Slave Army

The United States Army is continuing along in Iraq, with as healthy an appreciation of self as your average heroin junky or to be even more precise, a hardcore gasoline huffing aficionado hunkered over its favorite can. Woozy, deteriorated and schizophrenic, this urge-driven beast has absolutely no sense of reality at this point, and is continuously having its face pushed down into the brain-cell destroying fumes by a never ending succession of glory whores who want to be the next Dwight Eisenhower.

One after another they attach their own dreams to a depraved submissive posture, and for the most part attempt to ride out their time in charge with enough competent-looking video and audio clips to keep their careers calibrated in a steady upward progression. They’ll do everything but man-up and represent something other than themselves, with those officers looking up to them passing down the trait to every level beneath. This homicidal ambition is directly responsible for the continued abuse of enlisted soldiers.

Ambition plagues the officer corps now worse than it ever has in the past, and the fundamental weaknesses of our Army are being exposed so vividly today because of it. Simply put, when you offer an Army officer two choices – their dignity or the possibility of a promotion – there will always be people willing expose themselves by choosing the latter. It has been a hallmark of this period of war, for high ranking Army officers to gladly trade in the welfare of their enlisted soldiers in exchange for the opportunity to lick the shoes of someone a step or two higher in the chain of command.

At this point the privates, specialists and sergeants are toiling for one basic concept, and it has nothing to do with the future of Iraq or its people. It is really for the ambition and future job prospects of someone like General Peter Pace, that so many unnecessary hardships are wrought upon the masses of enlisted soldiers, some of whom may rightly feel at this point that they’re nothing more than slaves.� Predeployment standards that Representative Murtha proposed to include in the emergency funding bill, that Bush just vetoed, stand as a testament to how utterly spineless the Army brass continues to be.

Unless critical training prior to deployment, minimum unit readiness guidelines regarding equipment and personnel or the regulation minimum amount of rest time between deployments are all understood to be “quaint” ala the Geneva Conventions, why wouldn’t it fall on these so-called leaders of our Army to stand up and provide a voice for all the soldiers counting on them to do so? Is the possibility of being smeared and involuntarily retired so much worse than having to see our bravest Americans continue to live through this horror of broken promises day after day? From my vantage point the answer is “YES!”

Take General David Patraeus for example. He’s making statements now about the realities of our occupation, and apparently the specific skill-sets regarding anti-insurgency operations, that were supposed to make his appointment an upgrade to General George Casey, haven’t produced the magical results his chariot ride into Iraq was going to create. Republicans hoist him and Army Field Manual 3-24, which he wrote, as proof that we’re now on the right track. So much more intellectual-sounding than their moldy oldies (we’re fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here; Osama bin Laden wins if we withdraw), but just as nonsensical.

I imagine that along with the Patriot Act and most other pieces of legislation passed in the past six years, most of these Republicans who claim to believe in FM 3-24 and the plan to apply its wisdom to one city within the entire country haven’t even read it. Let alone taken the plan and referred back to General Eric Shinseki’s prediction of the amount of troops needed to provide ample security in an occupied Iraq. That small amount of critical thinking and research alone would have prompted one of them to do some arithmetic and realize that there aren’t enough available soldiers to make a difference at this point. And even that obvious reason to be pessimistic doesn’t compare with the red flags that go up constantly when you’re actually reading through the pages of FM 3-24.

Without too many words I can sum up the problem with General Patraeus’ work (which by the way, I found to be fascinating on a lot of levels and consider to be a brilliant piece of military literature) and that is the simple fact that the stated preconditions and environmental resources required to carry out the prescribed tactics, that according to the manual are necessary to achieve victory, are impossible to meet and/or obtain. The overall strategy put forth in FM 3-24 relies on tactics that cannot be applied at all to the situation in Iraq, and I will highlight a couple for you here:

Pg3: “Conducting a successful counterinsurgency campaign thus requires a flexible, adaptive force led by agile, well-informed, culturally astute leaders”.

Our military leaders invaded without an understanding of the culture, and today it is practically impossible for our soldiers and marines to be “well-informed” and/or “culturally astute” on either a micro or macro level.

Pg. 48: “3-1. Counterinsurgency (COIN) is an intelligence war…3-2. Intelligence in COIN is about people. U.S. forces must understand the people of the host nation, the insurgents, and the host-nation (HN) government. Commanders and planners must have insight into cultures, perceptions, values, beliefs, interests and decision-making processes of individuals and groups. These requirements are the basis for collection and analytical efforts. 3-3. Intelligence and operations feed back on one another. Effective intelligence drives effective operations, which produce more intelligence. Similarly, ineffective or inaccurate intelligence produces ineffective operations, which reduce the availability of intelligence.”

Intelligence gathering within Iraq is as close to “Mission Impossible” as it gets. Not only does the military lack personnel that can speak Arabic fluently, but there is absolutely no incentive for locals to risk helping U.S. forces, as they will not be provided protection for themselves or their families, nor will they be allowed to immigrate to the United States. They will either be dead or forced to flee into Jordan, Syria or another Middle East nation that is already overrun with refugees. Not to mention the fact that upwards to 3/4 of the population now views U.S. forces as the enemy, a sentiment which was cemented following the Abu Gharib evidence becoming public.

Pg 112: 6-1. Success in COIN requires the establishment of a legitimate government which has the support of the people and is able to address the fundamental causes that the insurgents use to gain popular support. Achieving these goals requires the host nation to defeat or render irrelevant the insurgent forces, uphold the rule of law, and provide a basic level of essential services and security for the population. Key to all these tasks is the development of an effective host-nation (HN) security force.“

McClatchy reports that “Training Iraqi troops, which had been the cornerstone of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy since 2005, has dropped in priority, officials in Baghdad and Washington said.”

Pg 141: 7-42. Abuse of detained persons is immoral, illegal, and unprofessional…Torture and cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment is never a morally permissible option, even in situations where lives depend on gaining information. No exceptional circumstances permit the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

These are but a handful of examples out of hundreds that when combined, result in perhaps 10% of the information in this field manual actually being applicable to the mission in Iraq. If the overarching point about counterinsurgency being an “intelligence war” is taken to heart, the mission is already a failure. Likewise, if the requisite of a host government that can “uphold the rule of law, and provide a basic level of essential services and security for the population” is something that is necessary, the mission is already a failure. The Iraqi government deciding to now go on a two month vacation should really tell us all we need to know about that, as well as the pathetic level of effectiveness our State Department is operating at.

And it is because of these things that General Patraeus, like General Pace, is nothing but a bookmark. He may not mind this distinction, and like General Casey before him, may even ruffle some Republican feathers in Congress and the White House by telling the truth every so often. With the treatment Casey received during testimony following the end of his time in charge from people like Senator McCain, any delusions of grandeur being harbored about a political career after retirement should be reconciled accordingly. Pace is holding out hope, as was clear when he told America while wearing his uniform, that gays shouldn’t be allowed in the military.

He is speaking his mind, and as long as that protocol is out the window, I suppose the slaves deserve their day in front of the microphone as well, no? I highlighted an event that took place a couple months ago, where a document called the ‘Appeal for Redress‘ was presented to Congress and signed by over 1250 military personnel (1912 as of this moment) and read:

As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq . Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home.

Following a segment on 60 Minutes where several of the signers and the originators of the idea appeared, there was a blanket of uncharacteristic tenderness on the part of our military towards these individuals, and the fact that they were well within their rights to speak out was affirmed by Pentagon officials. I happened to connect through correspondence with some of those featured in the 60 Minutes segment and others who post their thoughts on the internet. Following the broadcast they had nothing to report along the lines of repercussions or intimidation. Was the “law” enough of an authority all of a sudden for the US military and this government in particular to not bury these volunteers?

With the conditions at Walter Reed as a backdrop, it wasn’t worth it I suppose, but in the same way that they went through the motions in response to all of that, they simply waited out the attention being paid to the ‘Appeal for Redress’. Indeed, more than one of my sources (I will not specify who, where or how for obvious reasons) have reported a backlash within the past month, and they are scared. Having been in the Army, I know that nothing good can come from potentially exposing their identities, so you will have to take me at my word. To vouch for what I’m alleging though, consider the sudden burst of information that appeared all of a sudden on the internet after the stories broke.

A couple sites had been up and running prior, with testimonials posted, but within the past couple months, as more and more soldiers and marines began to realize their government had turned its back on them, the sheer volume of people telling similar stories managed to grow and sustain itself over time (while adding videos). And while the federal government and military under the command of George W. Bush has zero interest in things like PTSD, enlistment waivers for violent criminals, stop-loss, veterans’ health care, a viable strategy in Iraq, etc…they have decided that all this truth being told by the slaves is simply unacceptable. Hence the new policy being enforced, making it a punishable offense for any slave to record or share their thoughts and ideas over the World Wide Web (email, blogs, websites, message boards).

The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops’ online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say. (Source)

I have no doubt whatsoever that there hasn’t been a series of documented leaks of classified information through military personnel posting their thoughts on the internet, and that this new restriction has everything to do with the fact that the truth regarding how poorly the US government has been treating its slaves is something they would rather no one knew about. Turns out, it’s just as easy to stop this sort of thing in our country as it would be for Russia. As if the troops haven’t earned the right to expect adequate medical care, rest between deployments, proper training or the best armor (if any) for their bodies and vehicles that money could buy – now they are having their rights taken away. Now they are told that their thoughts are US government property.

What might the Joint Chiefs of Staff have to say about this? If history is any indication, General Pace is shining the president’s shoes or walking Barney right about now, and even if he wasn’t tied up with those more important tasks, he’s got a political career to think about and doesn’t really give a damn about any of this anyhow. True, these slaves all fall underneath his framed 8×10 in the chain of command, but so what? Same for every other general with enough clout to speak up and be taken seriously I suppose. I’m sure they’ve got plenty of good reasons to ignore everything that is happening that shouldn’t be, but the most prevalent excuse is the one they fail to even consider…“I’m too scared and self-absorbed at this point to be a leader. I too am a slave.”

These are supposed to be positions of honor, but I’d bet that you’re more likely to find that quality in higher doses within the enlisted ranks at this point. Honor is not a word that deserves to exist in the same room as these generals and their tough-guy bullshit persona, as for all the misery they oversee and exacerbate for a living, none of them come close enough to the horror their soldiers are faced with every day for it to compare at all with that thrill of personal aggrandizement that comes with promotions and extra rows of medals that advertise to the world and even more importantly, to their own mirrors, how extraordinary they are, how special.

I’m full of enough statements from retired generals at this point to know that all of them saying the same thing while standing in front of the White House holding megaphones up to their lips (there’s an idea!) won’t make a difference. The onus is on Patraeus and Pace and the star-studded whores at this point, to prove that they’re something more than a gaggle of cowards…to prove that they’ve got enough character to know deep down inside that the time for simply taking orders and running through thorn bushes for the sake of a thankless tyrant is over. Do these men continue to pretend that they represent all those who serve under them, or do they ignore the obvious until its time for another bookmark to take their place?