It’s all the fault of those darn lazy and pampered soldiers:
Actually, this is not a bad criticism. I don’t find it, however, to be a criticism of the soldier’s as much a criticism of the the strategy undertaken. One school of though on how to win the peace and work a counter-insurgency is to have your troops more involved and living with the citizens. This way there is a better connection with their concerns - i.e. when the pwoer goes out, the soldeirs power goes out. There is more interaction, hopefully more understanding. I don’t know the actual particulars of this line of thought, but as for the OP I don’t think it is the soldeir’s fault and I am not sure that is who is blaming
Another sterling example of how conservatives “support the troops,” I suppose.
Sure, but I imagine that’d take some training…
“You, Jim go out there and catch some terrorists. I know you don’t speak the language, and neither does anyone else in your squad, but it can’t be that hard to spot guys in black ski masks running around baghdad in the middle of summer!”
Really, are they supposed to go wander the countryside on their own initiative?
-Joe
That was some opinion piece. At least he’s consistent, though. He still wants to “take on” Iran and Syria. That’s a regional solution to Iraq, for Ledeen. Whooee.
The designer coffee does seem a bit excessive. Doesn’t that just make you pee more?
Not necessarily, I was just commenting that the fact that the a lot of the soldiers are sitting around in nice facilities (and some of these megabases are pretty nice) is not because the trrops are lazy, but because of poor policy decisions. And I don’t think that the author is saying the troops are lazy. They are pampered (relatively speaking), that isn’t their fault, though.
Perhaps so, but it (at best) demonstrates ignorance of the amount of behind-the-lines logistical support required by modern military forces and (at worst) indicates a cavalier attitude toward the grunts who are on the scene in a difficult (even for the ones with air conditioning and designer coffee) situation.
I read somewhere that the Army in Iraq needs 3 support personnel for every 5 combat personnel.
I agree with Gangster Octopus that Ledeen is not blaming the soldiers themselves, but rather the policy. Still, it’s worth asking *why * the soldiers are ensconced in their cushy bases, instead of embedded among the populace or the Iraqi army. The answer is, they’re safer there. So to that extent, the cushy bases are a result of the problem, not a cause.
Actually, Ledeen says a much more pittable thing in the same article. Talking about the revolving-door nature of Iraqi justice, he says, “That’s the sort of thing that sometimes drives some soldiers to go on vigilante rampages when they see men walking around who are believed to have killed GIs or Marines.”
Before I even consider the quality of his suggestions, I’d like to see some evidence for his claims. His scenario of the revolving door for murderers may have some grain of truth, but it sounds suspiciously like the claims about revolving doors in U.S. jails that resulted in harsher mandatory penalties that drove the number of incarcerated drug uses through the roof while having little effect on actual murderers and rapists.
Similarly with his claims about the troops sitting in their bases. Do we have numbers or just assertions? Are all those troops “just sitting around” actually doing nothing? Or are we counting troops who are standing down for a few days after making repeated patrols as some number of inactive troops? Is he claiming that all the cooks and supply personnel should be out on the streets engaged in activities for which they have not been trained? (Yeah, I know, every Marine’s primary MOS (or whatever term they use today) is rifleman. However, being trained to carry a rifle into a shooting battle is not necessarily the training required to search houses for contraband, handling checkpoints, and interrogating civilians with the intent to persuade them to support you instead of tossing a grenade into your truck or APC.)
Mr. Ledeen might be on to something.
I say we make every blessed one of them ship right back to the States, and stay here, until they change their coffee-drinkin’ ways, and respectfully request permission to go back to Iraq and represent the terrorist-catching chops of the United States Armed Forces.
That’ll show 'em
I checked and it turns out that three to five is extremely low. From the link:
That is, accepted wisdom in the military is that a military unit should have over 1½ times as many support personnel as combat troops. It can be done with fewer, provided there is support provided from other countries.
Michael Ledeen is on The List
The List is long
Dirac Angustan Gesept!
Heh.
Obscure reference help for culturally deprived. The Wasp, Eric Frank Russel, Wiki here:
It’s also my understanding that many jobs previously handled by the military are now done by civilians. Cooking, maintenance, laundry - they’re all done by contractors. Haliburton and their ilk.
(Incidentally, that’s one advantage of a draft - you always have enough cooks. Not good cooks, obviously, but cheap cooks).
Anyway, I’ve never understood the American tendancy towards division-size camps. Makes much more sense to set up a whole bunch of smaller battalion - or even company - size outposts, spread out across the country. Gives you more coverage and lets units “specialize” on a specific sector.
Hmmm. Well, let me ask… is there an Israeli equivalent of “Custer”?
Custer didn’t have Apaches.
Hold on… let me rephrase that.
SHould the US troops stay with the Shia or the Sunni?
What proportion should go to mosques with their hosts?