Chickenhawks that defend wars that they are unwilling to fight in don’t deserve even common courtesy. I don’t blame the caller for losing his temper with this arrogant little twit.

It’s irritating when C-Span moderators are always protecting the guests from embarrassing questions by callers, especially when often the callers are not particularly articulate but have a good point. Often the replys being offered by the guests on C-Span are so disingenuous that the callers become angry. If this was a decent moderator, he would have intervened to remind neo-conservative Mathew Continetti (assistant editor of the Weekly Standard) that the US military is desperately in need of healthy 20-something volunteers like him.

-Right now the Army and the National Guard are behind in it’s recruiting goals.

-The other services have been forced to lower it’s age, IQ and health standards and recruit immigrants in order to meet it’s recruiting goals. -To make up for a shortage of troops, the Pentagon is forcing reservists and servicemen against their will to remain in the military when their tour of duty expires.

-The Pentagon is also forcing it’s servicemen and reservists to multiple, consecutive deployments in Iraq without sufficient rest between deployments with severe consequences for their effectiveness and health. This has been a source of stress on service families, especially children.

-From the beginning the United States is relying on the National Guard reservists instead of the mainline military for the occupation, seriously depleting this resource in the event of national emergency.

-The Pentagon opposed the war because they did not think they had enough troops to occupy Iraq.

Every time a fighting age Neo-Conservative or Republican spokesman gets on TV and defends the war, they need to be asked why he’s not fighting there.

The IPS has a good summary of the costs of the war: The Iraq Quagmire: The Mounting Costs of War and the Case for Bringing Home the Troops