More Troops?

In Tuesday's Washington Post, Kristol and Lowry (Kristol is the editor of The Weekly Standard, the house organ for neo-conservatives, and Rich Lowry is a columnist for the National Review), argued for more troops in Iraq. There are a lot of nice money quotes, but lets take this one:


"Harvard Law School's William Stuntz recently made the core point powerfully: "The territory over which we fight is among the most strategically important in the world. Victory will place the most dangerous regime on the planet, Iran's fascist theocracy, in serious peril. Defeat will leave that same regime inestimably strengthened. If there is any significant possibility that the presence of more American soldiers on the ground would raise the odds of success, not putting those soldiers on the ground is a crime."


In today's Washington Post Korb and Ogden respond . I am not familiar with either of these people. According to the op-ed, Korb held a high defense-related position in the Reagan administration.

They said at least one thing that makes my skin crawl. The one thing that, when all these people are screaming for Donald Rumsfeld's head, somehow always fails to get mentioned:

"First, the equipment shortage that the U.S. Army faces at the moment is making it difficult to train troops even at current levels. The service has been compensating for this $50 billion equipment shortfall by shipping to Iraq some of the equipment that it needs to train nondeployed and reserve units."

Why is there an equipment shortage THREE YEARS LATER? Does that mean that there is both an equipment shortage, and we're still sending our troops things like inadequate armor?

Does the United States of America actually lack the production capability to make guns and armor? What are all those idle car factories and laid-off steel workers doing?

So when I blog and I say that Bush is not serious about his own wars, this is one of the things I mean.

(Can't say Bulls-t, without a B-U-S-H. -- Sorry, couldn't resist.)

They also say

"The simple fact is that the only way for Kristol and Lowry to put their new plan into action anytime soon without resorting to a draft -- and thereby dismantling the all-volunteer Army, which, as the authors themselves would certainly admit, could be strategically disastrous."

What does that mean?