Without Reserves

[ysabetwordsmith]

War should be an option of last resort. It's ruinously expensive and wasteful of lives, land, goods, and funds. Sometimes there is no other option, but usually there is. I am frustrated by America's persistence in dumping resources down a rat hole in this regard. It's foolish enough fighting two wars at once, on terms we really can't win. But to throw in our last reserves? That's stupid. Reserves are held back for emergenices, or opportunities of surpassing fortune. They are not for regular combat. Neither is the National Guard, which is already scattered far and wide; that's supposed to be for managing internal disasters such as hurricanes, or the unlikely but real chance of invasion. What soldiers we have are already strained to the fraying point; they cannot sustain this pace, let alone increase it. And if we foolishly use them up in these inane wars, they will not be available if we really need them.

Jason Leopold | Obama's Plans to Increase Afghanistan Troop Levels Would Leave US With No Reserve
Jason Leopold, Truthout: "President Barack Obama intends to announce next week that he will deploy tens of thousands of additional US troops to Afghanistan, according to numerous published reports citing unnamed administration officials, to fight an eight-year-old war that a majority of Americans do not support and numerous Democratic lawmakers say is no longer worth waging."