PNAC writes letter to Congress January 28 2005

Letter to Congress on Increasing U.S. Ground Forces
January 28, 2005

Dear Senator Frist, Senator Reid, Speaker Hastert, and Representative Pelosi:

The United States military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume. Those responsibilities are real and important. They are not going away. The United States will not and should not become less engaged in the world in the years to come. But our national security, global peace and stability, and the defense and promotion of freedom in the post-9/11 world require a larger military force than we have today. The administration has unfortunately resisted increasing our ground forces to the size needed to meet today's (and tomorrow's) missions and challenges.

So we write to ask you and your colleagues in the legislative branch to take the steps necessary to increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps. While estimates vary about just how large an increase is required, and Congress will make its own determination as to size and structure, it is our judgment that we should aim for an increase in the active duty Army and Marine Corps, together, of at least 25,000 troops each year over the next several years.

There is abundant evidence that the demands of the ongoing missions in the greater Middle East, along with our continuing defense and alliance commitments elsewhere in the world, are close to exhausting current U.S. ground forces. For example, just late last month, Lieutenant General James Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, reported that "overuse" in Iraq and Afghanistan could be leading to a "broken force." Yet after almost two years in Iraq and almost three years in Afghanistan, it should be evident that our engagement in the greater Middle East is truly, in Condoleezza Rice's term, a "generational commitment." The only way to fulfill the military aspect of this commitment is by increasing the size of the force available to our civilian leadership.

The administration has been reluctant to adapt to this new reality. We understand the dangers of continued federal deficits, and the fiscal difficulty of increasing the number of troops. But the defense of the United States is the first priority of the government. This nation can afford a robust defense posture along with a strong fiscal posture. And we can afford both the necessary number of ground troops and what is needed for transformation of the military.

In sum: We can afford the military we need. As a nation, we are spending a smaller percentage of our GDP on the military than at any time during the Cold War. We do not propose returning to a Cold War-size or shape force structure. We do insist that we act responsibly to create the military we need to fight the war on terror and fulfill our other responsibilities around the world."

<snip>

check out the fourth sentence in the first paragraph.
Bastards, all of them.

I like that. I wonder if that includes North Korea?

greater Middle East

Greater Middle East = Greater Israel. From the Nile to the Euphrates. If you put Likudniks in charge of policy, you end up with Likud policy. It's hardly WMD science.

Here's the 'official' US definition, from a US government paper:

"The "Greater Middle East" refers to the countries of the Arab world, plus Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, and Israel."

http://www.al-bab.com/arab/docs/international/gmep2004.htm#i

at least we got their names.Don't forget the 8 trillion in Caspian sea basin which may have been convenient reason for Afi invasion

'" Blessed are the peacemakers ..."

You go to war with the army you have, not the one you'd like to have - to paraphrase Rummy.

3 choices :

- Assume that congress has set the military up in a way that reflects the will of the people, and limit your warmongering to what that military can handle within our traditional rules of engagement and our national ethic of fairness and justice.

- These bastards : unrestrained warmongering should require congress to increase the military. The one doofus in the whitehouse with his 49% or 51% represents the will of the people moreso than the elected representatives in congress. If he instigates wars then you are obliged to increase troop strength so our military can fulfill his desires without resorting to unrestrained brutality.

- Bush : you can increase it or not. It won't affect our warmongering except that we will have to increase the brutality of our methods. We can wipe out entire cities without US casualties or more troops - provided we do away with distinguishing civilians from combatants. Much cheaper and easier to kill them all and let god sort them out. If you do provide the muscle, then you can spare the US from the international consequences that will resort if you require me to use nukes or genocide to wage gods war.

given the inevitable progress to another provoked attack on defenseless America homeland and the failure of any dissent or political opposition to Bush and his wonderful media.

People would not have wanted to face 911 BEFORE 911 but we were completely out of the vigilance loop. Now we can add up the Bush simple extremism to the constant hunger by neocons to nuke "something" to see that the bewildered idiots who wonder why the forces are left dwindling do not see it coming either.

They don't intend a draft as a solution but it would be nice to craft some appealing national service more as sidebar than a necessity. They intend a Final Solution of a mini Holocaust that Americans must be cowed or angered into accepting by the next incident that the intentional sieve of Homeland Security must let through. I am afraid, considering the insipid institutional sympathy extended to the mammoth tsunami disaster means that America must be impressed with a direct attack upon itself to drive total atomic escalation.

Or bluffing with escalation, like turning Iran's nuclear facilities into air pollution, provoking disaster in Korea and elsewhere and effectively reducing Armageddon to the world's biggest, venally sordid blackmail scheme instead of the insane pragmatism of MAD(Mutually Assured Destruction).

What does make sense? Their absurd belief in future tech toys. The ground plans for universal "liberation" of small countries from their oil? Grabbing stuff, bluffing and digging in for the Ice Age or worse?

They have a simple plan which might not be PNAC's(one of many self-deluded front organizations IMHO). If it doesn't make sense it might be hard to to figure what they are really up to since in the end the simple plan is simply impossible and stupid too.

Sadly my only child did not die for America, he died so Israel could get its' hands on Iraq's water and oil...

In an interview on Democracy Now! recently he expressed an opinion that he has been offering, really, since the 60's. He states that it is to the people's advantage to have the military composed of people compelled by a draft. His reasoning is roughly this: A draft is instituted across the entire society, in contrast to the present situation which culls the economically disadvantaged. It makes the realities of war much more visible to the entire society. When people are compelled to fight by law, the propaganda of war is transparent as propaganda to those compelled to fight it. They know their motivation is survival, when on the battlefield, thus they are more likely to rebel when given dangerous missions. This in turn helps foment societal rejection of war.

I think Chomsky is right on this. A draft would be so enormously unpopular that if these schmucks actually manage to get GOP senators and congressmen or the White House to move in favor of it, it will be their death knell. I WANT these blood-drinkers to come out in public and show their fangs.

the draft isn't really implemented across the entire society. Sure, it catches a few more middle class folk than when there isn't a draft, but the elite always skate by. Money buys many things and that is one of them.

but I am really surprised that the PNAC would actually come out from under their rock and mention the draft, albeit indirectly.

I told everyone who would listen (and many who didn't really want to) that if Bush was elected (or stole it again) we would have a draft by mid 2005.

They are such snakes, those neocons. Heartless, cold blooded snakes.