« Peter Principle in action | Main | Sam Alito: Brought to you by the folks who defended torture and domestic spying. »

January 30, 2006

Horse sense.

An old farmer who was a bit addled refused to give up his farm. He lived alone, took care of himself, but absolutely hated to spend any money, and most of all he railed about the expense of horse feed. He got the bright idea that by feeding his one remaining old draught horse a little less each day, he'd get used to eating less, till eventually he could live on nothing. So time went by, the horse got thinner and weaker, till one day the farmer fed him one bite only. Next day, he'd be down to nothing at all, and he thought "Finally!" But the poor old horse dropped dead that night.

And what did the farmer say next morning? "Stupid horse, if only he could've waited ONE MORE DAY...!"

Why bring this up now, you say? Oh, I dunno.

According to Robert Burns, one of my favorite military writers, a recent study says that the Army has reached the breaking point.

Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who wrote the report under a Pentagon contract, concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency. He also suggested that the Pentagon's decision, announced in December, to begin reducing the force in Iraq this year was driven in part by a realization that the Army was overextended.

He wrote that the Army is "in a race against time" to adjust to the demands of war "or risk `breaking' the force in the form of a catastrophic decline" in recruitment and re-enlistment.

Of course, Donald Rumsfeld isn't buying any of this Henny Penny talk.

Rumsfeld has argued that the experience of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has made the Army stronger, not weaker.

"The Army is probably as strong and capable as it ever has been in the history of this country," he said in an appearance at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington on Dec. 5. "They are more experienced, more capable, better equipped than ever before."

This is the same Donald Rumsfeld who said we sent enough troops to Iraq in the beginning and denied there was an insurgency going on in that country until about ten months into it.

Thanks to Jeff Huber for the above. Two of my favorite horse sense riddle/jokes (answers in comments):

Q) A man rode into town on June 3rd, stayed a week, and rode out on June 3rd. How is this possible?

Q) How do you make a small fortune in the horse industry?

Posted by Jeff at January 30, 2006 06:18 AM