One key and misunderstood point is the quality of recruits. In my experience as both a sailor and a soldier, most people who apply to join the military are rejected. This was even true during the Viet Nam War.

The issue is the quality of the applicant. The military is very selective. Pay attention to the enlistment standards. If they start to accept non high school grads, people with minor criminal records or less than average intelligence; then we have a problem.

The low recruiting levels are old news dude. Perhaps you've missed the bombings, Pat Tillmans thoughts on the validity of the war, something about a vote coming up and there is the issue of support for the war by the American public. Also that non sensical chart you have on the column means what? Only 2000 dead in Iraq is okay? Hitler and (why are we in Iraq?) are equal? 1939 and 2005 are completely different times and circumstances. The war is going to be the end of 43 and the GOP for sometime. You need to get some historical perspective and understanding of the issues of 1939 and 2005 before you start comparing.

There is actually an even deeper error in the logic here. Recruiting goals are not about expanding the force numbers, it is about maintaining. Putting aside for a moment whether the Cold War need to fight two wars simultaneously is somewhere we should continue to be, we are currently applying sadistic stop loss policies to keep our current troop strength. For every recruit we miss, that is equal to another tour for someone who has already put in his or her time- in many cases more than once already.

Add to that the fact that we currently have the largest call up of the reserves and (more importantly- as the hurricane demonstrated) the National Guard in modern history.

If we had all the "boots on the ground" we needed from the military, this would not be the case.

Stop "disassembling", as dear leader says. The reality of the now may not be completely bleak, but the trends are down not up. Only 2000 dead? Greeat! The medical miracles required to save thousands of others actually increase the costs on the home front by sending back many more badly injured soldiers.

Too cold a calcualtion, you say? I say it's too cold to strip them from their families in the first place while the president chokes back a half-hearted request to not drive our hummers too far or too fast.

Can anyone on that side of the spectrum see farther than the point of their noses? Stop the excuses and start thinking constructively about how to repair this broken vase we have purchased.

So the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 was wrong. Bill Lied?

It must be great to be a journalist, instead of someone who does actual work. You get to fling out wild speculation as if it represents serious thought, and if you are proved to have your head completely up your ass -- nothing happens! You're only really expected to be entertaining and provocative, not to get things right, either in the short or the long term.

Case in point here: responsible social scientists might debate at great length how to interpret these military recruitment numbers. Certainly they are not easy to interpret, since the changes are relatively tiny, the changes from service to service are not consistent, and finally and most importantly, the reasons why millions of people across the entire country might or might not join up are exceedingly difficult to summarize.

Indeed, the AP might as well have offered a guess as to why IBM's stock moved up instead of down on a given day, since it, too, is the result of millions of individual quirky decisions to buy and sell. Of course, if they'd done that, everyone would have said: that's crazy! No one can easily guess why IBM's stock moves up or down a trifle in a given year. It's the result of forces far too complex to be easily understood. If it were easy to understand why the stock moves as it does, you could predict how it will move in the future, and make a killing in the market.

Well, guess what? If it were easy to understand why recruitment is down slightly, then it would've been easy to foresee that it would be 12 months ago, and the people who are most interested in making accurate predictions -- the military, naturally -- would have foreseen this and adjusted their goals accordingly. They're not idiots. They know far better than the AP what will and will not affect recruiting, 'cause that's their lifeblood. So the recruitment goals are really recruitment predictions, and the failure to meet them is really a failure to predict recruitment accurately. And if the military can't do it, the AP sure as hell can't, which means any "explanation" they offer is the purest moondrift.

Now, if they actually worked for a living, they'd be on the hook for that moondrift. Decisions would be made, lives and dollars put on the line.

But, luckily, they're journalists -- fantasy hacks, would-be reality-TV writers, speculists. So it's OK.

When in doubt, bring up Clinton.
Works everytime.

1. Having questions or issues with the current administration's policies, doesn't make one a Clinton fan, or even a Democrat.
2. The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 is not necessarily relevant to what's going on today.

Regime change can be a fine goal.
But that doesn't mean that you have to go off half cocked, blundering into any country without thinking through the consequences.
Particularly when there are more important fish to fry.

syn,

While the assessment of journalists is fairly accurate, you conclusion does not even begin to follow. It applies to the "why did I not recruit someone today?" question, but forecasting concerned with trends. The trend of IBM's stock can most certainly be predicted based on financial performance, debt rating, etc. That in no way precludes the unforseen, but there a huge number of people whose only job is watching those numbers.

The Army did predict a falloff and they did tag that falloff to the two wars and cruel stop loss policies. Add to that the cost of retention awards now, and you are quite frankly talking out of your ass. Displaying deeper ignorance than most journalists.

Just because you know something is going to happen does not mean you have the means to prevent it. The military has upped significantly the money to people signing on and resigning along with reducing the quality standards for recruits. If that is not an indication of foreknowledge, then what is?

This is a comment on Patco13's comment: You misunderstand the data. The force numbers are accession numbers, meaning a measure of the increase in forces, not replacement numbers. The services have met their replacement goals and the Army slipped some on its expansion plan. Daffydd has it right that this is a miss on the 3% increase. Thus, the Army experienced by a small percentage a miss on a small percentage increase. Get it? We are talking about an extremely small impact here, and only an impact on the increase in forces.

You are right that this increase would likely provide better relief to those soldiers who are doing multiple tours, but the retention of those soldiers is exceeding goals. Thus it does not appear that the real impact of this miss is on the morale of our experienced service men.

What would be helpful is a breakdown of exactly which Army specialties are being affected and by how much. Are combat battalions being impacted, support personnel or are they being impacted equally?

My understanding is that the Army is not having a problem attracting individuals interested in combat (e.g. infantry), but are having problems attracting cooks, clerks etc. Many of these support positions can and should be civilianized anyway.

"Cruel stop loss policies".

Yes, it's certainly cruel to hold people to the contract they signed up for. Just because in peace time you get to retire after 20 years on active duty or you can go the inactive ready reserve pretty much at will, doesn't mean it's SOP.

I've been told many times in my 17 year career, that where I get stationed next/for how long, etc., depends on military needs, not my convenience or what some other people usually get - but on the military need at that time.

"Reducing the quality standards for recruits" - I've been hearing about this for years, but haven't seen much evidence for it.

"Upped significantly the money to people signing on and resigning" - there is a 5% unemployment rate in this country, which is about as low as it gets. The military has to compete for personnel just like every other employer, war or not.

How about scrapping the hopelessly antiquated practice of providing low pay to the troopos in return for the promise of a 20 year retirement down the road. How about paying the troops far more up front and giving the best troops an incentive to stay on? The current system encourages the dead wood to hang on and the top performaers to leave as soon as possible.

reporter = a spectator with a pen.

Lots of comments from folks who don't know diddly about the military. I've got 20 years in this summer, I'm heading back to Iraq with the 4th Infantry Division come November. This will be my third tour through Iraq. I'm an officer, so I don't "re-enlist," I simply stay on, so no comments from me on why I re-enlisted. I never have. But I know many soldiers who have, and I've talked to them about it. The reasons soldiers re-enlist are many and varied, but they all re-enlist with the full knowledge of what they will be expected to do if their unit is sent to Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or any other place where we want to kill terrorist. So whether it's the pay, the chance for seeing other countries, the retirement, the comraderie, the esprit de corps, or any number of things...it's still all done with the full knowledge of what soldiers are doing, and will continue to do, in war. If we miss enlisting a few thousand each year who aren't sure they are up to the task of being a soldier, then the Army, and those of us in the Army, are better off for it. If we continue to keep good soldiers at rates higher than expected, than again, we are better off for it.
The leftists in this country want to cheer those who choose not to join; that's fine by me. The fact that they do so safely, by no effort of their own, and still can't fathom why I choose to protect that right as they insult me, is such sweet irony. To me at least.
And if the news reporters all want to take a guess as to why, or why not, a young person chooses to serve, it's their right. Though they get it all wrong every time.
2006 is not going to be the test of whether young people still want to stand on the side of freedom. There will always be those of us who find the strength to believe in selfless service. Just as there will always be those who cannot understand why anyone would willing do what we do.
As always, you're welcome.

Um, I wrote "about as low as it gets, not "as low as it gets. Big difference.

And unemployment was 5%+ during Clinton's entire first term and only reached as low as 3.9% during his last few months in office.

But the point here is that there are other opportunities out there and with all the misinformation by the media out there, I think the enlistment rates and the commissioning rates are very good.

Yes, Presidents are equipped with all sorts of buttons, levers and are job recruiters responsible for finding each and every American a job. Has nothing to do with market forces, internet bubbles, Y2K scares, world events or terrorist attacks. Nothing at all. The Executive Branch is just one big manpower firm.

And unemployment is so terrible now in the US now, it's less than half the rate of socialist paradises like France and Germany.

Presidents aren't responsible for allocating federal money, Congress is. And the Republican Congress was responsible for the forecasted surpluses, which are all we ever obtained in any case.

Finally, while Clinton was doing absolutely nothing while in office besides groping interns, he failed to respond to the first attack on the World Trade Center, along with the attacks on our embassies in Africa, on Khobar Towers, on the USS Cole, and the attempted assissination of a former US president. Splendid work, Bill.

Now instead of a do-nothing, chair-warming, sociopath degenerate in the Oval Office, we have someone who is getting hell from the lunatic left for taking action to clean up the mess left behind by the corrupt and incompetent Clinton Administration.

"Loss of the war in Iraq". OK Clauswitz, I guess it's a "loss" when you completely depose the regime in charge of the country, destroy the enemy army and are now taking the military equivalent of teenage pranks (IEDs) from a "force" that holds not a square inch of territory and who each and every time they muster a force greater than 2, gets blown sky high to Allah.

But to the lunatic, terrorist supporting left, we have "lost" in Iraq. I guess we lost WWII as well then.

Yeah, well kool-aid doesn't cloud the mind to the facts - the crack the American left is smoking evidently does.

You must be getting your information from our esteemed media, the worthless hacks who are holed up in the Palestine Hotel bar and who are getting news tips from Al Jazeera.

The terrorists are almost exclusively foreign at this point as their targeting of the general population and reliance on suicide bombers has destroyed virtually all domestic support. They are increasingly fighting each other.

Planting IEDs and suicide bombings are loser tactics. Under fire from hostile forces? What forces? Every single time the terrorists muster any sort of force out in the open they are utterly destroyed. Next month, the Iraqi people will vote for a new constitution at a rate higher than the American people voted in the 2004 election. Polls indicate the Iraqi people want American troops to stay until the job is finished and that they are increasingly optimistic about the future of their country. Muslim support for terrorism is decreasing around the world.

I have no interest in whether you cheer your fictional developments or not, because you have no idea what's actually going on. You and people like you are trying to sap the morale of our troops and to spit on their accomplishments. Whether it's out of sheer ignorance or simple malice, I'm not sure.

The headline is deep. Dark. Scary:

Great stuff, as usual! The article also mentions: The active-duty Army had not missed its target since 1999, when it was 6,290 recruits short.

i wasn't political back then, but wonder if that 6,290 number made as many headlines as the 7,000 number?!? ;)

U.S. wasn't losing a war that had already claimed 2,000 lives

About 3,000 American lives were lost on September 11, 2001. BTW, America is not losing the War...check the facts.

unemployment rate was significantly lower than it is now

Once again...check the facts.

Anyway, 1999 or 2005...War or no War (Kosovo?), the MSM has been beating 'a dead horse' over and over and over again with this story for a year now, and we all know why.

Dafydd has brought up many interesting points and percentages in his post here...

KårmiÇømmünîs†

The lives lost on Sept. 11 have no relevance to this discussion, because Iraq had nothing to do with it.

Iraq supported Terrorists and Terrorism. Iraq even had connections with al-Qaida, and had al-Qaida members living freely in Iraq. Iraq had used WMDs. W gave Saddam's Iraq a chance to cooperate with the World Community, and Saddam refused.

Iraq under Saddam was on the wrong side in this War Against Terrorism...he is in jail, and his cronies are in serious trouble. If the Sunni want to go the route of a Civil War, then they will once again be on the wrong side...their choice, and time is running out on them.

If most Americans want another President like Bill Clinton, who ignored the threats of Terrorism, who ignored the numerous Terrorist Attacks against America during his eight year term, who ignored the offer of capturing Osama bin Laden easily, and who actually catered to Terrorists like Arafat, then let Americans elect another Democrat.

KårmiÇømmünîs†

Another thing ignored in the story is retention rates. It is the bathtub theorem: flow in and out determine the amount of water in the tub. The services are experiencing high retention rates and the force can expand even with less than targeted enlistments.

The targets are set before actual flows are experienced; shortfalls and overflows matter little.

I have a post on my site on this based on my research for the Air Force Human Resources Lab. It is at In and outflows and military force levels.

wilsonkolb,

Saddam received Zarqawi in 2002 on the lam from our other victory in Afghanistan. Saddam supported several AQ off-shoots in Iraq and his regime was rapidly Islamicizing. Examples are that all Ba'ath fascists had to attend six weeks of ersatz madrassa annually beginning in 1996, the Koranic phrase placed on the national flag, construction of the two largest mosques in the world, etc. Saddam's security force was training thousands of jihadists throughout the 90s as was AQ in Afghanistan. These men are reporting back to Iraq and being fed into the fight by cynical fascists and being killed in droves. The fascists have no ability to regenerate casualties and are fighting it with outsiders and poor people. If civil war ensues the Sunni population base for the fascist insurgency will be cleansed. Q: If AQ and Saddam were "bitter enemies", where was the conflict? The blown up Iraqi airliners and embassies, the murdered diplomats? Face it, AQ is the Murder, Inc. of the gulf's loser regimes and devoid of any ideology. That's why Saddam hired them to hit the USS Cole, the USAF barracks and US embassies monitoring his subversion of Oil-For-Food.

The Army's accessions (new recruits) are 7,000 below goal, but as the "Army also has increased its accessions goal by 30,000 soldiers over the next three years" -- actual accessions are not down, but up for 2005 over 2004. Source:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jul2004/n07152004%5F2004071503.html

The one thing you'll find in debates like this is the absolute lack of knowledge or experience on the left...zero...zip...nada.

Howard Deaniac talking points. When informed comments are made by career members of our military they're scoffed at.

Do you firking pagan supporters even have a clue how much you sound like Howdy Doody? Puppets on strings with wooden heads and long noses (...) one and all.

Wilson,

There is a significant difference sputtering and voicing frustration in dealing with wooden-headed puppets.

BTW, how the hell do you have enough knowledge of me to categorize me or anyone else? Wooden heads are unthinking...that's the whole point.

Actually I'm a liberal. The only problem is the term has been hijacked. Are you a Hijacker?

It is the bathtub theorem: flow in and out determine the amount of water in the tub.

"Troop Levels, Enlistments, and Reenlistments" - Great read and info, Art...

1) Abdul Rahman Yasin: Wanted by the FBI in connection to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. “Abdul Rahman Yasin fled to Iraq after the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993”, and has been interviewed in Iraq by CBS News' Lesley Stahl. “Shortly, after his birth, Yasin's family moved back to Iraq.” “After being recruited by Ramzi Yousef, he got a burn scar while mixing the chemicals for a bomb.”
http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/terrorists/teryasin.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Rahman_Yasin
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/05/31/60minutes/main510795.shtml

2) Abu Musab al Zarqawi: “Zarqawi's activities were not confined to a small corner of northeast Iraq. He traveled to Baghdad in May of 2002 for medical treatment, staying in the capital of Iraq for two months while he recuperated to fight another day. During his stay, nearly two dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there. These al-Qaida affiliates based in Baghdad coordinated the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network.” “He is believed to have fled to Iraq in 2001 after losing a leg in a US missile strike on his Afghan base (he now has an artificial leg).” “He has repeatedly picked up and moved across borders -- from Jordan to Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq.”
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/zarqawi.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Musab_al-Zarqawi
http://www.emergency.com/2004/abu_Musab_Zarqawi.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3483089.stm

That’s just two from a very long list of Saddam's connections to al-Qaida and other Terrorist groups. Funny how CBS News' forgot the Lesley Stahl interview Yasin in Iraq, huh.

wilsonknob,

Correct, Saddam was supremely evil like his idol (and that of the American Left) Josef V. Dzhugashvilli. They both used religion and nationalism to inspire the lumpen and usurp the patriot. I was not being ridiculous, I gave you facts of the Islamicizing of Iraq's fascist regime.

I am speculating (no evidence, yet) that Saddam hired AQ to do his bidding: Do you disagree with my thesis of their common objectives and lack of conflict?

Saddam's other terror connections include
Abdul Rahman Yasin, who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, and given refuge in Baghdad with terror-master Abu Nidal. Additionally, Saddam attempted to kill our former president, prompting the first of several ineffective strikes by President Clinton. This was (as far as I can determine) the last use of the IIS outside Iraq, leading to my speculation to his 'outsourcing' his work to AQ and other Islamic terror groups.

Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or Al Qaida, huh? Let's go to the unimpeachable CBSNEWS.com:

May 7, 2003 - Court Rules: Al Qaida, Iraq Linked

(CBS) A federal judge Wednesday ordered Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and others to pay early $104 million to the families of two Sept. 11 victims, saying there is evidence – though meager - that Iraq had a hand in the terrorist attacks.

The closely watched case was the first lawsuit against the terrorists believed responsible for the World Trade Center attack to reach the damages phase.

U.S. District Judge Harold Baer ordered that the damages be paid by bin Laden, al-Qaida, the Taliban, Saddam and the former Iraqi government. The judge ruled against them by default in January after they failed to respond to the lawsuits brought on behalf of two of the trade center dead.

[ ... ]

Beasley called Baer's finding "a significant victory" because it represented the first time a judge linked al-Qaida and Iraq in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In his ruling, Baer concluded that lawyers for the two victims "have shown, albeit barely ... that Iraq provided material support to bin Laden and al-Qaida" and collaborated in or supported al-Qaida's Sept. 11 attacks.

Baer said lawyers relied heavily on "classically hearsay" evidence, including reports that a Sept. 11 hijacker met an Iraqi consul to Prague, Secretary of State Colin Powell's remarks to the United Nations about connections between Iraq and terrorism, and defectors' descriptions of the use of an Iraq camp to train terrorists.

[ ... ]

"We have uncovered the financial connection between Iraq and al-Qaida," he said.

And we also have this outlining all the connections between Saddam/Iraq and terrorism/Al Qaida:

Saddam's Ties to Terrorism

Read up.

It kinda gets danced around, implied, but never really forthrightly stated. So let's state it. Neither AP nor the author, Burns, want the Army to succeed in any way. They want to embarrass the US military. They want recruiting efforts to fail, and the whole article and the supposed "data" contained within it are packaged and slanted towards those desired ends.

3) Mamdouh Mahmud Salim: “An Iraqi, Salim was born in 1958 and established links between al-Qaida and groups in Iraq and Lebanon.” “It is believed that Salim cofounded al-Qaida.” “Salim is not accused of a direct role in the embassy bombings, but he is charged with terror conspiracy charges that could bring a life sentence.” “He is also accused of managing Wadi Aqiq, bin Laden's umbrella company that procured communications equipment and conventional weapons for the organization.” Some...as in other Al Qaeda members know him as “Abu Hajer al Iraqi”. “Sure, he told them, he worked for Osama bin Laden—but only as a salaried employee managing bin Laden’s Sudanese agricultural business.” “Moreover, in the mid-nineties, the Iraq-born Salim supposedly put his knowledge and his nationality to use as Al Qaeda’s liaison to Iraqi intelligence.” “Indictment of Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, January 6, 1999”.
http://www.terrorismcentral.com/Library/Biographies/Bios/Salim/BioSalim.html
http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/01/28/salim.trial/
http://www.nymetro.com/nymetro/news/politics/columns/citypolitic/n_8454/
http://jya.com/alqfiles.htm

4) Ahmed Hikmat Shakir: “One thing we've learned about Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein is that the former dictator was a diligent record keeper. Coalition forces have found--literally--millions of documents.” “Our government sources, who have seen translations of the documents, say Shakir is listed with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.” “It is possible that the Ahmed Hikmat Shakir listed on the Fedayeen rosters is a different man from the Iraqi of the same name with the proven al Qaeda connections.” “Shakir was present at the January 2000 al Qaeda "summit" in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at which the 9/11 attacks were planned.” “According to sensitive reporting, a Malaysia-based Iraqi national (Shakir) facilitated the arrival of one of the Sept 11 hijackers for an operational meeting in Kuala Lumpur (Jan 2000).” “This panicked reaction, they said, reflected an interest in Shakir at the highest levels of Saddam Hussein's regime.”
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005133
http://www.atsnn.com/story/53830.html
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp?pg=2
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/152lndzv.asp?pg=2

Two more from a very long list of Saddam's connections to al-Qaida and other Terrorist groups.

Wilson,

You seem to say that Bush's blocking of the seizure of Iraqi assets implies that the Bush administrature disagrees with the verdict. It does no such thing. It only implies that they disagree with the punishment. That is, they don't believe that it is in our interest to punish the current Iraqi government for the sins of the previous Iraqi government.

Also, you lose credibility when you refuse to acknowledge the fact that Saddam knowingly aided and abeited members of Al Qaida.

While there is no evidence that Saddam had direct knowledge of Al Qaida operations, there is plenty of evidence of cooperation. Denying such evidence does not lead to the "truthful conversation" you purportedly desire.

Wilsonkolb:

In fact, in the 1980s the Reagan administration was perfectly comfortable with selling him anthrax and with his use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq War.

One of the few reasons I ever jump into a comments thread is when one of the participants writes something that is patently false... which is what you have done here.

There is no evidence whatsoever that "the Reagan administration" ever sold Hussein anthrax -- there is some suggestion than an American medical research facility gave a small amount to an Iraqi hospital, which was the normal response to any medical facility that said they wanted to develop a cure for some disease like anthrax.

That may have been naive on the part of that facility; but to suggest, as you have done, that it was given by "the Reagan administration" with the intent of helping Hussein weaponize anthrax is breathtaking in its dishonesty.

Likewise your entirely made-up assertion that the Reagan administration "was perfectly comfortable... with his use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq War."

At the time of the war, Iran was (rightly) seen as a bigger existential threat to the United States than Iraq -- as it is today. Reagan made the decision that it was better the two should fight each other than that either should turn its attention to the Saudi oil fields, or to our ally, Israel, or to Europe, or even the United States itself (bear in mind that one of the stated goals of the Iranian revolutionaries was "death to the Great Satan and the Little Satan").

We did not sell chemical weapons to Iraq; we barely sold them any weapons at all. They were a client state of the Soviet Union, not the United States, which is why their soldiers use Kalashnikovs and ride around in T-55s, T-62s, and T-72s, even today.

And the Reagan adminstration absolutely, publicly, and at a very high level condemned the use of chemical weapons by Iraq at the time. The idea that they "secretly" aided Iraq militarily, despite the attacks, come from anonymous "sources" who claim to be officers involved in deeply covert operations -- for example, see the infamous Patrick Tyler article in the New York Times, August 18th, 2002, where the accusation is made by unnamed sources, but all the denials are by people willing to use their own names.

But even if one accepted arguendo that the Reagan administration was willing to continue helping the Iraqis against the Iranians even after the use of gas -- used by both sides in that war, by the way -- that is not at all the same as saying they were "perfectly comfortable" with that use.

Rather, Reagan rightly calculated that it would be catastrophic if Iran were to capture the Saudi, Iraqi, and Kuwaiti oil fields, because then nearly 75% of the world's known oil reserves would be controlled by a deadly enemy of the United States.

Saying we were "perfectly comfortable" with Saddam's use of chemical weapons merely because we were desperate that Iran not win that war is as deeply and fundamentally dishonest as saying that our alliance with Stalin against Hitler proved that the Roosevelt administration was "perfectly comfortable" with Soviet slave-labor camps, the gulag, and mass executions.

(Not even Joseph Davies would have gone that far; he didn't say they were justified -- he simply convinced himself they weren't happening, which is completely different.)

I allow vigorous argumentation in the comments; that's what they're for. But I will not allow dishonest argumentation or the deliberate dissemination of falsehood. So have a care in the future, Mr. Kolb.

Thanks,

Dafydd

After surrendering following his loss in the first Gulf War, Saddam and his Iraq were placed on ‘Probation’...as in “To suspend hostilities, to spare himself, Iraq's dictator accepted a series of commitments.”

Saddam immediately broke the terms of his original ‘Probation’ (UN Security Council Resolution 688, if i recall correctly)...as Violation of Probation. The UN and its Security Council apparently forgave Saddam for violating that first (amongst a few others) UN Security Council Resolution, and just issued another UN Security Council Resolution, then another, then another, then another, etcetera as Saddam continued to break some 14-17 UN Security Council Resolutions over the next 10 years or so...so to speak whilst wishing that i had had the UN and its Security Council as my Parole/Probation Officer.

Basically, Saddam broke the terms of his ‘Probation’ over and over again, and got away with it until Parole/Probation Officer W showed up. W worked with the UN and its Security Council, and gave Saddam one last chance...UN Security Council Resolution 1441. Saddam blew his last chance...

Wilson,

You are delusional if you believe the liberal group-think that Bush is a moron.

I will not waste my time corresponding with anyone that spews such tripe.

(I tried to post this yesterday, but it didn't show up....so I'm trying again.)

Dafydd,

Your attempt to attack the AP article here fails to understand the point of the AP article and overemphasizes retention.

First, the AP article states that we need 30-50,000 to meet overseas commitments. We currently have about 18,000 troops in Afghanistan and about 140,000 troops in Iraq. That's about 160,000 in current overseas conflicts. If these 30-50,000 troops are utilized for Iraq/Afghanistan, then this would increase the number of troops there by 19-31%. It's true that 30-50,000 troops are a small number with regards to the entire army. But the article points out that these troops are important for overseas commitments, not the entire Army.

You note that the Army may miss its recruitment goals by only 8.75% and is only .7% of the entire Army. True...but that's not the point of the article. The article notes that this is the worst shortfall in recruiting since 1979, and this demonstrates that it would be difficult to increase the size of the Army by 30-50,000 troops.

Also, you mention that the Army has exceeded its recruitment goals over the last four months. Interestingly, the Wall Street Journal, in June, published an article entitled To Fill Ranks, Army Acts To Retain Even Problem Enlistees. In this article, they note that batalion commanders can't bounce soldiers for "poor fitness, pregnancy, alcohol and drug abuse or generally unsatisfactory performance."

Why brag about meeting recruitment levels recently when the Army has (recently) decided to lower its standards for recruitment?

Then you note that soldiers are "re-enlisting in such huge numbers, easily exceeding retention goals". First, do you have any evidence that they're "easily exceeding retention goals"? And more importantly, what were the re-enlistment goals? First, we have no idea what percentage of troops were expected to re-enlist to make retention, and we have no idea if these retention percentages have changed over time. If the retention percentage goal was high, then meeting re-enlistment has some meaning. However, if the retention percentage was either relatively low or has decreased over time, then making this goal is less impressive.

More importantly, what number of Army members re-enlisted? I haven't been able to find anything for 2005, and (interestingly) the Army hasn't published actual retention figures in their last four recruitment and retention press releases (see the numbers for August 2005 and note that all numbers are published except for active duty retention).

The only numbers I've been able to to find for Army retention were from 2003. In that year, the Army recruiting goal was 76,000, close to this year's goal. What was the retention goal? 13,833. They made their retention goal that year with 14,599 soldiers staying.

Now we have no data for 2005, and it's possible (though highly unlikely) that the goal for this year is much much larger. But if retention goals are similar for 2005, then making retention isn't as impressive as Dafydd is making it out to be. In fact, these numbers highlight the need for recruitment. 7,000 non-enlistees is almost half of a retention goal of 15,000.

The AP story isn't some example of liberal media bias. They're simply telling that the Army is having problems recruiting, an important thing to know for the purpose of seeing how easy/difficult it would be to add to our active forces.

One post was deleted for duplication; one post was deleted for making a direct personal attack on the site owner.

WARNING: Such attacks are violations of the comments policy, which can be found here.

Penalty for first abuse: comment gets nuked. Subsequent abuses receive more severe penalties.

Dafydd

Wilson Kolb:

Having read carefully through the entire list, I note that it consists of two duplicates of one claim by Iraqis that they got stuff from American sources and subsequently weaponized it; nine duplicates of a single claim that the Democratic-controlled House Banking Committee held hearings and determined that the Commerce Department had failed to block the sale of various dual-use materials; and several irrelevant claims that seem not to have any relation to the issue at hand.

In other words, just what I said before: private American companies selling materials to Iraq that could be used for chemical or biological weapons, but also could be used for non-war purposes. Considering that the Left today utterly refuses to accept the existence of dual-use technologies as evidence of the continued presence of WMD in Iraq, I don't see any reason to allow them to offer the very same dual-use technologies as evidence of the perfidy of the Reagan Commerce Department.

But this is all irrelevant, because that is not what you charged in any event. You did not say "Reagan was insufficiently strict in preventing dual-use technologies from ending up in Hussein's hands."

You alleged the following:

In fact, in the 1980s the Reagan administration was perfectly comfortable with selling [Hussein] anthrax and with his use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq War.

I don't know what you think you have demonstrated, but it doesn't even begin to approach what you charged. At best, you demonstrate that Iraq will take materials intended to be used for peaceful purposes -- such as "insecticides" -- and pervert them for horrific violence instead... which sounds like yet another great reason to impose regime change by force.

The reason you cannot find evidence to support your charge is that your charge is completely off the deep end. Yyou may want to believe Ronald Reagan was a Hitleresque figure of cosmic evil; but there is no shred of evidence that Reagan supported Hussein's use of chemical weapons or his development of biological and nuclear weapons, and not even a juicy rumor that Reagan was an accessory. It's complete nonsense.

You cannot prove nonsense, so you may as well stop trying. This is a Leftist, black-helicopter, conspiracy fantasy... similar to the idea that it was really the Israelis who destroyed the World Trade Centers, or that Bush sent sappers out to blow up the New Orleans levies to kill all the black people.

Dafydd

Wilson Kolb:

1. Is there a rule against a moderator making a false charge that I regard Reagan as "Hitleresque," or is lying and hypocrisy permitted if you run the site?

The moderator makes the rules. There is no appeal to anyone but the moderator. The moderator is bound by no rules whatsoever. Nobody else has any rights. This is an absolute dictatorship.

2. May I post the equivalent of mmpost99's allegation that "you are delusional if ..."? Or will this being a swift ban because only personal attacks from non-conservatives are scrutinized?

Yes. If you are clearly expressing contempt for an idea, rather than the individual, you can use the formulation used by mmpost99 thus:

You are delusional if you believe [fill in the blank].

The rules are not enunciated to inhibit but to ease communication. Although I am under no obligation to do so, I will interpret them as liberally as possible to facilitate free speech. Note, for example, how many of your rude, foot-stamping comments I have not nuked.

I have a comments policy; if you ever want to look it over, you can easily find it: it's the only post that will ever have the category "Comments For Reptiles"... so simply click on that category in the cat list in the sidebar up above you.

Comments that violate that policy will be edited (if it's minor) or nuked (if it's major, or if the commenter is a major pain in the butt) whether or not I agree with the argument or sentiment of the comment.

If you avoid stating blatant falsehoods, I won't even enter into the discussion; you can duke it out with the entire rest of the crew if you want.

If you make statements I consider blatantly false, I will step in and argue with you. But you still will not suffer any penalties unless and until you actually violate the commenting policy.

It is not a violation of the commenting policy to disagree with the host. Plenty of others have done so and have not had their comments zapped. The only other comments I torched (other than spam for a penis enlarger) were by a person I disagreed with and by a person I completely agreed with when their cheerful self-expression degenerated into obscenities.

I am not a conservative; I am a libertarian. I love the free exchange of ideas. But I also believe that bullying and intimidation inhibit that exchange.

'Nuff said.

Dafydd

"The current president entered office with an unemployment rate of 4.2% in January 2001. It is now 4.9%, which means that the rate has worsened by about one-sixth during Bush's time in office thus far." Posted by wilsonkolb at September 30, 2005 12:54 PM

So let me see, following your reasoning (if you can call it that) if another president entered office with an unemplyment rate of 3.3% and it rose to 4% ("worsened" by nearly 1/5th), that would be even 'worse' than Bush?

Please keep flailing away, I find it very entertaining.

(other than spam for a penis enlarger)

Humble Low and Ignorant Insane swamp hermit me invented a new product last year, and i started my first business. i must not be a very good businessman, because my business is still struggling?!? Perhaps i should try spamming. Dafydd, do you have rules against spam for a Penis Shrinker/Reducer? ;)

Wilson Kolb:

It's good to know that you make no pretenses in that direction, because you'd be delusional if you made such a claim.

Hey, I hope you're not prejudiced against us delusional reptiles!

Dafydd

wilsonknob,

Fact is there's no evidence of contacts between Saddamn and al-Zarqawi.

-Zarqawi entered the police state of Iraq. That state had given refuge to a top AQ
member, along with the WTC bomber and Abu Nidal.

Even if there had been such contacts, there is no evidence that al-Zarqawi was involved in 9/11. Even if he was so involved, there is no evidence that Hussein knew of it in advance.

-Didn’t have to. This government was quite clear what it was going to do to nations that harbored AQ.

None of this is to say that Saddam was anything was a psycho killer, or that al-Zarqawi is a bad guy. But the fact is that Saddam was OUR psycho killer throughout the 1980s,

-Well, no. He was given UNESCO awards in the 80s and is still feted by the American Left for his ‘secularism’, education and stands on women’s rights, kite flying, etc. He was not ‘our’ psycho killer, he rose to power in a sovereign state and we were forced to deal with him. Maybe we should have listened to Wolfowitz (‘Vulfervitz’) and whacked him in 1976.

and al-Zarqawi is just another of many Arab terrorists. To me, he sounds as much like a mercenary as anything, but I'm no authority.

-This was my point earlier about ‘Murder, Inc.’; I think the entire AQ outfit is mercenary (think of the Euro-terrorists in the film Die-Hard) with a thin vineer of Koran for the ‘cruits.

One thing is clear, though, and that's that the link claimed by the Bush administration to al-Zarqawi was never proven, nor was al-Zarqawi's involvment in anything that would give rise to a justification for a $200+ billion attack on Iraq with the loss of 2,000 American lives.

-What would be? The repeated violations of UNSC ‘resolutions’, the genocide, the corruption of the UN via OFF resulting in the killing of 50k children per year, the harboring of international terrorists, the destruction of the marshes and its people, the violation of the cease-fire agreements, the attempted killing of our former president? What would it take? We sat out the Balkan and Rwandan genocides, would those have been worth American lives? The troops think that it's worth it, as they are re-enlisting. Have you spoken to any of them?

Conclusion: The so-called terror connections were just another of Bush pretexts for the invasion. I think the real reason for the invasion was probably neo-imperalism on the part of those who pushed for it.

-What would President Bush have said to convince you? Or is your dislike for him discredit any arguement? You appear to consider the continued starvation and bombardment of Iraq since the 90s acceptable, is that correct? What about our attacks on Sudan? Is our continued presence in Bosnia and Kosovo neo-Imperialism? What about our Somalia, Haiti, Liberia and Seirra Leone interventions? Do you think we should do anything (else) militarily in Darfur? Or Zimbabwe?

-We either act as the world's policeman (or chief) or we live in a world without them.

wilsonkolb,

You fail to understand history, strategic theory and its practice. You are insulting to our nation, its allies and my intelligence. End of discussion.

Thanks for hissing in, . Now you can slither in with a comment, o wise. (sign out)