Army's Stress Most Obvious at Fort Hood

@Tomo: I'm not going to debate the merits or crimes of the last President, but I am going to ask about the "never did squat to the USA", "military weakness" assumption, and the "deaths of thousands". 1) Iraq defied the US and world community for over 10 years in regards to weapons inspecters, etc and despite the world's best effort to forget about the 10,000+ Kurds that were killed by Saddam using Chemical Weapons (a WMD by definition), there were, in fact, reportedly no Nuclear weapons. So although they never attacked us directly, they did plot/ attempt to assassinate the former President Bush and defy the good order and discipline of the world community. Hence the reason Saddam received the death penalty from his own countrymen for being a war criminal. Either way, maybe they didn't deserve an invasion, but they weren't poor innocent children that we stomped out of meaness. 2) Military weakness? They've got peace-keeping fatigue. The military is good at killing people and breaking things. They are not trained to be policeman, which is exactly the role that they've been religated to. That is something that can definitely be put onto the last President, but since the good old days (sarcasm) of warfare where one race would wipe out another are behind us, no modern era President or military has figured out a way to combat this problem. So I'm going to have to disagree that the military has been weakened. They're just not good at participating in a fight with thier hands tied. If we go back to "war", I can assure you they're more than ready. 3) Deaths of thousands... are you crediting him with everytime an insurgent blows himself up and no American is within 2-3 miles or are you talking specifically about mis-fires and errant bombs? I'll give you that in warfare there is a certain expectation of civilian deaths and that is terrible. I'll even say that as the Commander in Chief, he bore the weight of those decisions and is by way of decision, responsible. But I have to take pause if you're saying every asshole with a suicide vests is the last President's fault.

@greg - ROFL! That was funny as hell! I always view those kinds of posts, whether from the right or left, as childish anyway. Of *course* the posting for this side or that side will begin..DUH. And the way it is announced? "Ready, set, go"...."3, 2, 1".....not funny after the gazillionth time, not to mention unoriginal...

obama suck and george bush was a great president...just think when 9-11 happened america was furious and wanted revenge and thats what we have us army for!!!!!!!!! that would be called a war so i think people should rethink and take a look back at 9-11 and remember what they felt then...if we dont have troops over there there will be more terroist attacks over here !!!!

How exactly did 911 relate to going to war with Iraq mandra? What was accomplished going to war with Iraq? The one problem the country has is that we war with countries and than spend trillions and thousands of American lives rebuilding and occupying them.

It's kind of complicated. Obama can't just say, "It's over." Hopefully it happens sooner rather than later.

@ Galileo: Totally agree. It's waaaaaaay complicated and no one can just say, "it's over". 6 Years of build up is going to take time to tear down. It's no longer like a scene from Mash. It looks more like the cross between a trailer park and strip mall. The answer to the "let's get the hell out of there crowd' is, we are. It's just going to take longer than the normal 15 minute attention span we universally share as Americans.

shannonals... It's more complicated than that, Because GWB thought he could fight 2 major wars at a time... he had to force military personnel into repeated tours of duty... repeatedly. This is something that had never been done before... not to this degree. Unfortunately there is a higher level of suicide and mental disorders in today's military. I cant imagine how much harm it would do to my mental state to have to endure killing... watching my friends be killed... praying everyday for it to end... counting down to the end of my tour of duty... thanking God for getting me there alive... only to be told my stay is being extended... again... and again... having to tell my wife and children that i couldn't go home yet... that i was still in harms way. What was forced onto these American Heroes is big time wrong... it only makes sense that some of them would become mentally unstable from it. God bless them... and their families too.

@Shannon: I agree with you in principle, but in one of the articles today it said something about him being willing to pay back the Army to get out of his obligation. The logical jump is that he still had some sort of commitment that the Army wasn't going to let him out. But in most every other case, you are totally correct. When you've had enough and don't want to play the military game anymore, you get out. But as long as you're wearing a jersey, you better be prepared to get in the game. Afghanistan is the new big leagues.

Tomo: Wow, I'm impressed. You clearly have it all figured out and know it so well that you used only rumor and conjecture and managed to completely ignore anything resembling provable facts. I hate to bother you, but can you explain the whole "did it only for oil" part, since the US gets no money from Iraq's oil revenue and spends an immense amount of time helping Iraq improve its oil output to help increase the country's revenue. I also hate to bring this up, but I'm not sure what Darfur has to do with this venue, but I'm sure you'll tell me. And thank god you clarified that the military was on its knees for me in 2 whole words, I mean my 20+ years of experience in and around the military has clearly all been a trick. I'm not sure how counting the bombs would help or even how I would go about doing that, but I'll get right on it. I'm sorry for questioning your authority on the matter, but I would be very interested in hearing some of the facts behind the story.

HAHAHA... I only pointed out his motivations... I never said he was smart enough to pull it off. The only thing he was successful at was: making his oil and war machine buddies wealthy beyond their wildest dreams... and ending the decades long Iraq / Iran war by giving Iraq... to Iran... and destroying the US economy... and pissing all over the constitution with illegal wiretapping... and killing thousands of innocent Iraqi women and babies while hypocritically denouncing abortion... and... well... I guess he succeeded at a lot of ugly things. And why am I not surprised that you apparently derive your income from the 3 card Monty game the US congress and GWB played on the US taxpayers? So tell me more about your 20+ years experience around the military... and tell me If you think Halliburton/KBR should have the right to refuse litigation rights... to women employed by them... who are raped by Hallibuton/KBR employees?