So, if the surge was successful, why do we wind up with 8,000 more troops in Iraq after the surge than were there before the surge?
Anybody?
Or is just that the maximum number of soldiers that can be kept in Iraq for any more time without completely shattering the Army?
Enlisting criminals, idiots and old men (anyone in their 40s is old for ground combat), taking sailors and airmen and turning them into soldiers, all of those are signs of an army that is critically short of manpower. McCain wants to increase the size of the Army, as does Obama. Do either of them have any clue as to where the additional soldiers are going to be found?
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Reagan's all-volunteer Army was nearly twice the size of the current U.S. Army. Of course, Reagan didn't have a shootin' war of any significance on his hands...
Of the two, Obama has the most chance of actually increasing the size of the army insofar as getting recruits goes, since he says he'll have all the troops out of Iraq within a year. For some reason folks shy away from signing up to get shot at for no purpose fathomable to rational man, go figure. But if they're signing up to defend their country (as vs. defend Halliburton's oil profits), suddenly it becomes a lot easier to find recruits...
As for McCain, I think he has an idea for that. Offer citizenship to Mexicans who serve. In no time at all they'll be on the boat bound for Iraq, and everybody will smile and wave and say "Hasta la vista, bay-bee!" as they disappear over the horizon, never to be seen again. Never to be seen again because, well, we're damn well out of equipment to equip our current army with, much less an expanded army. We'll be spending $50B a year for the next ten years to replace all the equipment that Dear Leader's little quest for whatever has ground into shards in the sands of Iraq. So any additional troops we send to Iraq will have to be armed with, uhm, what? Bee-bee guns?!
Sigh. People just don't understand the logistics here. You can't just recruit an army and ship'em out. You gotta arm them, equip them, train them, you get the picture. Fact is that it'll take at least a year after any decision to expand the Army to get new divisions trained and equipped. New divisions without that training and equipment are just cannon fodder. But hey, let's just think magically instead of like rational human beings -- somehow the equipment and training will, like, just magically happen! Yeah! Somebody gotta tell me what kinda herb Obama and McCain are smokin', cause it must be some good stuff, ya?
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
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