Why Do The American People Hate America?

54% is not a thundering mandate, but for a Fox News poll with an equal amount of Democrats and Republicans, to have 54% endorse the concept of de-funding the Iraq war is pretty significant. Maybe they understand that this war is severely limiting our ability to provide for the common defense, by eroding the capability of the Armed Forces.

Outgoing Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker said yesterday that the increase of 17,500 Army combat troops in Iraq represents only the "tip of the iceberg" and will potentially require thousands of additional support troops and trainers, as well as equipment -- further eroding the Army's readiness to respond to other world contingencies.

"We are having to go to some extraordinary measures to ensure we can respond," he said, but he added that even then he could not guarantee the combat units would receive all the translators, civil affairs soldiers and other support troops they request. "We are continuing today to get requests for forces that continue to stress us."

Schoomaker, in one of his last congressional testimonies as Army chief, also made it clear that he had raised concerns in advance about President Bush's plan to increase troops in Iraq because it would further deplete Army units at home.

"We laid out . . . exactly what the risks are in terms of other contingencies . . . to include my concerns about the lack of adequate dwell time," he said, referring to the fact that active-duty soldiers now spend only about a year at home between 12-month war zone rotations.

This is exactly why Jack Murtha wants to limit the amount of troops that go into battle untrained, unequipped, and unexpecting to be stuck there as their tours of duty get constantly extended. Iraq may be important but nobody can say it's worth destroying our readiness and capability to respond to other threats. The US military generally is very good at their job but they are not made up of supermen who can be adapt to any situation, be peacemakers, warriors, engineers, policemen, and ambassadors of goodwill. They're mainly 19- and 20-year-old boys and girls who don't deserve to be put in an undefined mission without proper body armor and without an enemy to target. They aren't trained for this. They can't solve every problem America has. And they aren't worth sacrificing.