ShadowWar

It is not the Democrats and it is not the Congress. George W. Bush has not requested any increase in troops levels or asked for the funds to increase the size of the military since he became president in 2001. Even today after all the strain and the difficulty to maintaining the troop strength in Iraq, he has not dealt with the issue. The budget he submitted to Congress last month does not contain the money or a request for additional forces. Fact is he not doing the job for our military. It is a poor commander in chief that does not provide for the needed resources for the military troop strength, armored vehicles, body armor. He does nothing about the energy crisis. we go from a surplus to a huge deficit because of his tax cuts and spending policies. His suggestion for Social Security would put the system further in the whole not solve the fiscal problem. He cuts the money for Medicade and creates more problems for the states. He does nothing while our industry burn and China dumps their cheap products in this country. North Korea and Iran continue moving head with their nuclear weapons and Bush depends on the Chinese to help with North Korea and Europeans to help with Iran. It is about time America wakes up and takes a look at what has happened during the past four years under George W. Bush. Not one of these issues has been resolved or improved under the policies of Bush. This man is destroying our military by overcommitting them so we could remove a man from power that was no threat to this country. Bush is in an unmitigated failure and the dimensions of his harm to our military, our workers, Social Security, energy, Medicare, Medicade and our financial stability will be with us for decades to come.

I guess thats why the military vote went to Kerry, right?

I guess thats why the military vote went to Kerry, right?

Bingo!!! We have a winner!!!!

Might be a little different now. No matter, the harm Bush is doing to the military is REAL!

Might be a little different now. No matter, the harm Bush is doing to the military is REAL!

Col. Gene,

Your reply to me is missing one very important part. An Answer to my question/comments. You see you have completly change the entire subject of your post. The subject we were discussing was did Gen. Meyers make the comments that you attributed to him. I showed you he did not. You tried to change the subject and I am asking you to come back on target (no pun intended, well maybe a little) You keep failing to answer any of my questions. You try to change the topic or area we are discussing.

Here let me make it very simple for you. Admit that your post is your opinion and not something Gen. Meyers said and we will be able to discuss other topics. You see you did what is very typical of those who have no substance for their points. You take things others say and try to twist them to meet your ends. But when confronted with factual data you try to change the discussion to avoid the fact that you were wrong in your assumption or statement. Gen . Meters never said that the military was overstretched, but in fact said that they would be able to meet any obligation put before them.

Is the military tired? Of course. Is the military beginning to show signs of the stress that they are under? Of Course. Is the military equipment in need of repair and replacement? Of course. You see we have this little thing going on right now called a WAR. And just in case you were not aware of it, those kind of things stress the military involved, and their equipment. But part of being a soldier is knowing that and overcomming those things that may arise.

Part of the solution to this is to get the people you are trying to help involved. And that is just what has happened in Iraq. Why do you think the terrorist are attacking the Iraqi people more than anyone else(90% of attacks)? Because they know that if the Iraqi people begin to realize they can take care of things themselves, the terrorist are screwed. As of last month the Iraqi National Army had 27 fully operational Battalions. Plus several special forces units and that does not include the thousands of police and police intraining. Did you know there are around 5000 police intraining at any given time in Iraq. And guess whos training them. US and other countries police officers. One is a good friend of mine. He has been there training the police for 2 years and has seen over 10000 police recruits go through. Also the Iraq National Army is taking over the vast majority of military actions in Iraq. As they do this more and more, the more of our troops can come home. Did you know that just recently, the Iraq Troops now outnumber our own troops in Iraq?

To see this in factual data go here:
http://shadowwar.joeuser.com/index.asp?aid=73184
http://shadowwar.joeuser.com/index.asp?aid=73180
and
http://shadowwar.joeuser.com/index.asp?aid=72977

The Iraqi People are beggining to take part in the defense and counter terrorist work in their country:
http://shadowwar.joeuser.com/index.asp?aid=73182
http://shadowwar.joeuser.com/index.asp?aid=73334
http://shadowwar.joeuser.com/index.asp?aid=73181

See the major error in yours and most people who are against the war is you sometimes lose sight of the fact we are already there. And since we are, lets do what we can to make the best of things for our troops, the Iraqi people and as hard as we can for the terrorist. And that is just what we are doing. I get e-mails and photos almost daily from my buddies who are over there right now. I just said goodbye to two more of my students who leave for Mississippi then Iraq after some update training. One of those students volunteered for his 2nd tour there!

Everything is not as bleak and bad as you would lead everyone to believe. You see the troops on the ground want to come home, but they also realize they can't until the Iraqi people can take care of themselves and that is exactly what is going on.

P.S. Texas Wahine, I have added you and your loved one to my very long prayer list. Thank you. Thank you for sharing him with the rest of us. Thank you for his love of country and honor. I thank you for the fact that becasue of his service my wife and son can walk/drive down the street and not worry about being blown up by a suicide bomber. I invite you to read a letter I wrote to one of those young men I spoke of above, it applies to your loved one also.
http://shadowwar.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=65900
I also invite you to read my post in my blog. I post news from Iraq, positive news and positive things about our military and the Iraqi people. You see enough of the negative on the mainstream media news, but nothing of the positive stuff, so I do that. God Bless you and yours.

Gen Myers may not have used the exact word "Overstreached" however, he made it clear the military needs more resources and at the current time reaction to another problem would be a slower response and more danger to our forces. The point of this Blog is that we have not increased the size as needed, even though the need is clear including from Bush himeslf. WHY has Bush not acted to increase the military manpower? All you want to do is argue about ONE WORD not address the issue ar hand-- The size of the military relative to the deployments. the issue is not the great job our military has done. I'm proud of the way they have conducted themselves in a very difficult situation. The issue is the judgment of of the civilian leadership to meet and provide the resources needed to do the job. This was a war of choice and the timing was of our choosing. We did not have sufficient military to properly conduct this campaign based on the established principles of war. The general's including General Frank clearly stated that to do the job properly including controlling the country after the government fell would require at least 300,000 US troops. Bush provided less than half that number. To make up for the lack of manpower he did things like extended enlistments, send troops for a second quick tour and called up huge amounts of reserve in guard forces for extended periods of time all because we did not have the resources to properly fight this war. The question of whether we should have gone to war is a separate issue. The issue is did the civilian leadership provide the resources required? The answer is they did not have the proper amount of resources to do the job and that extended the duration and casualties because they failed to provide the resources. In my 30 years, I attend many military schools including the Command and General Staff College and the Army War College. This campaign violated everything I was taught about having sufficient force levels to control the battlefield and the aftermath at the end of combat operations. I guess George W. Bush must have failed to learned this while not attending drills in the Texas Air National Guard. He also did not take the advise of his senior military who did have the skills he lacked!