From January 16, 1945 until he blew his brains out on April 30th, Adolf Hitler sat in his concrete bunker adjacent to the Reich Chancellery maneuvering ghost armies on ever-shrinking situation maps, trying to find some way out of the trap that was closing on him. Even though German plants were still producing tanks and guns and ammunition, and even though people like Goering, Doenitz and Himmler stripped their services to send under-trained and unqualified men into the front lines, Hitler could not accept that this was the end of the road; that there was no military way out. Thousands died tragically to support his delusions when it was plain to anyone with military training not blinded by National Socialist ideals that the military situation was untenable and it was time to make peace or surrender.

After reading the synopsis of George W. Bush's speech to the VFW and the American Legion, both of which organizations are made up of military veterans (though not by any means exclusively of veterans who saw a lot of combat - a completely different subgroup), I am coming to the reluctant conclusion that the Commander-in-Chief is as out of touch with the objective realities of the war in Iraq today as der Fuehrer was with the military situation in Germany in 1945. He is heading very rapidly into Cloud-Cuckoo-Land, where he manipulates forces that do not exist except in his clouded little mind; forces that are not going to exist in Iraq.

Let's forget for a minute about how and why Bush got us into this war. That's old news and not relevant to what I'm trying to say. I'll ignore the hearts-and-minds issue too, a critical issue in any war against insurgents. The fact remains that in order to pacify Iraq and start rebuilding it, Bush must defeat the enemy militarily; break them to the point they give up.

To do that, he needs manpower. Lots of it. And I don't mean rear echelon types, the 'tail' that wags the line animal 'dog' in the field. He needs grunts, riflemen on the battle line. And he hasn't got them, nor can he get them.

In this day and age, there are but three ways to increase manpower so you can put more troops on the line. You can institute a draft (in which everybody is called up and everybody has to go); you can activate the National Guard into Federal Service, as was done in World War II; or you can recruit allies to fight alongside you. Let's look at these.

He has already attempted ex post facto the defeat of Saddam to recruit allies. Our NATO pals of the past 50 years didn't see it as their fight and sent only token forces, apart from our friends the British. But even the Brits didn't commit anywhere near enough manpower to take a chunk of the load off American shoulders. They don't have it to send any more than we do. That's one means of increasing manpower on the line gone.

The National Guard is made up of part time soldiers, trained more for disaster relief and crowd control than for combat. In far too many instances, units are short of critical items in their Table of Organization & Equipment, either because the Regular Army expropriated Reserve gear to replace their own shortfalls and combat losses or because the Reserve units never were issued the stuff to begin with.

The National Guard is part of the Army, and fighting is what you signed up for if you join the Guard when all is said and done; but activating the Guard as a whole is something the President can only get away with doing if the nation as a whole is threatened. The war in Iraq doesn't qualify as a threat to our nation. Were Bush to issue such an order now, his impeachment would not be a question. It would be a certainty. So that's out.

That leaves the draft. Ignoring the hypocrisy of a President who dodged combat service by flying as a bomber-interceptor pilot at a time when no bombers were coming to America making such a request of a Congress made up of Vietnam-era anti-war protester alumni, reinstating the draft to obtain cannon fodder for a war not supported by America as a whole is not a political hot potato. It's political bomb-grade plutonium! Even if the Republicans still controlled Congress, I don't think Bush could get Congress to approve the draft. Further, I seriously doubt the People would hold still for it. 40 years on, the inequality of the Vietnam era draft is still fresh in the minds of the People. They vividly recall the poor, blue collar and rural boys going off to fight an ill-advised war for nebulous purposes, while the children of the upper classes of the plutocracy hid safely home at university, med school, law school, business school, graduate studies, etc. and did not put themselves at risk. The People got fooled that way once. The memory is fresh. The People won't fall for that a second time.

That fact puts Bush between the rock and the hard place in terms of obtaining additional manpower for his war.

The monied classes are not going to hold still for a draft like that of World War II, that took everyone physically able to serve regardless of who Mater and Pater were or who they knew in politics and government. (Granted, virtually all of the monied kids who served in World War II, served as officers and not as enlisted GIs, but they still went. World War II was, however, a very different war.) Since they cannot guarantee that Snuffy and Biff and Skipper would be officers, with strings they could pull to keep them out of the war zone, the rich won't let such a thing as military service happen to their scions.

The middle and lower classes will not hold still for a draft that falls on them but excludes those with money or political influence. The People learned from Vietnam that a draft has to be impartial or it is immoral. They will rise up and say, "We ain't stupid, we ain't expendable, and we ain't going, Georgie boy. Screw you AND your stupid war! You got the United States into this mess. It's up to you to get us out!"

And there goes his last source of manpower. Sorry about that, George.

After the end of the Cold War, the Army was reorganized to fight short, sharp hyperwars. This seemed the right way to go based on our experience in Grenada and in Gulf War I, where the duration of the fighting could be measured in hours. But that reorganization left our military without the ability to fight a sustained conflict like World War II, Korea or Vietnam. They don't have the manpower and they don't have the support structure they require to carry out that kind of mission successfully.

And because the war in Iraq does not threaten our national existence as World War II did, neither the People nor the troops are willing to stay overseas for as long as it takes to win that kind of a war. Troops will hold still for a lot if they know there is a goal to be met, but that once the goal is reached, they will be going home. I can't say that's what is going on in Iraq. They will go because they are ordered to, but they won't stay there one minute longer than they have to; and they won't re-enlist once their term of service is up. That's why Bush had to put stop-loss orders into place. No one wants to fight his war if they don't have to. The Army has shot its bolt, manpower-wise. The troops just are not available, nor will they be any time soon.

So where does that leave George W. Bush, the Decider? Sitting in the Situation Room beneath the White House with his generals, moving markers around on the situation maps, trying to find some way out of the political trap whose jaws are closing on him. Seems to me I've seen this scene somewhere before...

Well said!

I had precisely the parallel you decsribed in mind, however you stated it far better. Many thanks for the clarity with which you present the present siuation. Now if only our more hawkish brethren would just get the message...

Basically Cyrano, as you so well pointed out, it's all over but the shoutin'. It doesn't matter who wants to stay or go to add or bring more troops home. It doesn't matter whatever grand plans any of the politicans have or hopes anyone has. All of that bumps into the Reality that we're out of troops. There is no way in the world even W. would call for a draft, and there is even less likelihood of other countries adding more troops to help out.

Stick a fork in it. Or at least stick a fork in our current position in Iraq. I expect some sort of projection of force from the sea will exist, and/or possibly some quick reaction force garrison in say the Kurdish enclave, but for all intents and purposes we will have to leave Iraq in flames.

Well if Bush decides to blow his brains out, I'm all for it. It would be a great act of patriotism. In fact I'd even vote to carve him into Mt Rushmore, bullet hole and all.

Of course if this truly was a massive clash of civilizations as the neocons want to portray it as, a draft would have been called a long time ago. Since we all know this war was based on false premises, Bush has no ground to stand on and therefore has lost the ability call for a draft.

Very well said, Cyrano.

Whats sadder, that this idiot threw together things that don't fit together and tried to claim that juxtaposition was enough to make such a grandeous claim, or that four people agreed with him?

Disgusting.

How's everything at the nut house?? You got enough medicine to complete the day or shall we send some more BUSH Droolers (the 29% who drink BUsh's Kool-aid) to party with you?

Great post !

(and San continues to be wonderfully predictable Bush-ass-kisser -- what an idiot!).

...Hitler didn't have nuclear weapons at his disposal to implement a "scorched earth" revenge against those who had defeated him.

San doesn't even believe his own words. He's just writin' fer kicks on the Fray.

Anyone who doesn't have their head up Al Gore's ass is a Bush lover to you.

You are pathetic.

Really? You are using "predictable" when it is quite predictable to bash Bush?

Come on and come up with something ORIGINAL for once. Oh wow, you called Bush Hitler. Way to go! How original! You really showed some political courage!

Gesh.

Or maybe I despise you so much that I am willing to waste the time just to put forth a contradictory view because you can't handle if anyone says anything that isn't 100% exactly what you believe in.

San, if you reread my original post you will see that I never claimed Bush was Hitler. What I do say is that the man is as delusional as Hitler was the last 4 months of his life if he thinks he can pull out a military victory from the mess he has made of Iraq. He does not have the number of combat troops that would be needed to do it, nor can he get them. And no matter how he tries to have his generals use the troops he has, the fact that there simply are not enough troops to do what needs doing either militarily or psychologically is undeniable and insurmountable.

Iraq has degenerated into a truly bastard war. It is not a pure guerrilla war, with uniformed soldiers of an enemy country fighting an occupier. It is not a revolutionary war, with one group trying to oust the established central authority and take over a more or less intact country. It is not a purely religious war, with adherents of one religion killing followers of a totally different religion. It is not a tribal war, with members of two or more tribes feuding over territory or resources. It's not a civil war between two political parties, or a war of secession with the people in one section of the country trying to break away from the rest. It is a devil's brew containing elements of all of the above. Considering how at cross purposes many of the above-referenced kinds of conflict are, and the same regarding the groups who fight for those reasons, I am surprised that the troops don't refer to Iraq as The Clusterfuck War.

I am not claiming that Bush is a fascist. I never said he is acting like a Nazi. What I AM saying is that he has lost sight of the reality of the nasty little war he got this nation into, breaking two centuries of American tradition to do so. His actions are anathema to our tradition of only fighting when forced to. His impetuosity (I have not yet run across a general who will admit to saying, "Mr. President, Iraq sounds like a swell place to fight a war! Let's go kill us a bunch of wogs whose leadership may or may not be in collusion with al-Qaida! When can we start, huh? Huh? Please?") in launching an unprovoked attack and then bungling the occupation from start to date has cost this nation credibility around the world. Even his apologists can't deny that, though they claim history will vindicate him.

All I was trying to do was point out the parallel between Hitler moving the markers around on his situation map for units that had ceased to exist as armies, whose divisions had been battered down into 'battle groups' of regimental strength or less; and Bush trying to come up with a plan that will enable his 20-odd brigades to do the work of 24 full strength divisions organized into three or four Armies. Where you got the idea I was declaring an American president shared the ideology of the Nazi Fuehrer, I have no idea.