WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 (UPI) -- A new poll released by a veterans group says a majority of Iraq and Afghan war veterans surveyed believe the military is overextended.

Overall, 63 percent of all Iraq or Afghanistan veterans believe the Army and Marine Corps are overextended at this time, including 67 percent of Army and Marine veterans and 66 percent of veterans who experienced ground combat," reports the poll, released Wednesday by VoteVets.org.

***The poll also shows that a fifth of veterans have been impacted by stop-loss regulations or extensions beyond their promised deployment, which is one year for the Army and seven months for the Marine Corps.

***The poll also shows a third of combat veterans have experienced nightmares and other post-traumatic stress symptoms after returning home.

***

Yet the President continues to employ Rumsfeld.  Could it be that he is so massively insecure that he cannot admit any mistakes, and in fact his decisionmaking is driven by a need to make himself feel adequate?

The divorce rate in the active duty Army is presently above 70%.

Thousands of volunteer soldiers are being sent for their 3rd tours of duty in Iraq.

Those who survive can look forward to a 6 to 8 month stateside visit before their 4th tour begins.

Iraq veterans have been showing up in homeless shelters for over 3 years.

Soldiers who are reluctant to re-enlist are quickly and noticeably transferred to units ready to redeploy to Iraq.

Soldiers who have completed their contractual enlistment obligation are denied the discharge they have earned.

Soldiers and Marines in Reserve units in Iraq receive far fewer promotions than their counterparts in Active units.  Congress members hear this complaint daily.

Soldiers on active duty are suffering severe emotional, psychological, and post-traumatic stress disorders.  Most receive marginal treatment and return to duty.

Pentagon officials admit that protective personal and vehicular armor in Iraq are still widely inadequate.
The Department of Defense is refurbishing 30-40 year old helicopters previously stored in "mothballs" in the dry deserts of New Mexico.

Since July 2005, six four star active duty generals and their commander-in-chief have issued statements reporting on the situation in Iraq that directly dispute and clearly conflict one another.

The people who made the decision to send our armed forces to Iraq failed to ask the rest of the nation to sacrifice a thing. We are not a nation at war but a nation whose armed services are at war, this fact is well-known and deeply resented among our service members especially when they get alerts for their third and fourth tours.

It took the United States about 44 months to win World War II including the deaths of Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo and the capture of thousands of subordinate enemy commanders and war criminals.  In the present war,  Osama Bin Laden and the perpetrator of the Anthrax attacks are still at large after...you count the months!

Nothing here is opinion or propaganda, folks, just facts that are well-known in the seats of power.

Well, technically Bush did succeed in removing Saddam from power.  But given the daily suicide bombings and unchecked death squads I seriously doubt any Iraqis would consider themselves better off living under Bush's democracy.

Furthermore, the Iraqis can look forward to an ugly civil war which will likely be won by some sort of extremist group leading to a repressive theocracy or, you guessed it, another brutal dictator.

So Bush "the humanitarian" did a heckuva job helping the Iraqi people.

Hastert No-Shows Major Interview; Anonymous Hastert Staffer Falsely Claims Interview Was Never Booked
House Speaker

Dennis Hastert (R-IL) was scheduled to be interviewed tonight by Chicago radio host John Williams. His previous radio appearances had been exclusively with conservative sympathizers like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Williams is a moderate who planned to ask tough questions.

But Hastert never showed.

This evening, National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez published this face-saving post at The Corner:

A top source in the speaker’s office tells me: “We never booked WGN. Am not aware of a call.”

But according to the show’s producer Matt Bubala, who spoke to ThinkProgress tonight, the interview was very much scheduled, and Hastert staffers apparently were not telling the truth about why Hastert bailed on the show.

Pic of Mark Foley and Charlie Crist (now running for governor of Florida) in better times:

BAGHDAD - Gunmen opened fire at a cafe, killing five people and wounded six on Wednesday night in the district of Zaafaraniya on the southern outskirts of Baghdad, a source in the Interior Ministry said.

SAMAWA - Gunmen stormed a home in the southern Iraqi city of Samawa late on Wednesday, shooting dead three women and slitting the throat of a baby girl, neighbours and hospital officials said.

BAGHDAD - A total of 30 bodies, most of them shot and tortured, were found in different districts of Baghdad during the past 24 hours, a source in the Interior Ministry said.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed two people and wounded eight in Hurriya district in northwestern Baghdad, a source in the Interior Ministry said. The target of the explosion was not clear.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb wounded 20 labourers as it exploded near a crowd of men waiting for day jobs in central Baghdad's Tayaran square, a source in the Interior Ministry said.

UKASHAT - Police found the bodies of five people, shot dead with signs of torture, in the small town of Ukashat, about 500 km (310 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

FALLUJA - Gunmen killed two people, including a policeman, in the Sunni town of Falluja, just west of Baghdad, police said.

AL-BAGHDADI - Police Brigadier Shaaban al-Obeidi died of wounds he sustained in a roadside bombing near his convoy on Wednesday in the town of al-Baghdadi, in Anbar province between Ramadi and Haditha, police said.

RAMADI - Four people were killed and six wounded in clashes between insurgents and U.S. forces in the insurgent stronghold city of Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad, Doctor Ahmed al-Rawi, head of Anbar health directorate said.

BAQUBA - Gunmen killed a police officer in a drive-by shooting in the religiously mixed town of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

MAHMUDIYA - A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol wounded two policemen in Mahmudiya, about 30 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

MAHMUDIYA - Several mortar rounds killed a man and wounded five of his family when they landed on their home in the town of Mahmudiya, just south of Baghdad, police said.

MAHMUDIYA - Iraqi police found two bodies with gunshot wounds in Mahmudiya, police said.

NEAR KIRKUK - A corpse was found near the Iraqi city of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. The victim was shot in the head.

NEAR BALAD RUZ - Several mortar rounds killed two people and wounded five others on Wednesday when they landed on a village near Balad Ruz, a town about 50 km (30 miles) southeast of Baquba, police said.

MOSUL - Gunmen killed two people in separate incidents on Wednesday in the northern city of Mosul, a source in the hospital said.

Some may say that is why we need to keep our troops in place to end chaos and create the peace and quiet for stability to return and for democracy to, ah, work. Forget that. Not a chance. The only reason staying the course finally worked against the IRA in Ireland was the fact there was an existing strong government against which they were rebelling, not a namby-pamby puppet regime, and, moreover, the British negotiated endlessly, always talking.