100 years in Iraq? Not with an all volunteer army.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@sqweels

Okay, but why is it that the single most important reason that our troops are in Iraq is that this is what we do to show that we “support” them? Anyone who gets all accusatory towards those who did pick and choose to go to war are accused of being downright abusive toward the troops.

Well, I don’t agree with doing that. There are plenty of accusations to be slung, and rightfully so, at those who conceived this invasion and oversee it.

Aside from the actual pretense for going, which most Americans now believe was predicated on either believing faulty intelligence or slanting the intelligence to persuade Congress to approve the war, Rumsfeld fucked up a lot of logistical and military tactics by failing to heed his own Chief Of Staff’s advice, so what did he do? He replaced Shinseki. Bad move.

Nobody semed to have had the foresight to see how the occupation would degenerate into urban warfare as it did, and we’re relatively new at that kind of fighting (but adapting quickly).

We didn’t go in with enough boots on the ground from day one.

We disbanded the Iraqi Army, which many viewed (as I do) as a mistake. It set us back quite awhile in terms of basically rebuilding the new Iraqi Army from scratch, instead of weeding out the Batthist loyalists from the existing Army and repatriating the rest. Instead we allowed many of these trained and armed soldiers blend back into the Iraqi population to cme and fight us again, with a grudge towards us because “we took err jobs!”.

We didn’t have all the nicieties to fight in close urban settings initially, failing to foresee the IED and EFP proliferation until too many died from a lack of body armor or up-armored vehicles like HMMV’s that operate in such narrow confines.

We didn’t seem to have a political goal for Iraq…this notion of being “greeted as liberators” was a stretch then and it’s the opposite of reality now. We should have worked harder to unify the government and foreseen the possibility of an utter breakdown along religious lines and been proactive to prevent it.

The biggest mistake in this war, besides the inception of it (depending on what you believe), was poor planning. If you’re going to do it, do it right. Overwhelming force. A plan for the aftermath. These were lessons we were supposed to have learned militarily from Vietnam, and seemed to put those lessons to use in Gulf War I. But this is a totally different war and we’d be better off now to get out of there as soon as a reasonable amount of governmental and military/police security can be established, then slowly, inexorably withdraw, leaving behind a contingent force to continue with training and assistance with infrastructure repair/construction.

Maybe then, out of all this, we will at least have achieved a strategic foothold in this volatile region, where we can ensure having a supply of a precious resource (oil) until we can wean ourselves off of it.

[Martin_Hyde]

@Der Trihs

Yeah, right. And who would do such a thing ? The vast majority of Americans will always regard them as heros for mass murdering so many people in Iraq. All I can do is wish the Iraqi’s luck in killing their occupiers, which I do. And no, I have no obligation to go there to join in; if for no other reason than I seriously doubt the Iraqis want yet more Americans there. Reasonably enough, they’d assume I was another enemy and shoot me.

You won’t know whether or not your efforts to get them indicted would work unless you tried I also never advised you to go to Iraq, I simply wondered why you weren’t taking the fight to mass murderers here. Many mass-murdering members of the United States Armed Forces are stationed all over the United States, if you have a genuine desire to stop them, you can use force to at least take some of them out.

One of the founders of our country clearly advocated using violent force against a tyrannical government, the whole formation of our country was in fact based on a violent revolution against tyranny–one clearly illegal under the law, which is why the founders were making appeals to natural law.

You may be killed in your endeavors, but eventually I’m sure history would vindicate your legacy.

But seriously, it seems like you can find as many excuses as there are stars in the sky as to why you can’t actually do anything about your convictions–it makes me wonder if they are legitimate convictions or not.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@Der Trihs

Every war is different. The idea that every war is the same and that following orders is a blanket excuse is YOUR bugaboo, not mine.

It’s not an excuse, it is a reality of serving in the military of the USA. You cannot arbitrarily pick and choose which orders you want to obey based on grounds moral or otherwise or the entire command chain breaks down.

And I never claimed every war is the same, I was asking you if your belief that American soldiers are murderers.
Vietnam was an ideological war fought far from our borders, you could argue that it was unneccesary. Were they murderers too?

This war is likely a knee-jerk reaction to post 9/11 hysteria coupled with a resource grab, albeit one that actually will serve our interests (oil supply) in the long run. So which one is worse? We napalmed entire villages in Vietnam on purpose…are we doing that now?

[Sevastopol]

@FoieGrasIsEvil

Man, I hope that neither of those options come to pass.
I think the best way is to simply make serving in the military more monetarily attractive on the front end, with signing bonuses, or increase the GI Bill some more for college tuition.

No, no, no. It is the idea I am increasingly growing persuaded by: Split the current military into a ‘Defense force’ and an ‘Offense force’. Include a strict and legally binding demarcation between the forces.

E.g. an illegal order would include anything involving a ‘Defense force’ soldier in a war of aggression. That way, all your family history can be preserved. Politicians can swear hand on heart to maintain defense spending. Soldiers can talk of having served in the defense of their country. And no-one in the military could be involved unwillingly in empire-building, conquest, aggression etc or any of the other articles of the current US armed forces.

Defense force enrollment would soar. I promise you.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@Sevastopol

No, no, no. It is the idea I am increasingly growing persuaded by: Split the current military into a ‘Defense force’ and an ‘Offense force’. Include a strict and legally binding demarcation between the forces.

E.g. an illegal order would include anything involving a ‘Defense force’ soldier in a war of aggression. That way, all your family history can be preserved. Politicians can swear hand on heart to maintain defense spending. Soldiers can talk of having served in the defense of their country. And no-one in the military could be involved unwillingly in empire-building, conquest, aggression etc or any of the other articles of the current US armed forces.

Defense force enrollment would soar. I promise you.

I resent your mocking me, and I believe it is uncalled for. I have not exhibited enormous hubris regarding my lineage, only stating facts to clarify my position.
But hey! Having a seperate offense and defense works for the NFL, so why not the military?
So who plays “special” teams, the Navy?

[Sevastopol]

I’m sorry if you felt mocked. I saw the post as opening a way forward, albeit indirectly.

Now ‘reverential’ is beyond me, I confess, but mocking individuals I can and do avoid.

[Der_Trihs]

@FoieGrasIsEvil

We napalmed entire villages in Vietnam on purpose…are we doing that now?

We’ve graduated to cities now; we used napalm, or rather the modern version of it in Fallujah. And cluster bombs all over the country.

[SmartAleq]

@Biggirl

Know what I’d like to see? People discussing what can or should be done about the Army Chief of Staff stating that our military cannot sustain our current level of military actions and be prepared for any eventuality with an all volunteer army.

Well, it’s the crux of the biscuit, innit? A volunteer military is by definition a group of people who have agreed to sell their labor for a given price to do a defined job for a specific period of time. When it’s peacetime or when there’s a popular war going on it’s pretty easy to get people to do the job, but if the country is involved in a war which is perceived to be unnecessary, dishonorable, immoral, unwinnable or just plain ugly then people will rightfully decline to go off to do that job. This leaves the government with just two options–they can either increase incentives or mandate service.

Increasing incentives would be offering lots of money and other benefits to volunteers or perhaps getting out of the war nobody wants to die for in order to reduce the perceived risk of volunteering. So far the administration does not seem to acknowledge the clear message they’re being given by declining volunteers for the military. People are voting with their refusal to be enticed by signing bonuses and perks, perhaps because they think the war they’re likely to get stuck into is either too dangerous or too immoral to support with their blood.

So the other alternative is conscription. This one might still happen if we don’t get our stupid asses out of the ME tout de suite. It won’t be popular–seldom is, really. Nobody appreciates being forced to stand in harm’s way and the transition from an all volunteer force to a conscription force is seldom smooth–there’s a fundamental cognitive dissonance between the volunteer soldier and the conscript. See “fragging.” :eek:

I think one of the dirtiest tricks is the one that’s being pulled on the National Guard divisions. These are people who have signed on specifically to serve as a home guard, not to be deployed indefinitely in foreign countries to the detriment of their families. They’re the ones who’re getting the worst of it–in many cases these are people who already served active duty but who’ve remained in the Guard because they believe in the military and want to be part of the safeguarding of their homes and families. However they’re being sent willy-nilly to other countries, leaving the home front less protected and in some cases they’re losing so much money by having primary breadwinners deployed for long periods of time that the families are losing their houses and are having to go on food stamps and other public assistance. I was really rather shocked to see how little our soldiers are paid–I can’t even imagine how difficult it must be when a member of the Guard has to drop down to regular military pay from even a halfway decent paying job.

I guess what it boils down to is that if the military wants to see nice healthy recruitment numbers they’d better damned well see to it that there’s enough inducement in place to persuade prospective soldiers to take the risk. Either the risk has to be lowered or the inducement must be substantially raised or they’re going to have to think about reinstating the draft, with the attendant can o’worms that will entail.

Or they could always arrange to have a polarizing event happen but that can really backfire…