Gates said:

.... a "difficult but necessary interim step."

15 months seems like a long "interim".

What comes after interim? Perpetuity?

If I have it right, yesterday President Feeb told an American Legion audience that if Congress doesn't send him a supplemental funding bill without conditions **soon,** the military might be forced to extend tours in Iraq because the money is needed for training and equipping replacements. "In other words," delayed replacements = extended tours.

Let's set aside for the moment the fact that there were far greater delays under the Republican Congress without any servicepersons apparently having been deployed without necessary equipment (or, at least, not because of the delay).

What I'm really curious to see is how the "mainstream" press reports this - whether anyone besides Fox takes a "He warned them - now look!" approach. Fifty bucks says no one but Olbermann points out that the tour extension was obviously in the works long before Le Grand Feeb "warned" that it might become necessary because of Congressional attempts to rein him in.

light = dark

loud = quiet

tall = short

coming = staying there

I like watching Bush say one thing (ie. Troops is comin home soon) and then watching someone credible, with expertise say the exact opposite (Gates: No, they're not) as much as the next guy.

But seriously, when is enough going to be enough? If you're going to lie, at LEAST make sure the more qualified, respectable, appointee with expertise doesn't contradict you. You look like you've got no idea what you're talking about.

Which, really, I guess doesn't take much help.

If F. Scott Fitzgerald was right in saying:

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."

...then Sec. Gates and everyone associated with this Iraq war are all complete and utter geniuses. Of course, the fly in that ointment is the last phrase: "...still retain the ability to function." THAT remains to be seen. Not much sign of real functioning at the moment!

so they're going to exploit our current, already exhausted, personnel mercilessly and leave the next administration with NOTHING ... but the need for a draft to just-make-ends-meet.

Like attending the funerals of the fallen, apparently Bush-Cheney don't "do" recruitment pitches, leaving recruitment to poorly trained, severely "incentivized" young 'uns whose "creativity" has crossed the line into deliberate deception and even fraud frighteningly often.

and they're already scraping the bottom of the barrel.

IMHO, it's time for Bush/Cheney to make the round and do the stump speeches. There's an article out today about military bonuses and incentives.

More than $16000 was spent per recruit in 2005 on bonuses and other expenses. The Army in particular is paying more

url: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0412/p02s01-usmi.html

and then there are the reinlistment bonuses:

After four years of war in Iraq, the campaign to entice Army soldiers and Marines to stay in the military has passed the $1 billion mark.

An Associated Press review of military budgets finds that's what was spent on re-enlistment payments last year, compared with $174 million in 2003, when the war started.

Bonuses can range from a few thousand dollars, up to $150,000 for very senior special forces soldiers who re-up for six years.

So far, the extra cash appears to be working.

The active Army, the Guard and the Army Reserve are all on track to meet their re-enlistment goals for the fiscal year that will end Sept. 30.

url: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/militaryconnection/11609307/detail.html

more "throwing money" (our money, to fight a war we don't want, can't win and were tricked into)

While the verdict may still be out on who has been the worst President in U.S. History. I am pretty sure that we can now all agree that G.W. Bush is and has been the worst Commander-In Chief in American History..

He has failed our troops repeatedly from the very first from equipment, to poisoned water from Halliburton, to Kevlar vests to armored Humvee's, the disgrace of Walter Reed and other hosiptals and the mess and game playing of the VA system, to his failure and cowardice to attend a single funeral..!

Even that of Mike Spann's the first to fall in Afghanistan and who was a CIA Officer..which would have been properly symbolic and important..

His detachment from any sense of normalcy as a regular guy a fellow American citizen due to his own pampered and coddled background may be key to this, but who cares!

There's no excuse for his callous disregard for our troops and the accumulative stress and wear and tear these insane deployments are taking on our brothers and sisters and husbands and wifes and son and daughters..

President Bush's cowardice or collusion with or in the face of the enemy at Tora Bora is still not yet investigated and it was one or the other.

Let's hope cowardice, rather than collusion and giving aid and comfort to the enemy, but how was a truce for al-Qadea at Tora Bora not giving aid and comfort to the enemy? Who had just slaughtered so many of us and had declared war upon us the People of The United States..

The worst Commander-in-Chief in American History and the coward traitor of Tora Bora, ladies and gentlemen I present you G.W. Bush..!

In 1969, there was such an increase in fraggings in Vietnam that the Pentagon quietly stopped prosecuting the crime. I know this first-hand and personally because our company clerk was fragged by mistake as he left the latrine at around 23:00 one night. That was the usual time for our CO, a captain, to go use the facilities.

The guy who fragged him was a drunken asshole who was trying to kill the captain. He wound up killing a guy who everybody in the outfit liked. That company clerk's name is on the Wall along with all the 58,000 plus names up there. I don't know if his parents were ever given the true story of what happened.

But the man who killed him was brought up on homicide charges. Then the charges were reduced to "involuntary manslaughter." But after months of doing nothing, the court-marshal abruptly ended without explanation and the killer was given an Article 15 and mustered out with a dishonorable discharge. That prick lives somewhere in Okinawa. He probably married and raised a family. I wonder if they know what he did.

But the point is, by 1969 there were very few soldiers who still believed, if they ever did, that Vietnam was worth fighting for. They were sick of the bullshit and lies coming down from above. Nobody wanted to walk point. Nobody wanted to take a chance that they could be killed or maimed in that fucking shithole of a country for no good reason. Morale was broken. The officers knew it.

Even though today's military is a volunteer force, there are limits to how far you can push these men and women to the psychological breaking point. I personally think that telling a soldier who has 20 or 30 days left in country that he's being extended for 3 more months is a provocation for homicide, or suicide, or both.

The fact that it hasn't happened yet is testament to the dedication and discipline of today's soldiers. But if Gates and Bush keep pushing, the day will come when the troops start breaking down and pushing back.