Stop the Insanity:Gates wants 98,000 More

Originally posted by polanksi
I'm aware it's for the long war and to fight terrorism but that certainly indicates that any peace in Iraq or anywhere else on earth is probably a very remote possibility. They are also ratcheting up the rhetoric on Iran and Syria. I fail to see how increasing the size of our military will lead to peace, but then I quess 'War is Peace'

"If you want peace, you have to be prepared for war."

Burying your head in the sand isn't a viable foreign policy option either.

Originally posted by Mezzanine

Originally posted by pugachev
You're wrong. He said to fight against terrorism because that's what we are war against. He's talking about increasing the over all military size. They were speaking about this same statement earlier on the news.

[edit on 1/11/07 by pugachev]

Just out of curiosity, where do you think alot of those troops are going to go?

even if half of those troops to go infastructure and other bases around the world (and I think half is a pretty generous estimate), thats just under 50,000 troops designated for combat in Iraq or wherever else this war spreads to in the region.

Dont kid yourself, many more thousands of American young people are going to die in Iraq. The reason we havent seen the body count in Iraq that Nam had is because we havent sent over that many people... yet.

Okay, to make this clear, so that it doesn't have to keep being repeated-
The increase of 92,000 or 98,000(or whatever the exact figure), is to the overall force structure of the Active Duty Army and USMC. This number isn't related to the 21,500 being sent over in the surge. It is to address the problem that at the current force levels, the ground forces are spread thin, and have frequent rotations down range. With those additional forces, you could reduce the number of deployments each unit has to make, and increase readiness because units have the down time to train and refit. In otherwords, the Army currently is authorized 512,000 soldiers, and this would increase the size to 602,000. The USMC has roughly 177,000 now, and would go up to 185,000 roughly. This would also give us the flexibility to respond to other potential crises if need be. In 1991, the Army had 785,000, the USMC had 190,000+ by means of comparison, and the Navy and Air Force had more than the Army currently has, personnel wise. As for where the troops would go-hmm maybe Ft Bragg, Ft Gordon, Ft Benning, Ft Hood, Ft Carson, Ft Lewis, Ft Campbell, Ft Drum, Ft Stewart, etc.....basically you'd have 4 or 5 extra divisions added to the force. A larger active force reduces the need to over utilize Reserve/National Guard, and lessens the likelihood of the draft.
Nobody in the military wants a draft either. Experienced, professional soldiers/marines are much preferred to green troops fresh off the street, that don't want to be there(in service). It opens a can of worms in terms of morale, discipline, learning curves, etc...that their professional coworkers don't want to have to deal with.

Remind me what the war was for again..remind what the victims - including Iraqi civilians, American and British nationals - are all dying for? Or should we instead focus on 'bolstering' a show of force and support a pyrrhic victory?

It may be a good idea to know what one is fighting for before one is sent to war, especially on this scale. Perhaps when one is aware of the real reasons behind this Goddamn fiasco, one will be able to draw their own conclusions as to who the real enemies of democracy are.

[edit on 11-1-2007 by Ross Cross]