Hi Hawkmoon; Re: "Which is one of the reasons [i.e. tooth to tail ratios] I believe we're seeing more and more contractors (normally prior military) being hired to replace the support units and free up "trigger pullers"."
And it was a great idea, except it is generating a fairly nasty problem right now. Halliburton had 6 more employees lost (this time apparently by kidnapping) to the rebels, and have consequently suspended some convoys from running. I would guess that this would put a dent into our ability to carry on offensive operations, but maybe not.
Re: "But once again... Would you rather we have hundreds of thousands of them 5-10 years from now?"
If that were the choice, sure I'd prefer the thousands of casualties now. But it is only the judgement of "Hawkmoon" that says that that is the choice. Your judgement on Iraq, and various other parts of our foreign affairs has already been impeached multiple times.
Hey, if you'd been right about all those WMDs that Iraq had, or the ideas about getting the Arab states to send in troops, or about how the UN was going to stick it out, maybe someone would trust your judgement about what's going to happen after we pull out of Iraq.
It's not like the neocons are like Cassandra, forecasting doom, and being hated for it. The problem is that they forecast oodles of crap that turned out to be fantasy.
If it was the neocon plan to get us into a war in Iraq that would require a return to the draft, then they can blame themselves for not informing the US public about this before we went in. Maybe they'd have been listened to, though I doubt it.
But go back and look at the arguments before the war. People like me and Shinseki were saying that Iraq would require 20 soldiers per 1000 Iraqis as an occupation force, at least. The neocons were saying that they could conquer Iraq with what amounts to 0.4 (special forces) per 1000. The military forced them to up the size to 10 (lousy tooth to tail ratio regulars) per 1000. That size wasn't large enough to even briefly enforce order in the country, so there was wholesale looting until the Iraqis themselves began filling the power vacuum with forces now generally hostile to the US.
In other words, for people who look only to the "track record" of those counseling a solution for the Iraq problem, the neocons look inadequate.
-- Carl
P.S. Hey, Kabars don't take rounds, so we can expect the marines to fight on. |
