Fatigue Cripples US Troops

Just reading about our troops in Iraq cripples me with fatigue...I can't imagine what it must be like to be over there.

"The anecdotal evidence on the ground confirms what others - prominent among them General Colin Powell, the former US Secretary of State - have been insisting for months now: that the US army is 'about broken'. Only a third of the regular army's brigades now qualify as combat-ready. Officers educated at the elite West Point academy are leaving at a rate not seen in 30 years, with the consequence that the US army has a shortfall of 3,000 commissioned officers - and the problem is expected to worsen."

The "quality" of the soldiers is not what it once was. The military has had to lower its standards because of retention and recruitment problems. The army is admitting men and women that, under normal circumstances, would not qualify to be a soldier and therefore much more likely to collapse from fatigue.

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"The consequence is that we are seeing people who do not have the same coping skills when they get here, and this can be difficult.

'We are also seeing older soldiers coming in - up to 41 years old - and that is causing its own problems. They have difficulty dealing with the physical impact of the war and also interacting with the younger men.'

Valentine says: 'We are not only watering down the quality of the soldiers but the leadership too. The good leaders get out. I've seen it. And right now we are on the down slope.'"

One possible solution is a draft, not something most Americans want to hear.

"America's 'war tsar' has called for the nation's political leaders to consider bringing back the draft to help a military exhausted by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

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Are We Going To War With Iran?

Many top-ranking military officials are opposed to attacking Iran. Our troops are already over-stretched and working harder than anyone should have to. I don't see how we could possibly go to war with Iran without reinstituting the draft.

Conscription would force our nation to pay attention to what is going on and encourage people to get involved at the "grass-roots" level. The draft would intensify opposition to the current military strategy in Iraq. If a universal draft were to be put in place, that would decrease the current system’s inequitable distribution of combat duty toward low-income and minority communities.

Newsweek reports that we may be closer to war with Iran than we think.

Some view the spiraling attacks as a strand in a worrisome pattern. At least one former White House official contends that some Bush advisers secretly want an excuse to attack Iran. "They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something [America] would be forced to retaliate for," says Hillary Mann, the administration's former National Security Council director for Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs. U.S. officials insist they have no intention of provoking or otherwise starting a war with Iran, and they were also quick to deny any link to Sharafi's kidnapping. But the fact remains that the longstanding war of words between Washington and Tehran is edging toward something more dangerous. A second Navy carrier group is steaming toward the Persian Gulf, and NEWSWEEK has learned that a third carrier will likely follow. Iran shot off a few missiles in those same tense waters last week, in a highly publicized test. With Americans and Iranians jousting on the chaotic battleground of Iraq, the chances of a small incident's spiraling into a crisis are higher than they've been in years.

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