"Fred Stone" <fstone69@earthling.com> wrote

No, their goals are set for what they actually need.

I know you have your head up your *****, but let's back up a little.
Maybe this time you can manage to follow along with your own
conversation:

You said:

"Fred Stone" <fstone69@earthling.com> wrote

They won't need a draft. They're meeting all their recruitment
and reenlistment goals.

I pointed out:

Assuming their "Goal" was to be roughly 60,000 troops short of
what is needed in Iraq...

And here you are -- seemingly oblivious to your own exchanges,
claiming that 60,000 troops short of what is necessary is what is
necessary.

Moron.

"Fred Stone" <fstone69@earthling.com> wrote

No, their goals are set for what they actually need.

I know you have your head up your *****, but let's back up a little. Maybe
this time you can manage to follow along with your own conversation:

You said:

"Fred Stone" <fstone69@earthling.com> wrote

They won't need a draft. They're meeting all their recruitment
and reenlistment goals.

I pointed out:

Assuming their "Goal" was to be roughly 60,000 troops short of
what is needed in Iraq...

And here you are -- seemingly oblivious to your own exchanges,
claiming that 60,000 troops short of what is necessary is what is
necessary.

Moron.

"Fred Stone" <fstone69@earthling.com> wrote in message
news:Xns94DA47BD650F5fstone69@207.69.154.203...

Richard <richard@nospam.edu> wrote in
news:L71kc.11179$bS1.10311@okepread02:

Why should we expect those "less hostile" militia to be any more
loyal than the failed Iraqi security forces that we already spent the
better part of a year training?

They're much better vetted than the 50% or so who deserted.

Do you have any support for that assertion? MSNBC was reporting
that the marines were going to hand off the securing of Fallujah to a

under one of Saddam's former generals. Is this the result of "better"
vetting?

"Fred Stone" <fstone69@earthling.com> wrote in message
news:Xns94DA47BD650F5fstone69@207.69.154.203...

Richard <richard@nospam.edu> wrote in
news:L71kc.11179$bS1.10311@okepread02:

Fred Stone wrote:

SMChristenson <smchris@visi.com> wrote in
news:pan.2004.04.29.02.48.07.572716@visi.com:

On Wed, 28 Apr 2004 11:53:49 +0000, Fred Stone wrote:

grub@internet.charitydays.co.uk wrote in
news:ehrt80l4cd3kp31ichvum7u7r91rc7o51o@4ax.com:

If Bush wins the election, the draft will follow

They won't need a draft. They're meeting all their recruitment
and reenlistment goals.

Yes, but 130,000 is idiotic and always was idiotic. We have
enough ordinance and delivery systems to kill as many Iraqis as we
want, but WE DO NOT HAVE THE GROUND TROOPS TO KEEP THE PEACE.

We don't want to install an American police state either. There
has been some talk about using some of the less hostile militia
groups to police their own neighborhoods (they're doing that
already but the new government can make it official after June
30).

Why should we expect those "less hostile" militia to be any more
loyal than the failed Iraqi security forces that we already spent
the better part of a year training?

They're much better vetted than the 50% or so who deserted.

Do you have any support for that assertion?

MSNBC was reporting
that the marines were going to hand off the securing of Fallujah to a
force under one of Saddam's former generals. Is this the result of
"better" vetting?

The majority of those folks have
quit, with a large percentage joining the insurgency. Why should we
expect better results with this new "plan", which sounds like an
act of desperation at best?

Because the militias are working for their own leaders, not for us.

Who will their leaders be working for? If they are just American
stooges, I can't imagine the militias taking orders from them for
very much longer. On the other hand, if they are working for
their own interests, there's absolutely no reason to trust them
to do the USA's bidding, any more than we could trust the Iraqi
forces that have already deserted.

And we have upped our own enlistment goals to allow for more MP's
to be trained and sent over, IINM.

Several hundred thousand more of them? Before the war, Iraq Army
Chief of staff General Shinseki told congress that a force several
times the size than the one we've actually deployed is what would
be needed to secure Iraq (Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz of course had
other ideas). Shinseki's assessments were backed up by miltary
scholars who were saying things like "successful strategies for
population security and control have required force ratios either
as large as or larger than 20 security personnel (troops and police
combined) per thousand inhabitants." Since Iraq has 23 miilion
people, that works out to about 480,000 troops, which is about the
size of the entire Army. Even Saddam himself needed a force of a
million to keep a lid on things.

Needless to say, those enlistment goals you're touting don't factor
in the possibility of needing as many as 500,000 soldiers in Iraq.
As the situation stands, there aren't even enough troops available
to keep the occupation at its current level for very much longer,
unless deployments are extended indefinitely, which is a very bad
idea. According to a recent Associated Press article, out of 10
active army units, all or part of 9 are either in Iraq or have just
come back from a year-long deployment. The army is being run into
the ground.

That's assuming you want to install a police state.

No, that's assuming you actually want to stop the chaos and bloodshed
and stabilize the country.

The 20 security personnel per thousand
population ratio I mentioned above is representative of the force put
in place to keep the peace in Bosnia (60,000 troops for a population
of 2.6 million). I doubt very much that anyone is associating that
peacekeeping force with the establishment of a "police state".