Gen. Pace admits that the "surge" is resulting in troops not receiving "full spectrum" of training

[sabra]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-ex-gates5apr05,1,7578428.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&ctrack=3&cset=true

<snip>

Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the shortened home stays cut into training time, meaning that some units would train only for counterinsurgency operations rather than for the "full spectrum" of tactics as in normal times.

"You end up with your troops who are well-trained for the mission they're going to, but you do forfeit some of the kind of training you would like to do just to have a little bit more readiness in case something happens that you're not expecting," Pace said at the same news conference.

[Nickster]

1. Gee Gen'l Pace, I thought Commander Bunny Pants said that it was the Democrats

causing necessary training to be curtailed. He didn't lie to me did he?

[hobbit709]

2. Sending untrained, ill-equpped troops to the front?

Sounds like desperation to me. They're already calling up over-age reservists to fill slots. same thing happened in Germany in the last few months before the final collapse.

[bdamomma]

3. throwing those troops out there without no training and no equipment

and they say the Dems don't care about the troops, give a me break huh? all the more reason to get these troops back now.

[TahitiNut]

4. Cannon fodder needs no training.

The Reich is throwing the bodies of our least privileged into the chasm of their unbounded appetite for power.

[global1]

5. So The Un-Trained U.S. Soldiers Will Train The Iraqi's - Hmmm - Makes Sense To Me......nt

[KansDem]

6. There's that word again..."spectrum"...now where do I remember that from?

Hmmmm...ah, yes! I remember now:

Full Spectrum Dominance
U.S. Power In Iraq and Beyond
Rahul Mahajan

In Full Spectrum Dominance: U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond, Rahul Mahajan addresses this deception while contextualizing U.S. policy toward Iraq within a larger vision of U.S. global dominance. As soon as the Pentagon and Twin Towers were attacked, Mahajan asserts, a war against on Iraq became inevitable, in the absence of massive resistance. Donald Rumsfeld issued orders to implicate Iraq within hours of the events of September 11 and, Mahajan persuasively argues, a design for war was in the works—if not unveiled—at that moment. In this compelling big-picture assessment of the U.S. war on Iraq, Mahajan suggests that this devastating event offers lessons for understanding the contemporary role of the United States in the world. He argues that Iraqi connections to al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations; Iraq’s putative weapons of mass destruction; and the Bush administration’s stated desire to bring peace, democracy, and liberation to the Middle East are pretexts obscuring a fundamentally offensive posture by the United States. Combining his experience as an anti–Iraq sanctions activist with a keen analysis of U.S. foreign policy in the post–Cold War era, Mahajan provides the analysis that has been overlooked in the mainstream debate. Situating Iraq within the larger context of post-9/11 foreign policy, he analyzes the Bush National Security Strategy and the new neoconservative vision of achieving increasing degrees of global domination and control. Presented with unflinching clarity, Mahajan’s research demonstrates that the war on Iraq was part of a much larger plan, assembled before 9/11 and, as stated by the Project for a New American Century, needing only a “new Pearl Harbor” to implement it.

Beginning with a review of Iraq strangulation by more than twelve years of sanctions, Mahajan dismantles step-by-step the administration’s arguments for the war. He then looks forward to address questions that remain unresolved by the military effort, examining U.S. intentions in occupying Iraq and its plans for the Middle East and reengaging the administration’s compromising positions on weapons of mass destruction, international law, and oil.

Mahajan concludes by sketching in broad strokes the shape of the latest U.S. strategy in Iraq and beyond. Challenging the sincerity of U.S. democracy-making in the Middle East, Mahajan suggests instead that regime change indicates a U.S. expansion of military control of which we should be deeply concerned.

Rahul Mahajan (Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin) is a longtime antiwar activist at the local and national level. He is a founding member of the Nowar Collective (http://www.nowarcollective.com) and serves on the National Board of Peace Action, the nation's largest grassroots peace organization. His first book, The New Crusade: America's War on Terrorism , has been described as "mandatory reading for all those who want to get a handle on the war on terrorism." He writes frequently for mainstream and alternative print media and for websites like Common Dreams, Zmag.org, Alternet, and Counterpunch. Click here to read some of his recent articles. He can be reached at [e-mail]

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