Tuesday, April 10, 2007

The army is wearing out

This week Time has a very disturbing cover story on what the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are doing to the integrity and preparedness of the army.

Bush warned that if Democrats in Congress did not pass a bill to fund the war on his terms, "the price of that failure will be paid by our troops and their loved ones." But they are already paying a price for decisions he has made, and the larger costs are likely to be borne for at least a generation.

The article continues:

So it is no small irony that today's U.S. Army finds itself under the greatest strain in a generation. The Pentagon made that clear April 2 when it announced that two Army units will soon return to Iraq without even a year at home, compared with the two years units have traditionally enjoyed. One is headed back after 47 days short of a year, the other 81. "This is the first time we’ve had a voluntary Army on an extended deployment," says Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who advises his old service. "A lot of canaries are dropping dead in the mine."

The main consequences of a tightly stretched Army is that men and women are being sent into combat with less training, shorter breaks and disintegrating equipment. When those stories get out, they make it harder to retain soldiers and recruit them in the first place. "For us, it’s just another series of never-ending deployments, and for many, including me, there is only one answer to that — show me the door out," wrote an officer in a private e-mail to Congressman Steve Rothman of New Jersey.

And I think this really sums up what this administration has done to the army:

Nearly 5,000 soldiers and their supporters met recently in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., at a gathering of the Association of the U.S. Army, a pro-Army group. A retired general spoke privately of a disconcerting change in recent months in the wounded soldiers he visits at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. "Ever since the war started, they’d be saying all they wanted to do was to get back to their buddies in Iraq to keep on fighting," he said. "Now it’s more about getting out and wondering about civilian jobs. There’s very little chatter about rejoining the unit.

I don't see how the Democrats and, more importantly the media, is letting the Bush administration get away with this. Whenever Bush says anything about the Democrats holding up money can harm the troops there should be question after question about the strain his policies have put on the armed forces particularly the army. And the failure to adequately take care of those soldiers who have been wounded.

Once again this points up the total lack of any sort of planning on the part of this administration. They believed what Cheney said that the vast majority of troops would be home by December. As I've said before the VP forgot to say what year that December would fall in. Post war planning consisted of a big sign on an aircraft carrier saying Mission Accomplished.

The lack of proper planning means people are being wounded and killed. Now you can’t plan for every contingency but then again this is the military and they should have. The problem was and is the failure to recognize something new has to be tried. More troops were needed years ago. If that had been done maybe, maybe things would be different in Iraq. But we will never know.

My feelings on the Bush administration are mirrored by Joel Klein as he said in his column this week in Time:

When Bush came to office--installed by the Supreme Court after receiving fewer votes than Al Gore--I speculated that the new President would have to govern in a bipartisan manner to be successful. He chose the opposite path, and his hyper-partisanship has proved to be a travesty of governance and a comprehensive failure. I've tried to be respectful of the man and the office, but the three defining sins of the Bush Administration--arrogance, incompetence, cynicism--are congenital: they’re part of his personality. They're not likely to change. And it is increasingly difficult to imagine yet another two years of slow bleed with a leader so clearly unfit to lead.


I couldn't agree more.

No comments: