Thursday, June 02, 2005

 

Militarily Speaking...

As I sat down tonight to write the post you're currently reading I had intended to write about the recruiting crisis currently facing our military. I had my articles at the ready, I had the general direction set in my head, and I had the wayback machine warmed up and idling in the driveway. I was going to refer to this article that indicates some of our forces are undermanned and unable to carry out their duties to the best of their abilities. I was going to link to this article that discusses some of the cuts that are having to be made in our military training due to budget constraints and shortfalls. And I was going to reference this article that explains how the Pentagon is delaying the latest recruiting numbers until a later date indicating that they may be worse than previously thought, possibly continuing the shortfall for a fifth consecutive month.

But when I climbed into the wayback machine and set the date for March 16, 2003, (three days prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq) I quickly realized that I had struck gold. On this date Dick Cheney appeared on Meet the Press to discuss the developing situation and impending confrontation with Saddam Hussein. In truth, I was actually looking for references to how many troops would be needed to complete the task ahead of us. What I found was far more informative than anything I could ever write here this evening. At that moment I decided that I had found my post for today. You can read the entire transcripthere, but I'll give you the highlights.

How much of this has turned out to be untrue? Sadly, almost all of it has. I don't think we could have been more wrong. Here we sit twenty-seven months later and we've got a complete mess on our hands with no end in sight. I wish I had something witty to say, but I'm speechless. How did we let it get this far?



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