Amateurs Running the War

I have been reading news reports and opinion pieces by various Wingnuts about how important winning the Iraq War is for our country, about the progress that we are supposed to be making and how it is real progress as opposed to the public relations horseshit that has been handed out by the Administration. They talk about "clear & hold" and "oil spot" strategies and how those streategies, in combination with the "Surge" hold a chance for success.

Fuck that noise. It means nothing.

There is an age-old saying: "Amateurs worry about strategy. Professionals worry about logistics." There is a fair amount of truth in that old saying. You can't fight without the means to fight. There are a number of key items in the logistical chain and one of the most important items is replacement soldiers. Which we do not have.

The Surge is not sustainable. That is not a political talking point or a club with which to beat Chimpy McFlightsuit into a well-earned coma. The Surge cannot be sustained past April of next year, according to Admiral Mullen, the nominee for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Army currently is operating on a rotation schedule of 15 months in Iraq, 12 months at home, and anybody who thinks that those 12 months at home is vacation time is seriously delusional.

The Army is stop-lossing soldiers in order to extend their enlistments by over a year.

Historically, the armed forces began screening out their sub-par officers at the selection process to O-4 (major, lieutenant commander). Now, however, the Army's standards for promotion to major are roughly having an adequate pulse (together with not having raped the General's dog or run over his daughter).

The Army is trying to persuade sailors and airmen who are being discharged from their respective services to join the Army. They are taking officers, too, which basically means they are taking the dregs that are not promotable within the Navy and the Air Force.

The Navy and the Air Force are sending thousands of their sailors and airmen to do Army jobs. This is an act of sheer desperation that is typically done when a nation is scraping the sides of the barrel for soldiers, such as the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Berlin.

And this is in spite of the facts that hundreds of thousands of contractors are doing support jobs in Iraq and hundreds of thousands of mercenaries are fulfilling security functions (when they are not slaughtering people for fun).

We do not have the soldiers to sustain the war, even with enlisting criminals and gang-bangers. That is not a spinnable point. And the Army Reserve may in the long run be in even worse shape than the Regular Army, as the reserves are usually filled, in part, with soldiers who have completed their active duty service. Nobody can build a civilian career with being frequently recalled to active duty; soldiers who complete their active duty service are probably going to get all the way out.

Without soldiers, debates about whether or not the Chimperor's Splendid Little War is worth fighting are meaningless arguments.

Indeed, one might argue that by not flooding the recruiting stations, the verdict on the street about Chimpy's War is "thanks, but no, this is not worth it."