In discussions I keep having with people about the war in Iraq, I keep pointing out a scary, but true fact: we had a lot more troops for the first Gulf War in the early 1990s than we do now. The other scary trend is the use of the National Guard in Iraq.

The Pentagon has taken a series of unusual steps to maintain force levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, while still opposing congressional proposals to enlarge the military by tens of thousands of troops. The United States has about 140,000 troops in Iraq and about 20,000 in Afghanistan.

The Army has issued "stop-loss" orders preventing tens of thousands of soldiers designated to serve in Iraq or Afghanistan from leaving the military if their volunteer service commitment ends during their deployment.

The Army has notified 5,600 former soldiers from the Individual Ready Reserve, a rarely tapped personnel pool, that they are being involuntarily mobilized and deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. And the Pentagon extended duty in Iraq for about 20,000 troops three months beyond a promised one-year stint, and opted to shift 3,600 troops from South Korea to Iraq.

About 40 percent of U.S. forces in Iraq are National Guard and Reserve troops summoned from civilian life into active duty. [ Source: Reuters ]

How many troops did we have in the first Gulf War?

(Aug. 6 [1990]). 230,000 American troops arrive in Saudi Arabia to take defensive action, but when Iraq continues a huge military buildup in Kuwait, the President orders an additional 200,000 troops deployed to prepare for a possible offensive action by the U.S.-led coalition forces.

532,000 U.S. forces served in Operation Desert Storm. [ Source: InfoPlease ]

That's just U.S. troops. There were 100,000+ troops from other countries that took part in the first Gulf War. We didn't even really go that far into Iraq during that conflict, yet we had a much, much, much larger force. That's just crazy. The Bush administration won't admit we don't have enough troops in Iraq and did this war on the cheap. Our soliders are dying all the time because of this. It's bullshit and pisses me off.