Friendly advice.

“Oliver, it constantly amazes me how many Republican apologists come here and try to drown out the facts with talking points.

One should not be “constantly amazed” about anything. I mean a few times, then a few times more maybe, but if you are “constantly” amazed by the same thing, it says something about you - something’s a little off-kilter. Think about it. And if I have enriched your day with this little gem of wisdom, why no thanks are necessary.

Dugger, I am the monarch of the keyboard, ruler of the “something that rhymes with keyboard”.

Great news, JD!

Good to hear that especially after traitorous cowards tell us otherwise.

Other traitors sound similar messages:

“There is no question that the force is stretched too thin,” said David Segal, director of the Center for Research on Military Organization at the University of Maryland. “We have stopped treating the reserves as a force in reserve. Our volunteer army is closer to being broken today than ever before in its 30-year history.”

Numerous critics and outside defense policy groups have warned that the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has taxed the Army so badly that it will have difficulty meeting any new crises elsewhere, but the new assessment comes from an in-house undertaking prepared by the RAND Corp.’s Arroyo Center, the Army’s own federally funded research institute.

“The challenge the Army faces is profound,” senior RAND analyst Lynn Davis, lead author of the report, said in a statement accompanying the study’s completion. “Any approach is fraught with risks and uncertainties, along with significant costs and some possible changes in the Army’s long-term goals.”

Even as the Army was studying the report, it announced Monday that it is augmenting its troop strength in Afghanistan this month with a battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division that just returned from Iraq in March. And the Army’s latest monthly recruitment figures released Monday show the service and its reserve components likely will not meet recruitment goals for this fiscal year.

The report - “Stretched Thin: Army Forces for Sustained Operations” - was to have been released Monday, but a RAND spokeswoman said it had been postponed to allow “further review” by the Army. Nonetheless, Davis indicated the report raises significant questions about the Army’s future and the burdens the Pentagon and taxpayers will have to bear to field adequate forces for the country’s needs.

The study further calls into question the Pentagon’s ability to carry out its policy of maintaining the capacity to fight two major regional wars simultaneously while also providing troops for national security at home and waging the Bush administration’s war on terrorism.

Kinda tough on the Iraqis, but I guess we all figure, “Better them than us.”

Upcoming period of time? It’s called a “year.” LOL.

Here’s another quote from this article:

“It now seems unlikely that the Army will achieve its goal,” said Representative John M. McHugh, a New York Republican who is head of the House panel, and who predicted that the Army could fail by as many as 7,000 people for the recruiting year that ends on Sept. 30.
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You’re being held to task in this thread by me and others, and now you’re grasping. at anything that will make you look like less of a dishonest fool than you already are.

JK

George Bush, cheap shot, nuking everything, that pretty well sums up the mentality of the necon republicans. So much for Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt.

“We will likely miss recruiting missions for all three components,” said General Hagenbeck, voicing publicly what many senior Army officials have said privately for weeks.

_

Can you at least attempt honesty here?

I can’t stomach you clowns any longer. The stakes are *so* high…and all people of your ilk can do is resort to GOP talking points and carry water for this administration.

You are a dishonest person. I can’t be any clearer.

JK

So the goals were lowered. Apparently the Pentagon thinks we can get by with the newer goals. At any rate, goals are always subject to change.

Explain what is wrong about the recent reports that active duty re-enlistments are occurring at rates higher than expected. I have seen nothing to refute that.

Except those numbers aren’t real, because the Pentagon lowered its targets so they could claim they exceeded them. It’s true that re-enlistment numbers are better than expected, though.

Patently false. The Pentagon has also broached the subject. The reason DoD has done so is because if troop commitments to Iraq and Afghanistan remain constant by Summer of 06, the armed services will be forced to either make personnel cutbacks in Iraq/Afghanistan or other areas or the military will be compelled to boost recruitment via other means, like the draft.

the most recent recruitment goals were met

Debunked. Again, summer is the prime recruiting time as HS seniors enter the market. Additionally, the military just lowered recruiting goals and are offering greater recruitment incentives. Additionally, DoD has raised age eligibility to 38, IIRC.

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-945789.php

current members of the military are re-enlisting at rates far greater than expected

Also untrue.

Then again, I’d expect that from someone with your ideological bent. Honesty and straight-shooting are in short-supply on the right these days.

If the tables were turned, and a President Albert Gore had started this conflict based on false intelligence, Impeachment proceedings would have already begun in a Republican controlled Congress.

From Karl Rove on down, the right has no moral center. Sure…Democrats overwhelmingly voted for the war. Seems like they’re the only ones these days that are holding anyone f-ing accountable for that decision.

I repeat…it’s one thing to stick by your guy when he’s got his hands up a blue dress…it’ s quite another when we’re talking about 1,700 dead troops, Karl Rove, and inflated intellegence efforts.

You guys have no moral compass these days. Shame.

JK

Think of how tiresome it must be for some family who is missing a father, mother, brother or sister gone to war while GOP chickenhawks wave their pom-poms back home.

Tell us, JD–did you serve? If not, what’s stopping you?

Pity more of your GOP cronies haven’t the stones to do likewise.

This is true. But not really.

First of all, summer is when schools let out and is typically prime time for military recruiting. Second, recruiting goals were recently lowered–so meeting the new, lower goals isn’t much of an achievement–especially in light of the fact of the first point.

Yes, I did serve during the Gulf War, and under President Clinton. I received a medical discharged after having knee surgery from a service related injury.

Currently, one of my younger brothers is working for KBR in Baghdad, and my youngest brother just returned where he was doing the same in Basra.

Is that sufficent for you ?