Kevin Drum writes about the LA Times story that reports the Army is promoting an increasing number of less-than-stellar candidates into senior positions. As one nameless officer put it, "The problem here is that you're not knocking off the bottom 20%.... Basically, if you haven't been court-martialed, you're going to be promoted to major." Kevin comments, "I wouldn't have expected an occupation of 150,000 soldiers for three years to have caused as much stress as it has."

His assumed sarcasm aside, the problem here is it's not just any old occupation that has served as a catalyst for this stress. Rather, it's specifically this Iraq occupation -- and all the deception and lies and question marks that go with it. It's for these reasons recruiting has plummeted and consequently the quality of a typical sign-up today is lower when compared to recruits in the past.

In effect, it's just another repercussion of Bush's covert decision to attack a nation based on shoddy intel and trumped-up charges. Our future military will suffer due to the decline in quality and excellence that we're witnessing in the here and now. As a result, soldiers will die due to the increase in ineptitude. Via attrition, mediocrity will rise to the top and everyone will ultimately pay for this unfortunate trend -- many with their lives.