by Jeff Davis

The quality of the American military has slid a good ways down from its Sands of Iwo Jima days. Part of this is due to changing demographics of who makes up the military, but this doesn’t explain everything. The simple fact is that American soldiers just plain aren’t all that good anymore, as witness the incredible expenditure of ammunition in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to the Reuters news service, US forces have fired so many bullets in our Middle Eastern oil empire that American ammunition-makers cannot keep up with demand. For each Iraqi rebel killed, our soldiers fire an incredible estimated 250,000 bullets —ONE QUARTER MILLION ROUNDS!! As a result the US is having to import supplies of 5.56mm and 7.62mm copper jacketed small arms ammunition from ISRAEL. Ammunition which we initially GAVE to the Israelis as part of our annual $3 billion dollars in cash and military aid, and which the Israelis are now RE-SELLING back to us. This is what is known as chutzpah.

A government report says that US forces are now using 1.8 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition a year. 1.8 BILLION rounds? A quarter million rounds for every insurgent killed, and that’s accepting the Pentagon’s dubious word that these dead bodies are insurgents and not Iraqi civilians, children, camels, whatever? What are they shooting at that requires that much ammo?

The tactics used in fighting the insurgency may be partly to blame. The American infantry fire control tactic in Iraq is basically nonexistent. The GIs call it “Spray and Pray”–at the first hint of trouble, saturate a 360-degree arc around your position with as much flying lead as possible, and hope you hit something.

This sort of reckless, mindless tactic is almost certain to cause a high civilian casualty rate, but our soldiers are almost never punished for accidentally (or recklessly) causing civilian deaths. The rebels meanwhile will be quick to flee the scene or duck behind a boulder as our soldiers kill every living thing unlucky enough to wander into the open.

In World War One, Sergeant Alvin York killed 25 enemy soldiers with 25 shots. That rumbling sound you hear is Sergeant York turning over in his grave.