Bush to dead soldiers: You're not getting off this easy

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/05/dead.letters.ap/index.html

Wow, just wow.

 

Not sure we can pin this one entirely on Fredo, except to the extent that he's FUBAR'ed the army.

 

Plenty to blame on Dim Son, but not this. The Army just fucked up.

 

He and Rummy broke it, though.

 

I think, though, the lede is buried here (errr, so to speak.)

The Army is attempting to recall 5,100 officers to active duty! That is a crapload of officers. It is the equivalent of recalling about 30,000 enlisted. That makes three full divisions and a good part of a fourth. And I guarantee you they ain't calling them up to do KP at Fort Lewis.

 

The Surge, baby!
A plan supported by a full 12 percent of the American people, but 99 percent of John McCain's brain and by what's left of Joe Lieberman's soul.

 

You don't go to war with the corpses you want you got with the corpses you have.

We know where the corpses are, they're in the north, the south and east of sanity.

 

Actually, I figured this whole story out. Somebpdy showed Dear Leader the last Lord of the Rings film, the one where Aragorn enlists the army of ghosts to win the battle.
Yeah. That's the ticket.

 

Not to make light of this major screwup, but wouldn't a better thread title have been "somebody forgot to cross them off the list"?

 

i'm not a war defender but i think this is pretty much standard procedure - ask everyone to renew and hope you get enough responses. it's not a binding contract. if they all renew, then (if the pols kill the 'surge' idea) then they get a letter saying 'sorry, we changed our minds.'

i think this is just a typical bureaucratic fuckup that happens in any large organization.

 

I have a soldier friend -- 10th Mountain Division, Kosovo vet -- who lost both his legs saving a little kid and her grandfather in a highway accident. He won the Soldier's Medal for it. A year ago, he got a letter telling him to get ready to deploy. He had some fun with the Pentagon over it. But the amazing thing was, he said to me that he'd go. "Hell, I can sit in a tank and shoot at things." Great guy.
This is a bureaucratic cock-up from an institution stretched beyond its limits.

 

Very well-put.