The Iraqi people may matter in the abstract — that is, if they can be made to serve as symbols of the majestic benevolence of American power, or used as living props in the next White House photo op. But their actual suffering matters not a whit, not if it gets in the way of the increasingly absurd attempts of the Cheney administration and its supporters to rationalize the criminal mistakes that have brought us to this point.
Back to Main
July 12, 2005
WB: The Devil’s Flypaper
Comments
You know one of the many reasons why I like Billmon’s webpage is his use of eclectic links. I appreciate the range of opinions. But some of the opinions offered by some of those links are absolutely silly. I remember when Billmon linked to Belmont Club and I regularly read that page to try and understand other opinions of events. I gave up long ago reading anything Belmont Club offered, however, when the opinions expressed at Belmont Club seemed ridiculous to me. I am glad Billmon removed the link. Sometimes opinions are expressed not only by what is said but also by what is done. Thank you for the de-linking!
Posted by: Dismayed | Jul 12 2005 20:07 utc | 1
Another great blog post by Billmon. This is the point we need to get across. The American people see nothing of the carnage going on, and because the deaths are Iraqis, we don’t care, apparently.
Posted by: Beth C. | Jul 12 2005 20:25 utc | 2
Egad! that is a heart rending photo.
Nothing makes me angrier than the “we gotta fight’em over there” bullshit.
Essentially it’s like saying that you’re going to lure all the violent criminals and drug dealers to one side of town and then blow the shit out of the place. Cause that’s better than having them on the “nice” side of town. And tough titty for the folks who have the misfortune to actually live in that neighborhood.
There isn’t a hell hot enough for these bastards.
Posted by: four legs good | Jul 12 2005 20:35 utc | 3
Makes me sad.
The Cheney Administration is one massive betrayal of Western Civilization. Every thing that is good and noble about us, the fruit of centuries of struggle from the founding of the Athenian democracy in 508 BC to today; the cultural heritage that conservatives and neo cons claim to “care” so much about, has thanks to them a big red stain on its front.
My only hope is that the sickening perversion of our culture that this governent and its supporters represent is now so glaringly obvious to the American people that they will gather their courage and lance it like a rotten abscess … send it to the dustbin of history, along with other failed ideas of our civilization, nationalism, eugenics, slavery, imperialism, social darwinism etc…
LADY MACBETH
Yet here’s a spot.
Doctor
Hark! she speaks: I will set down what comes from
her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.
LADY MACBETH
Out, damned spot! out, I say!–One: two: why,
then, ’tis time to do’t.–Hell is murky!–Fie, my
lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we
fear who knows it, when none can call our power to
account?–Yet who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him.
Doctor
Do you mark that?
LADY MACBETH
The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?–
What, will these hands ne’er be clean?–No more o’
that, my lord, no more o’ that: you mar all with
this starting.
Doctor
Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.
Gentlewoman
She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of
that: heaven knows what she has known.
LADY MACBETH
Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the
perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little
hand. Oh, oh, oh!
Posted by: Scott McArthur | Jul 12 2005 21:08 utc | 4
Just a point of information on “Iraqis are Arabs.” You may want to check with Juan Cole on the particulars, but I think only the Sunnis are Arabs.
But without a doubt, Iraqis are people, too.
Regarding the photo of the young Iraqi girl, there was a recent post at BOPnews on the subject. I seem to have been wrong about the NYTimes posting images of the girl, but I doubt the full photo essay of the “checkpoint” massacre was on the Times front page, as were the tsunami dead. They certainly weren’t made into a slide show on the web page as the tsunami victims were.
http://www.bopnews.com/archives/003913.html#3913
Posted by: Amos Anan | Jul 12 2005 21:51 utc | 5
THAT KIND OF THINKING, WHICH BY THE WAY IS SEEN TO EXTEND TO EVERYTHING THE HAND OF AMERICA HAS TOUCHED FOR THE LAST TWENTY FIVE YEARS IS WHY PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD INCLUDING ONCE STAUNCH ALLIES WILL NO LONGER BACK AMERICA.
P.S. Sorry about the caps, i am not shouting though i wish all you good Americans would
The little girl in the photo may be, it is to be feared, not too well inclined towards the US in the future. Suggestion: Add the dimension of time to the flypaper theory. The little girl is in Iraq now – and she is still little. Don’t let her grow up to potentially become a mobile terrorist. Kill her now, while time and opportunity are on the side of the greatest democracy on earth. As, without any doubt, is God, the old caucasian type with the imposing beard, whose dominion Iraq is.
Posted by: teuton | Jul 12 2005 22:03 utc | 7
We have forgotten the reality of war.
Not since the Civil War has the brutal cost, the reality of war, been born on US soil, excluding the carefully managed virtual genocide of the indigenous inhabitants, Native Americans …
Jingoism, patriotism, military/national glory and honor have all obscured the true costs of our seemingly endless foriegn wars, since the last burden of it in scale on home soil during the Civil War.
A complicit and compliant press have always largely assisted the sanitization(?), no, censorship of the realities of those wars, conflicts and ‘police actions’. Our moral integrity, our basic human decency has been persistantly and systemically undermined by endless subtle and not so subtle and ever more sophisticated manipulations over generations.
Why is it acceptable NOT to even record civilian casualties ? Publicly honor our returned service dead ? Because it would impact negatively on the political agenda of the day ?
Each and every life is precious.
Why is an American life, more generally ‘Western’ lives, held in such value and others are merely statistics ? No, less than statistics, for we refuse to even record them as even mere numbers in a ledger, we deny one life after another even that triviality of respect or recognition …
The press accepts and knowingly, complacently, tolerates blatant lies and deciet. Our supposed leaders and representatives from both parties participate in the ‘system’ of deciet and lies that is our political system of government.
Our Prez & Co spout abhorrent hypocritical rhetoric about ‘our values’ … values that represent contempt for life, profit above all else, the perpetuation of our priveledged position and therefore ‘lifestyle’ through a foreign policy supported and championed by both parties re ‘Amerikan Empire’.
Society chatters endlessly over the trivialities of consumerism, infotainment, etc.
As a society we cushion our living of the ‘American Dream’ by systemically refusing to confront, read, view, or hear of the reality that is war. All that is permitted is the cheerleading that is ‘Support the Troops’ and the censored propaganda of ’embedded reporters’. What good Pseudo-National Socialists we have become …
The world beyond our shores is far more aware of reality than us and I fear increasingly and collectively, if not instinctively, despite the international co-ordinated corporate media and leadership elites, percieves the demonstrations of our ‘values’ as an ever growing threat …
I despair that our ‘system’ has become irretrievably corrupt or worse yet, has it been transformed into corruption itself ?
Posted by: Outraged | Jul 12 2005 22:06 utc | 8
Great post . And for another must-read on the flypaper fallacy, check out this piece by a conservative with a conscience:
“A Tragedy, and a Failing Strategy”
Something tells me Billmon would like this one. Excerpt:
“But has anyone thought about why we’re justified in using another nation as flypaper in the first place, even if it was a viable, effective strategy? What gives us the right to use a sovereign nation as a catch basin for carnage so we can go on blissfully consuming and merrily flipping real estate here? Instead of flypaper, this should be called the “Night of the Living Dead Nation” strategy—using the undead, zombie-like carcass of a failed state for our own benefit. Beyond the sheer selfish immorality of it, has anyone thought about the potential for blowback? How would you feel if we were invaded by the Chinese on a false pretense, and they stated openly that their strategy was to attract and fight the scum of the earth in the streets of New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Chicago so they did not have to fight in Beijing?”
Posted by: Jill | Jul 12 2005 22:15 utc | 9
Bobby Kennedy:
We’re going in there and we’re killing South Vietnamese, we’re killing women, wer’e killing innocent people becaue we don’t want to have the war foutght on American soil, or because they’re 12.000 miles away, and they might get to be 11,000 away.
Do we have the right, here in the United States, to say that we’re going to kill tens of thousands, as we have, make millions of people refugees, as we have, killing women and children, as we have.
Those of us who stay here in the Unites States, we must feel it when we use napalm, when a village is detroyed and civilians are killed; this is also our responsibility. There is is a moral obligation, and a moral responsibility, for us in the United States. And I think we have forgotten that. I think we’re going to have a difficult time explaining that to ourselves…..
I think that the picture in the paper of a child drowining should trouble us more than it does, or the picture last week of a paratrooper holding a rifle to a woman’s head — it must trouble us more than it does….
When we say we love our country, we say it for what it can be, and for the justice it stands for, and what we’re going to mean for the next generation. It is not just the land, it is not just the mountains, it is for what the country stands for, and that is what I think is being seriously undermined in Vietnam, and the effect of it has to be felt by our people.
27 November 1967, Face the Nation
Posted by: Davis X. Machina | Jul 12 2005 22:43 utc | 11
Yes, our system of government is corruption itself. Money puts politicos in office, money drives their agenda, money is theirs after they leave office — if they did well by the moneyed folks.
As Bucky described it in, “A Grinch of Giants’ corporations are all by nature and essence psychopaths. Corporate government (what Mussolini called fascism proper) is government by psychopaths.
And that is very far from the Republic Ben Franklin left us with if, as he put it, “You can keep it.”
Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter are at home down this rabbit hole. I don’t like it down here.
Posted by: Antifa | Jul 12 2005 22:47 utc | 12
Downloaded from the ‘net and watched an historical documentary by the BBC the other day, Television under the Swastika – Unseen Footage from the Third Reich.
It was fascinating from a narrow technology perspective … was unaware of such early potentially widespread availability in the thirties …
Yet towards the end of watching the documentary and since I’ve been haunted by the parallels with our current broadcast media … no war reporting yet endless consumer, infotainment and trivial ‘entertainment’ … in the same format, more polished and sophisticated yes, but the same programming guide … no hard stories, no war reporting, occassional segments on rehabilitating wounded veterans … a medium not exactly directly controlled by the nazis yet striving so hard to be valued and accepted by them, ‘The State’ … hauntingly, earilly, familiar in its total subservient disconnect from reality …
Posted by: Outraged | Jul 12 2005 22:48 utc | 13
also, another doc-torrent out there is Gunner’s Palace. It’s an Iraq doc people who support the war will watch, and later be quietly challenged by.
Posted by: slothrop | Jul 12 2005 22:58 utc | 14
@Davis X. Machina
I’ve always considered that the Kennedies had a decidely dangerous vision of American society, from the perspective of the ‘vested-interests’.
“…For of those to whom much is given, much is required. And when at some future date the high court of history sits in judgment on each one of us—recording whether in our brief span of service we fulfilled our responsibilities to the state— our success or failure, in whatever office we may hold, will be measured by the answers to four questions:
First, were we truly men of courage—with the courage to stand up to one’s enemies—and the courage to stand up, when necessary, to one’s associates—the courage to resist public pressure, as well as private greed?
Secondly, were we truly men of judgment—with perceptive judgment of the future as well as the past—of our own mistakes as well as the mistakes of others—with enough wisdom to know that we did not know, and enough candor to admit it?
Third, were we truly men of integrity—men who never ran out on either the principles in which they believed or the people who believed in them—men who believed in us—men whom neither financial gain nor political ambition could ever divert from the fulfillment of our sacred trust?
Finally, were we truly men of dedication—with an honor mortgaged to no single individual or group, and compromised by no private obligation or aim, but devoted solely to serving the public good and the national interest.
— an excerpt of the address known as his “city upon a hill” speech by president-elect John F. Kennedy as he bids Massachusetts farewell, January 1961
For all the political duplicity, errors of judgement, questionable morals and lack of virtues of the ’60’s Kennedies … even if one concedes it was possibly empty rhetoric … this one speech always speaks directly to me, even 44 years later, down thru the years … such a crystal clear contrast, an enunciation of what is and has been denied us … now just a wistful, nostalgic dream … lost …
Posted by: Outraged | Jul 12 2005 23:22 utc | 15
Here’s a link to a review and torrent file for the documentary Gunners Palace that Slothrop recommended.
Posted by: Outraged | Jul 12 2005 23:41 utc | 16
@Amos Anan,
they are Arab all right. Except the Kurds. And the Turkomen. And the Assyrians of course. And various smaller groups.
Sunni (muslim) is a religious group, not an etnic one.
The MSM generally contribits to a bit of confusion by refering to Sunni, Shia and Kurds when they mean Sunni muslim Arabs, Shia muslim Arabs and Kurds (generally muslim, both Shia and Sunni although some are not).
Maybe you thought of Iranians, who are mostly Shia muslim and Persian?
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Jul 12 2005 23:52 utc | 17
@outraged, I think the Kennedy clan embodied the notion of private vs public morality which was also a trademark of Victorian statecraft. their private morality may have been loosey-goosey, they may have been in many ways spoilt rich brats, but I think — even in retrospect — that there was some tradition there of public service, maybe even noblesse oblige, a sense of probity and honour in public life. maybe it was all hypocrisy, but Kennedy’s handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis still seems principled in retrospect, by comparison to BushCo’s Teddy-Rooseveltish enthusiasm for warmongering.
the wingnuts by contrast place great emphasis on private morality (chastity, etc) but seem unimpressed by public malfeasance, embezzlement, fraud, etc. one might say that their morals are the morals of Don Corleone: a “good man” is good to his family and doesn’t cheat on his wife, provides well for his kids, and so on — it doesn’t matter how many people he kills in the course of his business day as long as his home life is religious and decorous.
the Kennedys imho were American aristocrats — old money, with aristocratic notions of “duty honour country”. along with their blatant privilege went some sense of debt to the peasants who kept them rich, I suspect. such notions are wholly foreign to arrivistes like Rove, Cheney, von Rumsfeld — and the Bush clan seems barely respectable among American dukedoms (just consider Prescott’s sordid behaviour during WWII)… well. blue-skying as usual, but I think there are elites with some vestigial sense of responsibility and honour, and elites with none whatsoever, only a reptilian determination to cannibalise all potential competitors.
Posted by: DeAnander | Jul 13 2005 0:22 utc | 18
“The flies have conquered the flypaper”.
(I think it’s Steinbeck’s “the Moon is Down”, but I can’t find my copy to check …)
Posted by: Richard | Jul 13 2005 0:23 utc | 19
Actually, the “luring all the criminals into the crowded shopping mall, and then blowing it all up” sort of analogy isn’t exact. One I stole from Josh Marshall, who stole it from a reader:
It’s like saying you’re going to build a really, really filthy hospital so people won’t get sick at home.
Terrorists are not a supply-driven commodity. Where there is a demand, which is to say, apparently, a democracy occupying a foreign nation, terrorists will show up to blow the shit out of themselves and others until popular opinion in the occupier’s land pulls the plug. They’ll go to Iraq if it’s easier than bombing us here, but they might not go to Iraq OR Boston if we weren’t in Iraq first.
Posted by: Brian C.B. | Jul 13 2005 1:25 utc | 20
Ah well I clicked on the photo link knowing before I did it that I would wish I hadn’t.
Does looking at these images make me a voyeur or does avoiding them make me a head in the sand escapist? No! Making this awful situation about me makes me an asshole! Ahhhhhh!!!
I suspect that our people have become so desensitized to bloody mayhem that it can be dismissed the same way as a graphic “CSI” autopsy i.e. change the channel or eat another bowl of high fat low nutrition garbage.
Nothing is going to change until we all take onboard our part in these horrors and behave in ways that discourage their commission. That can’t be done through the ballot box because it has become such a corrupt and imprecise device.
For the last week the West has been absorbing and imparting pious words about the need for tolerance in our society, particularly towards followers of Islam, who preach peace and not the horror on the London Tubes.
Now that the ‘guilty’ have been identified as being of Pakistani descent how long will it be before the Sun or News of The World does an ‘exclusive’ interview with some neighbour of one of the families. There will be no examination of the neighbour’s motive but if the tabloids can find a local prepared to spew bile we can be sure that the media will reprint it in block headlines. Even better if a neighbour can identify a relative or acquaintance of the bombers/murderers who has made a statement critical of Western culture. That person is going to have their life ruined, along with their family’s lives too of course.
We saw similar hypocrisy from the MSM after 9/11 and Madrid. On 10 and 11/11 the mealy mouths were hard at pretending to be unbiased. Within a week tales of individual Muslims being harassed by others were spreading. Plus of course incidents like the Sikh in Texas or wherever that was assaulted by ignorant bigots who thought his headdress was an Arab turban. Then came the patriot act and the hate-filled garbage from the fringe moved mainstream.
Back to what we can do as individuals. We know what’s coming so as soon as any of us witness this slime we must fight it. If you see anything in your local media particularly from an organ that you had previously thought to be ‘reasonable’, contact the source and let them know what you think about their hate mongering. Talkback radio is problematic because even if you are allowed to express yourself you can’t be sure whether you’re fanning the flames or not, but those creeps are mainly just preaching to the choir anyhow. Get ready for when some fool spews malevolence from talkback around you. As difficult as it is a measured response to this foulness is normally most ‘efficacious’.
Maybe just maybe if enough people resist this time these deaths won’t provoke thousands more.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jul 13 2005 1:53 utc | 21
“Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter are at home down this rabbit hole.”
I recognize the smell down here, and it DEFINITELY ain’t rabbits.
Posted by: Billmon | Jul 13 2005 1:53 utc | 22
I thought the Devils Fly Paper was one of the best pieces of writing I have read in a long time. This articel gave voice to my personal feelings, and did so in a way that it left me some sense of peace at the end. My feelings have been hear, and I am not alone!
Posted by: Doug Peters | Jul 13 2005 2:08 utc | 23
Actually, Fafblog! ripped Bill’s heart out again by summarizing an entire Whisky Bar post in a single post title:
“Faster Flypaper! Kill! Kill!”
Posted by: Brian C.B. | Jul 13 2005 2:24 utc | 24
curious how a point well made about basic humanity and a basic grasp of reality lost with flypaper talk doesn’t really resonate with others. guess its not sexy enough. the basics are boring. apparently lack a consituency,
which i again bring back to the current “intellectual” class being miseducated and useless, starting with, for example, Sullivan and moving out in all directions.
no one offering the patently concocted flypaper story should be allowed in public office or a position of public trust, but, heh, who cares.
Posted by: razor | Jul 13 2005 2:44 utc | 25
Just when I thought my heart was numb to it all I saw the photo of the Iraqi girl and it came rushing back to me. There was also a photo released of that incident of an American soldier looking at the girl in complete horror. So many losers. The only winners here are the corporations that sell weapons.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 13 2005 2:45 utc | 26
Really splendid post from Billmon.
Thanks to Jill for the link to the Cunning Realist.
IMOP, however, the White House doesn’t expect people like us to believe the flypaper b*llshit or even the currently mildly pesky puppies that McCellan has to face lately.
The “flypaper” meme IS fairly accurate so long as we realize is that what sticks is Iraqi wealth and American taxpayers money. Haliburton et al, are looting both the American and Iraqi peoples. In short, they are in heaven, as are their shareholders. Next to that, a child who has just seen her parents shot to death by some kid from Wichita is pretty small potatoes.
Posted by: tgs | Jul 13 2005 4:44 utc | 27
To paraphrase a bad movie, at this point, were I an Iraqim I’d say, “forget freedom and religion and all thar crap, now it’s personal.”
I’ve yet to see an article about the London bombings that points out nakedly that the motivation may not be any more complex than “you killed mine, I’ll kill yours.”
Maybe they should talk to some Sicilians if they don’t understand enough Arabic to grasp the concept.
Fuck terrorism. This is not just war anymore, this is revenge, blood debt.
And if I’m sure of one thing, it’s that, given time, that revenge will come to the streets of America. And deservedly so.
Posted by: Lupin | Jul 13 2005 4:57 utc | 28
@Outraged
How, or better, where do you register to be able to get that torrent? I have searched indypeer.org hoping to register and get that Unseen Footage w/ no luck. I really really wanna dl and see that. Can you help me out?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 13 2005 6:54 utc | 29
Up to 24 people are believed to have been killed and at least 18 wounded by a car bomb in Baghdad.
The attack on Wednesday occurred near a patrol of US forces, police sources said.
US troops said one US soldier and many Iraqi civilians were killed by the blast, including at least seven Iraqi children. Three US soldiers were among the wounded.
…
One witness, Muhammad Ali Hamza, 25, said US forces turned up in al-Jedidah district to warn residents to stay indoors because of reports of a car bomb in the area.
“Children gathered round the Americans who were handing out sweets. Suddenly a suicide car bomber drove round from a side street and blew himself up,” he added.
…
General Myers has read my Make Your Own piece and comes up with this result:
US arrests top al-Zarqarwi aide
US forces have captured a key aide of Iraq’s al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, top US General Richard Myers says.
Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on PBS television that Monday’s capture of Abu Abd al-Aziz, whom he called Zarqawi’s “main leader in Baghdad”, was a “pretty good success” and was a blow to the anti-US uprising in Iraq.
“Just yesterday on the battlefield, we picked up Zarqawi’s main leader in Baghdad – they call him the amir of Baghdad – Abu Abd al-Aziz, and that’s going to hurt that operation of Zarqawi’s pretty significantly,” Myers said in an interview with PBS.
Hassan Muhammad, whose 13-year-old son Alaa also died, said: “Why do they attack our children? They just destroyed one US Humvee, but they killed dozens of our children.
“What sort of a resistance is this? It’s a crime.”
.. and also .. Children gathered round the Americans who were handing out sweets. What the hell is this? Do they do this for cover?
Posted by: DM | Jul 13 2005 10:55 utc | 32
What 15 seconds did to the Hassan family. What we did. link
“If it were up to me, I’d kill the Americans and drink their blood,” says Jilan, 14.
Posted by: beq | Jul 13 2005 15:11 utc | 33
“Just yesterday on the battlefield, we picked up Zarqawi’s main leader in Baghdad – they call him the amir of Baghdad – Abu Abd al-Aziz”
The “prince” of Mosul, the “emir” of Baghdad — this stuff is getting pretty old.
Gen. Myers apparently isn’t familiar with the cell concept.
Posted by: Billmon | Jul 13 2005 15:53 utc | 34
“The only winners here are the corporations that sell weapons.”
On no — there are others. Al Qaeda is doing pretty well out of it, too.
Posted by: Billmon | Jul 13 2005 15:56 utc | 35
@Uncle $cam 02:54 AM
Ah, there isn’t a torrent, Television under the Swastika – Unseen Footage from the Third Reich is only available from indypeer.org via Edonkey/Emule, AFAIK 😉
Posted by: Outraged | Jul 13 2005 18:41 utc | 36
@Outraged,
I don’t recall if this was one of the many links you provided the other day – many of those were from the War College IIRC. If not have you seen this one?
Army study: U.S. facing hard choices (Chi Trib – no subscription req’d!)
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has consistently rejected any contention that the Army is stretched too thin in fighting simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But a new Army study has concluded the service is so strained that the U.S. will soon “need to decide what military capabilities the Army should have and what risks may be prudent to assume.”
Numerous critics and outside defense policy groups have warned that the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has taxed the Army so badly that it will have difficulty meeting any new crises elsewhere, but the new assessment comes from an in-house undertaking prepared by the RAND Corp.’s Arroyo Center, the Army’s federally funded research institute.
“The challenge the Army faces is profound,” senior RAND analyst Lynn Davis, lead author of the report, said in a statement accompanying the study. “Any approach is fraught with risks and uncertainties, along with significant costs and some possible changes in the Army’s long-term goals.”
RAND webpage with a link to a PDF of the study here.
Abstract:
The nation has difficult trade-offs in facing calls on Army forces for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. This report describes the effects of large deployments on the Army’s ability to provide forces for other contingencies, to ensure that soldiers are trained, and to continue to recruit and retain soldiers. The authors found that Army plans for transformation and employing reserves at reasonable rates still fall short. Steps to improve the situation all involve high risks or costs. Unless requirements recede, the nation faces an Army stretched thin, with no quick fix or easy solution
Posted by: OkieByAccident | Jul 13 2005 18:51 utc | 37
Unless requirements recede, the nation faces an Army stretched thin, with no quick fix or easy solution
Modern corporate management speak … *puke*.
It’s very simple, the sustained operations of our 10 division combat forces, Army and Marines, in both Iraq and Afghanistan are destroying them. With both near-term and long term repercussions.
If the current rate of Ops is maintained then the combat effectiveness will likely collapse within 12-24 months, with the rebuild taking up to a decade to get back to pre-Afghanistan levels.
Why ?
1) Soldiers and Marines entering third tours of combat duty with no end in sight,
2) Stop-Loss orders ensuring the above and preventing discharge of service,
3) Exhaustion of the Reserve, National Gaurd and emergency Reserve with repetitive deployments of 40%+,
4) Excluding combat KIA, all other categories of casualties requiring in country medical evacuation exceeding 800+ /month (roughly a Battallions worth),
5) Sustained and progressively reduced re-ups (re-enlistments), especially critical amongst veteran mid level NCO’s and junior officers,
6) Sustained and progressively worse recruiting intakes across all services, but especalially so for Army and Marines, because of but not limited to genral sentiment to the war, parental resistance and increasingly organized grassroots anti-recruiting efforts,
7) Breakdowns in discipline and morale due to untreated, largely systemically ignored, psych injuries amongst serving soldiers, especially vets, but exacerbated amongst NCO and officers effectively continuosly rotating in and out of combat and stateside civil ‘reality’, with no end in sight (see Stop-Loss),
8) Equipment exhasution, burn-out beyond economical repair, of a vast amount of materiel, i.e. Abrams tanks, Bradleys AFV, overloaaded (up-armored) HMMVs being ‘junked’ after 9-12 months continuouIraq service instead of the budgetted 12-15 years before refurvishment prior to Iraq/Afghanistan,
9) The negative effect on morale and enlistment of a chronically underfunded Veteran Affairs system that is overwhelmed by the exponentially growing numbers of seriously wounded veterans, which will likely treble due to non-diagnosed injuries, DU et al, PTSD, etc in the next decade based on previous conflicts (Gulf War I). In-service vets, to put it mildly, are not thrilled about the dysfunctional VA system, which is only getting worse, and yet another example of political duplicity/hypocricy.
All this adds up to destruction of the veteran NCO and Junior officer corps through mass exodus. That then means no transfer of knowledge and experience from above to below, and less capable future leaders for a decade or more … regardless of an influx of raw recruits or not.
Large numbers of non-combat soldiers have already been transferred/seconded/allocated to effectively combat duties. A ‘restructure’ would allow for a drawdown of personnel from other than combat infantryman(CI) roles into frontline combat units, therefore more CIs but a reduction in capabilities elsewhere. In addittion new recruits that may have been allocated to non-combat arms get instead allocated to frontline units. Needless to say, forcing/coercing REMFs into such a role isn’t too effective nor good for overrall morale 😉
The choices from a narrow military perspective are stark. Withdraw from at least Iraq so as to limit deployed divisions to no more than three total. This would sustain long-term Ops and viability or, alternately, treble the current size of the Army from 10 Divisions to 30 in order to sustain the current level of committment. ‘Staying the course’ is not an option. Oh, yeah, the only way to do the size increase is via a draft … however, politically Bush & Co have effectively painted themselves into a corber re either choice …
PS Also add to that the priority/primary allocation of 80% of agencies human assets to Iraq/Afghanistan and the GWOT, therefore taking the ‘eye off the ball’ pretty much everywhere else in the world. Also, the Special Forces, Army, Navy and Air Force, are effectively 100% sustained committment … as they ‘burn-out’ and increase thier rate of replacements from the cream of the non-SF servicemen and vets, it only further exacerbates the veterans/NCO/Officer shortage … not to mention the vets who go ‘Merc’, i.e. civilan contractor, make a killing $wise and are lost to the services …
All this is because we are a ‘technological’ military power … the lessons of Vietnam were never learnt re counter-insurgency/unconventional conflict and our military doctrine, policy and planning has been predicated on short/sharp Blitzkrieg conventional wars, not sustained conflicts, for generations now.
Sorry for the long post …
Posted by: Outraged | Jul 13 2005 20:40 utc | 38
@outraged please do not apologise, that was a really chewy analysis. much appreciated. gonna forward it to an ex-SF buddy.
Posted by: DeAnander | Jul 13 2005 20:52 utc | 39
Sorry for the long post …
Thanks for that well done perspective. You are right on almost all points. I think there is something else behind this too, that has to do with mentality.
It´s a “no loss”, “no risk” mentality. Something that stopped the Space Shuttle today and that stops the US from serious engagement in Iraq, Afghanistan and anywhere else.
I am not yet sure what is behind this, but I am sure -if my thesis above is right- it is a loosing concept. The “other side” has two alternatives: “die or win”. The US is rotating soldiers out of the area after 6-15 month and lets them live in slush quarters even in area – please no sacrifize – not for the GIs lifestyle, nor for the public.
This doesn´t work. No risk, no chance. By avoiding any possible sacrifise the US is determined to loose any serious competition.
I´ll have to think about the roots of this a bit more, but I may be on to something.
What do readers here think?
It´s a “no loss”, “no risk” mentality
The era of 63,000 casualties in a single day at Gettysburg are long gone. During and after World War II the politicians and the Military Brass have become averse to casualties. The resounding defeats, losses and retreats at the hands of the ill-equpped Chinese in the Korean ‘Police Action’ and the domestic reaction compounded it. The false belief, IMHO, that casualties in Vietnam, not morality or the impossibility of ‘winning’, soured support for that war, was further cemented by the ‘Lebanon; and Somalia/Mogadishu ‘retreat’ (only 19 casualties IIRC).
Force protection has become a crippling overarching first priority, there are serious limitations to a policy of stand-off and call in overwhelming fire or air-support. I’ve posted previously re this self-deafeating approach re counter-insurgency.
However, consider this, we went into Iraq because we knew they had no WMD and the Iraqi forces were crippled from 12 years of sanctions. When was the last time the US military actually fully committed to a conflict that entailed ‘real’ risk, against a first-world, or even second world military force ? WWII ?
Nukes are a great ‘deterrent'(sarcasm) but they have nil practical military value. What is the effect on the morale and indoctrinated belief systems of servicemen when they start to question the ‘actual’ power of the worlds sole remaining superpower ? A superpower that for all it’s expenditure on $100’s of billions of dollars of militray technology can’t defeat/overcome little more than determined civilians, supposed ‘ragheads’ and ‘sand niggers’, armed with not much more than small arms and salvaged/cannabilized explosives ?
It’s no coincidence that Iran and other countries have been prioritizing thier comparative limited military spending in two key areas, WMD’s, preferably Nukes as the ultimate deterrant and ‘formal’ trained and equipped non-conventional forces, again as a deterrant re protecting the soveriegnity of the nation ‘State’.
The civilian chickenhawks in charge, and the beholden/politicicized military brass, aren’t making the mistake of fighting the last war as opposed to the current one(s), they’re still fighting an imaginary conventional Warsaw Pact re the Cold War, and wars prior to 1965 …
Posted by: Outraged | Jul 13 2005 21:43 utc | 41
@Outraged,
Excellent stuff!
One more factor, affecting both recruitment and morale, is the use of Contractors.
I can’t link to it, but I just saw another article confirming this:
Defense Daily, July 13, 2005
National Guard Chief: Private Military Contractors Stymie Recruitment
By Nathan Hodge
The extensive use of contractors on the battlefield is having an adverse effect on recruitment in the National Guard, according to the chief of the National Guard Bureau.
In a meeting with the Defense Writers Group yesterday, Army Lt. Gen. Steven Blum said the government’s outsourcing of certain security tasks to private firms had had “unintended consequences,” making it more difficult for the Guard to recruit sought-after military personnel such as special operators and military police.
In some cases, Blum said, Guard recruiters find themselves in a “bidding war” for highly skilled service veterans, who are being offered lucrative contracts to work as private security contractors in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
“We are offering them bonuses to stay with us, yet the other elements of the United States government are offering them more significant bonuses to go and do this and basically in a paramilitary civilian contractor capacity,” Blum said.
…Recruiters for the Guard often look to enlist prior-service military, and can offer substantial bonuses for some of the most experienced personnel. The Army National Guard has also raised the maximum recruitment age to fill in the manpower gap, but Blum said those efforts compete with recruiting drives by the active-duty Army and the Marine Corps.
The Pentagon has enlisted private firms to take on a wide range of military tasks in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Those companies–which provide services from logistics support and equipment maintenance to convoy security and personal bodyguards–can offer a substantial premium over military pay and bonuses.
“We hadn’t thought our way completely through when we started doing that, and we’re probably going to need to make some adjustments along the line,” Blum said.
No, they thought it through, all right: $$$$$$$$$ for Halliburton, Carlyle, Bechtel…
Blum’s remarks come amid serious discussion within the military and the Defense Department about the proper role of contractors on the battlefield. DoD recently clarified the rules governing contractor personnel who deploy with or provide support to the U.S. military overseas, but there are still ambiguities about the legal and regulatory status of contractors
…Blum said the proper role of contractors needs to be worked out, but it is also an issue beyond his pay grade.
“We do have a particularly strange arrangement with certain people like special operations forces that are being offered big bonuses to sign with civilian contractors to do essentially the same work, and yet the Army is offering them less of a bonus to stay right in the Army,” he said. “So again it’s an unintended consequence of trying to optimize your human capital. We’ve got to get that in alignment.”
You may be able to use Contractors to perform certain functions normally performed by military personnel in a “pacified” area, but you sure as heck couldn’t instigate a new conflict with them.
Posted by: OkieByAccident | Jul 13 2005 22:14 utc | 42
@OkieByAccident
Hmmm, other than as a substitute gaurd force, VIP and ‘close protection’ duties, paramilitary and covert/’wet’ Ops … thier fundamental failing is no UCMJ and a non-hierarchical, discipline enforcing chain of command and chain of responsibility … this lot are not and will never be French Foriegn Legionnaires … more akin to ravening ‘for profit’, ‘captained’ bands of mercenaries in 16th and 17th century Europe which often ended up being ‘disposed’ of by thier ‘own’ side …
@b
‘Force Protection’ is the issue. ‘Cause it allows for the rationaliztion of Rules of Engagement (ROEs) that can effectively justify unlawful killing of innocent non-combatants in so many circumstances, i.e convoy protection, checkpoint protection, avoiding combat losses by the relatively indiscriminate and grossly excessive use of artillery and air support … in blatant disregard, indeed direct breach of the Laws of War … yes, we can justify virtually any act if it contributes to ‘Force Protection’ … after all, our lives are far more prescious than any number of thiers, are’nt they ?
Posted by: Outraged | Jul 13 2005 23:19 utc | 43
seems in convetional terms the only place us military would yeild maximum efficiency is . . . . . . . . .?
a whiskey for the best answer
Posted by: drun* as a r*le | Jul 13 2005 23:31 utc | 44
drun* as a r*le
Hiroshima
double 21 yr old Macallans, neat.
Posted by: slothrop | Jul 13 2005 23:41 utc | 45
July 12, 2005 By Joseph R. Chenelly, Army Times staff writer & By John J. Lumpkin, The Kennebec Journal (Maine) & 11 July 2005 By Eric Schmitt and David S. Cloud, The New York Times
The Army is running perilously low on its Reserve and National Guard soldiers who largely fill certain critical support jobs, like military police and civil affairs officers and truck drivers. Marine Corps reservists are facing similar constraints.
Guard troops make up more than one-third of the soldiers in Iraq, numbering six brigades plus a division headquarters.
“By next fall, we’ll have expended our ability to use National Guard brigades as one of the principal forces,” said Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a retired four-star Army commander who was dispatched to Iraq last month to assess the operation.
“We’re reaching the bottom of the barrel.”
A main reason for the shortages is that more and more of these troops who have been involuntarily mobilized are nearing their 24-month maximum call-up limit set by the Bush administration, military personnel specialists say.
To fill the pivotal support jobs for deployments to Iraq, Army and Pentagon planners are increasingly turning to the Navy and Air Force to provide truck drivers and security personnel.
Posted by: Outraged | Jul 13 2005 23:52 utc | 46
drun* as a r*le
oh…I see “conventional”–hmmm. Fallujah, then.
and why parse warfare as conventionbal…allied boming killed 320,000 Germans and many more Japanese.
So, I say, call “efficient” any use of force that kills the fuck outta people, fast.
Posted by: slothrop | Jul 13 2005 23:58 utc | 47
i was going to say america
i only have cheap protestant whiskey – bushmills?
Posted by: d*u** as a r*le | Jul 13 2005 23:58 utc | 48
Hmmm, are the terrorists the flies and Iraq the flypaper ? or are we the flies caught in the Iraqi flypaper ? Sometimes I get so confused …
Posted by: Outraged | Jul 14 2005 0:20 utc | 49
double 21 yr old Macallans, neat
Is that a single malt or a blend? Hmm – don’t know that one.
Posted by: DM | Jul 14 2005 0:41 utc | 50