First part of that was interesting, Hope if your son goes that he stays safe. The part where you asked about tardive dyskinesia thats the one. Tardi was short for Tardive. I was on Klonopin for a while after this but my particular case of tardive dyskinesia was more severe than most do to it being related to a severe allergic reaction rather than prolonged use of a medication. Usualy if symptoms of tardive dyskinesia are noticed by the doctors than the medication is lowered or abandon all together. My case was a particuarly bad allergic reaction that had very damaging neurological effects. It has improved somewhat, especially in the first 3 years after it happened but, most doctors tell me I'll have to deal with this for the rest of my life. Including my mother who is a Nurse.

I was actually in ROTC in school so the Idea of enlisting interested me but the problem is this happened before I could even consider enlisting. Also Id be most interested in getting active combat if I went and Infantry is right up my ally. I'm not a great aim with a rifle though, well its pellet rifle but still I suck, lol. Unless the weapon is resting on something. If I honestly believed I could do what the job requires physically there is a decent chance I would have enlisted.
I'm in very good shape otherwise because I run 5 miles a week, My nickname would be wiggles if I enlisted and they would put me in charge of water purifying, if they didn't want me shooting the wrong people accidentally. Its not always so bad but the problem is its at its worst when my adrenaline and blood pressure are high. I notice it most when I exercise.

Addressing what you said on those percentages I gave, do consider to yourself that many like your son are going for the range of opportunities our military provides, Unpopular war or not, what keeps Army recruiting alive I think are the benifets and opportunities it offers. The chances of being killed in Iraq are actually quite low per soldier.

You still don't get it do you? This will be my last word, since plain english doesn't seem to get through to you. The only 'stat' you posted was the population of the US. All else is blind belief on your part. Tell me Net, if there were 100,000 more people who would enlist immediately, why haven't many of them already enlisted? Enlistment for the Army is down, as I've provided a link for, and this is after standards have dropped and incentives have been raised. It's not my credibility in question here, it's your strange belief that because congress authorized a bill, people will now flock to the recruiting centers when they haven't before.



It's the Iraqi's who have to make the political progress, have you forgotten that?



Well good for you.....



Irrelevant comparison. The Taliban controlled most of Afghanistan and allied with AQ. No such situation is close to existing in Iraq.



Because I tend to post factual over feeling.



I don't have a problem with the bill at all. As I explained above, your correlation between the bill passing and people lining up outside of recruiting centers is laughable. Have prospective enlistees simply been waiting for congress to get unanimous support for a bill? They could have been joining already.......



Of course, you've never been in combat and lost a friend in your arms, so you wouldn't really know, would you?



Sure, different soldiers have different points of view. But unless you deal with soldiers everyday, suffice it to say that you're not getting a very broad cross section of opinion. You think you don't like my opinion.....I'm rather tame compared to some here......

By all means continue to believe that the dip in violence is permanent, continue to believe that more soldiers are going to persuade Iraqi's to favor democracy over the Imam, root out militia's and corruption..... continue to believe that 100,000 more enlistees will appear now with a bill passed, as if that were stopping them before.......and continue to believe that you really know the political/military situation in Iraq, because you watched the Petraeus brief.......knock yourself out. At least you've given me an entertaining diversion for a while.

And, among other things, on the stategic implications of letting them have a base in one place versus the other. Suppose we were to move troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, such that the vast majority were deployed in Afghanistan instead. Would the relative numbers of AQ in both places remain the same as they are now? The criticism that's been made of current policy is that by putting Afghanistan on the back burner, we've allowed AQ to grow there. Well, if we put Iraq on the back burner, it's reasonable to be concerned that the same thing would likely happen in Iraq. The only difference is in how much of a strategic advantage there would be to AQ from having large numbers in Iraq versus Afghanistan.


I don't see any compelling reason to do that.


"Creative way"? It's the only "way" that suggests itself from looking at any timeline. Regardless of how incredible you may find it, there was simply no outside occupying force in Afghanistan when the Taliban came to power. Just home-grown warlords wreaking havoc.


If we pull out of Iraq too soon, I think we'll see just how familiar that story will sound.


As if it wasn't of prime importance for the Taliban as well? They imposed the most rigid Islamist regime the world had known up to that time, and their skills at normal civilized governance weren't exactly well-honed. All they had to offer was relief from the violent chaos, and that sufficed.


They've got plenty on us. It's one thing to have laid the groundwork (however inadvertantly), but it was they who capitalized on it. I haven't forgotten what we've discussed above, but from looking over how the situation developed, it's still hard to avoid the conclusion that AQI has been the prime instigator of sectarian violence. I know you posted a link to an article quoting people who disputed that the 2006 Samarra bombing was a watershed event, but their doubts aren't convincing. For one thing, they seem to have been conflating the insurgency with sectarian violence, when the two were not necessarily the same. And then they ended up practically conceding the point anyway. Both Asad Abu Khalil and Carter Malkasian, two skeptics of the accepted viewpoint quoted by the article, said that if the Samarra bombing hadn't broken things apart, some other bombing would have. This implicitly acknowledges that the bombing did indeed have the general effect that's been ascribed to it. Probably the most prominent attack prior to that was the 2004 Karbala blasts that killed 500 Shi'ites celebrating the Ashura festival. This was found to have been carried out by a Qa'ida field commander. So I think the circumstantial evidence at least is pretty powerful to suggest that AQI has been at least a very major catalyst of the sectarian violence.

I very much doubt that. When the cork that was Saddam was removed, you opened up a series of repressed conflicts that were bound to froth up in the parliament. Expecting consensus in five short years despite decades of repression strikes me as naive. I would not pin that on the Iraqis. This isn't a realistic expectation. But then again, I've had difficulty finding reasonable goals ever since this war started.

The insideousness of this comment is you seek to blame others for the inherent shortcomings of the army which have run against the will of the majority. When a figure begins to differentiate himself from the rest of the pack there has been a consistent policy of marginalization. When Ali al-Sistani wanted staked out a radical demand that Islam be the sole source of legislation in the country's new constitution you turfed him. When Al Sadr began drawing crowds you invented JAM and then tried to sell us on a schism within the party. When Maliki consolidated a shiite majority with Sadr's approval, you began assymetric operations by handing Sunnis guns to fight AQI. You've further stamped out hopes of goodwill by projecting Iranian interference despite common ethnicities and in the process stigmatized all neighbourly assistance, the very assistance required so that you can go home. These are very conflicted actions.

You then proceed to express your frustration that things aren't working properly. Let's put it this way, if after five years you can't generate 24 consecutive hours of electricity in greater Baghdad, is it realistic to expect unity in a fragmented society? I'm not sure how anyone can be sympathic after looking at that track record.

So.....you propose installing a government ON the Iraqi's?



We invented Jaysh Al-Mahdi? Are you kidding me? I feel like I'm talking to Net.



Since I'm not the architect of the grand strategy, I feel no remorse over expressing frustration. I have frequently spoken out here about the ineptitude of L. Paul Bremer and the CPA. The Iraqi's aren't likely to stand up a government of our choosing, and quite frankly I don't really care who comes out on top. I simply think that our presence further inhibits any chance for Iraqi stability. What exactly is your point to this, are you now in the 'in it to win it' crowd?

The reality is we are near max production and a loss of 8% would be a disaster for the price Vladimir. And scenarios simulating just this agree with me not you. Ted has company in fearing an oil crunch.


“Outcome Grim at Oil War Game
Former Officials Fail to Prevent Recession in Mock Energy Crisis
By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 24, 2005; Page A19
The United States would be all but powerless to protect the American economy in the face of a catastrophic disruption of oil markets, high-level participants in a war game concluded yesterday.

The exercise, called "Oil Shockwave" and played out in a Washington hotel ballroom, had real-life former top U.S. officials taking on the role of members of the president's Cabinet convening to respond to escalating energy crises, culminating in $5.32-a-gallon gasoline and a world wobbling into recession.

"The American people are going to pay a terrible price for not having had an energy strategy," said former CIA director Robert M. Gates, who took on the role of national security adviser. Stepping out of character, he added that "the scenarios portrayed were absolutely not alarmist; they're realistic."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...5062301896.html


http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/28/1439240


The “market” can deal with anything but the “cost” will drive recession in out 12.5 TRILLION $ economy. The math says a 15% recession costs us 1.25 TRILLION/year

“Oil prices still matter to the health of the world economy. Higher oil prices since
1999 – partly the result of OPEC supply-management policies – contributed to the
global economic downturn in 2000-2001 and are dampening the current cyclical
upturn: world GDP growth may have been at least half a percentage point higher in
the last two or three years had prices remained at mid-2001 levels. Fears of OPEC
supply cuts, political tensions in Venezuela and tight stocks have driven up
international crude oil and product prices even further in recent weeks. By March
2004, crude prices were well over $10 per barrel higher than three years before.

Current market conditions are more unstable than normal, in part because of
geopolitical uncertainties and because tight product markets – notably for gasoline
in the United States – are reinforcing upward pressures on crude prices. Higher
prices are contributing to stubbornly high levels of unemployment and exacerbating
budget-deficit problems in many OECD and other oil-importing countries.

The vulnerability of oil-importing countries to higher oil prices varies markedly
depending on the degree to which they are net importers and the oil intensity of
their economies. According to the results of a quantitative exercise carried out by the
IEA in collaboration with the OECD Economics Department and with the assistance
of the International Monetary Fund Research Department, a sustained $10 per
barrel increase in oil prices from $25 to $35 would result in the OECD as a whole
losing 0.4% of GDP in the first and second years of higher prices. Inflation would
rise by half a percentage point and unemployment would also increase. The OECD
imported more than half its oil needs in 2003 at a cost of over $260 billion – 20%
more than in 2001. Euro-zone countries, which are highly dependent on oil imports,
would suffer most in the short term, their GDP dropping by 0.5% and inflation rising
by 0.5% in 2004.


http://www.iea.org/textbase/papers/2004/high_oil_prices.pdf

Right.


::choking on leftover mini M&Ms::

I don't have time to be posting but I want to address this. I don't take issue with your first paragraph because "you" sounds generic. I take issue with the second and third because you attribute a questionable amount of free will to DTOM and the military at large.

I've never, ever understood why conservatives glorify the military except as a manifestation of an infatuation with militarism. The military is a tool that does the bidding of a civilian leadership. This isn't Pakistan. Aside from individual acts of bravery on the battlefield I don't know why some people want all Americans to pay tribute to this lethal bureaucracy. IMO we've gone too far in this direction.

That said his observation of where responsibility lies is reasonable. I've felt the same way and have said as much on this forum before DTOM got orders to Baghdad.

It isn't up to us to set Iraq on the right course. We couldn't if we had 300k grunts to spare. To suggest otherwise opens the door to speculation about our ability to mold foreign states in our image, to our liking. Acknowledging the fact that it's up to Iraqis to determine the future of their country isn't an attempt to bury the Pandora's Box we opened. It's acknowledging a reality that hasn't changed since March 20, 2003.

Dontreadonme


Ive read and comprehended every word you've posted, yet your right I still don't get it, or you. Perhaps its a combination, you certainly have more to claim than to back with anything. You've posted maybe 1 or 2 links to my 5 or 6 yet you ask me to pony up some facts. Additionaly ive linked you to a WOT post of mine that is 47 pages long, containing almost 100 creditable links. Also Despite the recruiting changes that have been made the overall size of our military was increased only by a small percentge after the 9/11 attacks. I believe I read 14 thousand troops. But Why? Are you familiar with your former Secretary of Defense? Are you familiar with the Rumsfeld Doctrine? I'm going to quote another small section of my post for you to read simply to show the widespread criticism of a plan we chose and stuck with voluntarily, as you will see there was no effort like this new bill proposed in prior years. In fact Bush was stubborn enough not to listen to a number of people, and while I don't criticise him for making what was clearly a mistake, I do criticize him for not preparing a backup plan if Rumsfeld turned out to be wrong......

http://www.americasdebate.com/forums/index...mp;#entry228304
====================================================================Start
====================================================================Start



================================================================END
================================================================END

that represents probably 5% of the entire post, now does this sound like someone in denial? That was nothing but criticisms on a failed policy I even quoted Harry Reid who couldn't be more against this war than he already is. The point in this is to show this was a failure of policy not lack of ability. We chose not to expand our military when it would have mattered the most, we chose to do that. If I had been president I would have proposed a bill like the one we see now the day I announced that we would be going to war in the middle east. It would have been part of my speech to announce building a healthy foundation of troops. He took a gamble by not doing so, and were in a sticky spot given the Rummy approach failed.

Why do you think that this bill has the support of the majority of Democrats? I tell you why, its because anyone who knows what I do knows that our forces are being stretched, therefore we exist in a vulnerable state. Many democrats likely voted for it because we are considerably vulnerable rather than voting for it because they want more troops in Iraq. However anyway you look at it this makes sense to do this. The democrats agree, the republicans agree, the bill will be passed, simple as that. Now as for whether or not it will work, you seem to have a poor understanding of the numbers here. There is nothing you have shown me other than prior benifet increases made when Donald Rumsfeld was in office, to back your stance. You say nope, wont be done, cant be done, shouldn't be done, just like that. Any changes made in recruiting techniques, during a time we were fighting under a flawed policy would have been ultimately infective.

Lets just wait and see how this unfolds hows that?



Nope



Thanks, I suppose



Well I stand on this point, those three sentences didn't convince me'



Like the fact that progress isn't being made in Baghdad? and the fact that success in Anbar which makes up 1/3 of the country is not significant, I believe receiving a sarcastic Woo Hoo from you, a soldier of the United States? Or how about the fact that General Petraeus is sugar coating the situation in Iraq.
All that sounds like feeling if you ask me.



Money talks man, and 100 billion dollars hires a hell of a lot of recruiters, supports advertising, and possibly even works to further increase benefits. Didn't Ronald Regan expand our military substantially? I may not be a genius, but I know this plan will work considering the numbers alone. Lets forget the fact that 300,000,000 people live in this nation. With deductive reasoning you can see what the probability of this working is.

Im going to give you the all out "Drake Equation" of warfare. Frank D. Drake wrote an equation that used numbers we know from Astronomy to try and estimate the likelyhood of their being intelegent life on other planets. Bare with me I know this is highly OT. This is the short version of it. it would start something like this. Roughly how many Galaxies are in the Universe? on average how many stars are in a Galaxy? how many of those stars contain planets? of those how many of those planets are habitable? of these habitable planets how many contain simple forms of life? of these how many contain intelegent life?....... and it would go on from there and he would fill in the blanks with figures. There were many unknowns in the eqation but he deducted from what we know, the likelihood of intelegent life existing elsewhere.

Thankfully for us we have solid numbers to go on. I am going to be fair and make this a fairly conservative estimate that I promise. I tapped into this a bit with mrs. pigpen but this will go deeper. Ok 300,000,000 Americans. Lets find out the likelihood of us finding the recruits we need. First off it is said that about 30% of the nation supports this war. I'll lower it down some since polls vary. Lets say 25% support the war. 25% of 300,000,000 is 75,000,000.

Now of these 75,000,000 who are supportive of the war how many would and could enlist? Ok lets start this by saying that 70% of these people are either too young, too old, or otherwise physically or mentally unable to join, thats what Id consider a fair estimate. We are now left with 22,500,000 million healthy supportive Americans in the proper age range to enlist. Still with me? lets take another 500,000 off 22,500,000 to make a nice round number and keep this the most conservate estimate possible. We now are down to 22,000,000 healthy Americans who are supportive of this war and of the age to enlist. Lets say 15% of those are Interested in joining our military 15% of 22,000,000 is 3,300,000. We are getting down to it 3.3 million supportive healthy Americans of enlisting age who are also interested in enlisting.

Now I since I said this was going to be fair lets remember that this number is exclusively from the 75,000,000 Americans who support the war in Iraq. What about the 225,000,000 who don't support the war? Many of these may still want to enlist for the opportunities right? Since you will no doubt try and deny that, I'll be very quick and conservative and say that only a half a percent of those who don't support the war, are still interested in enlisting while being healthy and of age thats .5% and .5% of 225,000,000 is 1,125,000.

Now we are left with 3,300,000 healthy war supporters who are of age and interested in joining and 1,125,000 that don't necessarily support the war in Iraq, yet want to join anyway. If you think the deduction of the 225,000,000 majority is not fair let make that a round number and call it a cool 1 million.

So 1,000,000 + 3,300,000 is 4,300,000.

The final step, there are 50 states in the U.S. and if you divide 4.3 million people into 50 states that means there are roughly 86,000 people in each state that are willing and able to join. This means we could reach our goal in 1 state almost. Even if the margin for error is 50% for an estimate like this you still have more than enough people. I hope I didn't confuse you, your welcome to check all those calculations. the figures I didn't know 100% I chose conservative estimates for. That just goes to show you how large a number 300,000,000 is. It can be deducted and deducted yet the sheer size of this number makes it impossible for me to understand why anyone would honestly believe we cant reach our goal of enlisting less than 100,000 troops, with funds exceeding 100 billion dollars and unanimous congressional support.





That was one source of many bud. I've seen many others say things just the same. Ive seen non supportive soldiers as well but they have been slim pickings in my research.

The second part of that comment puts words in my mouth, quote where I say I believe that the dip in violence is permanent and show everyone here just what your talking about.

Your rather tedious diatribe did nothing to shore up your claim that enlistees will flock to the recruiters office because congress passed a bill. Not a single link backed your claim, they were connected to the debate over whether or not we went into Iraq with too few troops. Maybe you have your debates mixed up. We have been post-Rumsfeld, we have been at lowered entrance standards and we have been at increased incentives.
I'm not against expanding the military, unless it is soley intended to boost, yet again, troop levels in Iraq. But we shall see won't we.......



Until you can convince me that reconciliation is progressing, that corruption is decreasing and militia's are on the decline, then no....real progress isn't being made. Decreased violence is great, but without being taken with other factors, it really amounts to nothing. You'll notice that General Petraeus didn't speak about the fact that when we conduct joint operations with Iraqi Security Forces, we can't tell them the start date, did he? He didn't mention that we cannot share any intelligence with the ISF did he? We can't do that becuase within the hour, that word on the street is quite literally on the street. How do you propose to overcome that obstacle? More troops? More time?

Until you can convince me that real progress is being made at the one spot that matters in Iraq, not acerage of desert, then all you support in my eyes is perpetuating the problem.



NT put it best " Torture numbers long enough and they'll confess to anything no matter how absurd. While your math may be sound, your "30 million Americans" supporting the war is pure conjecture and a total smokescreen. Just because there is a theoretical pool of eligible young men who support the war does NOT convey into the following assumption that they are also willing to fight in the war."

Answer me this......why haven't they already started to enlist? It's not the manpower cap from stopping them. I'm the one who posted the link that actaully talked about recruitment numbers.



I'm soory that reality fails to convince you, though I notice that you didn't dsipute that Iraq and Afghanistan are different situations.......

Dontreadonme


We haven't been post-Rumsfeld that long at all DTOM, Gates replaced him last December so most cheap tricks to enlist more soldiers took place while he was in office, and we all knew what he spoon fed president bush dont we? One problem with Bush is his bad habit of staying loyal to those who in some cases screw up royally.



Did you research the report he gave throughly? I'm not fetching the link, as Ive done that enough already but I really encourage you to read my post from start to finish, General Petraeus left little if anything out, the report was very long. I think some people are downright upset that there is good news to talk about. Moveon.org I believe released their crack on him before the report was made. Early reports indicated there would be good news, and you know? That actually made some people nervous I think. He never denied or left out anything, he just reported some good news as well as the not so good news. However the mere fact good news was reported made some grind their teeth.



I deducted that in the equation, read it all the way through. See the part in red? I deducted everything I could from 300,000,000 and still came up with about 80'000 people per state that are of age, psychically able to join, and are interested in joining. even if you cut that in half, 40'000 people per state means that it would take less than 3 states to achieve the target assuming the military was able to enlist everyone in each state from these people. Thats probably not the case but there are 50 states, if you only found 5000 people per state you would still well exceed the mark. The point is this is simple mathematics and reflects what I consider to be a conservative estimate. This is reality DTOM, think about it, in the last day in this one room, on this one website, you have had two people make post that know someone who has, or is interested in enlisting.

My cousin enlisted 2 years ago, Nightimers Son is interested in enlisting and has his support. So again whats your reasoning here? Do you have something other than showing infective recruiting methods mostly made under a secretary of defense who believed large militarizes are too big to be effective? Obviously if that was his stance the primary policy would remained centered around that.






Ok Iraq and Afghanistan are different situations, absolutly. Anything else?

So you admit that efforts to entice 100,000 more people to enlist will be cheap tricks. Nothing in your post indicates why all those people haven't already enlisted, unless you can show me otherwise, they didn't defer because of who the SecDef was. I'll state yet again, that I don't oppose increasing manpower, after all, when we leave Iraq, we will certainly be in a 'building year' for awhile.



I watched the entire brief from microphone malfunctions to closing statements, it was rather topical for us here after all. One can drive a truck through what he didn't say. I've alluded to much, and there's much that I can't say due to classification but the information is out there. Don't just take my word for it, Mustang spent at least one tour here in Baghdad, and is far smarter than I on the political nature of the Iraqi situation.
You claim that Petraeus didn't leave anything out? You wouldn't even know if he had! Long does not = comprehensive.



Yes, the part that starts "let's say".........We had not reached the manpower cap during this enitre fiasco, so the argument about Rumsfelds leaner military doesn't wash. Additionally, his transformation plan was contingent far more on restructuring combat formations, than decreasing manpower.

Dontreadonme


Yet again? When did you say you don't oppose increasing manpower in this forum? I don't remember that. I remember you saying it would not help things there, and that its ridiculous to think it can be achieved, And no I never suggested that this bill will use cheap tricks in order to be accomplished. By the way Nothing in your post indicates why all those people have already enlisted. Thats quite unrealistic to believe that anyone who would and can enlist either wont or already did. Ive showed plenty hell coincidentally Nightimers son is interested in enlisting. One of these non existent americans you speak of was mentioned in this very forum!! Are people flocking to register? Not necessarily but the point is they don't have to be. This is the third most populated country on the planet, so we will get the men we need.




Look this guy is not denying the situation and I don't believe he left out anything unless it was sensitive information that could be made useful by insugents. look at these three charts they show the progress being made.......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Iraq_Civilian_Deaths.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Overall...tack_Trends.jpg

Yet at the same time I'm reading comments like this in the.........


Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq

http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/Petra...ony20070910.pdf

the quote below is from the link above and other similar statements can be read at the link...........



He is not in denial, he is acknowledging both the severity and difficulty of the situation, as well as the set backs. All well documented.




He wasn't intent on building forces however, while he didn't concentrate on reducing our forces, he really didn't have to, Bill Clinton did a pretty good job at that.
Additionally we entered both Iraq and Afghanistan with what many people considered a questionable amount of troops, and they were right. So he simply failed to take the idea that he could be wrong seriously, being the sole reason this troop expansion bill was not proposed 4 years ago.

Also those were all conservative estimates especially if there was any degree of unknowns in a variable. However all the primary factors were figures well known to be accurate yet even those numbers I intentionally underestimated with highly conservative figures, and still came up with over 80,000 people per state on average, willing and able to join our military. It very well could be 5x higher than that considering the numbers I used.

Enough said, at least now I have validation that I've been debating a brick wall.



So they used cheap tricks in the preceding years to convince people to enlist and go to Iraq, but now things will be different?



This doesn't even make sense......



And yet you STILL fail to answer the question of why haven't all of these mythical enlistees joined yet? No matter how many times you post it, your projection math doesn't rest on any fact, only supposition. And it fails to take into account the increasing number of senior and mid-grade Officers and NCO's retiring or leaving service. I believe we can recruit 100,000 more enlistees in the long run, but not as long as we're in Iraq. I believe you are woefully optimistic as to the enthusisam for people to enlist. If I were wrong on this, then we wouldn't be struggling to reach the recruiting goals that we have now.

Ahh, just as I thought. You take this perfectly feasible well accepted plan as if it were propaganda, because of Iraq. This is all about Iraq and your general skepticisms on the war, and perhaps even the prospect that we could supply additional troops if needed when these troops become available which there is no reason they shouldn't. However these mythical enlistees you speak of wern't enlisted before because beyond minor fluctuations the prior approach never required we propose something such as this. We were able to get about the numbers Rumsfeld wanted just by adjusting standards, and enlisting ages.

There was very poor preparation and poor managing of our military in the last few years, I read it everywhere. Many quotes and links I posted already, everyone knows this is a problem. The key thing to remember that it was policy to go into Iraq with a third the amount of troops recommended, It was policy not the only option we had. If I had been president like I said I would have bitten the bullet and proposed the bill to expanded our military just after we got attacked on 9/11. I probably would have waited an additional year or so to go into Iraq as well so the troop expansion could get underway. So the answer to your question is the decsion was never made to expand our military to this degree in the Bush Administration until now, at least that Ive read about. Its well known that the low numbers we went into Iraq with was part of a strategy we chose, and for this reason no real effective effort was made at recruiting because Bush figured we never needed more than a mariginal increase.

Now you have a bill that has 100 billion dollars of attached funds and the support of the majority. Thats a lot of money, just to put it in perspective the World Trade Center was constructed with about 900 million dollars worth of funds, so the funding in this bill could theoretically fund to build the World Trade Centers 10 times over! Thats would be 20 of what were the highest capacity sky scrapers in the world, in terms of cubic feet of office space.

So thats the answer to the best of my knowledge DTOM, unless you have something we haven't seen to share. This is a problem we could no longer afford to sidestep with workarounds, the numbers show it, and even some of the most dedicated anti Iraq war liberals know this is a problem, being the reason they are funding the bill. So if 100 billion dollars can fit the bill for what I just described, it will also be able higher recruiters by the thousands, pay for advertising, and find all those people I described in my prior breakdown with percentages. People I'm not sure I understand why you think don't exist.

This is truly the last post in this forum that I will post on this subject, since we're taking the thread off topic from the surge. I have written in standard, comprehensive english, and you still believe that money = people wanting to enlist, knowing that they'll be going to Iraq, despite everything to the contrary. I shouldn't be surprised, you have generally disregarded anything that doesn't fit your pre-conceived mindset.

My point has always been, and you generally fail to recognize.....poor management of the military, if true, is irrelevant. Rumsfeld's transformation doctrine, is irrelevant. We have recruiting ads saturating all forms of media. We have raised the age of recruits to a dangerous level. We are allowing in far more recruits with criminal records. And we still struggle to reach even already lowered recruiting targets.

It's because we are engaged in a wildly unpopular war, with no end in sight and no direct bearing on national security. We absolutely should expand our military, because god knows it's being sucked dry and hollowed out the longer we stay in Iraq. But you sit with your detached viewpoint, safe from harm and continue to believe that people's greater sense of patriotism will entice them to enlist now since this bill has passed, even though they haven't done so already. As long as we remain bogged down in Iraq, you get to sit by and wave the flag and feel patriotic, because your 'in it to win it' and because 'freedom isn't free'.

I think we've run this into the ground, do DR a favor and start another thread if you want to continue this topic, we've been derailing his thread.

This topic is directly relevant to troop levels, since we are talking about why its been hard to maintain these
levels in Iraq. If its off topic I'm sure a moderator would have let us known by now.

I know this war is unpopular DTOM, but I know people who have enlisted, I hear about people interested in enlisting all the time, last time being in this
room 2 days ago man. You keep telling me that your writing in plain English, as if I'm somehow missing anything you've mentioned.

I'm only arguing this point because I'm still interested in hearing you give anything at all that says we will never enlist a healthy number of troops as long as this war is being fought. The problem is your suggesting some pretty bold things with nothing to follow it up with but saying this war is unpopular therefore we cant enlist people. You really do appear to believe The United States of America can not gather less than 0.03%
of its own population to fight in this war if needed.

Ok this ought to make sense of this for you i think, so hear me out. If this bill had been proposed in the past and failed, perhaps Id consider it unachievable, perhaps. However when Bush Took office and before the war in Iraq even started, he had only expanded our military by about 14,000
troops in preparation of this war. He did it by choice, because if your suggesting that this wars lack of popularity is your reasoning for believing we can not find the troops we need now, then why at a time that the war didn't involve Iraq and the majority of us supported this war effort, did he not make the troop buildup thats planned now?

He chose not to, its as simple as that, and this was the case until Donald Rumsfeld Retired. They put the money in other areas when Rumsfeld was in office, and to meet what was a modest 130,000 troop force in Iraq, when it should have been twice that amount, they simply cut corners, raised the enlisting age, and lowered standards.

Do you have anything that shows this is false? I'm welcoming you to show anything you have, Ive used 10 or so links in here to help substantiate the take on Rumsfeld and the support for this bill, but I'm searching for truth, not simply to defend my position. If you show me something that is creditable I swear I'll look at it and take it seriously. however do know that I well understand the enlisting standards have been lowered and support for this war is roughly 30% in this nation. Ive given you my take on why, so I welcome you to show to me why that take is false.

If you agree to disagree thats fine too, I'm just trying to understand your position.

What's the difference between someone who is against the war distorting the truth and your support of the war and the way you distort reality, net2007?

On this board everyone is equally qualified to express an opinion. It's impolite to tell another member of they don't know what they're talking about. However, as you appreciate the truth, here's an absolute stone cold truth for you.

Everybody may have an opinion, but not all opinions are of equal worth. Or to put it another way: some people don't know as much about a subject as they think they do.

Take you for example. When you write in response to DTOM, "I don't think you know much that I don't, Ive researched this war from the ground up," you apparently don't have a clue as to how arrogant you make yourself appear.

You have researched the war "from the ground up," you say? That make you an expert or something? DTOM and thousands of other soldiers like him are doing their "research" ON the ground. He has been a helluva lot closer to the "truth" of what is going on over there than you, I or any other civilian sitting safe and sound in our homes typing our meaningless nonsense on a keyboard.

If you support the troops and their sacrifices as much as you say you do, net2007, have the good taste and the humility not to presume you know what's going on in Iraq as well as they do. You DON'T. There's no way you can. I don't care what TV shows you watch or what you have read. It's all second-hand. It's coming through a filter. It's a day late and a dollar short.

Military authorities reported that four U.S. soldiers were killed during an explosion that occurred as they were conducting combat operations yesterday in At Ta'mim province. In Anbar province, another soldier was killed in combat. Also, a sailor was killed during an explosion in Salah ad Din province.

This war occurs out of sight and out of mind. Six soldiers killed in Iraq yesterday? Will we see their bodies? Will we see their flag-draped coffins? Will we see their crying parents, wives or children. No, no and no. Such sights are not for the eyes of the American public. We like our wars quiet and kept off of the evening news.

I disagree with DTOM on many issues and will probably do so again in the future. But despite the fact that I have been in the armed forces and that gives me some limited insight, my knowledge is out of date and ends in the year 1980. There's bit a heck of a lot of changes in the military in 27 years. It makes as much sense for me to look down my nose and try to lecture DTOM on what's going on in Iraq as it would for him to try to give me lessons in Journalism 101.

In a contest between one guy who studies things in the abstract and from a safe distance and the other guy who is actually living the reality, I will always give the benefit of the doubt to the latter.

Sometimes, net2007, the smartest guy in a debate is the one who knows what he DOESN'T know. Know your limitations and acknowledge that everybody has to occasionally bow to someone with superior knowledge.



Manipulating numbers to make your point only demonstrates your skill with mathematics, net2007. Your understanding of human nature is totally screwed up.

You know your excuse for not serving? Don't you get it that thousands of other young men have excuses a million times better than yours and they aren't going to enlist either? You have made a projection of what could happen, not a real world study of what HAS happened and what WILL happen. You didn't respond to the link about the falling number of Black recruits in the military. It is significant when racial groups that have chosen the military to learn skills, pursue a career and serve their country, are opting to sit Bush's war out.

As many Young Republicans have made clear, while they support the war, they aren't going to fight it. So, if those who could won't and those who have in the past aren't willing to do so now, who does that leave?



You are misstating what I wrote, net2007. My son is NOT interested in enlisting. He has a very bright future ahead of him and a choice among some of the finest colleges in the country. Why the hell would he throw that away so he could get shot or blown up in a craphole like Iraq?

What I said was my son listened to the recruiter's sale pitch and found it interesting. However, you must have missed this part of the story: I sat him down and told him when I joined the military I was fresh out of high school with no ambition to go to college and no clue as to what I wanted to do next. I hadn't busted my buns in school and there were no colleges bombarding me with brochures and invitations to come down for a visit (as is the case with him). Yes, I informed him, The Army does have a marching band and they may even need a new trombone player, but there isn't a lot of call for trombone players in Baghdad. They need boots on the ground there and The Army is always on the look-out for warm bodies to fill those boots.

What I told my son was IF his heart's desire was to join the military, I wouldn't stand in his way (though his mother would sooner cut his hamstrings than send her only son off to war). But I added, "If you had said you played basketball, the recruiter would have told you about the Army's great basketball team. If you had said you played on the chess team, he would have told you about the world-class chess teams in the Army. He would have told you pretty much anything it takes to get you to sign on the dotted line. That's not to say he was lying. But he sure wasn't going to tell you to join the Army and see beautiful Iraq."

Get it now, net2007? I don't WANT my son to join the Army. If he wants to, I'd allow him, but I know that he doesn't want to be in the military. He isn't particularly brave, has never demonstrated any interest in guns or traveling to foreign countries and being shot at and doesn't look good in drab green.

It will be a cold day in hell when I smile and send my son to fight and die for the glory of George W. Bush.

Being in the military has little or nothing to do with George W Bush NT. You know that... or should be bright enough to know that anyone that enlists, goes to Basic, MOS school, and OCS will be working for a new Commander in Chief. In the Marine Corps, that process is long over a year, particularly dependant upon when they get shipped off. Even in the Army there's a 99.9% chance that they would never actually serve under GW, barring being an enlisted soldier.

Furthermore, you mentioned your son going to college, which adds no less than an add'l 4 years.

They may go to Iraq... but frankly, doesn't Congress have the power to end this? Aren't the democrats at the helm there?

Again, I'm not a GW fan, but I believe it to be woefully nearsighted to make it into the same ol' liberal talking point. 'BUSH LIED AND SOLJAZ DIED'. Good job Michael Moore. Brilliant.

Regardless of how we got there, we're only staying because Congress says so.

Furthermore, the military is a noble cause, can pay for schooling, can give a young man or woman the ability to see the world, and of course is the corner stone to our successful national security in contemporary history.

I want to say something about the war debate here in general, but first I have something to say to net2007.



The idea of enlisting interested you except -- let's be honest now -- you didn't have the guts to go down and do it. Your medical problem wasn't something that you were talking about a few months ago, and its obvious that whatever it is, you've concocted it. When I hear that you've taken a military physical and they've rejected you, I'll change my opinion. It's unbelievably pathetic to read that you concocted what your nickname would be just if you ever did enlist. So notwithstanding that you are an "strong" war supporter with your mouth, you are not an actual war sup