments later.

Second, the length of service should be bumped up to more than the historic two-year standard.
I had an interesting chat a little while ago with my father, a Vietnam vet and former Army officer, who shared his experiences in dealing with draftees and the replacement system in Vietnam, 1969-70.
His main points were as follows:
1) Two years is too short to get someone through basic, AIT and assigned to a unit to make him effective as a well-trained soldier before being shipped off in time to allow him to complete his combat tour.
2) The large volume of draftees gave rise to the individual (rather than unit) replacement policies of Vietnam. In effect, unit cohesion whent right down the toilet, and the experienced folks were spending too much time training the newbies how to operate in a combat situation rather than actually going out and performing the mission.
Going to a three-year system in which draftees can be assigned to units being readied for (yet another) deployment will increase unit cohesion as that unit arrives in the combat zones, with most members of those units trained and ready, and slated to be there for the duration of the deployment.

Third, does the Pentagon have a plan for expanding its training facilities to handle the influx of new troops? My guess is that if it does, those plans were likely not updated under Donald Rumsfeld. Can the Pentagon be ready to establish new training centers and find the cadre to train the new troops? Is it possible that a couple of old bases may need to be re-opened?

Fourth, If the draft does come around again, the Pentagon needs to sweeten the pot just a bit for those who face being drafted. Come in as a volunteer, get more out of it later. Otherwise, our nation needs to do what it can to make sure draftees are treated (down to the squad level) the same as any other American in uniform. With respect.

Final fifth: The other big "D" word....deferments.
Deferments were a polarizing issue during the 1960s/70s, and even now continue to be a hot-button issue in some circles. Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney come to mind immediately. (Keep in mind, Cheney got 5 deferments. Five. Only to become the vice-president and strongest supporter of a failed war policy.)

In the new draft, I envision very few deferments. The obvious ones, for physical/mental impairment, are not what I'm getting at here.

Short and sweet: If your number comes up, you are going. If you are within a year of graduating college (or are in ROTC), you can have the option of coming in as an officer. If you are the son of the local Congressman/Senator - or dogcatcher - you are equally subject to this draft.

If you choose to avoid the draft by running to Canada (or other places), then stay there forever.

Bottom line: Finally, we have folks who are confronting the realities of what is happening here. We had to go to war in 2001, and have since expanded that war unnecessarily. The wars will go on for a very long time, and America's in no shape to confront other threats to itself or the rest of the world. A draft is the worst possible situation, and I wholeheartedly (and with a heavy heart) believe we have gotten to that position.

The United States Army is getting chewed up, as is the Marine Corps. Ending a 33-year tradition of a volunteer military is hard to swallow, but the realities have come home to roost.

America must get a cogent, well-thought-out policy lined up quickly in order to avoid a larger military defeat in the near future - one which would likely come after the current administration is gone (and that they would take no responsibility for...hell, why start then? They haven't done so with anything else!)

Meanwhile, to my National Guard colleagues, especially in the 30th Brigade: BOHICA (Bend Over, Here It Comes Again!)

A few thoughts...

1) I Watched Gen. Abizaid's performance before the Senate ASC today. What neither he nor the committee members talked about, as usual, was the big elephant in the room: The fact that the U.S. Armed Forces are being degraded to the point of not being able to properly respond if the shit hits the fan somewhere else.

Why does it seem that no one wants to deal with this issue? The Pentagon is getting ready to call two National Guard brigades, likely to include the 30th of North Carolina (my old unit), for another tour in Iraq. This is a major indicator that the Regular Army is starting to come apart. Readiness is falling like a rock, equipment is being worn out and soldiers are getting damn tired. This applies to the Marines as well.

Here's hoping the new Congress will shed some light on this, as something MUST be done fast, before we have to call up the Salvation Army Reserve.

2) Abizaid correctly pointed out that withdrawal is not going to work right now, but made it clear that he doesn't think we need more forces in Iraq.

I couldn't disagree more - we should have had those extra forces at the outset, in order to secure Iraq after Saddam went bye-bye - but it brings up the question referenced in the above entry: Where the hell will we get those forces? Making sailors and airmen into Infantry-types?

3) Bush is finally going to Vietnam this week. About 38 years too late, methinks. With a little combat perspective, he might have actually realized what kind of a mess Iraq might turn out to be. That's why his dad, the distinguished WWII Naval Aviator, chose not to go to Baghdad in 1991.

4) Iran...where to start? Ol' Ahmadinejad says he's pretty close to having a copy of Kim Jong-Il's latest nuclear toy, and I have a feeling that Mahmoud might be more inclined to actually use that thing, when he perfects his missiles (of course, sneaking one over the Iraq border might not be so hard). Furthermore, I swear I see him (in my mind's eye) frothing at the mouth when he thinks of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. He's definitely writing our Congress to push for that option.

I hate this war. America screwed it up big-time. America can not leave now, as the 'Shiite' will definitely hit the fan the second we vacate the Iraqi AO.

5) Finally, a quick note on IrritatedVet's world: I had a great conversation several days ago with a Soldier I served with in Iraq who has read parts of this blog. He called it a 'lefty' blog, and basically thinks I'm fully in the Democratic camp. I don't see it that way. This being America, we can agree to disagree.

I'll tell you here, I consider myself a staunch conservative when it comes to supporting the military, and I think the current breed of 'conservatives' have done a number on the Armed Forces as well as spending like drunken Democrats. I'm not beholden to either party's list of ideals...I'm a free-thinker, emphasis on both 'free' and 'thinker.'

Keep reading, all. I've got a lot to say, and I believe I've earned the right.

Going on BBC again

**UPDATE, 14 NOV 06, 1028CST: Well, the link only has the presenter's notes from last night. Seems that the actual program link hasn't been updated since 22 Aug 06. Odd, that. Sorry, folks. RPH, thanks for pointing that out, and I'll have your link up in the next day or so.**

I'll be on Radio 5's "Up All Night" program between 0200 and 0300 GMT (8-9 p.m. CST). It's a segment called 'Pods and Blogs,' where they discuss the bloggers' eye-view of the world.

You can click the above link after 9 p.m. CST and be able to listen to the segment, at least for the next week or so, I believe.

One hell of a week, folks

I finally have a spot of time to share my thoughts on the events of the week. Wow. Where to begin?

Well, I'll go chronologically with the two big ones.

Sure was nice to see Bush and Cheney, with forced smiles, chatting with Pelosi and Reid, having the "come to Jesus" meeting that drove home the point: The Dynamic Duo no longer have a rubber-stamp Congress.

I'll reiterate here that I voted for the Dems with the sincere hope that impeachment is not on the table...it won't do anyone any good right now. There are major problems, and they need to be fixed rapidly. Impeachment proceedings will stand in the way of any progress that can be made.

In short, reasonable pragmatism must carry the day. Iraq is broken, and Congressional trials will take months while more Americans are killed on the battlefield.

But change is in the winds, my friends...I awoke Wednesday morning refreshed that political change is a possibility, only to have my day made just before noon when I heard that Donald Rumsfeld was finally throwing in the towel.

What strikes me as a bit odd is that Rummy could have helped his President and his party by tendering his resignation before the election. The man has been under fire from both sides of the aisle in recent months...but he waited until everything was lost before giving up.

He knows that in any event, he'll be spending a LOT of time in front of Congressional committees over the next two years anyway, so I really don't blame him for doing what he did.

The big question, though: will Robert Gates be any better? He's another old-school George H. W. Bush-type, deeply involved in Iran-Contra 20 years ago, has been accused of politicizing intel (not that it's happened under W, haha), and he will have a LOT of questions to answer before he ascends (which seems pretty certain right now).

I want to know this: Will he implement the recommendations of the Iraq Survey Group - if the ISG has any substantive recommendations, and will he be direct with George and Dick in outlining the real challenges the military is faced with now? Furthermore, will he bring the flag officers back into the decision-making fold?

There's one other thing I mentioned here several days ago...National Guard brigades are being told to prep for alert orders sometime in the next year or so. According to ABC News, the 30th Brigade (NC Nat'l Guard, my old outfit) is pretty much at the top of the list. I've got a lot of friends in the 30th, and it will hurt like hell to see them thrown back into the crucible of Iraq.

I'll be back soon.

A Great Day For America!

Wow, what an election! I'm not that crazy about the Democrats in general, but I'm certainly glad to see them step up and end the days of Bush's rubber-stamp Congress.

But the icing on the cake came Wednesday morning when I awoke to the news of Rumsfeld's resignation. It's about time!

I'm not sure what to make of Robert Gates yet...seems to have a pretty good head on his shoulders, but there's the question of his involvement with Iran-Contra back in the 80s and a couple other issues.

The question is: can he manage the military and actually listen to his flag officers, the one who really know the troops? Ike Skelto, the next Chairman of the Armed Services Committee (and a Missouri institution) said yesterday that he's well inclined to work with Gates. That coming from Skelton speaks loudly.

Unfortunately, I've gotta get to work soon, but I had to drop a line and share my excitement. I'll try to get on here later tonight and post further comments and such.

Well, here we go...

It's voting time, friends and neighbors, and time for me to step outside of the usual analysis and commentary with a brief moment of political endorsement.

It's pretty short and sweet: I'm voting Democrat all the way. Im also voting YES on Amendment 2 (allowing stem cell research) in Missouri.

Six years ago, I never conceived that I would say such a thing - I wholeheartedly admit that I voted for Bush in 2000. A lot has happened since then, and I could not vote for him in 2004. I wasn't crazy about John Kerry, but it seemed a better choice than Bush and Company.

No, the Dems generally don;t fill me with a warm and fuzzy, but after more than a decade of the GOP worring about "family values," banning flag burning and screwing up America's global reputation, someone has got to have better ideas. We won't know until we can get the GOP-ers outta there.

The Republicans are still using the war to tell us that the Democrats will roll out the red carpet and allow al-Qaeda to take over Congress if the Dems come to power. Ah, yes, the fear tactic: the hippy Dems WANT to lose the war. This is certainly the last election in which the GOP can get any help from Iraq...by 2008, the GOP will campaign on the "What War?" banner.

Nothing could be farther from the truth...Democrats, while not presenting a united front in terms of "what next in Iraq," at least would bring some fresh ideas to the table. Cut and Run really isn't an option, but what the GOP's been doing...staying the course...isn't working.

And Dover AFB stays busy, preparing flag-draped coffins.

Several nights ago, Dick Cheney was interviewed on ABC News by George Stephanopoulous; during the interview, Cheney blamed everyone in the world besides Republicans and administration folks for bungling the war.

He also made it crystal clear that even if the Dems take control of Congress, it's "Full Speed Ahead" with what passes for strategy in Iraq.

At one point in the interview, Cheney got a bit flustered and made his feelings about the American public clear: "We're not running for public office."

Yes, Dick, we know that...but you HOLD public office...YOU ARE ACCOUNTABLE.

Cheney has nothing but contempt for Americans, the Armed Forces, Iraqis and anything else that doesn't bend over for the GOP on command.

Well, I'll be back soon with my take on the elections, but I've gotta be right honest...expect more of the same out of Washington.

ONE MORE THING: I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for irregularities Tuesday when I go to cast my ballot. I'm sure as hell not gonna get jacked out of a vote.

Keep your eyes/ears peeled, folks, this could be interesting.

2 days' blogs...

** OK, Blogger is all jacked up right now. I'm posting, all at once, 48 hours' worth of postings. This will be a bit long, but I ask you to bear with me until Blogger gets un-f**ked. To those who have pending comments, I will get those going as soon as Blogger is up to speed. For now, every time I post a new one, the previous one is deleted. Go Blogger!**

Saddam: Guilty, sentenced to death (5 NOV 06 0353 CST):
Briefly, Saddam is guilty (duh) and has been sentenced to death.

Today's weather in Baghdad...hot and Sunni, expect the Shia to hit the fan BIG-time.

Why does "Tet" come to mind?

We shall see.

Guard call-ups, yet again (5 NOV 06, 0130 CST):
Sunday's Washington Post reports that two National Guard separate Brigades are facing more duty in Iraq. One will be diverted from 'another assignment,' the other will be bumped up in the rotation to go back a bit earlier (2008) than planned.

I can almost guarantee you that one of them will be the 30th Brigade, North Carolina National Guard - my old unit, which I went to Iraq with in 2004.

The story goes on to say that the Guard is having a hell of a time being torn up between homeland security, disaster relief and the war.

(From the WP): "What we're working out of right now is a situation where we have absolutely piecemealed our force to death," said Lt. Gen. Clyde A. Vaughn, chief of the 346,000-strong Army National Guard, in an interview last week.

Furthermore - and I can attest to this - National Guard units left a big chunk of equipment (Bradleys, up-armored Humvees, heavy weapons, etc.) in Iraq. What do they have now? Jack shit, that's what.

(Again, from WP): 'The Iraq war has also eaten up large quantities of the Guard's equipment. More than 64,000 pieces of equipment have been left behind in Iraq, contributing to a $24 billion equipment shortfall as Guard units have only an estimated one-third of their essential gear on hand, according to the Government Accountability Office.'

My old unit is nowhere near deployment-ready, and I sure would like to know how the Pentagon will have them ready by 2008, if indeed they are the ones who are called up.

My dollar says the 30th is either 1 or 2 on the list. The other short-listers are 39th Brigade (Arkansas), deployed when we were, or possibly 81st Brigade (Wash. State), which followed just after 30th and 39th arrived in-country.

And so we march on...the Army's getting chewed up, the (International) Guard's being called on yet again, and no one (civilian-wise) in the Pentagon or White House seems to think this is a problem. At least LTG Vaughn was up front about it: The Giard - and the Army - are in a bad way right now.

SADDAM VERDICT SOON (4 NOV, early AM CST):
Keep an eye on the news on Sunday (or overnight tonight, really), as the Iraqi government will announce the verdict and sentence on Saddam's first trial (Dujayl massacre, 1982).

He's certain to be found guilty, and the sentencing is simple: life or death.

If he gets death, the Sunnis are going to go ballistic, and places like Fallujah and the rest of Anbar province will become a bloodbath...it will be seen as a referendum on Sunni power and as a retaliation on the Sunnis, rather than on Saddam.

...and if life is the sentence, the Shiites (and possibly Kurds) will go equaly ballistic, as they will view it as being far too light of a sentence - a minimalization or marginalization of Saddam's savagery against non-Sunnis and non-Arabs.

In short: with less than three days before the US elections, Iraq is likely to erupt in massive violence, complete with planned attacks by either side, fighting in the streets, and, I fear, open warfare between Shia and Sunni government forces (police v. military). Hell, the government canceled all leave for Iraqi military officers this weekend.

Are both sides ramping up for this? You betcha!

Get ready for some serious bloodletting...and the Americans will be right in the middle of it.

Rummy Must Go (4 NOV 06, around 0030 CST)
The Army Times - along with the other service newspapers - is publishing an editorial calling for the removal of Donald Rumsfeld.

While the Times is not an actual DoD publication (it's a Gannett paper), it is endorsed as the Army's worldwide weekly, and carries a lot of weight in DoD circles...

Meanwhile, the Decider-in-Chief sticks to his guns on this one, still 100% behind the Don. Is Rummy going to pilot the liferaft when the bridge of the USS "43" goes underwater? Geez, I sure hope not, for Bush's sake...I wouldn't let Rummy drive a golfcart these days, given his track record in driving the military into the dirt.

The Army Times is right - Donald Rumsfeld must go.

Guard call-ups, yet again

Sunday's Washington Post reports that two National Guard separate Brigades are facing more duty in Iraq. One will be diverted from 'another assignment,' the other will be bumped up in the rotation to go back a bit earlier (2008) than planned.

I can almost guarantee you that one of them will be the 30th Brigade, North Carolina National Guard - my old unit, which I went to Iraq with in 2004.

The story goes on to say that the Guard is having a hell of a time being torn up between homeland security, disaster relief and the war.

(From the WP): "What we're working out of right now is a situation where we have absolutely piecemealed our force to death," said Lt. Gen. Clyde A. Vaughn, chief of the 346,000-strong Army National Guard, in an interview last week.

Furthermore - and I can attest to this - National Guard units left a big chunk of equipment (Bradleys, up-armored Humvees, heavy weapons, etc.) in Iraq. What do they have now? Jack shit, that's what.

(Again, from WP): 'The Iraq war has also eaten up large quantities of the Guard's equipment. More than 64,000 pieces of equipment have been left behind in Iraq, contributing to a $24 billion equipment shortfall as Guard units have only an estimated one-third of their essential gear on hand, according to the Government Accountability Office.'

My old unit is nowhere near deployment-ready, and I sure would like to know how the Pentagon will have them ready by 2008, if indeed they are the ones who are called up.

My dollar says the 30th is either 1 or 2 on the list. The other short-listers are 39th Brigade (Arkansas), deployed when we were, or possibly 81st Brigade (Wash. State), which followed just after 30th and 39th arrived in-country.

And so we march on...the Army's getting chewed up, the (International) Guard's being called on yet again, and no one (civilian-wise) in the Pentagon or White House seems to think this is a problem. At least LTG Vaughn was up front about it: The Giard - and the Army - are in a bad way right now.

Three Amigos...or Three Stooges?

The latest from the White House indicates that President Bush is firmly committed to keeping Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld for the duration of his presidency.

No surprise about Cheney, but Mr. Bush essentially said to the world, with his pronouncement on Rumsfeld, that he would continue to try and be successful in Iraq with a proven failure occupying the Secretary of Defense's chair. Rumsfeld doesn't trust the military, and the feeling is mutual. This has resulted in micromangement and boneheaded decisions that have made a mockery of America in the eyes of the world.

Bush's announcement on Wednesday came from the same guy who last weekend claimed he's never been "Stay the Course," even though that's been the center of his failed Iraq policy for more than three years. "Staying the Course" is not a strategy, it's a slogan; the slogan in Iraq has been an utter failure at the cost of thousands of American and British troops, a handful from other nations (formerly of the "Coalition of the Willing"), and countless tens of thousands of Iraqis.

This is a wake-up call for the many GOP-types who have doubts on Bush's plans...he's circling the wagons and preparing for a siege. He won't admit he's wrong or make sorely needed changes to get things right.

I wonder...is Bush telling the Dems to "Bring it On?" I seem to recall him using that phrase one before, and it backfired on him (actually, it backfired on US/UK troops! Thanks, George!)

On the BBC

*UPDATE, 3 NOV 06, 0033CDT: I'm trying to find an updated link to the BBC piece, please bear with me. The 'Beeb' apparently does not archive shows on the web like NPR does...I'm working on it. *

I was approached by BBC Radio 4 several weeks ago to write and record a blog 'entry' for Radio 4's PM Programme. It hit the airwaves today at 1754 GMT (1154 Central), and I will have (hopefully) a permanent link to it later on.

Here's the unedited text of my entry, as broadcast ealier today:

Which way will America go?

After four years in the regular Army and then earning my college degree, I joined the Army National Guard after the September 11 attacks to help my nation fight the war on terror. Instead, in 2004, I found myself in a far different war, in Iraq. During the 10 months I was there, five men I knew were killed. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about them.

America went into Iraq on a premise that turned out to be false, and there was no post-war plan for restoring order, infrastructure and a stable government to that nation. Major strategic mistakes were made – particularly by the Bush and Blair administrations – and thousands on all sides are paying the ultimate price for these miscues.

As the Iraq War drags on and gets more violent, the American military has not been expanded adequately. The Army, in particular, has become grossly overstretched. Units, equipment and people in the military are getting used up, and America would be hard-pressed to respond to a major military crisis in other parts of the world, such as Iran, Korea or the Taiwan Straits. Reserve units are being called up for multiple tours overseas, a mission for which they were not designed.

As America heads into this pivotal election, the Republicans are employing the usual tactic of saying the Democrats don’t have the guts to fight the War on Terrorism. Essentially, the party line is that anyone who dares question the administration’s policies is unpatriotic.

I guess that makes me unpatriotic in their eyes, even after spending 10 months on the ground in Iraq. Thankfully, several key Republicans have also started to question American policies in recent months.

If the Democrats are to win the House, and possibly the Senate, Congress will need to take decisive action swiftly, both in restoring America’s diplomatic clout and in expanding and rebuilding the military. There is no simple solution in Iraq, but the current holders of power seemingly have little interest in considering options other than “staying the course.”

My greatest fear is that the Democrats will immediately try to have President Bush impeached over the run-up to the Iraq War and other issues. This kind of infighting will be counterproductive, and only get more people killed as Congress bickers rather than comes up with a solution.

America is overcommitted, the military is stretched thin, its diplomatic capital is mostly spent and no one has seen fit to take real action about it yet. It’s likely too late.

The realities of the Iraq War are coming home to roost. Every day, I read of the latest deaths and funerals – soldiers and civilians alike. Iraq continues to splinter, and other nations may be drawn into the conflict. I wonder if the time I spent in Iraq was for nothing, and how many more Americans will come home in a box.

Sleepless, indeed!

The latest from the BBC tells us of a new program from the Pentagon, a full-on war on the media, in all forms, in which Rumsfeld and company are on an all-out mission to 'correct the record' of what is said on the air, in the press, on the internet and so forth.

Apparently, that includes blogs like this. He who controls the past controls the future, right?

Correct away, Mr. Rumsfeld. Just don't fart around with my blog or tread on my rights, which I do believe I have earned. The AP reports that this program is also designed to silence critics - or at least 'deflect criticism' - of the SecDef himself.

As one who spent 10 months in Iraq, I'll tell you right now - and I've said it many times before - in a place where one must wear body armor and a kevlar helmet everywhere and at all times outside the wire, there isn't likely to be a whole lot of good news coming out of that place.

The BBC story ends with an excerpt from Walter Cronkite's 1968 on-air editorial about Vietnam, which is coming true again, nearly 40 years later. Read the text - it's a script for what's going on right now.

Meanwhile, Donald Rumsfeld is quoted in the BBC story as referring to the new electronic media as "The thing that keeps me up at night."

Ahem. You and your staff focusing on the media -- rather than finding a way out of the Iraq mess -- certainly keeps me up at night. And I'm not the only one, Mr. Secretary.

Smackdown!

Looks as if our good friends in the Iraqi government - or what passes for it - have issued an order directing American and Iraqi forces to tear down the TCPs (Traffic Control Points, or checkpoints) in and around Baghdad's Sadr City, that bastion of love and happiness for all Iraqis.

Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraq PM, seems to think that the TCPs are somehow hindering the march of peace (what march? what peace?) while doing nothing but pissing off his fellow Shiites.

Well, OK, he's right about pissing off the Shiites...but I don't think there's much else the U.S. can do these days to get anyone in Arab Iraq more pissed off at us.

Anyway, the checkpoints were ostensibly for the usual security operations, but the ulterior motive was to try and figure out the whereabouts of an as-yet unidentified U.S. Soldier who, by his own doing, recently got himself kidnapped by one of the local militais.

Seems that the Soldier, of Iraqi descent, married a local woman (strictly against regs) and then went to visit her at her parents' home (also against regs). I shudder to think about what this man - a translator who most assuredly knows sensitive information - is going through at the hands of the bad guys. I put the chances of his safe return at less than zero.

Al-Maliki, along with Rumsfeld and others in the Bush administration, have hatched yet another plan to "beef-up" the Iraqi Army and police forces, this time with a fresh $1 Billion infusion of American taxpayer dollars. All this comes while the administration is pushing yet another timeline of 12-18 months for the Iraqi forces to be "ready to go" so the Americans can start going home.

I'VE HEARD THIS SONG BEFORE, KIDS! It was a big hit in 2004, when I was in Iraq. All I had to do was look at the Iraqi side of my base and know that song was as real as Milli Vanilli.

Yep, we're turning another corner.

At least we're not "staying the course" anymore.

Still shuddering

I saw a truly disturbing photo today. No blood, guts or gore...just scary.

Many of us, when we were little kids, would sit in the driver's seat of our parents' car when no one was looking, daydreaming of racing down the interstate, cruising for chicks, you know...being grown up.

What I saw today, courtesy of the Associated Press, is the stuff of nightmares.

Vice President Cheney, temporarily out of hiding from his 'undisclosed location,' made an appearance at Whiteman AFB, Missouri to rally the troops, present an award, etc. During his brief tour of the base, he got to sit in the cockpit of a B-2 bomber.

I couldn't see the expression on his face in the AP photo, as it was taken from some distance, but I swear I could read his thoughts, and they were a dark version of that little kid in the car: "Yeah, I'M at the controls here, and were gonna swing this baby right over (Take your pick: Tehran, Pyongyang, Mecca, San Francisco) and let go of the BIGGEST GODDAMN NUKE EVER!!!! Death to terrorists and liberals!! HAHAHAHA!!!"

I also saw the picture of ol' Dick talking up the troops (in an obviously well-scripted and rehearsed gathering in a hangar), and had to wonder: How many of those airmen, percentage-wise, don't believe a thing Cheney says anymore?

If it were an Army crowd, I'd say that number would be in the high 60s, low 70s. Air Force hasn't taken such a hit of late (and isn't hurting for anything, really), so I'll say in the 40s-50s range.

Maybe I'm guessing high...maybe I'm guessing low. Methinks I'm lowballing it here.

It wasn't coerced, I swear!

Seems that Alberto Fernandez of the U.S. State Department issued a pretty strong retraction on Sunday of his Saturday statements calling American involvement in Iraq "arrogant" and "stupid."

And for a short while, I thought the U.S. was about to "turn a corner," in a diplomatic and realistic sense.

Retract all you want, Mr. Fernandez...you were right the first time.

It WAS arrogant, stupid and misguided, and it's gotten a lot of people killed unneccesarily.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about that fact - and I'm not talking to Mr. Fernandez here, I'm talking to Messrs. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Gentlemen, I'd like you to explain to the families of SPC Carrasquillo, SPC Desens, CPT Cash, SSG Voss and SSG Steffeney exactly what those men died for. I've been waiting for more than two years to hear a good explanation.

I bet Mr. Fernandez is already hunting for another job...seems he speaks Arabic pretty well (the Arabs confirmed he used those truthful terms), so the US government, in true fashion, will send him somewhere like Greenland or Bolivia, where his Arabic skills will really be put to the test.

No sarcasm here, I swear.

Well, OK, it's a civil war now...

I posited recently that the violence in Baghdad and Balad would take a nortward turn toward my temporary stomping grounds of the 2004 era (Diyala and northeastern Salah Ad Din provinces, south/southeast of Kirkuk).

What I didn't consider was the Shiites fighting each other in Amarah, about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad. Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army decided to get to work fighting in the streets there - not against the usual Sunni suspects, but against another Shia militia. In doing so, dozens were killed and the Mahdi Army held the city for at least a few hours.

As usual, Iraqi police forces folded in about 15 seconds. Perhaps a bit less than that.

So, yeah, it's a civil war alright...I don't know what else it would take to get the folks in DC to admit it, but when everyone is fighting seemingly everyone else, and entire cities are being held for a length of time because of local/regional squabbles, yeah, I think that qualifies as a civil war.

I haven't posted anything lately on the North Korea situation - mostly because I've been so damn busy at work and such - but here goes with my brief two cents' worth:

Okay, so the Norks have a nuke. Not real happy about that. This first nuke test was a bit of a bust - officially a nuke, but it had to be the smallest nuclear detonation in history. I can see why the Norks would want to keep it small...I don't see them having a whole lot of weapons-grade materials available.

So, America, sworn defender of South Korea and Japan, suddenly finds itself in a bad spot: Dr. Rice swears to fully defend those nations against Nork aggression, but I wonder where the hell those forces will come from.

Sure, the Navy and USAF will bomb the hell out of NK, but it would certainly precipitate a major ground/artillery offensive against Seoul...and I certainly don't know where we'll get sufficient forces to combat that. The 20-some thousand we have in South Korea now is but a speedbump.

America's soft underbelly is being exposed, and no one in DC wants to do a damn thing about it.

There's still no Civil War, because Bush said so.

Seems that the area around Balad has become the flashpoint of late for the sectarian violence. While Baghdad has been the place where tit-for-tat mass kidnappings and executions has been the local sport, the good folks in the Balad area are increasingly taking it to the streets in open warfare.

I'm surprised it took this long for it to blow up outside Baghdad. It will continue to spread, especially toward DIayala Province and likely on up through Kirkuk and Tuz Khurmatu, near which I was based in 2004. Much of the area northeast of Baghdad is pretty diverse, ethnically and religiously, and is a time-bomb waiting to go off.

Honestly, I was surprised at how quiet (relatively speaking) Tuz Khurmatu was when I was there. There is a mix of Sunni and Shia, as well as Turkmen, Kurds and Arabs. I see the renewed violence making its way north and northeast very soon.

What is appalling about the violence around Balad is that the "Coalition" forces at Anaconda (Balad Airbase - the largest base in Iraq, I believe) don't seem to be doing much about it. As a result, the Iraqi people have less faith in the American mission than they did yesterday.

Not that they really had any faith left, of course.

Also, I heard an interesting piece on the DemocracyNow radio show about Scott Ritter, the formar Marine officer who was a weapons inspector in Iraq during the run-up to the current quagmire. He's penned a new book called "Target Iran," in which he lays out the case that the U.S. - under Dubya - is working feverishly to create a war with Iran over the nuke issues.

So, Mr. Bush, if that is the case, who in the hell's gonna fight that war? The VFW Ladies Auxiliary? The Civil Air Patrol? The Brownies?

The Unites States military is tired, and the administration continues to stay the course. I've said before that something's gotta give - and it will do so in the next year. Watch.

Not so fast, eh?

Not much time to write this evening, but I had to note that the Army plans to keep the current troops strength in Iraq until 2010.

Well, at least someone in Washington is starting to have a realistic mindset toward the quagmire we are in.

What really gets me, though, is that not even a week ago, the GOP-led Congress approved $20 million for the 'victory' parties after the wars come to an end.

So, the obvious question: Will that money gain interest, and will that interest go toward helping rebuild the Army after it is sheared apart over the next few years?

As I said, not much time for me tonight, but I just had to post some of my usual cheery thoughts. I'll expand on this if I ever get some more time - I've been up to my eyeballs at work this week.

Yeah, I know..."Join the club," right?

Get out the scalpels, boys

Seems the Americans are considering a further divvying-up of Iraq, much like the British and French did nearly 90 years ago (with not-so-great results).

The latest from London (The Brits always seem to have more U.S. news than the Americans do) says that former Sec'y of State Baker and a panel are weighing the option of cutting Iraq into three major autonomous/independent states: Sunni (central), Shia (south) and Kurdish (north).

So, let me get this straight - we're thinking of splitting Iraq into three entities, of which two (Shiite and Kurdish) have most of the oil, whilst the Sunni partition has very little oil and not much of anything else?

On top of that, as I've said here before, Iran and Turkey wouldn't be doing happy cartwheels over an autonomous/independent Kurdistan; Likewise, Saudi Arabia sure as hell won't have a warm-and-fuzzy feeling about an oil-rich Shia enclave along the borders of their nation and Kuwait. That likely would turn the Saudi monarchy/dictatorship overtly against the U.S. - they are officially allies today, but they are NOT America's friends.

Meanwhile, the Sunnis, with not a whole lot of natural resources in central Iraq, would languish not only from a decrease in revenue, but an overall loss of face after the initial insult of losing power in 2003. They will organize a large army, along with terrorists/irregulars, to fight everyone to their east, north and south - with the help of their majority Sunni neighbors.

The big question is this: What about the diaspora of Iraq? That is, there are members of each sect/ethnic group living in the other areas of Iraq.

Will they get safe passage to their 'new country'? No.

Will they be forever aggrieved about the uprooting they had to suffer? Yes.

Will they look at their new neighbors with anger and distrust for centuries to come? Absolutely.

Will they blame America for it? Yes, MORE THAN EVER!

Look for a three-way war: 1) Sunni v. Shia nations, along with a 2) free-for-all on Kurdistan (Turkish involvement), with 3) plenty of attacks on Israel to boot. And, in the bonus round, 4) throw in wider hatred of America and Europe, complete with more terrorism.

America (and Britain) has really gone and done it this time, friends and neighbors. Rather than continuing the fight in Afghanistan - the REAL War on Terror - the U.S. invaded Iraq to settle a separate score from 1991. In doing so, Pandora's Box was opened.

Our nation went into Iraq with a script of how things should go, discounting at the highest levels any calls for the way things could go. Well, things went south in a hurry, and no one was able to respond with any more clarity than "Mission Accomplished" and "Stay the Course."

Oh, yeah, "Bring em' on!" comes to mind.

Meanwhile, in the hallowed halls of Congress - I'm not kidding- the powers-that-be approved a $20 million allowance for the Victory Party when the wars in Iraq and Afghansitan come to an end.

Let's hope someone has a PLAN to bring about that victory - I have yet to see one. Cutting Iraq into thirds will only bring about a larger war. Hope the Selective Service System is ready to go.

At least America can still plan a good party. Rock on.

My fellow Americans...

Bush's Saturday, 30 SEP 06, radio address

Short and sweet passage translations, from Mr. Bush's address, by the IrritatedVet:

Bush: "I believe the American people should read the document (the recent National Intelligence Estimate) themselves and come to their own conclusions, so I declassified its key judgments. "
Translation: "I believe the American people should not read the document, and continue to believe that everything is still rosy, despite the nay-sayings of career intelligence experts. Trust me, we've turned the corner (yet again) in Iraq."

Bush: "Here is what Prime Minister Tony Blair said this week about that argument (that by fighting in Iraq, we are less secure at home): 'This terrorism isn't our fault. We didn't cause it. It's not the consequence of foreign policy.' "
Translation: "My lap dog says what I tell him to say, dammit. If you aren't with me, you are against me."
(Bonus comment, Gem of the week: The goat-rope in Iraq is "Not the consequence of foreign policy"? What f**king planet are YOU guys on, George and Tony?)

Bush: "We are fighting to stop them (terrorists) from taking over Iraq and turning that country into a safe haven that would be even more valuable than the one they lost in Afghanistan."
Translation: "We're in deep shit in Iraq, because terrorism has taken over there since we invaded in 2003. We just couldn't maintain control with minimal force. By the way, the Taliban are taking over Afghanistan again, too. And minimal force remains the policy."

Bush: "Iraq is not the reason the terrorists are at war against us. Our troops were not in Iraq when terrorists first attacked the World Trade Center in 1993, or when terrorists blew up our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, or when they bombed the USS Cole, or when they killed nearly 3,000 people on September the 11th, 2001."
Translation: "We had troops (pilots) flying over Iraq daily, with ground forces in Kuwait, throughout the 90s up until the 2003 invasion. Besides, Saddam tried to kill my daddy. 9/11 gives me the excuse to invade where I want to. I'm going after the Alaskanians next, because that state is bigger than Texas, and it has oil, too."

Bush: "In my recent speeches, I've said we are in the early hours of a long struggle for civilization, and that our safety depends on the outcome of the battle in Iraq."
Translation: "We're in the early hours of regaining American credibility in the world, and I don't have a goddamn clue how to get us out of this mess in Iraq. I'll find someone to blame properly for it soon. (It was the Democrats' fault! Some of them also voted to let me invade Iraq!) "

Bush: "Withdrawing from Iraq before the enemy is defeated would embolden the terrorists."
Translation: "We done pissed a lot of folks off for no reason. Remember 9/11!"

Bush: "It (withdrawing from Iraq) would help them find new recruits to carry out even more destructive attacks on our Nation, and it would give the terrorists a new sanctuary in the heart of the Middle East, with huge oil riches to fund their ambitions."
Translation: "I'll get rich off the oil, too, as well as doing all I can to keep America dependent on that oil rather than finding alternative energy sources."
(Comment No. 2: Too late, George, we don't need to withdraw to help them find new recruits. Invading and putting hundreds of thousands out of work did the trick. Nice going.)

Bush: "Thank you for listening. "
Translation: "Thank you for not thinking. Do as I say. That is all."

Summary: Yup - stay the course, neither withdrawing nor expanding the armed forces to meet the needs of this situation. Just slap on the ol' rose-colored glasses (or blinders) and dictate that all is humming right along. Turnin' a corner, makin' progress.

Can't we just go back to having an old-fashioned White House sex scandal to worry about? At least that, apparently, is an impeachable offense. Getting more than 2,700 -- and counting --Americans killed in an unneccesary war is, apparently, not.

Good night, sleep tight.
IrritatedVet

A link worth reading

Maj. Gen. Batiste is on time, on target across the board.

I don't say it because he commanded the 1st ID when my NG unit served under it, it's because he's a truth-teller, one who gave up the easy promotion and retired so he could say what needs to be said.

He's got the clout - and the cojones - to speak his views, which generally conincide with mine, to the public and before Congressmen. Believe you me, if I had that kind of public standing, I'd be right there next to him.

Unfortunately, I'm a fairly anonymous former Corporal, but if Congress ever comes calling, I'll be there to reinforce the truth about Iraq and the increasingly dire state of our military.

(Note: If the link above fails, try http://www.rochester-citynews.com/gyrobase/
and search for Batiste).

We're in deep and on the cheap!

Well, in yet ANOTHER indicator of the decreasing readiness and impending implosion of the United States Army, it was announced that 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division will stay in downtown Iraq for at least a few extra weeks.

Here's the stated reason for the extension, from the AP story:
The 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division is being extended in Iraq because the unit that is scheduled to replace them - the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, from Fort Stewart, Ga. - needs more time to prepare. If it had deployed as originally scheduled, it would not have had the minimum 12 months at home between combat tours.

Ah, I see! So, what this really means is that the Pentagon KNEW for many moons that the 3rd Herd would not be ready, given this 12-month timeframe between tours, but has chosen to wait until 1/1AD was 3 months away from packing up to go back to Germany.

Anything to keep up morale, you know.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is undoubtedly working furiously to minimize the rage and assuage the frustrations of family members of the affected unit. I doubt, though, that Rumsfeld will meet with those families as he did with the 172nd Stryker Brigade....that was an uncomfortable meeting for him, and God knows we don't ever want to show disrespect for the SecDef by making him uncomfortable.

This, of course, highlights the bigger problem: The Army is stretched thin, overextended, undermanned and getting worn out by the Iraq War.

I foresee that the Army will be forced to hold a draft within a year or two - even if only 100,000 to 200,000 men - in order to sustain deployments for a couple more years. Of course, getting Congress to go along with that is a laughable proposition. No person or party would ever want to be known as the one who brought back the draft.

Hand in hand with a draft, of course, would be the requirement of fielding more equipment, expanding training capabilities and perhaps reconstituting two divisions. It's an old concept known as getting the country on a "war footing," which the current administration has done a spectacularly horrible job of since that sunny Tuesday morning in 2001.

So, the Army's trying to pretend it's a 12-division force while there are only 10 divisions on the active duty side.

Oh, and if the draft is brought back, even on a limited scale, there MUST be close oversight of it to ensure that no one gets the sort of deferments that people like Dick Cheney got in the 60s. (Yes, he got FIVE deferments! Not bad for being the Hawk-in-Chief!)

If a draftee is in college, he can finish his degree and go in as an officer...but that's about the only non-medical deferment I can see as acceptable. Of course, joining the National Guard or Air National Guard (George W. Bush) won't do any good, given the Guard's rate of deployment these days.

The bottom line is this: the air is going out of the Army's tires and it's running out of gas. Something's got to give, and the Pentagon and the administration had better get serious about staffing/equipping the armed forces in a manner that corresponds to the present and long-term demands of the War on Terror and the Iraq War.

But the current flock of flakes in D.C. still believes they can do these wars 'on the cheap,' and I believe they would sooner die than actually face the realities of the situation.

No, really?

It seems that the brain trust in Washington has come out with the latest National Intelligence Estimate.

In it, they basically say what I've been saying for some time now: our foray into Iraq has resulted in a widening of the war on terrorism, in that the terror organizations (al-Qaeda, SCIRI, so forth) have been given a golden opportunity to react and recruit, especially with disaffected, unemployed Muslims in their late teens and early 20s. (Many of them diasaffected, pissed-off and unemployed by US policies)

I'm so glad that someone (or a group of folks) in the U.S. government has the wherewithal to admit that the Iraq operation has been a failure. I knew after several months in that country that America was really in deep s**t, and we're not getting out of it anytime soon.

As I've said here before, the war in Iraq was called "a part" of the overall War on Terror during the actual invasion back in 2003. Really, folks, it was not so at the time, but it certainly is now.

The U.S. is painted into a corner of its own doing, and I would give anything to get my nation and my Army out of this - but it is not to be at this time. The military is getting exhausted and the public is growing increasingly wary of Mr. Bush's next move.

At least the intel folks are seeing the light.

Then again, this dumb Military Intelligence-geek Corporal saw two years ago what the top-level intel guys are writing about now: The U.S. is in very deep stuff, and the current leadership at the Pentagon (yes, I mean Mr. Rumsfeld) won't trust anyone else to help them come up with a real plan to regain stability in Iraq and the Middle East.

Stay the course, Mr. Rumsfeld. While you are at it, count the dead and wounded. This includes Americans and Iraqis. Keep counting.

Or maybe not keep counting - counting the casualties on both sides will keep you too busy to come up with a real plan to get America out of this quagmire.

What is the basis of positive change - not just for Americans, but Iraqis as well? First, Secretary Rumsfeld needs to leave office and go to pasture. The rest, hopefully, will follow. Then again, I have little hope that George W. Bush will appoint someone truly qualified (like, say, Colin Powell or another highly qualified General or Admiral) to do the job.

Until then, America will beat its head aginat the wall. My head hurts.

Havin' a think

Sorry about the delay, O good fans of the Surly Serviceman.

Have received some interesting correspondence of late, involving calling on the masses to write their Congressmen and so forth, demanding the immediate withdrawal of troops in Iraq.

I'll say this now: I sure am glad folks are getting worked up en masse these days, but it's got me thinking a bit more about "what is it I'm really getting at here, out in the remote FOBs of cyber-space??"

While I want to see the Iraq War come to an end as fast as anyone else, we've just got to think this out reasonably...something that unfortunately the powers-that-be didn't do before they got us into this godforsaken mess in the first place.

First things first: We are in this war, and the stakes are higher this time around than they were in Vietnam 40 years ago. That does not mean I support the U.S. having launched this war, nor do I support the (since proven false) reasoning behind it.

But the cold, hard fact is, we are there. It's not going well, and the U.S. military, despite recent rosy news of the Army exceeding recruiting goals, is taking a beating - not just in numbers of KIA/WIA, but in terms of overall OPTEMPO. Units are just plum getting worn out, as is equipment. Oh, yeah, the families, too.

Americans, as well as the Iraqi army and police forces - the ones we had to rebuild from scratch after the failed "de-Baathification process" in 2003/2004 - are not faring well in the fight against an unconventional, ruthless set of various enemies who know and understand American doctrines. Iraqi forces have gotten better since I was there two years ago, but most are not truly 'stood up' and ready for the real fight. There's just too much religious strife, and it affects the ranks as well as the civilians.

And the insurgency/terrorists/death squads/whatever you want to call them has gotten a lot better, too.

Iran has become the dominant power - politically, if not militarily - in the region since the U.S. charged into the sandbox in 2003. A sudden total vacuum left by the abscence of Coalition troops would open the floodgates of full-on civil war and outright genocide, as the murderous Shia militias would battle and kill others - and then each other - for control. There's no doubt in my mind that pulling out at this juncture would also allow Iran to waltz right in and exert overt influence over the future of Iraq, and by dint, all of the Middle East.

That leads to the possibility of friction between Shia-dominated Iran (and Iraq) and Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia - the heart of Islam. That, friends and neighbors, would not be pretty.

I also foresee the Kurds becoming isolated in northern Iraq, feeling pressure from Turkey - who would likely move to expel Kurds there into Iraq (or "Kurdistan"), Iran - who would do the same, and Arab Iraq.

The Kurds may wind up being the Muslim version of Israelis after it's all said and done, but with less finanical wherewithal to repel forces on all sides. Needless to say, none of the above wants to see an independent Kurdistan - especially since that would include the oil-rich Kirkuk area. Iran would have the most to say about it, and believe me, they will.

Being landlocked, as "Kurdistan" is, won't help their cause. Also, the U.S. abandoned the Kurds once (1991), and a second betrayal will remain in the Kurdish mindset for a very long time.

Back to Iran: They know they've got the U.S. by the short-and-curlies. A lot of their nuclear talk is likely bluster - I say this because they could kick America in the cojones with oil prices in a heartbeat if they felt like doing so. But the specter of a nuclear Iran cannot be taken lightly, and they are very aware of our military's situation.

Say they did incite some kind of conflict with the U.S.: They know we are limited in our response. But if we pull out of Iraq, lock, stock and barrel, they will have carte blanche to do as they please in the Middle East.

One final observation: If the U.S. were to pull out now, it would suffer derision from the rest of the world for abandoning a volatile situation, therefore allowing it to turn to civil war and genocide. Not to mention the fact that the internal conflict in Iraq was precipitated by none other than America (with a few willing partners).

With that, I revert to the worst pun I ever made (and doubtless myriad others have as well): We're between Iraq and a hard place.

Pulling out would do the U.S. some good in the short term, but only to give this nation a chance to rest, recuperate, resupply (and hopefully reinforce the Armed Services) for what would come next: even more destabilization and all-out war in the Middle East, coupled with an economic crisis brought on by certain countries (namely Iran) obtaining great power.

As Colin Powell - a man who knows what he's talking about (other than being fed BS from the CIA) - said about Iraq: "You break it, you buy it." How true.

Believe me, I'm trying to figure out a good way to bring the current quagmire in Iraq to a close in a way that benefits all parties, and I'm looking for suggestions. I would help if we had a SECDEF other than one Donald Rumsfeld. That's a big first step. The man's woefully out of touch, much to the danger and detriment of our troops.

Got any ideas? Shoot me a line, I'd love to hear it.

As far as the invitation I recieved to call for a full withdrawal from Iraq: Thanks, but no thanks. I do think more harm will come from that in the long run. Stay in touch and please keep tuning in here. It's good fodder for real democracy, yes?

Trust me, though, our nation's in a bad way, and I'd love for this to end right now.

It's almost 9/11 again...

...do you know where Osama bin Laden is?

No?

That's OK, neither do I. Nor do Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld (unless - getting a bit Machiavellian here - they are holding him for an October Surprise).

But the reality is that we're so deep in Iraq, so overcommitted, so painted into a corner, that we don't have the resources to commit to Afghanistan or Pakistan to find this SOB and take him off the radar screen.

As I mentioned some time ago here, the U.S. is truly in a bad spot. If the proverbial balloon goes up somewhere else (ie North Korea, Iran, Taiwan Straits - or even Bermuda!), this nation does not have the military wherewithal to counter those threats in a conventional sense. Sure, we have the Navy and Air Force, but winning a war is done on the ground.

In this day and age, air and naval wars just aren't gonna cut it. Meanwhile, the Army and USMC are doing all they can - scraping the bottom of the barrel, sometimes - to get enough equipment and manpower to field a combat unit.

Yet the administration marches on, with their only defense against stupid policy being the old "If you ain't with us, you're against us!" line.

To revert briefly to my teenage years: "Whatever, dude!" I'll be back soon with more comments on this - just had to check in after a few days away.

Winston Smith is alive and well

"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four"
-- Winston Smith, in George Orwell's 1984

Well, according to our friend Donald Rumsfeld, 2+2 definitely equals FIVE.

As part of Bush's PR offensive of late, Rummy's been making all the stops and telling folks basically that anyone who differs from what he, Cheney and Bush say is obviously "morally confused." He further insinuates that anyone who differs from the party line is somehow less than patriotic.

A recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial noted that Rummy said (I quote the editorial), "debate about the wisdom of U.S. policy in Iraq is contrary to democratic values." HUH?

Democracy, Mr. Rumsfeld, is based on reasonable debate about the issues.

Let me lay it all out for you, sir, in a few short, easy-to-understand words:

1 - I've spent a lot more time in Iraq than you have. American policies in Iraq weren't working in 2004, and they sure as hell aren't working now. My unit's last five months in Iraq was much more dangerous than than first five. It's gotten worse since then, and I have yet to see an actual concrete plan that will extricate us from that situation so we can concentrate on the real "War on Terror." I've said before here that Iraq IS part of the greater war now, but really only in the last year or so. It was a separate and distinct war, but the lines have gone blurry. Yep, Iraq is now part of the "War on Terror," completely of America's own doing.

2 - As an educated American citizen, I know my rights and responsibilities. My right is to call BS when I see it, and I've fulfilled my share of the responsibilities by signing up to defend the nation when it needed me (I re-enlisted in the National Guard, after more than three years out of the military, not long after 9/11.) During my second stint in the Army, I smelled and saw the BS as relates to Iraq. If it looks like BS and smells like BS, it is most likely to be BS.

3 - I am personally offended by the implication that anyone who deviates from the administration's script is somehow less than patriotic. You may recall that the original patriots took action against the BS they were taking from the powers that be at the time. In doing so, they managed to form a government that became the beacon of freedom (with a few warts, yes) to the rest of the world. It is patriots like me who strive to keep America that way - FREE.
Sometimes, I almost question YOUR patriotism. You sound at times like an agent of the Ministry of Peace (from 1984) than a 'patriotic' American. Are you an American, or an agent of Big Brother?

I'm proud of my military service. I'm proud to be an American. I fly a flag at my house. I volunteer and all that other good stuff. I'm employed and strive to abide by the law. But when folks like you go implying that my disagreement with certain American policies makes me less than patriotic (and, by implied extent, somehow criminal), I start wondering whether my service, love of country and enthusiasm about being an American isn't really worth a tinker's damn.

I need to retire for the night, Mr. Rumsfeld. I know you'll never actually read this missive, but I sure hope you reconsider what you've been saying.

Oh, and while you're at it, resign!

Look out below!

Well, I usually post on all things Iraq here, at least in terms of American involvement there. BUT...

Have been reading a lot tonight of the turmoil in Mexico since the end of elections several weeks ago...protesters blocked outgoing Mexican President Vicente Fox from giving his State of the Union Speech. Can you imagine that happening here? I can't.

Anyway, the threat of civil unrest in Mexico is blooming, and I'm a bit concerned that Mexico City and other metropili will turn into a version of 'Baghdad South.' Sure, several border cities (Nuevo Laredo in particular) have been excessively bloody in recent years, but I see even more widespread unrest possibly wracking most of Mexican society.

My main concerns are thus: 1) the drug cartels taking advantage of the otherwise-occupied Federales and Mexican army to truly wrest control of border cities and other strategic positions in northern Mexico - while also increasing their influence in areas that grow/supply their product; and 2) If there is widespread unrest, there will be a corresponding number of refugees heading north. Also, 3) For those of you who happen to like illicit/illegal drugs, expect a northward change in price soon. (That part I'm not really concerned about, since I think that stuff is garbage.)

Bottom line: As I called for several months ago, a full brigade or even a division of the Army is what is needed along the border - not this piecemeal National Guard rotating deployment. If we're going to get tough along the border, it's well past time.

Of course, from where do we get this Brigade? A very good question indeed! Seems that most of the active Army (here I go again!) is either in Iraq, Afghanistan or recovering from such deployments.

Not gonna get into the bigger picture, but methinks that the current administration MUST face the idea of a draft in order to fight the various wars that face us. The internal war in Mexico may soon be another one the US has to deal with, and our military is just way too overstretched. America's getting to the point of calling up the VFW at this rate.

I must make note: Bush is on a big Nazi/Fascist/Communist kick these days, looking into the past. I can play that game, too: When America faced those threats, America didn't fool around - it DRAFTED a very large military to meet those threats, along with mobilizing the nation to support that military.

America's not on a war footing today. It needs to be, but this really has turned into more of a rhetorical war rather than the 'all-out, unite the people and kick some ass' war that it really should be. Bush-Cheney-Rummy's WWII comparisons prove false right on the surface, given their lack of action in truly mobilizing this country to meet the challenge they put forth to the American people. It's all a paper tiger.

Meanwhile, Americans continue to die in Iraq for no reason other than to hasten the destabilization of the Mideast.

Call me a nay-sayer, call me what you will. I'm a patriotic American calling BS when it needs to be called.

Chicken Feces

Maj. Gen. John Batiste commanded the Big Red one during the 2004-05 deployment - my brigade fell under them, so he was my division commander. He's since retired (he passed up a sure-shot third star to do so), and is helping lead the charge against Rummy and the gang.

This great video clip says it all. MG Batiste is absolutely correct.

In other news, I read that GEN Casey, the current top dog in Iraq, believes the Iraqi forces will be able to take over security in 12 to 18 months. THEY WERE SAYING THAT SHIT TWO YEARS AGO!

It's got to be agonizing being in Casey's spot, stringing folks along, knowing that most Iraqi forces (certainly including the ones I saw in 2004) couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag.

I'm sure the folks in the 172nd Stryker Brigade were relieved to hear Casey's bold prediction. I'm sure it made them feel better.

Oh, and one more thing: another Senator, Salazar of Colo., is calling for Rummy's resignation/firing. Needless to say, the Bushies aren't having any of that stuff.

Yeah, I'm feeling extra-Irritated tonight. I usually lay off the four-letter words here, but I've got a case of ass as regards Iraq. What a fucking waste of lives, time, resources and money.

What civil war?

From AP, obtained through ABCNews.com:

“We’re not in a civil war. Iraq will never be in a civil war,” he (Iraqi PM al-Maliki) said through an interpreter on CNN’s “Late Edition.” “The violence is in decrease and our security ability is increasing.”

Asked about U.S. allegations that Iran is supporting Iraqi groups involved in sectarian violence, al-Maliki said the reports were being investigated. He said Iraqi authorities were in contact with Iran in order to determine the veracity of the information “and to prevent this interference.”

Reports being investigated? Not in a civil war? Who's running that country, Al-Maliki or Rumsfeld? (Yes, folks, that was rhetorical).

I'll tell you here, Iraq was in a civil war two years ago. No Bull Runs or Antietams or Gettysburgs as yet, but it is a civil war. The Sunnis and Shia are going at it as often as they can get away from the U.S. forces to do so.
BTW: Some of the rockets that landed on my base (FOB Bernstein, south of Kirkuk) in Iraq in 2004 had FARSI writing on them. Something tells me - just a hunch here - they may have come from Iran (no sarcasm there, I promise).
We were lucky no one at my base was KIA from Iranian-made rockets. I'll get into the failures of American MI (Mil. Intelligence) sometime soon. I loved MI work, but trying to convince others of a threat is like pissing in the wind.

WHY, you ask? Because, my friends: It's all scripted. You either go with the script written by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others, or you find yourself out of a career (this at a time when the military needs straight shooters like never before). I wasted a lot of breath trying to convince a few others I knew that Iran did possess a threat, only to be told that they (those I told) didn't give a flying f**k about Iran. Two years later, my concerns are validated, unfortunately. I'd really rather it be otherwise.

I'm not reporting anything that hasn't already made the news - and I would never do such a thing. If it's made the wires, I'll talk about it.
Bottom line: Iran is all over the Iraq Theater of Operations, and is by now likely the lead element in cahoots with the Shias. I'm not knocking Shias, I'm just reflecting the way it is now.

I have yet to finesse my 'Confessions of a War Pig,' which I shall do forthwith. I've got a lot on my plate as of now, so please be patient. It's a long story, and in the spirit of Tarantino, I'll have to break it up into sections/volumes.

Until next time, Peace-Out.

IrritatedVet

Marine call-ups: Fiasco in the making

I've been calling this one for a couple years now, and the administration's actions this week have again confirmed this for us: the powers that be don't have a damn clue as to how truly serious the overseas situation is.
The Pentagon announced this week that several thousand former Active Duty Marines, now on IRR status, will be called up in coming months for re-induction and deployment to fill holes in the ranks. While some decry this as the "backdoor draft," the government is well within their right to do this.
But the call-ups expose a deeper problem that no one in Washington wants to seriously address: the U.S. just doesn't have the manpower needed to continue the never-ending mission of "winning the peace" (or whatever the official goal is anymore) in Iraq.
Furthermore - and more ominously - it makes me wonder what the hell the U.S. intends to do if the balloon goes up somewhere else, especially as relates to Iran. A potential flare-up in the Taiwan Straits and armed conflict with North Korea, as well as another catastrophic terror attack in the U.S. also makes me wonder where we will get the numbers needed to defend the nation.
This administration launched a war against Iraq as part of the 'War on Terror.' It did so on the cheap, betting the farm that a small (less than 200,000) force could take out Saddam AND keep a lasting peace in a foreign land and hostile culture. Ridding Iraq of Saddam they did, but establishing any kind of peace has been disastrous.
After three-and-a-half years of this, the administration is STILL trying to do this on the cheap. Iraq has been a disaster, and Iran has risen as the regional heavy-hitter, wielding the true power over Iraqi Shiites (and Hezbollah) and getting in the driver's seat in terms of determining Iraq's future.
In the meantime, other than a few grudging admissions of 'problems' in Iraq, the administration continues down the path of folly.
This call-up of IRR Marines is only a temporary solution to the manpower problem. It leaves this nation with fewer folks to mobilize if anything else breaks out in the world.
It's past time to get this nation on a true war footing, a la WWII, if we expect to come away from the current conflicts with anything resembling victory. A serious discussion needs to be initiated on reinstating the draft and taking other measures to ensure the military has what it needs to get the job done in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

My Crawford

I've been in Colorado, sort of my version of Crawford (HA!), for the past couple weeks - am finally back to my residence and will update this blog soon.

Bottom line: I had the chance to relax for a while, which is good. Ready to go back to the old grind now, and will update more often soon. Thanks for the comments/input of late.

Yours -
The Irritated Vet.

Like, Duh!

Well, in so many words (or lack thereof), Gen's Pace and Abazaid are finally conceding that Iraq is on the way "toward" civil war. Good job, Generals. I knew there was a reason they paid you the big bucks, guys.

Meanwhile, Sen. Clinton (not that I'm a fan of her) called for Secretary Rumsfeld to resign. He should have resigned in 2004.

Two years ago, as a Corporal sweating it out in the cauldron of Iraq, I told several of my officers and fellow enlisted guys that things were NOT going the way they were supposed to, things were NOT hunky-dory, and that the nation of Iraq was heading toward a civil war along sectarian and religious lines. Some folks agreed with me, others did not.

Given the two groups of folks I told this to, you make the call on who the true believers in the Iraq War are. (HINT: It's not the enlisted guys).

In March 2003, America - and a smattering of cohorts, namely the UK, invaded Iraq as a second front of the "War on Terror" (or 'Terra,' in Bush-speak). I had a hard time believing, until recently, that the Iraq debacle has really been part of the War on 'Terra.' Nor do I believe that Iraq had much - if anything - to do with 9/11.

My thinking has changed of late, and not the way that Shaun Hannity or Rush Limbaugh and their set would like it to change. Rather than the Iraq war being a front against Terra, it has opened the door very wide to allow 'Terra' to become even more ubiquitous throughout the world, especially against Americans on the home turf of the Middle East.

Yep, Rush and Hannity, you are right. After the last three years, I now see Iraq really IS a front of the War on 'Terra.'

We're losing big-time on the Iraq front, it's devolving and collapsing into civil war, we've lost all credibility in the Middle East (refer to the Lebanon-Israel debacle, as well as Iran) and I'm desperately searching for a way we can win the overall War on 'Terra.'

I'm looking for ideas, fast.
I don't see us all singing "Kum-bay-yah" around the campfire anytime soon.

Coming soon: Confessions of a War Pig

The truth

I didn't go on a lot of patrols - I was a TOC-type...some would call me a "Fobbit" (one who stays on the FOB, Forward Operating Base, most of the time)...but I had enough business to go on a patrol at least once a week or so, sometimes more. Had my share of craziness, but not as much as others did.

I was lucky - nothing serious happened on any of my missions (I never had to shoot) - and I quickly learned to empathize with the infantry dudes who went out more than five times a week. The WP story here pretty well describes the thoughts going through minds of anyone in American uniforms/vehicles going 'outside the wire' in Iraq. We all just waited to get blown up.

It happened to four guys in my BN (either blown up or shot dead), along with an EOD guy attached to FOB Bernstein (he was KIA after my unit left).

Read the article. It brought back a lot for me, and it's pretty damned accurate: soldiers using a lot of expletives describing what they feel about their mission, but also not wanting to be anywhere else. Real soldiers (and Marines) stick with their unit, their buddies, until they come home. Political idiocy be damned.

Interesting Article

Today's Washington Post details the Pentagon's inability to truly understand what kind of war we were getting ourselves into in Iraq. Other than the obvious comparisons to Vietnam, the article sheds light on the even more similar experience France had in Algeria in the 1950s.

I've also thought of Iraq as being more similar to Britain's problem in N. Ireland as well as the Soviet debacle in Afghanistan.

My BN commander and I discussed, briefly, France's debacle in Algeria, and tried to get our hands on a copy of the book that was written about it and the correct ways for dealing with guerrilla warfare. In late 2003, there were no copies to be found. Seems that since then, it's become required reading for Iraq-bound officers and leaders. Funny how that works out.

In a similar vein, I see that Thomas E. Ricks of the WP has written FIASCO:The American Military Adventure in Iraq, which is being published this month by Penguin Press. While I'm not outright promoting this book, having not read it yet, I'm certainly going to order it this week.

(I've gotta say it, though - I'd call the book "The Military MISadventure in Iraq")

** Author's note, 25 JUL 06, 1045CDT: I had the French fighting in Tunisia, rather than Algeria, in the original version of this. To those of you who saw that goof, I apologize. I also had a misspelling in the article header. Duh on me. It was late, I was tired, and I think I'll try to refrain from posting under such circumstances in the future. Thanks to the alert reader who pointed out my goofs.

All hell's breaking loose

We're certainly in a bit of a pickle here, aren't we?

One of the oldest maxims of military conflict out there is, "Never get into a land war in Asia." We've managed to do that twice now, albeit in the southeast and southwest corners of Asia, and the second one, I fear will wind up going even worse than our first one.

Iran's influence - which is translating quickly to control on some levels - is growing rapidly, and the destabilizing effects of goading Israel into an offensive against Lebanon are about to cause ripples that are already showing in Iraq. Hezbollah, knowing they can't beat Israel alone, is being used (rather effectively, says I) to project that influence, and they're going to want overt help before long.

Meanwhile, the situation in Iraq is going down the tubes faster than one can say, "Holy Kebabs, Batman!" Sectarian violence is up half again in Baghdad in the past week, and 6,000 Iraqis have died throughout the country in the last two months.

What I expect to see is an emboldened Shia population in Baghdad - with Iran's backing - openly challenge the Sunnis in the streets of Baghdad within the next week. So much for kidnapping and murder, I'm talking open urban warfare and outright massacres.

The Iraqi Civil War has begun, and there isn't a damn thing American (or "Coalition") forces can do about it.
The Iranians will be less covert about their support of the Shias - and this whole business of being shocked earlier this year about Iranian rockets being used in Iraq is nothing new. We found Farsi-marked rockets in mid-2004 that had been fired at our base near Tuz. It's nothing new.

It's gonna be ugly, friends. Real ugly.

Unfortunately, no more time for me to write. Will be back later.

Bad times in Tuz

My unit was based at FOB Bernstein, about 8-10 miles NW of Tuz Khurmatu, Iraq. For being such an ethnically diverse city (about 50% Kurd, 25% Arab and 25% Turkomen), it was relatively quiet while we were there.

Tuz certainly had its bad moments, but was surprisingly mellow, I think.

But the worst moment I'm aware of to date happened yesterday. Sad times, indeed.

Hell of a week, eh?

Just got home from work and am starting my weekend (off Sun/Mon). Sure has been a hell of a week out there, and I'm having a hard time keeping the happy thoughts I encouraged everyone to have in my last post.

Yep, this whole Israel/Gaza/Lebanon/Hezbollah/Iran/Syria/God-knows-who-else business is getting way out of hand. Not just way, but WAY.

BTW, since the incursion into Lebanon, I haven't seen jack diddly in the news about Gaza.

Anyway, an Israel-related flare-up was bound to happen sooner or later, and it always sends the usual shock waves...but with the U.S. being in Iraq, the stakes are a bit (a helluva lot) higher.

Iran's grip on American cojones can get very tight, very rapidly - both in the Middle East and at the corner Gas-n-Dash.

More thoughts on the overall situation, and how it has come to pass, this weekend. Meanwhile, I'm ordering another beer (well, getting off my ass to go get one out of the fridge).

Fun and games in the Mideast

Sure enough, the recent umpleasantries in Gaza and Lebanon are taking the predictable toll on gas prices.

I'm just waiting for Iran to get in on this somehow or another (they have, sort of, publicly backing Hezbollah, which they bankroll). All we need is one more spark to get Syria involved - and Israel may provide that as well; It won't take much, I believe, for this to become a great big four- or five-way conflict.

Think about it...Sunnis and Shias are already laying waste to each other in Iraq. Now the Israelis are fighting the Palestinians and Lebanese Shias. Syria's already providing some level of support to the goings-on in Iraq, and are fairly certain to get in on the Israel action...now we can throw in Iran - who can reach out and touch large numbers of Americans (and Sunni Arabs) in Iraq pretty easily...

Sunni v. Shia.
Arab/Palestinian v. Jew.
Arab v. Persian.
Arab AND Persian v. America.

This could get kinda ugly, ya think?

And the 'worst' part is, gas is gonna go through the roof.

Happy thoughts, kids. Happy thoughts.

Deep Kim-Chee

I've been out sick for a couple days, but I'm doing better, ready to hold forth again. Crack open a beer and enjoy.

On Tuesday, good ol' Kim Jong-il evidenced his inferiority complex by firing off not one, not two, but a volley of seven missiles from his super-secret launch complex. The source of Kim's anxiety, of course, is that all eyes of late have been on the other two nations of the supposed 'Axis of Evil,' Iraq and Iran.

But his barrage of bluster and pyrotechnics - including the failure of the centerpiece Taepodong-2 rocket - has to make one wonder: how crazy is this guy, and what can the U.S. do if one of his rockets hits, say, Tokyo or Seoul (or Hawaii) instead of open ocean?

We're in a hell of a pickle on this one, because there isn't much we can do. The pared-down U.S. forces in South Korea - now numbering less than 30,000 troops - is little more than a speed bump should Kim and the Gang decide to head south in a hurry for some Seoul food. And where have the rest of the forces once stationed there gone? Iraq, of course.

With the vast underestimation of the problems the U.S. would face in the aftermath of the fall of Saddam, our nation has found itself overcommitted and bogged down against a threat that never really existed to begin with. Meanwhile, Iran and North Korea have reveled in their status as "Evil" nations, and both have been rattling the nuclear saber since.

Both nations have more than enough military strength to start a major war in their respective region. Keep in mind, Iran supports the Iraqi Shi'a population, and if it felt a threat from the Sunnis, it could take over vast portions of Iraq in a matter of weeks (days, perhaps).

Again, I refer to the speed-bump concept mentioned above: U.S. forces in Iraq aren't set up to fight a conventional ground war...it was a tough, bloody transition to adjust to an anti-guerrilla mindset after the initial invasion in 2003. We were barely getting it down while I was in Iraq in 2004. Not that we've really had that much success since then...

President Bush knows that his hands are tied on the North Korea and Iran issues, and he may actually be starting to realize that he tied his own hands. With Iraq, American credibility in the world has gone to hell in a hand cart - as has America's overall defense posture - and it's becoming increasingly evident every time a third-world nation like Iran or North Korea decides to show their ass.

So what are we to do? Any suggestions? Many of our Allies aren't crazy about us anymore, and likely won't help unless they are directly threatened...and if the balloon goes up in the Middle East or the Korean Peninsula, we may be on our own (well, helping the South Koreans, anyway.)

A withdrawal from Iraq anytime soon certainly isn't the answer, as the Iraqi government is nowhere near ready to handle internal security, let alone defend itself from outside threats (see "Iran," above).

Some have called for a draft, which 1) would go over like a lead balloon in this country; 2) cost billions to implement, especially with training, housing, feeding, equipping, and so forth of tens (or hundreds) of thousands of draftees; and 3) would result in a degradation of the Army in general, as unwilling soldiers generally don't make good soldiers.

I'm at a loss here, and until the U.S. can extricate itself from Iraq, we just have to keep reading the names of the troops who lost their lives to Bush's failed policies.

There will be more names, I fear. Many, many more.

FOB Caldwell

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5140102.stm

The last part of this story talks about FOB Caldwell, aka Kirkush Military Training Base, which was built by the Yugoslavians in the mid-80s. I was there for two months (MAR-APR) in 2004, before being transferred with the rest of 1/120IN to FOB Bernstein near Tuz Khurmatu. I'll post pics of both Caldwell and Bernstein soon.

Flag Burning

Seems that the GOP-run Senate, in its infinte wisdom, has taken up flag burning yet again at the top of its list of scourges that obviously are killing our great nation on a daily basis. Sure, the latest vote was a week ago, so the issue is a bit stale already, but I've just got to weigh in on this.

There are other issues of far greater import than flag-burning.

As a veteran of Iraq, it does pain me to see folks burning the very symbol of the freedoms that flag represents.

However, the actual instances of people doing so (few and far between in this nation) is the ultimate representation of those very freedoms.

I certainly don't encourage anyone to burn the flag, as it looks idiotic and rather sophomoric, but it is telling that this nation allows us to protest our government's actions without (according to Texas v. Johnson, 1989) being sent to jail for it. Don't get me wrong: if someone stole a flag I own and burned it in protest, I'd seek to have that person charged with arson...

I fought for my flag - and the rights we have in the U.S.A. I'm still not sure whether fighting in Iraq counts as defending our freedom...which will be another post for another day, as I've a lot to say...but the bottom line is, I took the oath, which I still stand by. Yeah, maybe I'm not the hard-core GOP dude the military wanted me to be, but I am American to the core, and am committed to fighting for our freedoms.

Perhaps this wasn't the best post I'll ever make, but you might have an idea of what the Irritated Vet is all about.

Catch ya later.

Thoughts on National Guard border mission

OK, just to get things started here, this is a commentary I wrote for my newspaper in Sedalia, Missouri, in late May detailing my thoughts on President Bush's plan for the National Guard to help protect the border. Basically, it's a good idea, but the plan as laid out has DUD written all over it. So far, a month later, it has yet to show any real sign of life.

Just to cover my ass, the text below(even though I wrote it) is (c) 2006 The Sedalia Democrat/Freedom Newspapers.

Bush’s draft border plan: Daft

President Bush’s plan to send 6,000 National Guardsmen to assist in patrolling our southern border could use more rational thought and less political posturing.
Bush is in a domestic quagmire over immigration, and he seeks to mollify his hard-line critics by beefing up what passes for border security by sending in the Guard.
His solution is too little, too late, and ill-conceived.
By 6,000 soldiers (more than a brigade) on the border, what he really means is 156,000 over the course of a year, in two-week rotations of 6,000 soldiers each, while the suddenly revived Border Patrol trains 6,000 new agents of their own. The Border Patrol should have had the funding and go-ahead years ago for this kind of recruiting drive.
I’m not going to get into the deeper issues of the immigration debate, but several aspects of the proposed Guard deployment bear close inspection.
As a former Guardsman and Iraq veteran, I’ve seen what is involved in mobilizing, training, deploying and demobilizing a brigade-sized element. In short, it’s no easy task.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said this week that the two-week deployments would count as training exercises.
Training? No, this is a real-world operation, complete with real people entering the United States illegally. In order to execute the mission properly, the Guardsmen must train for it first.
To adequately train for a mission such as this, and be proficient at the required tasks, would take no less than four weeks from the time of mobilizing a Guard unit. The in-processing and equipping of each soldier would take several days of that time. I wager that it would take even longer, if done correctly, all for a scant two-week operational deployment.
From an operational standpoint, it takes at least six weeks to truly become familiar with new surroundings and situations, as well as the climate, geography and language. I speak from experience. A two-week rotation is sheer folly.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California called the plan a “logistical nightmare” and a “waste of forces trained for combat.” To take that a step further, the Guard is also trained for humanitarian missions, as evidenced after Hurricane Katrina last fall. What the Guard is not trained for is law enforcement.
The Bush administration also said the Guard would not be in a law enforcement role, but what are they to do when they encounter illegals near the border? Letting them continue their journey, it seems, would defeat the whole point of helping secure the border.
What is implied in Bush’s plan is that the various states would call up Guard units – keeping them under control of their respective governors – but the federal government will provide the funding and the overall operational plan. However, the president can order those units to duty if a governor wasn’t on board with the plan.
In short, the Guard units will be federalized. A major violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prevents federal troops from executing U.S. laws, is a very real concern for all Americans. If they can do it at the border, then where next?
Then there is the issue of how much of the Guard has been mobilized for war-related missions since 2001. Not since World War II has the Guard spent so much time away from home. More than 300,000 Guardsmen have been called to active duty over the past four-and-a-half years, some of them multiple times.
The Guard currently has about 445,000 personnel, and Bush’s plan calls for 156,000 over the next year. If the plan is executed well (and I have some doubts it will), that means that more than 28 percent of the force will be pulled away from their families and jobs to train for several weeks before a two-week deployment, likely followed by another week demobilizing.
The vast amount of funding required to mobilize, train, equip, pay, transport, house and feed each rotation of 6,000 Guardsmen for more than a month will very likely exceed the amount of benefit our nation will get from each rotation’s brief presence on the border. This is the ‘logistical nightmare’ Schwarzenegger referred to.
If our nation must use the Guard on this mission, we should take one brigade slated for a year in Iraq and change their mission to assisting the Border Patrol. Yes, 6,000 or so Guardsmen will be separated from their families, but it sure beats having a consistently unfamiliar force rotating in and out of the border area every two weeks.
Oh, and by the way: 6,000 Guardsmen on a roughly 2,000 mile-long border means about three soldiers per mile of border.
There is no doubt that American border security (both with Mexico and Canada) is woefully inadequate. Something certainly needed to have been done a long time ago, but Bush’s idea needs to go back to the drawing board, fast.

Greetings all!

Never fret, it's the Irritated Vet!

OK, a lousy intro, but I just set this up today...and will be adding to it pretty soon.

An intro to me: I served 10 months in Iraq with the 30th BCT (Brigade Combat Team), NC National Guard. Came home on 29 DEC 04, left the Guard on 28 JUN 05. I'll get into particulars perhaps later on down the road.

Come back every so often, I intend to have more stuff here (war and non-war related) very soon). Peace, out