I'll be completely frank, and say yes military action - but lets be serious about it too, there cant be any troop involvement without reintroducing conscription (something i believe in, but is another kettle of fish).

Airstrikes against leadership and military targets, strikes against naval assets, yes. but to actually send in troops will result in casualty rates that people simply will not accept, both on western forces parts and enemy casualties. It is something i feel must change as well, in war people will die but we dont seem to understand that. And so, in the meantime, i feel every option excluding troops should be used.

Its all a political shell game. One day the deomocrats want more troops in country the next they don't. One day the republicans want to stay the course the next redeploy. Unfortunately the army, navy, marines, and air force people are at the whim of the politicians who are grand standing for votes and personal gain and celebrity.


Troop level in Jan 2005.....troop strength in Iraq at the current level of about 120,000
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2005Jan24.html
Troop level in Nov 2004...153,000 American troops now in Iraq
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/20/po...rssnyt&emc=rss
Troop level in Nov 2003...about 132,000.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1120-03.htm
Troop level in Aug 2003...about 140,000 U.S. troops and Lawmakers and other officials have begun questioning whether that was enough.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/...ain/index.html

Troop levels since march of 2003
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...q_orbat_es.htm

Conscript armies are bad armies for the most part. The real problem is our teeth to tail ratio. There are huge numbers of people in the military already, but the problem is that there aren't enough combat formations. Part of that is the result of the whole "using the military as a free trade school" deal that happened over the last couple of decades and the other part is a shortsightedness about the sort of military we'd need in a Post-Cold War environment.

I mean the current US Army has about the same number of active duty combat divisions as the Marine Corps did in WWII. On paper the current Marine Corps should be more stretched than the Army is, but they aren't due to the fact that they've always been a combat arms heavy service, whereas the Army isn't.