Bubba, They've raised the age limit for army enrollment to 39. 39 is the new 30. I think you should get some fake ID and sign up. Then again, wait a few months, and they will probably raise the enrollment age to 50. Then you won't have to lie.
Your country needs you, bubba!
Iraq chaos threatens troop withdrawal
By Paul Reynolds
World affairs correspondent, BBC News website
How long will coalition troops remain in Iraq?
The chaos that has overtaken Iraq is now threatening hopes among the US and its allies that they might be able to start significant troop withdrawals in the coming months.
Such withdrawals have always been conditional on the security situation and that situation is, to say the least, on a knife-edge following the bombing of the Shia al-Askari shrine in Samarra and the subsequent retaliations.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has already publicly expressed his concern over the effect of increased sectarian tensions on embryonic troop withdrawal plans.
"There's no early prospect of all coalition forces being withdrawn, although until this latest event the signs were looking good," he told Australian radio.
The foreign forces are now in a predicament - their presence adds to the violence yet they are not withdrawn for fear that the violence might get worse. They are part of the problem and not enough of the answer.
I say "part of the problem" because the attack on the shrine indicates that something else is going on in Iraq beyond getting the troops out.
The Sunni-led insurgents, or at least the powerful Islamist elements among them, want to turn on the Shias, their religious rivals. The departure of US troops would, of course, make this much easier.
'Crafty enemy'
This is no great surprise. The insurgents have bombed Shia gatherings before, though this bombing is a step up because it symbolically attacks a whole branch of Islam.
Remember what the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, wrote in an intercepted letter two years ago.
According to the text released by the US State Department, he had this to say about the Shias: "[They are] the insurmountable obstacle, the lurking snake, the crafty and malicious scorpion, the spying enemy and the penetrating venom.
continued..........
news.bbc.co.uk
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