On Thursday, Michael Goldfarb, editor of the Weekly Standard's blog, set his green Army action figures down for five minutes in order to give us this bit of gravitas:
As to whether Bush is a recruiting tool for terrorists--who cares? Al Qaeda was recruiting before Bush was in office and they will continue to do so after he's gone. The important thing is that we keep killing those recruits. Eventually, one side will give up. And if Obama wins in November, we know which side that will be.
I'll just start off by saying that this passage represents all that is wrong with America. It betrays a superficial comprehension of not only the global issues at hand, but also an ignorant, elitist view that, "This doesn't affect me personally, so I don't have to care." This outlook is a serious sickness that infects all chickenhawks, but in particular the bystanders writing for the Weekly Standard--like William Kristol, Frederick Kagan, Matthew Continetti, and Michael Goldfarb.
The point that Goldfarb misses is that--while he may not care how many terrorists George W. Bush helps to create--the fact remains that Bush is creating more terrorists than he's exterminating. And this directly impacts our deployed troops around the world. Goldfarb is saying that he doesn't care who or what our troops have to face overseas.
See, Goldfarb can say it flippantly because he doesn't have to pick up a weapon and stand ready to defend himself against these terrorist "recruits." The number of new roadside bombs that appear in Iraq this week is of no concern to Goldfarb, as he has no skin in the game. But to a PFC who's been practicing real-life counterinsurgency for about six weeks in Sadr City or Helmand, it's a huge deal. What Goldfarb doesn't get is that these "recruits" are real people with real weapons--not video game characters. And the more of them there are, the harder our job becomes. And this job of "killing those recruits" is not nearly as easy or as fun as Goldfarb would like to think it is.
In reality, people who know about terrorism and war do care about the creation of new enemies. In fact, when it comes to creating new enemies, actual experts in counterinsurgency and terrorism--like Army Lieutenant Colonels John Nagl and Paul Yingling--would tell you this:
Indiscriminate attacks against non-combatants and human-rights abuses aid and abet the enemy's cause. In our globalized world, abuses such as prisoner maltreatment in Abu Ghraib are quickly broadcast around the globe. Our enemies use these accounts and images as part of their propaganda campaign to discredit host-nation governments and distort popular perceptions of our intentions. Such propaganda mobilizes those who were previously friendly or at least neutral to our efforts to bring stability and security. Isolated misdeeds by junior soldiers or small units can adversely affect a theater of war, and undo months of hard work and honorable sacrifice.
So while Goldfarb might not care, these guys do. And they know that creating new enemies is bad. Unlike Goldfarb, they've actually had to deal with terrorists and insurgents.
The very worst part of Goldfarb's passage, however, is when he uses his glib, dismissive tone to emulate an average 12-year-old when analyzing how best to win the Great Global War on Terror:
The important thing is that we keep killing those recruits. Eventually, one side will give up.
The lack of comprehension inherent in that last sentence is breathtaking. First off, like John McCain, Goldfarb seems to confuse "Islamic terrorists" with "Iraqi insurgents." That's bad enough. But secondly, the idea that it's "us" versus "them" is perhaps the most destructive meme in the debate over what to do about global terror. If Goldfarb still thinks there are only two sides in this global conflict, he's in desperate need of a foreign policy intervention. Likewise, when you're fighting terrorism and/or insurgencies, sides don't "give up" unless you kill off vast swaths of their population centers. And because that technique went out of style in August 1945, we're left with having to first either persuade the different sides or to accommodate them to some extent--and only then can we kill off the most extremist elements in their societies.
For instance, the words of General David Petraeus directly contradict Goldfarb's yammering:
Petraeus's response has been to focus less on his critics than on his myriad challenges. In Iraq, even with a strategy centered on protecting civilians from extremist or militia threats, he realizes that a foreign military will never be embraced -- a recognition highlighting one of the many complexities of counterinsurgency. "Every army of liberation has a half-life after which it turns into an army of occupation," he said. "You can extend that half-life by being considerate of the population, respectful of the population, understanding of it, doing what are clearly good deeds, being sensitive to the conduct of operations, and try to limit very, very much the collateral damage and so forth. But over time, again, you are not one of them. And inevitably there will be some friction as a result of that and some resentment as a result of that. No country wants, again, an occupying army on their soil."
See, there's nothing in there about killing them off until they give up. Nagl and Yingling--two seasoned practitioners--echo that same sentiment:
Effective COIN (counterinsurgency) requires interaction with the host-nation civilian population, and the greatest barriers to such interaction are language and culture. Every unit that operates independently in a COIN environment - maneuver platoons, civil affairs and psychological operations teams, etc. - must have at least one member who is proficient in the local language and knowledgeable in the local culture. Collecting, analyzing, disseminating and acting on intelligence are critical skills in COIN that require substantial training and resources to develop. These tasks are not limited to intelligence soldiers; in COIN, understanding the environment and finding the enemy are everybody's business. Insurgencies are defeated not by foreign powers but by indigenous forces.
Again, Goldfarb's simplistic attitude is indicative of one who's never visited a combat zone and of one who knows nothing about counterinsurgency or war.
As for the part about Obama, I'm just going to ignore it. The proposition that Obama will "surrender" to the "terrorists" doesn't even merit a response. I will note, however, that George W. Bush has been fighting the "terrorists" for nearly seven years now. In that period--under the influence of Weekly Standard geniuses like Kristol and Kagan--we've failed to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, religious conservatives hold new sway in Iraq, Iran is more powerful than before, Hezbollah could overrun Beirut at a moment's notice, Afghanistan is nearly a failed state, and our own military has been weakened to such an extent that Army Vice Chief of Staff General Richard Cody recently said, "I've never seen our lack of strategic depth be where it is today."
But then, that's what happens when "experts" who think like middle schoolers are placed in positions of influence and authority. I say it's high time for America to start listening to guys like Nagl and Yingling, while we wait for 2009--when clowns like Michael Goldfarb will no longer have a relevant voice in American foreign policy circles.
The time when anything remotely negative said about our military was deemed as "un-American", during the flag-waving days following 9/11, are but a memory. The cost and length of the Iraq war and the economic downturn have made the military as a whole a ripe target for criticism among Americans as resources become more scarce amongst our tax base and the country's debt runs out of control. I recall seeing a lot of bumper stickers growing up that said "It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber". Could the same line of logic be applied about tax dollars going to social programs for the general public instead of veteran benefits?
The politicization of the war has mostly been directed at the "neocons" (an undesirable label that is now morally akin to the Hitler Youth), but it can even explain how Hillary failed to win the Democratic primary, as Publius at Obsidian Wings explains. Whoever gets the proverbial "Iraq war" moniker hung around their neck is most likely to be characterized as a nuisance or evil for decades to come. This has terrible ramifications for Iraq vets and other personnel who have served in the military during these troubled times, as the Iraq war's architects will retire to castles invisible in the public eye, but us vets will be amongst the general populace representing an endeavor Americans will resent. Take your pick on why the Iraq war has taken so long, been so costly, or how we shouldn't have even started it, but we must deal with reality now or we could end up in a very poor position in our future society.
While directly criticizing the troops remains politically incorrect for the time being in policy circles and the media, there has been some low-level criticism of the military apparatus. The media's preoccupation with the Abu Ghraib scandal after so many years comes to mind, but at least that can be conveniently chalked up to "a few bad apples". Here are a few examples of subtle attempts to discredit the military as an institution, thereby indirectly criticizing those who are part of the organization. I recently found these and they aren't the fringe neo-Trotskyite crowd on the streets with tinfoil hats, but rather from individuals that can communicate effectively to a broad audience both culturally and politically. These can be extrapolated to a cultural paradigm that could sweep over large blocs of Americans if we rest on our laurels.
There is no more important job than Mom, and on this Mother's day, we would be wise to give our respect and admiration to all those Moms who have sons and daughters in harm's way. Interesting story from Stars and Stripes about a Mom with 3 boys in Iraq and Afghanistan:
"I'm proud of my sons, too. But it does make me worry. I'm like a mother hen who wants to protect her chicks. But you have to accept it."
I can't think of a stronger emotional bond than between a mother and her children, and these troubled times we live in must be very hard on them. Here's hoping your Mother's Day is a good one.
Also, to the moms who are in the military: I hope you have a day free of stress, as I understand many other days in the service are full of hard-work.
As far back as I could remember, I wanted to be in the Army. I don't know where it came from (my dad was a Navy veteran, after all), but I was enthralled by military history. I couldn't get enough of it. But it wasn't enough to simply read about the military. I wanted to be a part of it as soon as I could.
I was playing hookie on Sept. 11, 2001, staying home during my sophomore year of high school when I saw the towers crumble on live television. I wasn't thrown into uncertainty about my decision to join the Army when the invasion of Afghanistan commenced weeks later. Two months before my graduation in 2003, the Iraq War started. My only insight, like 99.9% of Americans, came from the CNN broadcasts in the middle of the night. Seeing the death reports roll in, I still wasn't phased.
I hesitate to call that conviction or courage, but I figured it was my generation. My fight. As soon as possible I enlisted for three years. A good deal of that was a fifteen month deployment. Suffice to say, I had a different opinion of war policy and the decisions that led us to continued war in Iraq. I saw a good deal of my friends fall into the stop loss policy that barred them from leaving the service after their contractual obligation ended. One friend of mine deployed on the very day he was supposed to separate from the Army. I had never known anyone that was called up through the IRR. We all thought it was a rumor or an exaggeration.
Though I don't know author Colby Buzzell, we went along a similar path. We were in the same Stryker brigade (though in different deployments), we walked the streets of Baghdad and we both maintained anonymous blogs while deployed. We're both out now, but only one of us is on his way back to Iraq thanks to the IRR, with a hat-tip to Brandon:
...I really was looking forward to applying my GI Bill to photography classes so I could learn how to take pictures. But now, thanks to not enough Americans volunteering for military service, I now have to worry about my picture appearing on the second or third page of my hometown paper with the words, "it was his second deployment" in my obituary.
That's at the very end of the article that deserves to be read in full by every single breathing American citizen. Buzzell expresses a sentiment felt by nearly every veteran I know: Americans have not only failed to pick up the slack of a two front war, but they've dumped all the hardship, responsibility, guilt, heartbreak and exhaustion onto less than 1% of the population - service members and their families. There's a word for that: serfdom.
There doesn't exist an expression better fitting than that, a relationship between two segments of society where one side dumps something so righteous and serious as war onto the other, a segment that is bound by the state for an indefinite period of time. A part of society that answered the call of duty for various reasons but is either browbeaten to reenlist after their term is up, or is called back into serving another combat tour once they completely get out of the service. School, careers and families are all put on hold or annihilated for continued combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Back in the states, perpetual cowards on the pro war side choose to sit on the bench while the team takes all the hits (h/t OYE).
They'll never forget to boast about what they didn't earn either. If you've got a strong stomach, read the comments under the story for some revolting trash about how there have been only 4,000 deaths in the Iraq War so far and the constant shoulda/coulda/woulda mentality regarding service. It's always "my friend" or "my dad" who served. It seems honor and commitment are only words in a Tom Clancy novel to some. I've got a challenge for the ingrate pukes that frequent Little Green Footballs and sites like it: tell me to my face that only 4,000 of my comrades have died, that only two of my friends were killed doing something conservatives refuse to do. I will, in turn, only jam my fist down your chickenhawk throat.
I'm with Colby Buzzell on the belief that a military draft will solve all the ambiguity surrounding the Iraq War, its reasons for existence and continued pursuance. The lazy neocons would wake up and realize what less than 1% of the population knows for a fact: the war goes on without a clear strategy and even muddier goals. Of course, most would get deferments like their idols Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney, but it would bring Iraq back into the national discussion. Suddenly, a lot of people would realize a war is not something they want to send their little snowflake into. Before it was their neighbor's cousin, but their own family?! Humph! War is for poor people after all.
Imagine: half the troops in Iraq would be repositioned in Afghanistan, going after bona fide Taliban fighters and al-Qaeda insurgents. After a reallocation of combat power, there would be no need of the IRR or stop loss programs. The U.S. would be fighting in a war everyone can agree on, with clear goals and objectives: destruction of the Taliban network that has been allowed to fester since 2003. The capture or killing of Osama bin Laden. And folks like Colby Buzzell would go on with their lives, their service completed honorably. No more interruptions of life after war, no more abuse by a system set up to punish the selfless patriots willing to sacrifice everything for the privileged pigs at the trough, ready to send everyone to war except themselves.
Colby Buzzell, author of My War--one of the best Iraq memoirs out there--has been called up from the IRR and will be returning to Iraq. For reasons that I've specified in the past, this is utter horseshit. Our country is in sad shape when cowards like Matthew Continetti and Jason Mattera are allowed to refuse to serve--instead choosing to cheer from the bench--while people like Colby Buzzell are forced to go involuntarily again and again.
This is nothing less than a backdoor draft. And it's wrong. We need to either have a draft or not have a draft. But one way or the other, these IRR mobilizations need to stop.
Here's part of Buzzell's take on his own situation (though you should go read the whole thing in the San Francisco Chronicle:
I got out of the Army three long years ago, and since then I've never really talked ill of the military, the people in it, or expressed any regrets at all about enlisting. If I had to do it all over again, I honestly would have. Granted, I got lucky and made it back with all my body parts intact. If I hadn't, my answer might be a little bit different than what it is now.
As terrible as this might sound, whenever someone asks me about enlisting, I'm tempted to encourage them. I figure that the more people who enlist, the slimmer the chances that I'll get called back up. But of course this is ridiculous: No one in their right mind would enlist now, whereas I've already signed the papers. I'm now going back to Iraq for a second time because people like me - existing service members - are the only people at the Army's disposal.
Looking back, would I have joined the military if I were doing something that I loved? Or had a job that paid $100,000 a year? Probably not. Those are the men and women I feel that we need to mail these letters to. Let's see what happens when they receive letters telling them to put on a uniform and ship out immediately to the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Many people believe that the draft ended the Vietnam War. I'm convinced that reinstating the draft would definitely end this war. Rich, connected people will always find a way to evade mandatory service, but what about the rest of America? The middle class - people with good jobs and nice lives - would perhaps riot if the government even suggested that it expected from them what the Army expects from veterans.
What if there were a war and none of the veterans who were called up showed up?
Every time when I hear about a soldier's death now - which is always reported very briefly - there always seems to be a short mention that it was the soldier's second or third deployment, and now my name might be among them.
I know I won't get any sympathy at all from the "you dumb ass you signed the contract!" crowd, which is fine, but I really was looking forward to applying my GI Bill to photography classes so I could learn how to take pictures. But now, thanks to not enough Americans volunteering for military service, I now have to worry about my picture appearing on the second or third page of my hometown paper with the words, "it was his second deployment" in my obituary.
If you read VetVoice, you already know this, but it's always worth stating again: Our country has lost its way. We have our work cut out for us.
Iraqi forces claimed tonight to have arrested the head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq during an operation in the northern city of Mosul, one of the terrorist organisation's last major hold-outs in the country.
Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the nom de guerre of Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, was captured in a joint US-Iraqi operation, according to Iraqi military sources quoted by the Arabic news channel al-Arabiya. The US military said it could not confirm the information.
Al-Masri's death was reported by the Iraqi military last year and later proved to be wrong.
While this in itself won't change much in terms of the situation on the ground, it's certainly a positive development. As Cernig at Newshoggers notes:
If it is true, I've two predictions - that the pro-occupation crowd will hail it as yet another last corner, and that it won't really make any difference to events in Iraq. The Sunni and Shiite faction-fights are now entirely independent of Al Qaeda's influence while AQI's activities in Mosul and beyond, based upon a cell system, will hardly be slowed by the loss of their leader.
Either way, this is good news.
UPDATE: Scratch everything. Turns out the story is bullshit:
A man seized by Iraqi forces is not the head of al Qaeda in Iraq, a senior U.S. military official said on Friday, following an announcement by several Iraqi officials that Abu Ayyub al-Masri had been captured.
When the last major polling was done on the Senate race in Texas, it appeared that VoteVets-endorsed candidate and Afghanistan veteran Rick Noriega was in a bad spot: The incumbent Senator, Bush pal John Cornyn, had a commanding 51 percent to 35 lead.
But in the past few months, that's all changed. Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos gives us the latest:
Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 5/5-7. Likely voters. MoE 4% (9/24-26/07 results)
Cornyn (R) 48 (51)
Noriega (D) 44 (35)
That is nothing short of astounding. And lest anyone worry that it's an outlier, these numbers confirm a Rasmussen poll from earlier this week:
Rasmussen. 5/1. Likely voters. MoE 4% (No trend lines)
Cornyn (R) 47
Noriega (D) 43
The fact that two consecutive polls show only a four point lead for Cornyn demonstrates that Lieutenant Colonel Noriega is not only viable as a candidate, but that sitting Republican John Cornyn is terribly unpopular in Texas.
Bottom line: Noriega is well within striking distance. You're going to hear a lot more about this race as the year goes on. Click here to help put Rick over the top:
For weeks, the US Army had a blockade around Sadr City to keep vehicles from entering or leaving the dangerous area. Residents of the besieged district complained of skyrocketing food prices, trash piling up in the streets, and claustrophobia from being trapped indoors. Several lawmakers staged sit-ins to protest the blockade. That blockade has been lifted, and residents are now being asked to leave.
BAGHDAD (AP) - Local residents say Iraqi soldiers are warning people to leave their homes in Sadr City for security reasons.
They say the warning is the first time residents are being told to flee the embattled Baghdad district.
Sadr City is a rather small area, only about six square miles in size. However, it is heavily populated and it has been a constant battleground area for US troops fighting against Shia militias since 2003. During OIF I, my unit was tasked with guarding Iraqi police stations in that area. The intense fighting there continues still today. This is from just last week:
BAGHDAD - The ugly daily fight for ground in the poor Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City unfolded Saturday at a small mosque next door to a hospital, damaging the hospital and a number of its ambulances, and near a group of children who were wounded as they gathered tin cans to sell for salvage.
The missiles that hit close to the Sadr General Hospital were American. After a night of clashes in the neighborhood, the Americans fired at least three "precision-guided munitions" at the small building next door to the hospital. Neighbors said the building was used as a place of prayer for pilgrims, hospital employees and neighborhood residents, but the military identified it as a command center for the Shiite militias that it is battling.
Since the evacuations have begun, more than 6,000 people have fled their homes in Sadr City, according to UNICEF. A number of humanitarian groups are now trying to feed and shelter the refugees that are pouring out of the area. Approximately 2.5 million people currently live in Sadr City.
For months now, supporters of the war in Iraq have trumpeted America's apparent success in Iraq's Anbar Province as a model for counterinsurgency operations. With major fighting in Fallujah, Ramadi, and Qaim in the past, what had once been the most violent region of Iraq had--by the fall of 2007--become one of the most peaceful areas of the country.
It stayed that way until recently. When a yet-to-be-named U.S. soldier was killed while on patrol in Anbar on Tuesday, he became the ninth American to die there in the past three and a half weeks. This is neither random nor insignificant.
In fact, during the past 30 days, 23 percent of coalition combat fatalities have occurred in al-Anbar Province. Considering that only two U.S. troops had been killed in Anbar in the preceding six months--representing just over one percent of total coalition combat fatalities during that period--this is a huge uptick.
In comparison, combat fatalities have dropped significantly in Baghdad over the same 30-day period. The graph below shows the percentages of coalition combat fatalities taking place in Baghdad and al-Anbar over the past seven months (in 30-day increments beginning on October 11, 2007):
To be certain, people don't plant IEDs randomly. Planting roadside bombs in the first place is incredibly risky, and insurgents don't take the issue lightly. Thus, when IEDs and VBIEDs (car bombs) suddenly start going off west of Baghdad again, it's for a reason.
While I do not profess to know exactly what change in the political climate precipitated this specific spike in violence, I do know that General Petraeus was correct when he said that the placidity in Anbar Province was reversible. What most have failed to realize thus far is that, while al Qaeda is deeply unpopular in Anbar, U.S. forces are equally despised. So it seems that those who've repeatedly used Anbar's relative peacefulness as a sign of impending U.S. success in Iraq know little about counterinsurgency and less about Iraq.
Success in Iraq is something that will be brought about by Iraqis--not the American military. As long as we're there, the best we can hope for is extreme violence broken by periodic lulls--such as what we've witnessed in Anbar over the past seven months. As long we remain in Iraq, the violence will remain cyclical. It will rise and fall, contingent on the latest deal we've cut with tribal leaders or the latest deal that someone has brokered within the Iraqi government. But our military will never completely solve this inherently Iraqi problem. We're watching that unfortunate fact unfold before us in Anbar this month.
Army Secretary Pete Geren said today that the military will commit $248 million to repair dilapidated barracks around the world.
About $2.3 million will be spent on fixing barracks problems on Fort Bragg, he said.
Geren made the announcement this afternoon while visiting the installation for a ribbon-cutting ceremony for new soldier housing. The initiative to repair aging barracks comes nearly two weeks after The Fayetteville Observer first reported on a video posted online by a soldier's father, showing images of his son's moldy, 50-year-old living quarters on Fort Bragg.
My question: Why is it that nothing changes until someone goes to the media? All we ever hear in the military is, "Use your chain of command. Use your chain of command." Well, using the chain of command didn't stop the torture at Abu Ghraib. It didn't get us enough armor for our vehicles in Iraq. It didn't fix the disgraceful conditions at Walter Reed. And it didn't fix the barracks at Fort Bragg. None of these situations were rectified until the media got involved.
So why can't the military police itself? Isn't that what we're supposed to be known for? Policing each other up?
When I first entered active duty, the media was the enemy. They weren't to be trusted. Now, that's changed considerably since 9/11, but there's still a vague fear of reporters within the ranks. As far as I'm concerned, however, with the Bush administration still firmly in control, the media has clearly become our ally.
Despite a moderate review on the VetVoice front page for the most recent Iraq-related major movie release, Stop Loss, the flick totally bombed! It generated a pathetic $10.8 million and got a meek 65% on the tomato meter. This follows in the wake of other movies related to our current conflicts which have all flopped as well to include: Home of the Brave, Valley of Elah, and Lions for Lambs. I was able to watch portions of Valley of Elah on a one-dollar bootleg last night, and it seemed pretty decent, but why did it only make a lousy $6.5 million, while the teeny-bopper romp Bratz pulled in more cash from the American public?
The conservative-leaning blog, Little Green Footballs, postulated that it has to do with Americans not wanting to hear the overt political leanings of Hollyweird:
It's "a function of the marketplace not being ready." Have they ever considered the possibility that the marketplace doesn't want Hollywood's tedious left-wing anti-American self-hating bias shoved down its throat?
I would disagree with this statement as America is probably accustomed to the left-leaning tendencies of Hollywood at this point (as an ardent non-leftist, I even saw Farenheit 9/11). The reasons these movies about Iraq are doing so poorly is because the end state and the results of our current military conflicts are still very much in question. Audiences aren't going to be comfortable having a definitive war movie when the outcome is still completely unclear. So we may have to wait awhile for the next crop of legendary movies like Platoon, Born on the 4th of July, or Full Metal Jacket for our generation.
As jimstaro announced in his diary yesterday, the Defense Department has publicly released all the documents they gave to the New York Times for the investigation on the Pentagon Propaganda Program. You can access this treasure trove of documents by clicking here.
And for what it's worth, a quick scan through some of the documents does show that Michael O'Hanlon is also involved.
Speaking at West Point on Friday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen told cadets that if Congress were to repeal the Don't Ask, Don't Tell law, the military would enforce the change.
For quite some time, U.S. troops have supported repealing the military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" (DADT) policy. A December 2006 poll of servicemembers who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan found 73 percent of those polled were "comfortable with lesbians and gays." A 2004 poll found that a majority of junior enlisted servicemembers believed gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the military, up from 16 percent in 1992.
For an entertaining view of how the current DADT policy helps al Qaeda, check out this clip of Jon Soltz and a right-wing terrorist enabler on CNN last year:
The Pentagon thanked thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans on Tuesday by telling them that, unless they'd served six years on active duty, they weren't worthy of receiving the new GI Bill proposed by Jim Webb and Chuck Hagel:
We certainly do have issues with Senator Webb's bill as it has been described to us. And it's not, as some have suggested, a matter of cost. You know, we are mostly concerned with the harm it would do to troop retention. We have no issue with the fact that Senator Webb wishes to, you know, provide a more generous education benefit to troops, but we are certainly concerned that this would be eligible to them after only two years of service.
We think pegging it to a longer period of service -- the number we have in mind at this point is six years of service -- that the longer you stay in, the sweeter the benefits are to you. Six years would show a commitment to service. In fact, it would allow for at least, at that point, one reenlistment for another tour of duty.
So for all you veterans out there--and even those of you on active duty--who've done multiple combat tours during your first 2-5 years of service, this means you haven't done enough to have earned full GI Bill benefits.
It doesn't matter if you've lost your marriage. It doesn't matter if you wake up three nights a week now with your heart racing. And it doesn't matter if you've left parts of your body on some street in Baghdad. You still haven't given enough. If you want the government to cover the full cost of your education--like it did for your grandparents after World War Two--you'll just have to keep giving until you reach that six year mark.
At some point, the Pentagon is going to have to face up to the fact that unjust wars and greedy contractors do far more damage to retention than the GI Bill. But they'll never be forced to unless you speak up.
Because the U.S. government isn't wasting enough money on war profiteers, the Defense Department has decided that it is a swell idea to start using contracted Military Transition Teams (MiTT Teams) to train the Iraqi Army. From WaPo:
The solicitation, issued by the Joint Contracting Command in Baghdad, says the individuals that a contractor recruits -- who would include former members of the U.S. Special Forces and ex-Iraqi army officers -- will be trained in the United States with military transition teams (MiTTs) and shipped as a single team to Iraq. The recruits will live on Iraqi military bases "under Iraqi living conditions and participate with MiTT special operations and convoy duties," the solicitation says.
Just out of curiosity, might these "recruits include" former Navy SEALs?
For those not in the know, MiTT teams consist of 10-15 senior noncommissioned and field grade officers who train and are imbedded with the Iraqi Army. They advise the Iraqi forces on intelligence, communications, fire support, logistics, and infantry tactics. Their goal is to create an Iraqi Security force "capable of conducting independent counterinsurgency operations, tactically, operationally, and logistically."
Now, the Pentagon has developed a plan to use Blackwateresque mercenaries to train the Iraqi Army. Great idea. These guys have done a bang up job thus far. I'm sure a lot of you are, like me, wondering why the military has to switch to contracted MiTT teams, as opposed to using Soldiers to do a Soldier's job. In the WaPo article, Center for Strategic and International Studies scholar Anthony Cordesman describes the move as a "natural step" for the military "during this transition period where the military is converting to noncombat roles". Think about that for a minute. This war has been so mismanaged that it is seen as "natural" that civilians are doing the Soldier's job of training Soldiers, while Soldiers are doing the civilian's job of nation building. Has anyone alerted the State Department to the fact that we are doing taking on their mission while contractors do ours? Does this seem bizarre to anyone else?
Of course, any story involving our military is not complete without Michael O'Hanlon making an ass of himself. The WaPo article is no different.
Michael O'Hanlon, a military specialist at the Brookings Institution, said the need for contractors to support the Iraq transition teams is linked to the shortage of such officers in the U.S. Army at a time when it is also expanding. "There are insufficient field-grade officers in our own service, and we need the captains and majors as we increase our own ground forces," he said.
More generally, company grade officers (first and second lieutenants as well as captains, and West Point grads and others all combined) have not been leaving the force at a greater than normal rate.
I wouldn't expect O'Hanlon to know this, being that this "military expert" never wore a uniform, but company grade officers (lieutenants and captains) grow up to be field grade officers. That is if they stay in the service. And while an officer normally would have 10 years time in grade before being considered for promotion to the rank of a field grade officer, the Army's fiscal year 2008 Active Duty Major board considered O-3s who entered active duty as late as 28 August 2003, well after the start of Operation Enduring Freedom and five months after the beginning of the Iraq campaign. Junior officer's leaving the service upon completion of their initial service obligation may not be the soul reason for a lack of availability of field grades to lead MiTT teams. However, it is certainly a contributing factor.
Petraeus's response has been to focus less on his critics than on his myriad challenges. In Iraq, even with a strategy centered on protecting civilians from extremist or militia threats, he realizes that a foreign military will never be embraced -- a recognition highlighting one of the many complexities of counterinsurgency. "Every army of liberation has a half-life after which it turns into an army of occupation," he said. "You can extend that half-life by being considerate of the population, respectful of the population, understanding of it, doing what are clearly good deeds, being sensitive to the conduct of operations, and try to limit very, very much the collateral damage and so forth. But over time, again, you are not one of them. And inevitably there will be some friction as a result of that and some resentment as a result of that. No country wants, again, an occupying army on their soil."
Over the last two days, both RockRichard and Jon Soltz have posted diaries here regarding President Bush's plan to increase troop strength in Afghanistan. Already we are seeing a number of issues with how they are doing this.
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is considering sending as many as 7,000 more American troops to Afghanistan next year to make up for a shortfall in contributions from NATO allies, senior Bush administration officials said.
First of all, why are we waiting until next year? Second, how can we make commitments to international allies now based on predictions of what our next president will do regarding troop strength? And of course, where are these troops going to come from? This last question is where the conflicting stories begin.
This is from the same New York Times article, May 3rd:
They said the step would push the number of American forces there to roughly 40,000, the highest level since the war began more than six years ago, and would require at least a modest reduction in troops from Iraq.
ABOARD A MILITARY AIRCRAFT - The United States intends to send many more combat forces to Afghanistan next year, regardless of whether troop levels in Iraq are cut further this year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday.
Until now, the heavy commitment of U.S. forces in Iraq has been a constraint on the ability to increase U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan. But Gates said he did not believe that would be the case in 2009.
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has concluded it can't send additional troops to Afghanistan until sizable numbers of forces withdraw from Iraq, a senior military official said Monday.
U.S. troop levels in both Iraq and Afghanistan are already at or near their highest levels since the start of the two wars. The administration's decision to freeze troop levels in Iraq after the last of the 30,000 "surge" troops depart this summer has left Pentagon officials with few options for finding more forces for Afghanistan.
In other words, according to our military leadership, the next president will have to reduce troop numbers in Iraq, regardless of who that may be.
The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care, the U.S. government's top psychiatric researcher said.
(From the diaries, with minor edits - promoted by Brandon Friedman)
The VA bureaucracy fails again. In this specific instance, an 89 year-old World War II vet committed suicide in front of a Veterans Outpatient Clinic in Greenville, South Carolina. He did so holding a letter by the VA denying his disability claim.
An 89-year-old World War II veteran bought six bullets from a Greenville pawnshop on Thursday before fatally shooting himself outside a nearby veterans' clinic, authorities said.
Grover Cleveland Chapman died of a gunshot wound to the head in what's believed to be a suicide at the Veterans Outpatient Clinic on Augusta Road, said Greenville County Chief Deputy Coroner Mike Ellis.
Employees heard a pop and went outside to find Chapman with a head wound and a handgun between his legs, Ellis said. Chapman, a patient at the clinic, was the only injury reported, said Greenville County Sheriff's Lt. Shea Smith.
Grover Cleveland Chapman told his family,"No matter what I apply for at the VA, they turn me down," she recalled.
Harriett Chapman sees her father's April 24 death as his way of sending a message about the medical care offered by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
While staff at the clinic treated him well, he'd recently lost two battles in a continuous struggle to claim medical benefits, she said.
"He felt like the VA turned its back on him and a lot of other veterans," Harriett Chapman said.
He learned in a phone call on the Wednesday before his death that he was going to have to travel to Columbia for medical tests, although he'd been hoping for a waiver that would've allowed him to get them done closer to home, Harriett Chapman said
More bad news came hours later when he received a letter saying he'd been denied "100 percent disability," she said. If he'd been approved, the Veterans Administration would have picked up more of his medical bills, she said.
Grover Cleveland Chapman had the letter with him when he shot himself, Harriett Chapman said.
Unfortunately, due to the influx of new veterans and the fact that the VA Bureaucracy has resisted attempts by VA staff to prepare for these new patients, veterans of previous wars are being shoved to the back of the line. Thus, through purposeful underfunding even the greatest generation will suffer as America turns it's back on veterans of all generations who are unable to work the system.
"Friedman tells stories well, with a keen eye for war's absurdities and his own fading illusions of war's glory."--Baltimore Sun
"Emotionally honest. . .(Friedman) allows readers to experience things alongside him, rather than merely gasp in awe at his heroics or sit clucking in judgment."--Dallas Morning News
"A Time To Lead confirms the rewarding benefits of military service at a time when such service is experiencing considerable strain. It also includes a comprehensive description of America's current national imperatives, which deserve serious consideration."--General Alexander M. Haig, Jr., former Secretary of State
"This is a primer on leadership forged in battle and by decades of experience. . .This isn't just a book; it's a manual for leading people and living a good life."--Barry McCaffrey, General, USA (ret.)
"Whip smart, sassy, with a mouth as foul as a sailor's, 28-year-old Sergeant Kayla Williams. . .tells what it's like to be a female soldier in Iraq."--Booklist
". . .echoes military memoirists from Julius Caesar to Ernie Pyle."--Publishers Weekly
". . .a shocking, on-the-ground view of one military woman's experience in Iraq."--Bookmarks Magazine
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