Starve the Beast

[dogday]

This week's talk of "withdrawal in 2006" (20,000 troops, possibly, if the Constitution gets finished, things go well with the elections, the insurgents convert to Tibetan Buddhism, etc.) is a sham, as the New York Times' Bob Herbert points out. The long-term goal was, and still is, to establish a permanent base of operations in Iraq to control the world's last great oil reserves. That doesn't mean there couldn't very well be troop reductions next year. But they may have more to do with human resources than human rights.



Last week, the Army's top personnel officer announced the Army won't meet its recruiting goals for 2005. So far this year, the active-duty Army has enlisted 47,121 recruits. The goal was 80,000. There's little chance to make up the gap the official conceded, the Times reported. Forget the still relatively small U.S. death toll. These are the numbers that keep the Pentagon brass up at night. The Army is being pushed to the breaking point, and that, more than anything, may be what's fueling the administration's new emphasis on "withdrawal" from Iraq.

Frustrated with seeing the largest street protests since Vietnam marginalized by the mainstream media and dismissed by the president as a "focus group," thousands of antiwar youth are targeting this Achilles' heel of the neocon master plan.

"We think counter-recruitment is the smartest way to intervene with the war in Iraq," John Sellers, founder of the Ruckus Society, told me. "Until Rumsfeld's robot army is up and running, they're going to need young men and women to fight. We feel the most effective strategy is to support the youth who are questioning our nation's values and resisting war for resources."

[Larkspur]

1. What would Hillary say?

She supports increasing the number of troops.

I can see this counter-recruitment campaign continuing if a DLC clown becomes president since the DLC supports the immoral Iraq war.