OMG....I know why the reservists and natl guard are being retained

[BostonTeaParty04]

Oh, it just dawned on me. Maybe everyone else is on top of this. But... ding, ding, ding, I just realized....

Extending deployment orders for national guard and reservists for 3 to 4 months.... basically keeps these troops from coming back to the USA... and mingling with the civilian public!

Rummy has to keep them under lock and key in Iraq.... so they don't ALL come back and start yapping their lips about what is really going on over there.

It is making sense to me now.

Can you imagine 1000s of eye-witnesses with direct knowledge about what is happening over there... coming home to their families and local news reporters and newspaper editors and churches etc etc etc????

I mean, somehow, we have about 40,000 more troops there than we did 6 months ago..... that was done totally under the radar.

[DarkPhenyx]

1. Makes sense.

I think it is more of a nice side benefit than the actual reason though.

[NNN0LHI]

2. No more two week trips home for R&R either

They stopped that soon after it began.

Don

[mouse7]

3. Actually, the 2 week leaves in US ended because of all the AWOLs

People came home and didn't go back. Lots of them.

[leanings]

8. Hadn't heard that.

Gotta link?

[lil-petunia]

4. what about voting?

Did you consider that they may be kept there until after early November because the military mail and voting structures are so foul?
It keeps those 40,000 anti-Bush votes safely tucked away in Iraq.

There are good reasons for having extra troop there. (Even if you hate the fact that we went there on such flimsy excuses - like me) Once we attacked, we became responsible (man, what a topic to tie to the Bush Administration - responsibility) and we had to make things work. Ret General Zinni became an ex general because he spake the truth - and said, you will need 200k soldiers to get this job done. Rummie and his neocons disagreed. So he got retired, and the US army got screwed. If we are to leave Iraq, we have to leave it in some healthier fashion. to get there, it will need more troop.

[Q]

5. I believe it's more about avoiding sending additional troops...

...more than anything else. Sending the required amount of troops (tens of thousands more) sends a 'quagmire' message and makes it look like the Bushies were wrong not to send more in the first place.

- It's a political decision before an election. Nothing more.

[Toucano]

6. I don't think so..

Doesn't the extension put them back in the US in August or September?

That's plenty of time to influence friends, family, and the election.

[Mari333]

7. a lot of the kids are coming home and telling the truth

if Michael came home he would tell the truth about how they are forcing his unit to watch the saddam statue falling over and over..and the kids are sick of it, sick of being there, sick of it all. The families are itching to file lawsuits, and they are holding our kids for ransom now too, and dangling them in front of us (believe me) and telling me and my husband, who have been very vocally anti war, to shut up. Thats what they have done to us. I wont shut up, but I have to be careful now.
You see NO press on the anger of the families, and when those kids do come home, they will have plenty to say to the press.
and they wont be signing back up.
They have been screwed, and the military families have been screwed. Totally.
http://www.bringthemhomenow.com

[tom_paine]

16. Jesus Christ, mari, forced to watch Faux News AND the Saddam Statue Pravda

:wtf: :wtf:

My God, some parts of this nation are beginning to look like the Old Soviet Union faster than others, eh?

Thank God I got out of the military. I could NOT keep my acerbic tongue quiet on this Soviet behavior.

OMG, that is as grotesque as ANY Soviet Pravda (and forcing the Subjects to watch it over and over and over...) I have ever heard of!

Say it ain't so, Mari!

[jean]

9. MN troops - when Rumsfeld announced the extensions our local news

reported Minnesota units were holding their breath but, so far, were not included in the units being extended.

The only other news of troops is about Gov Pawlenty attending funerals of (very young) marines killed in Iraq - I think there is a funeral today.

ding ding ding - is anyone keeping track of what units are being nailed and what states they're from? Pawlenty and Coleman are slavering bush boys - does that have anything to do with MN troops not being extended?

[blindpig]

10. well maybe that's part of it

but I also think we're going to see major offensive action in the next month or so in order to legitimise the dog & pony show on June 30. Coupled with more troops and the adoption of the Sharon line seems like the scum are throwing any lingering regard for Moslem or world opinion to the wind. It's going to be very ugly.

[radwriter0555]

11. Yes, this is also why the military doesn't provide transport home for

furloughs, because they know they'd have mass defections.

[seabeyond]

12. hey, good sight

:)

[SoCalDem]

13. It also makes the "unemployment figures" look a bit better

.. some of the guard and reservist's jobs have been taken by "part-timers or temps" whose "new" jobs count against the unemployment rates.

It also masks the fact that we really DO need a draft, if George is going to kick the whole world's ass, and they are trying to wait til after the election to drop that water balloon.. The longer they extend the reservists and guard, the longer they can keep those plates all a'spinnin'... Once they start to rotate back home, they will expect their jobs back (good luck), and a bunch of replacements will again be unemployed, the returnees will start reading up about why they were sent there..and they may not like what they read...and the vacuum they leve behind in Iraq, will need to be filled by someone..but whom?? Contrary to what the "news" says, people are NOT signing up in droves..

Factor into the mix, the fact that a lot of returnees will get sick or might already be sick from the DU they were exposed to, and they will not like the way they are treated by the VA once they try to get help..

[TXlib]

14. I'm not so sure about that.

What about WIA returning? Surely they'd have a lot to say about what's going on over there, and being wounded, would have many sympathetic listeners. I don't think it would do much more harm to Bush's re-elect chances to have non-wounded returning troops here, as well. Moreover, the majority of the military is die-hard republican, so I don't think keeping them over there to disenfranchise their vote is the goal, either.

Rumfeld's a bastard; don't get me wrong. He tried to do this war on the cheap, and now our troops are paying for it. We are stretched too thin there, and in Afghanistan, as well. Extending the tours of duty is about increasing troop strength.

We've bitten off more than we could chew, and finding it more difficult to swallow than Bush & cabinet thought.

[bloom]

15. I was thinking about the wounded being back, also....n/t

[OxQQme]

17. re: I'm not so sure---

Consider the 'brainwashing' of the returning troops, "You won't get any of the 'benefits' if you spill the beans ! "
De-briefing indeed.