pro-war anti-draft US predicament

[petew83]

Why is the Iraq war never shown from the perspective of the soldiers (other than youtube etc)? The gov desperately wants to avoid a draft, remembering how disastrous the Vietnam protests were. The only way to recruit enough voluntary soldiers is to hide the misery faced over there by most of our troops from the public eye. I have friends who were completely shattered by their battle exp (one of whom joined the Navy only to be automatically switched into the Marines).

The current predicament requires a cunning mix of illusion and manipulation to continue. If nothing else, just consider the huge incentive a pro-war anti-draft administration would have to paint a picture over a canvas. Anyone have insights/arguments? thanks

[Oliveritaly]

@petew83

…(one of whom joined the Navy only to be automatically switched into the Marines).

I don’t get this one … is he an officer or a corpsman?

[XT]

@petew83

Why is the Iraq war never shown from the perspective of the soldiers (other than youtube etc)?

I don’t know where you’ve been hiding, but there has been plenty of tales from Iraqi soldiers told in the last few years from their own perspective. There has been reality type TV shows on the History and Military Channels that followed a group of soldiers and what happened to them from shipping out until coming home. There was Band of Bloggers on the Military Channel which gave a lot of in site into soldiers lives. Lots of good info on the web (what’s wrong with blogs telling the story, especially bloggers who are writing said blogs directly FROM Iraq?) In the MSM side I’ve seen quite a bit of watered down stuff as well. I guess it all depends on where you look…if you only watch one news outlet then you only get one perspective. If you look around you will see that there is a LOT to see and learn.

The only way to recruit enough voluntary soldiers is to hide the misery faced over there by most of our troops from the public eye.

Who and how are they hiding it exactly? You can, if you are motivated, pretty much read exactly what happened to a given soldier in Iraq yesterday or today in his uncensored blog. That is as real as it gets, short of going over there yourself. If you don’t want to slog through a bunch of bloggers pages, you could watch the Military Channel…nearly every night they have SOMETHING on the soldiers in Iraq. Don’t trust the source? Well, pick one of the MSM sources you trust and do a search on articles they have had on soldiers lives…nearly every MSM sourcs I read has at least a couple of editorials or other articles on the subject.

BTW, the military has ALWAYS painted a rosier picture than the reality. When they got me it was with promisses to ‘See the world!’ and ‘Army! Navy! Air Force! Marines! What a great place! It’s a great place…to start!’

And while it wasn’t what they told me it would be…it really was one of the things I’m definitely glad I did.

@petew83

I have friends who were completely shattered by their battle exp (one of whom joined the Navy only to be automatically switched into the Marines).

I have a son who was in the Marine Corps (I encouraged him to go Navy but he wanted to be a Marine) and served in Iraq for a time. Not everyone who goes over to Iraq, or even a majority of folks who ship over come back ‘completely shattered’ I’m sorry your friends drew the short stick on having that happen to them.

[QUOT=petew83E]The current predicament requires a cunning mix of illusion and manipulation to continue.
[/QUOTE]

Are you saying this is what is needed or what they are doing? If the later, do you have a cite? From the military recruitment drek I’ve seen lately it looks pretty much like the same crap we were getting back in my day.

@petew83

If nothing else, just consider the huge incentive a pro-war anti-draft administration would have to paint a picture over a canvas.

Can you show some cites of this happening? Not that I don’t doubt that Bush et al are trying to put the best face on things they can…but I seriously doubt that they are doing so to con in new recruits. They are handwaving and other wise doing the GW shuffle for political reasons which has little to do with filling out the ranks.

Out of curiosity is recruitment even still a major problem? I thought I read someone (no cite, sorry…just memory, which is always suspect) that recruitment had stabilized and even showed signs of making a modest recovery.

-XT

[John_Mace]

@petew83

Why is the Iraq war never shown from the perspective of the soldiers (other than youtube etc)?

Yeah, you’d think they’d at least embed a few journalists with combat troops. Oh wait, they do. All the time.

I’ve seen plenty of news stories (in the paper and on TV) about the war from the soldiers’ perspective. It ain’t pretty, but war is hell, after all.

I’m afraid you start with a false premise. From there, one can conclude just about anything. Of course Bush doesn’t want negative stories out there. But he doesn’t always get to decide what goes on the nightly news.

[Cheesesteak]

I think there are serious problems with “pro-war / anti-draft”, but PR isn’t what comes to mind first. The fact that only volunteers are put at risk makes it much easier to justify that risk.

When you have a draft, supporting the war means you support your family, friends and neighbors being put in harms way to accomplish the goal. Even if you know folks in the armed forces, at least you can be sure that it was their choice to join, they’re not being taken from their budding professional careers to be shot at for a few months.

[gonzomax]

Viet Nam was revealed by reporters to be not working. The military will always say we are winning and just need more troops and money.
The military saw what happened and set it up to not happen again. Embedding reporters so they are not wandering around gathering info the military could not control was prevented. The military ran a political dog and pony show for the public completely under their control.
A recent poll in Iraq indicated over half the combat soldiers want out of there now. But TV never shows that info. Blackwater and Halliburton are stealing us blind. If not for the internets we would never have got this info. The military controls as much info as they possibly can. The military and the administration are alike in their desire to control. The soldiers are just casualties in many ways.
A draft might cause a backlash ,especially if the middle and upper class could not escape it. So we just extend the soldiers over and over and claim we back them. When the bankruptcy bill was passed by the repub majority ,Sen. Kennedy wanted a provision passed that would exempt soldiers in combat ,particularly ones with extended missions . The no vote was right down the the repub majority.

[BrainGlutton]

@John Mace

Yeah, you’d think they’d at least embed a few journalists with combat troops. Oh wait, they do. All the time.

Errmm . . . yeah. They do. Which does not mean we can trust such journalists’ reports.

[John_Mace]

@BrainGlutton

Errmm . . . yeah. They do. Which does not mean we can trust such journalists’ reports.

Which does not mean that the OP is starting from a valid premise.

[gonzomax]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0301-06.htm This is a viewpoint which is not much in the mainstream. We are doing horrible things to our military citizens.

[Fear_Itself]

@xtisme

Out of curiosity is recruitment even still a major problem? I thought I read someone (no cite, sorry…just memory, which is always suspect) that recruitment had stabilized and even showed signs of making a modest recovery.

From a numbers standpoint, all branches met their goals in November. However, that was only achieved by lowering standards substantially:

In each fiscal year since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, statisics show, the Army has accepted a growing percentage of recruits who do not meet its own minimum fitness standards. The October statistics show that at least 1 of every 5 recruits required a waiver to join the service, leading military analysts to conclude that the Army is lowering standards more than it has in decades.

“The across-the-board lowering of the standards is buying problems in the future,” said John D. Hutson, a retired rear admiral, dean of the Franklin Pierce Law Center, and a former judge advocate general of the Navy. “You are going to have more people getting in trouble, more people washing out” of the service before finishing their tour of duty.

[Loach]

@petew83

(one of whom joined the Navy only to be automatically switched into the Marines).

Yeah I’m calling bullshit on this too. You can’t be switched from one to the other. The Marine Corps is not part of the Navy. It just falls under the supervision of the Secretary of the Navy. They are a separate service. Not the same thing at all. I think you were given the wrong information. Only one of two things that I can think of. Marines don’t have medics. They have always used Navy personel for this. They are called Corpsmen. If you go into that profession it is not a secret that you will be working with the Marines. You are not a Marine but working in an infantry company. The other thing is that a certain number of Naval Academy graduates become Marines. I thought it was voluntary but I reserve the right to be wrong.

[glee]

Given that Bush has messed up in both Iraq and Afghanistan and been caught lying about things there, the way to recruit more soldiers is to mess up the US economy so more people will be desperate for a job and enlist.

[Cynical OFF]