Why is the solution always an increase in military size? No matter what point in my life it's been, there's always clamoring for more military. Yeah, I only have perspective on the past couple of decades, but it is kind of a motif with these people.

Here's an idea. If we're so worried about spreading ourselves thin, why don't we spend a little more time thinking shit through before committing troops to Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Endor? You know, like, do we really need to be doing this? If we do send our troops somewhere unnecessarily, it might not hurt to do some advance planning as to what the fuck those troops are going to do when they get there. They seem to have the marching and killing stuff down OK, but are a little weak on the policing and protecting fronts. I know that there's always going to be a need for some level of manpower, but maybe some more prep work and planning meetings might help reduce the number of men we need. You can throw thousands and thousands of troops at a problem, but if they don't know what the fuck they're doing, it doesn't matter.

Hey, I'm not saying this shit is easy, OK. But it can be done. All that the Pentagon hawks cared about was ousting Saddam. They didn't really give a shit about anything else beyond that. Getting water and power flowing? We'll get to it. Just so long as Saddam and his regime are out of there. And of course, considering that the Taliban is coming back in Afghanistan and al Qaeda seems to be doing just fine lead me to believe that we haven't heard the last from Saddam (and I'm not just talking about the occasional music video that he releases).

Also, I've been seeing a few examples of war supporters pulling back on the WMD front. Lately, and this was a trend started by Bush, I've heard lots of talk about "weapons programs" in Iraq. Mr. Kagan makes reference to "imminence of Saddam's development" (emphasis mine) of WMD. But a "program" for "development" doesn't mean he has anything to actually threaten us with. Shit, my friends and I technically had a "weapons program" back in high school when we wanted to make ammonium triiodide. We even had the iodine for it at one point. Did we ever make any of the stuff? Hell no. Sometimes you just don't care enough to go through the effort just to fuck up some people's houses.

Finally, can someone explain to me what the deal is with naming and numbering military divisions? Why is it always the "173rd brigade" or "101st airborne"? Are there brigades 1 through 172? I mean, I suppose I could see us having 100 other airborne divisions, but is seems like I'm always hearing the exact same fucking numbers, too. It sorta feels like the random number scheme in Evangelion. Connections 101 through 173 have been severed!