Why we need to leave Iraq ASAP-from someone who is over there

[kpete]

Why we need to leave Iraq ASAP-from someone who is over there.
by djtyg
Tue Feb 28, 2006 at 10:12:45 AM PDT
For the record, I'm actually on leave from Iraq. But if you think I'm going to post this from an internet room at my base's MWR, you're freakin' nuts. I've worried about Bush tapping those lines long before we found out he was tapping phones without a warrant in the good old US of A.

................

Currently our troop strength is bleak. Most of the "old Army" is gone now. Almost all of the Soldiers that I knew who had 15+ years in have since retired and left the military. They leave because they are tired of deploying and being away from their families. Now it's the rookies that are left fighting.

It may have been Clinton's Army that toppled Saddam, but it's Bush's Army that is left with the insurgents.

When I first left for Iraq, we had that problem. Most of our leadership had left after our first stint in OEF. To fix the gaping hole in our leadership, the brass decided to do 2 things:


Slap some extra rank on Soldiers and give them a leadership position they weren't ready for.


Take Soldiers who did have the rank and leadership position and put them in a job they weren't trained for (example: Artillery being put in charge of MPs).


As a result we have leadership that is too inexperienced and overwhelmed to do their job. But wait! It gets worse!

more at:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/28/121245/538

[never cry wolf]

1. I found this bit interesting

Soldiers are frustrated. Every soldier I have talked to says that they are getting out of the military when they get home. Every. One. Of. Them. Regardless of rank, experience, or time in, they all want out. There has not been a single Soldier I've talked to that says they want to stay in. This include officers, NCOs, and rookies who are on their first tour of duty.

[AwakeAtLast]

6. Yep.

I posted a thread a while back about my husband's unit. They have 150
in their unit. Maybe 30 of them are staying in when they get back. I
said *maybe*. Even the guys who only have a little time left before they
can retire are jumping ship. My thread then said to extrapolate that out
to the entire military, and we have a problem.

That thread sank like a stone, but hopefully we will get the idea that we
as a country are very vulnerable right now because we do need military
protection.

:hi:

[libodem]

2. So many young soldiers sign up for the school money

so they can go to college. Now it may cost them their life. A college education can literally cost an arm and a leg. Our kids are used like expendable resources. I am sick for my 23 y/o nephew in northern Baghdad.

[genie_weenie]

9. Here's hoping he's safe!

My Marine brothers are back in Ramadi, they will be rotating out in shortly hopefully.

[starroute]

3. Bush is destroying the military

Great meme to pass around.

[ladjf]

4. If Saddam were re-instated as President, do you believe that

he could restore order at least to the level it was prior to the U.S. invasion? Just a rhetorical question.

[ugarte]

10. Nope. That horse is out of the barn...

Shiites are armed now, would never go back to the old days.

[ugarte]

5. I think Bush wants a crappy army of nitwits and druggies

That way when he sics 'em on the American people, they'll just follow orders.

[acmejack]

7. It will take twenty years or so to recover

Just like after Vietnam. No one wanted to serve for years afterward.

[Javaman]

12. That is of course if the repukes don't throw every election from now until

then and an actual Democrat can get reelected fairly.

[demigoddess]

8. we(smart dems) knew going in this would happen

The part I can't get a hold on is that the repubs put Sadaam in power and supported him for a couple of decades and then decided to get rid of him. For what? A really good photo op? So bush could say he was a war president? So bush could say he did better than poppy? All of the above? Ruin our military and get a few approval points.

[enigma000]

11. I don't think this was planned

The West supported (bribed) Saddam to get him to favour the West not the USSR. As well, during the Iran-Iraq was he was seen as the lesser of two evils. BTW: Democrats were in office during the year of the Baathist coup (1963) and Saddam's accession to President (1979)