Sunday, October 17, 2004

Blackhorse Regiment deploys

The word is that the Army is stretch so thin, drastic measures are in order.
deploying the OPFOR is like eating your seed corn. This unit is responsible for training other units and raising their level of expertise and combat readiness. The 11th ACR is being replaced by a National Guard unit. That's like replacing the Dodgers with a high school baseball team. Sure, they can both play baseball and wear the uniform — but one is a whole lot more proficient and experienced at its job. The OPFOR has a reputation as a tough enemy, and that's a good thing because it forces units training at the NTC to become better themselves. By replacing this unit with National Guard troops, the Army has hurt its ability to produce good units for Iraq in the future. Suffice to say, National Guard and active units that go through Fort Irwin aren't going to get the same tough experience they would have with the Blackhorse regiment as OPFOR — and that means they'll be less ready for combat when they get to Iraq. This is a desperation measure, and I think the Army will come to regret it.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

What this really proves is that Kerry is blowing smoke when he complains that we didn't send in enough troops.

Where was he going to get them? What's going to happen when all those troops that hate Kerry leave the military?

Kerry's the one who will bring back the draft. Maybe that's a good thing. The blue states aren't sending their fair share anyway.

I hope you've been practicing those push-ups.

Kendall Miller said...

Hello! Not having enough troops available to win the peace means the invasion should not have been launched.

Anonymous said...

You're right. It would have been much better if we had waited until we had absolute proof that Saddam had WMDs. The fact that his own generals thought he had them isn't enough.

We need the kind of president who'd be willing to give Saddam Hussein the benefit of the doubt.

One side advantage is that a Saddam with WMDs is much faster to defeat because then we'd be able to retaliate with our own WMDs.

Kendall Miller said...

Non sequitor. 5 point penalty. WMD is not the point. Lack of proper planning is.

Now to your point. Even if the WMD had been real, going in unprepared and unplanned is not excusable. Given the flimsiness of the evidence for the WMD existence, any "evidence" for them being an actual threat was nothing but vapor. As I posted in this blog at the time, I didn't think then that pre-emption was justified. And I have been proven right. The Bush (hswib) administration has been proven wrong. What makes me so much smarter? In this case at least it's the fortitude to wait for incontrovertible proof rather that committing the lives of our military and innocent civilians on the basis of a ideologically-driven gamble.

Anonymous said...

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You are mistaken about the lack of a plan going in. For the plan, reference the Project for a New American Century.

--an old friend--