Pentagon Board Finds U.S. May Need More Troops (Update1)

[seemslikeadream]

Oct 21 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. military lacks sufficient troops for post-combat ``stability and reconstruction'' operations, and should consider adding ``significant'' numbers, a review by the Pentagon's Defense Science Board found.

The report lists four main options for addressing what it calls an ``enduring shortfall'' of troops: enlarging the military, shifting combat troops to post-combat duties, turning to the United Nations or allies for assistance, or scaling back ``the number and/or objectives of stabilization missions.''

``We simply don't have enough forces for our overseas commitments,'' said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst and vice president of the Lexington Institute, a Washington research center, who was briefed by the Pentagon on the report. ``The implication is that money will have to be taken out of Navy and Air Force investment accounts to increase the size of the force.''

In Iraq, slow progress on reconstruction has helped fuel discontent with the U.S. occupation. Former U.S. administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer said earlier this month that the U.S. committed too few troops after the fall of Baghdad to maintain order and stop looting. President George W. Bush, who has been criticized by Democratic nominee John Kerry for failing to adequately plan to ``win the peace in Iraq,'' has said the all-volunteer military is sufficient to meet current and future needs.

more
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=ao.Pl.UOlnPQ&refer=top_world_news

[Eye and Monkey]

1. Not only a draft - but using the pension investments to fund it?

Or am I reading something into this?

from the article:
`The implication is that money will have to be taken out of Navy and Air Force investment accounts to increase the size of the force.''

[saigon68]

2. They are Liars

The draft will come, it will sneak up. Meanwhile a lot of MERCENARIES will make a lot of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[DulceDecorum]

3. Everlasting war

The study assumed the U.S. would embark on new operations abroad approximately every 18 months, which has been the trend since the U.S. sent troops to Bosnia in 1998.
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=ao.Pl.UOlnPQ&refer=top_world_news

The reason I support going to war in Iraq is not simply that Saddam is a cutthroat Stalinist willing to kill anyone to stay in power, nor because that regime has clearly supported terrorist networks over the years. The real reason I support a war like this is that the resulting long-term military commitment will finally force America to deal with the entire Gap as a strategic threat environment.
<snip>
The Middle East has long been a neighborhood of bullies eager to pick on the weak. Israel is still around because it has become—sadly—one of the toughest bullies on the block. The only thing that will change that nasty environment and open the floodgates for change is if some external power steps in and plays Leviathan full-time. Taking down Saddam, the region's bully-in-chief, will force the U. S. into playing that role far more fully than it has over the past several decades, primarily because Iraq is the Yugoslavia of the Middle East—a crossroads of civilizations that has historically required a dictatorship to keep the peace. As baby-sitting jobs go, this one will be a doozy, making our lengthy efforts in postwar Germany and Japan look simple in retrospect.

But it is the right thing to do, and now is the right time to do it, and we are the only country that can. Freedom cannot blossom in the Middle East without security, and security is this country's most influential public-sector export. By that I do not mean arms exports, but basically the attention paid by our military forces to any region's potential for mass violence. We are the only nation on earth capable of exporting security in a sustained fashion, and we have a very good track record of doing it.
http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2004/040510_mfe_barnett_1.html

In other words,
kill all the brown people.
Then kill all the black ones.
Enslave everyone else,
and above all,
buy US Treasury bonds from Cantor Fitzgerald.

Fund the Pentagon,
employ mercenaries,
and die for the glory
of the necon worldview and the American Empire.

ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS!

[LynnTheDem]

6. The Middle East has long been a neighborhood of bullies eager to pick on

the weak.

So the USA invades and occupies one of the weakest defenseless 3rd world SOVEREIGN nations in the Middle East; one that had never done a thing to America & never threatened to do a thing against America.

Biggest bully on the world block = US of A.

[MisterP]

8. I'm just waiting for children to be raised in the military and

trained from birth; their children will go on to be perfect soldiers as well, drugged-up and with their consciences salved at every turn. On for the Eternal Reich! The world is ours!

[goforit]

4. Not till you choose the right Commander n Chief to follow.

[barb162]

5. "In Iraq, slow progress on reconstruction...."

well, when insurgents blow up everything we fix and then we also have to fix everything we blew up or bombed in the first place, I would call that zero progress, not slow progress.

[Just Me]

7. PNAC "destines" a draft,...

,...and I freakin' wonder how many times Bush will L-I-E before our people finally acknowledge the neocon dozer which will run over us all.

We cannot be ignorant AND "free" (per Roosevelt)!!