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.