More Troops = Same Troops, More Time

Check this out. Kevin Drum points out that the sleazy extension of service requirements for the army (that I posted about yesterday) is a way to cover up the fact that the 20,000 extra troops required for Bush's surge simply don't exist anymore in our overstretched military. Their solution is to force soldiers to serve longer. This is stainful at its core for a number of reasons, and they're all so obvious that I don't think they're necessary to name. It's depressing that this type of bullshit has become unsurprising.

Adding...I'm not sure whether this was Bush's plan or something that the Pentagon was forced to do just because they had to find some way to provide soldiers for the surge. This post suggests that the Pentagon acted independently, and in doing so might have ruined Bush's plans to blame extended tours of duty on the Democrats in Congress and their "failure to fund the troops." It'd be pretty funny if this is correct and military pragmatism by the Pentagon gets in the way of endless political nonsense by Bush, especially since one of Bush's favorite claims is that he makes decisions based on what the generals tell him.