Base Where Iranians Train Terrorists to Kill Americans Revealed

So you want to open a third or fourth front? That could very well be a consequence of bombing some plywood-jimmied terrorist “sites.”

Consider this when forces decide take huge sums of money, weapons, and slip across the porous borders to Iraq slowly and en masse:

More than 43,000 U.S. troops listed as medically unfit for combat in the weeks before their scheduled deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2003 were sent anyway, Pentagon records show.

This reliance on troops found medically “non-deployable” is another sign of stress placed on a military that has sent 1.6 million servicemembers to the war zones, soldier advocacy groups say.

“It is a consequence of the consistent churning of our troops,” said Bobby Muller, president of Veterans For America. “They are repeatedly exposed to high-intensity combat with insufficient time at home to rest and heal before redeploying.”

The numbers of non-deployable soldiers are based on health assessment forms filled out by medical personnel at each military installation before a servicemember’s deployment.

According to those statistics, the number of troops who doctors found non-deployable but who were still sent to Iraq or Afghanistan fluctuated from 10,854 in 2003, down to 5,397 in 2005, and back up to 9,140 in 2007.

The Pentagon records do not list what — or how serious — the health issues are, nor whether they were corrected before deployment, said Michael Kilpatrick, a deputy director for the Pentagon’s Force Health Protection and Readiness Programs.
…

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20080508/1a_lede08_dom.art.htm

Now i understand that a lot of them are missing shots, may need allergy bills, eyeglasses, and other minor” help to be found deployable, but,

(WP) U.S. soldiers serving repeated Iraq deployments are 50 percent more likely than those with one tour to suffer from acute combat stress, raising their risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the Army’s first survey exploring how today’s multiple war-zone rotations affect soldiers’ mental health.
…
Earlier Army studies have shown that up to 30 percent of troops deployed to Iraq suffer from depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with the latter accounting for about 10 percent.

Say 20%, or even 10%, of the 43,000 are “disabled,” that tells us that the Army is stressed and the forces are too weak to sustain operations.

You have to wonder how many are taking meds and drinking heavy to combat the PTSD and its relatives.

We had this problem in Vietnam. My guess is we will start to see more discussion of this as McCain offers up details of his Iraq strategy.

Anyway, the Army’s stress is not a secret:

The military’s top uniformed officer says U.S. forces are “significantly stressed” by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan while simultaneously trying to stem the tide of violent extremism elsewhere.

“The pace of ongoing operations has prevented our forces from fully training for the full spectrum of operations and impacts our ability to be ready to counter future threats,” Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in testimony prepared for delivery Wednesday.

(Note also this testimony was being delivered when there was “substantially decreased” violence in Iraq, unlike the present month or more. It may explain why Gates has a difference of opinion with Gen. P. regarding troop levels, and does not find Iran a direct military threat in the short term.)

Therefore, it’s a gamble provoking Iraq’s neighbors as it could very likely increase violence in Iraq.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4248802

Scott said:

“U.S. Military options rarely involve full scale invasions post WWII. Most military actions have been air campaigns (increasingly so over the past 18yrs). In the War on Terror, military options focus mostly on covert operations with lots of air support.”

True enough.

But that’s not the picture I painted in my above post and therefore does not meet my argument. So, let me restate it again.

Iran and Lebanon are Iraqi neighbors. They are not thousands of miles from where they can do our troops and our goals no harm; therefore, if we provoke them, they can slip through the porous borders attack, support and supply our enemy with earnest, adding further chaos to Iraq’s present instabilities.

Consequently, this could have an impact on troop levels, mission, and operations, therefore, adding _more_ stress to the Army.

So let’s not ignore the very possible ramifications provoking Iraq’s neighbors –and even Iraqi Shia — and thereby pushing our over-stressed Army even further.

No one is discounting those possiblities. Even Bolton himself said that it would be a risk. The point is that not doing anything about it also affects our military as well. Iran training fighters and arming them hurts our troops as well. The question is which one has more long term consequences. I would argue that doing nothing would be worse, just like Bolton suggest.

We only need to look at other places in the world where Iranian influence is going unchecked to see what the long term consequenses could be. Attacking Iran training camps and presenting the evidence of the camps would put Iran in a very sticky situation. One that i dont think they would want to be in.

I say we send in 30 women with PMS, and 30 menopausal women in there to kick ass and take names. I really hate that we have to be the worlds police force, but it looks like all of the other countries could care less or are scared. Americans have a strong spirit and love freedom, we hate to see others in terrible conditions so we try and fix thengs for them and that pisses people off. i guess it goes to show you that no good deed goes unpunished.