The big dumb-down

By Ed Naha
Created Oct 14 2006 - 10:09am

While Bush was offering his unique verbal elixir of bromides and bombast
last Wednesday, covered live by all the networks and giving new meaning to
the word "re-run," another news event was unfolding - bereft of TV.

As Bush fidgeted before the cameras, the U.S. Army announced plans to keep
the current 141,000 troop level in Iraq steady through 2010; a much later
date than BushCo. members or Pentagon officials have ever bandied about.

Army chief of staff, General Peter J. Schoomaker tried to put the best, most
positive spin on the announcement.

"This is not a prediction that things are going poorly or better," he
stressed, fingers crossed. "It's just that I have to have enough ammo in the
magazine that I can continue to shoot as long as they want us to shoot."

As I write this, 2,757 American troops have died in Bush's war. 44 have been
killed in the first 12 days of this month. That's a lot of shooting.

As Iraq continues its slide into chaos, the Army, whose troops make up the
majority of the fighting force, finds itself struggling, straining under the
weight of Bush's addled vision for the region.

Last month, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, Gen. John Abizaid,
declared that our military might INCREASE the amount of U.S. troops through
next spring.

Recently, the Pentagon extended the Iraq deployments of two brigades in
order to prevent Iraq from reaching total "ka-boom" status.

Since the planning and execution of the Iraqi invasion and occupation has
always been grounded in the type of reality found in an acid trip,
Schoomaker said he believes the Army will need $138.8 billion to function in
2008. That's $40 billion more than is planned for its 2007 budget year and
$25 billion more than proffered by Foxy Grandpa Rumsfeld.

Basically, it amounts to a very expensive Band-Aid to keep the Army from
unraveling.

On the plus side, the Army surpassed its recruitment goals for 2006,
exceeding its goal of 80,000.

How'd they do it? They lowered their standards! That's right, folks. This
year, the Army is accepting more recruits who scored lower on aptitude tests
and more who normally would have been disqualified for medical, mental or
moral reasons than last year!

The Army said that 17%% of all its new recruits would not have made the final
cut last year, requiring waivers to join up in '06.

Of that 17%%, recruits with moral character waivers accounted for 55%%, and of
those, 86%% had committed misdemeanors.

Awesome! Let's give sociopaths guns!

The moral character wavers crowd got busted for things like drunk driving,
public intoxication, etc. (One plus: you can't run over an IED if you can't
see straight.)

38%% of the 17%% newbie group got waivers for medical or mental reasons and 7%%
pertained to drug and alcohol problems.

I don't know how this will translate into combat readiness ("Napoleon, meet
Captain Stoner.") but down time will be bitchin' with this crowd.

3.8%% of the newbies scored between 10- 30%% on their aptitude tests. This is
the kind of person who thinks fighting a guerilla war means going hand to
hand with Mighty Joe Young. If asked to "take that hill," he or she may
respond "where to?"

For the record, the Army says that good test scores do no necessarily make
good soldiers. Test-taking ability, the Army notes, does not measure
loyalty, duty, honor, integrity or courage. Good test scores DO mean that a
person can spell "loyalty," "duty," "honor," "integrity" and "courage,"
though.

Spelling might come in handy when reading the instructions concerning firing
a surface to air missile.

Army spokesman Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty's take on the aptitude test (which
measures little things like an applicant's knowledge of math and command of
the English language) is succinct. "We're being held up to an impossibly
high standard."

Not any more, Bry.

Pfc. Steven Green, who allegedly organized the rape and murder of an Iraqi
girl and the whacking of her entire family, turns out to be suffering from
"anti-social personality disorder."

And more and more youngsters interested in White Power are joining up, as
well. I mean, why train to take back der Homeland on the farm, armed with a
deer rifle, when you can learn how to use mortars and kill real people?

Oh, yeah. Gang graffiti can be seen all over Iraq, as well.

Sniff. Maybe it's not becoming a democracy, but Iraq is sure becoming a true
melting pot. So, if you have problems with authority figures, like to blow
things up and hate anyone different than you, sign up now!

(The Army also increased the maximum enlistment age twice during the year.
First, in went from 35 to 40. Then, it went from 40 to 42. By the time this
mess is over, expect the AARP Team to come flying over a sand dune. I mean,
someone has to supervise the youngins.)

Which brings us to the Army's new slogan! No more will possible recruits be
bombarded with "An Army of One" posters and ads. This past week the Army
revealed its new catch phrase: "Army Strong."

Aside from the fact that it's reminiscent of the Frankenstein's monster's
classic slogans "Friend good," "Smoke good," "Fire -grrrrrrr- bad," this
little gem will result in its creators getting $1 billion over five years.

Ayup. And that's not even mentioning the fact that it's danged close to the
Lance Armstrong Foundation's "LiveSTRONG" slogan, part of Lance's cancer
charity fundraising.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery, as well as the most lucrative.

So, what is the new Army, indeed, all of our troops facing in Iraq?

A snowballing disaster.

This week, American and Iraqi public health experts calculated that about
655,000 Iraqis have died since our invasion, or, about 2.5%% of the country's
entire population.

The figures were released by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health in the U.S. Or, as they are known in Republican circles, "those
crackpots."

During his recent Rose Garden manure-fest, Bush dismissed the report as,
well, manure. "The methodology is pretty well discredited," he opined.

When pressed as to his own death toll figures, Professor Bush declared. "I
DO know that a lot of innocent people have died."

Give that boy a ceee-gar!

In the past, Bush has said that, maybe, 30,000 Iraqis have been killed. The
Iraqi government figures 40,000. Apparently, both BushCo. and the Iraqi
government did poorly in those aptitude tests, too. Their cyphering doesn't
add up.

Last month, 2,667 Iraqis were killed due to sectarian killings and insurgent
attacks in Baghdad alone, an average of 89 a day. These figures come from
the Iraqi Health Ministry, so you can bet they're on the conservative side.
(No pun intended.) There are no figures, as yet, that take into account the
rest of the country.

In August, according to the U.N., 3,009 died countrywide. In July, 3,590.

If you add up the past three months' incomplete numbers, that's about a
third of Bush's cypherin', and a fourth of the Iraqi's school of 'rithmetic.

Doesn't seem realistic does it?

So, that's what our troops are in for.

A civil war plus an insurgency plus delusion.

And into this mix, marches the Army Strong waiver wavers.

What military genius has led us to this point?

Here's a clue. This week, Bush announced that the deficit numbers were
falling faster than ever, declaring: "These budget numbers are not just
estimates; these are the actual results for the fiscal year that ended
February the 30th."

There are 30 days in February like there are good odds of winning hearts and
minds in Iraq.

Remember when Bush would brag about being only a "C" student?

As President, he's a big "F."

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson