....and in a related story, Army suicide rates drop for the first time in four years. See:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/military...

The Obama Administration is cutting the Army by 10 Brigades and 100,000 soldiers, reducing civil service by 150,000 jobs.

I'm afraid it's gotta happen, no matter whose administration does the cutting. With the reduced footprint overseas, you just can't continue to maintain the same strength Army-wide. While I was on active duty from 1971 - 1998, we went through 3 of these events: expansion for Vietnam, contraction afterwards, then expansion again under Ronald Reagan. There was some reduction in the 90s due to closing of overseas bases/BRAC, then we had 9/11+Afghanistan+Iraq which resulted in another big expansion.

During every reduction, jobs get cut. Then expansion restores them (more or less) - in some cases dramatically. Then the cycle repeats.

Now that Osama is dead; al Qaeda is in shambles; we have "mission accomplished" in Iraq; and we are pulling out of Afghanistan "with honor," it's time to reap the "peace dividend," no?

Yes, to your question Sebe. I am just a little worried about that little nuclear bomb thing that Iran is(has) developed and is in the process of developing a mechanism (missle, suitcase...?) to deliver it to Israel. In this age of nuclear strikes arriving with NO return address the Mutally Assured Destruction process does not necessarily exist. If 'the terrorists' detonate it in Tel Aviv..then who gets hit back and where?

I think Israel is going to make a pre-emptive strike on IRan's nuclear facilities.

Again: The Mayan Calendar thing....

sebekm, what are you talking about pulling out of Afghanistan? Part of the 3rd ID is now deploying to Afghanistan.

Yes but they are just "residual" until we figure out how to get out completely (except for the CIA and the mercs, of course). During Obama's second term look for a continuation of the contraction of our overseas footprint. From a fiscal standpoint, this makes sense but even more so for him in order to placate his base.

As for the Iranian nuke-u-lar (as Dubya would say) threat: It seems to me that SOMEBODY is working hard to screw up their progress without starting WWIII. We've had the "viruses" to foul up the software running their centrifuges, and several serious cyber-attacks on their command-and-control computer structure. Then you have the defection, kidnapping, and murders of their nuke-u-lar scientists which seems to be an ongoing endeavor.

What really concerns me is that if the world DOESN'T end on December 21, 2012 - what will we all have to worry about? I guess we can wonder whether the U.S. government planned and executed 9/11, or whether it was really the Boston Strangler who was on the grassy knoll that day in Dallas....

Okay, good answer.

The Iranian's are estimated to have between 100 to 150 nuke-u-lar scientists and only 3 of those have been killed.