Wonky Wednesday: Our Can’t-Do Government
Part of what distinquished the “greatest generation” that won WW II is the quality of the leadership in our national government. It’s a quality sorely lacking in the current administration.
This lament from the eerily prescient Russell Baker in 1982 is even truer today:
Can you imagine any Government of the present age getting itself in shape to win the Battle of Midway six months after Pearl Harbor and to land an army of invasion in North Africa five months later?
I can’t. Nowadays, I suspect, we’d need at least a year just to decide how big a tax break to give corporations for converting to ship and tank construction, and another five years to find out why the ships and tanks weren’t quite ready for battle.
I don’t think you’d really have to offer the enlisted men tax incentives for agreeing to take part in the Battle of Midway, but there’d be a lot of pressure for it on the home front, and everything would probably be slowed down while Presidential candidates tested public sentiment in the next New Hampshire primary.
Meanwhile the Government would be scolding the public for impatience, and reminding it that Rome wasn’t built in a day, and telling it to remain hard-nosed toward the enemy, and show plenty of will, and be prepared for great tests of endurance.*
The U.S. won WW II in less than four years after Pearl Harbor. It has now been four years and twenty nine days since President Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq. Four years and twenty nine days after Pearl Harbor, our soldiers, sailors, marines and aviators were on their way home to start making babies, go back to school on the G.I. Bill, set up homes in the suburbs, and invent tailfins.
*”Getting on with It” from There’s a Country in my Cellar, p. 104
Tags: TommyWonk
This point was made by my dad, which I in turn made on behalf of my dad on FSP. Dad said that the major difference between WWII and Nam and Iraq was the clear purpose of the conflict. In the latter two instances, the soldiers, and the American civilians, are well aware of the lack of direction and purpose not only expressed by our current leaders, but also clearly shown in their actions.
Dad said he was on a ship that was essentially “bait” in the Atlantic, they knew it, they weren’t happy about it, but they still understood the reason behind the ‘big picture’ and the necessity of their percentagelly challenged life-span on this mission.
This understanding, as a result of US and allied leadership, is very different from the current cluster fuque that characterizes our purpose in Iraq.
There is a lot of right-wing mythology around the idea that WWII was “popular” and therefore “easy” to fight and the “the media” was more dedicated to “winning”.
In fact, FDR carefully tracked public sentiment regarding the war and was careful to make decisions that demonstrated that fact that the war was a cooperative effort between the Americans, British and Russians , and not an American war.
Likewise we was eager to show our allies and the world that the United States was not after narrow economic gain or territorial gain , but wanted the world to share in the benefits that defeating the axis powers would bring.
Following the Yalta Conference he, unambiguously, declared, “(the conference) ought to spell the end of a system of unilateral action, the exclusive alliances, the spheres of influence, the balances of power, and all the other expedients that have been tried for centuries — and have always failed. We propose to substitute for all these, a universal organization in which all peace-loving nations will finally have a chance to join.”
Bush is like a photographic negative of FDR.
The Hill:
A record number of Americans are pessimistic about the outcome in Iraq and now believe the war was a mistake, according to a CBS News/New York Times opinion poll out late Thursday.
Seventy-six percent of Americans think the war is going badly, up ten percentage points in one month, according to the poll.
Sixty-one percent of those polled said the United States should have stayed out of Iraq, with only 35 percent saying the invasion was the right thing to do.
Seventy-six percent think the war is going badly? That number seems low, espcially if the opinions of the maimed or killed are taken into consideration. No one wants to die for Halliburton profits.
Sorry this article is long, but I believe it is appropriate to share widely. We should hear our soldiers’ pleas…
With allies in enemy ranks, GIs in Iraq are no longer true believers
By Michael Kamber
Sunday, May 27, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/27/news/delta.php
BAGHDAD: Staff Sergeant David Safstrom does not regret his previous tours in Iraq, not even a difficult second stint when two comrades were killed while trying to capture insurgents.
“In Mosul, in 2003, it felt like we were making the city a better place,” he said. “There was no sectarian violence, Saddam was gone, we were tracking down the bad guys. It felt awesome.”
But now on his third deployment in Iraq, he is no longer a believer in the mission. The pivotal moment came, he says, this past February when soldiers killed a man setting a roadside bomb. When they searched the bomber’s body, they found identification showing him to be a sergeant in the Iraqi Army.
“I thought, ‘What are we doing here? Why are we still here?’ ” said Safstrom, a member of Delta Company of the 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division. “We’re helping guys that are trying to kill us. We help them in the day. They turn around at night and try to kill us.”
His views are echoed by most of his fellow soldiers in Delta Company, renowned for its aggressiveness.
A small minority of Delta Company soldiers – the younger, more recent enlistees in particular – seem to still wholeheartedly support the war. Others are ambivalent, torn between fear of losing more friends in battle, longing for their families and a desire to complete their mission.
With few reliable surveys of soldiers’ attitudes, it is impossible to simply extrapolate from the small number of soldiers in Delta Company. But in interviews with more than a dozen soldiers over a one-week period, most said they were disillusioned by repeated deployments, by what they saw as the abysmal performance of Iraqi security forces and by a conflict that they considered a civil war, one they had no ability to stop.
They had seen shadowy militia commanders installed as Iraqi Army officers, they said, had come under increasing attack from roadside bombs – planted within sight of Iraqi Army checkpoints – and had fought against Iraqi soldiers whom they thought were their allies.
“In 2003, 2004, 100 percent of the soldiers wanted to be here, to fight this war,” said Sergeant First Class David Moore, a self-described “conservative Texas Republican” and platoon sergeant who strongly advocates an American withdrawal. “Now, 95 percent of my platoon agrees with me.”
It is not a question of loyalty, the soldiers insist. Safstrom, for example, comes from a thoroughly military family. His mother and father have served in the armed forces, as have his three sisters, one brother and several uncles. One week after the Sept. 11 attacks, he walked into a recruiter’s office and joined the army.
“You guys want to start a fight in my backyard, I got something for you,” he recalls thinking at the time.
But in Safstrom’s view, the American presence is futile. “If we stayed here for 5, even 10 more years, the day we leave here these guys will go crazy,” he said. “It would go straight into a civil war. That’s how it feels, like we’re putting a Band-Aid on this country until we leave here.”
Their many deployments have added to the strain. After spending six months in Iraq, the soldiers of Delta Company had been home for only 24 hours last December when the news came. “Change your plans,” they recall being told. “We’re going back to Iraq.”
Nineteen days later, just after Christmas, Captain Douglas Rogers and the men of Delta Company were on their way to Khadimiya, a Shiite enclave of about 300,000. As part of the so-called surge of American troops, their primary mission was to maintain stability in the area and to prepare the Iraqi Army and police to take control of the neighborhood.
“I thought it would not be long before we could just stay on our base and act as a quick-reaction force,” said the barrel-chested Rogers of San Antonio, Texas. “The Iraqi security forces would step up.” It has not worked out that way. Still, Rogers says their mission in Khadimiya has been “an amazing success.”
“We’ve captured 4 of the top 10 most-wanted guys in this area,” he said. And the streets of Khadimiya are filled with shoppers and the stores are open, he added, a rarity in Baghdad due partly to Delta Company’s patrols.
Rogers acknowledges the skepticism of many of his soldiers. “Our unit has already sent two soldiers home in a box,” he said. “My soldiers don’t see the same level of commitment from the Iraqi Army units they’re partnered with.”
Yet there is, he insists, no crisis of morale: “My guys are all professionals. I tell them to do something, they do it.”
His dictum is proven on patrol, where his soldiers walk the streets for hours in the stifling heat, providing cover for one another with a crisp efficiency.
On April 29, a Delta Company patrol was responding to a tip at the Sadr mosque, a short distance from its base. The soldiers saw men in the distance erecting burning barricades, and the streets emptied out quickly. Then a militia, believed to be the Mahdi army, began firing at them from rooftops and windows.
Sergeant Kevin O’Flarity, a squad leader, jumped into his Humvee to join his fellow soldiers, racing through abandoned Iraqi Army and police checkpoints to the battle site.
He and his squad maneuvered their Humvees through alleyways and side streets, firing back at an estimated 60 insurgents during a gunfight that raged for two and a half hours. A rocket-propelled grenade glanced off O’Flarity’s Humvee, failing to penetrate.
When the battle was over, Delta Company learned that among the enemy dead were at least two Iraqi Army soldiers that American forces had helped train and arm.
Rogers admits that, “the 29th was a watershed moment in a negative sense, because the Iraqi Army would not fight with us,” he said, adding that “some actually picked up weapons and fought against us.” The battle changed the attitude among his soldiers toward the war, he said.
“Before that fight, there were a few true believers.” Rogers said. “After the 29th, I don’t think you’ll find a true believer in this unit. They’re paratroopers. There’s no question they’ll fulfill their mission. But they’re fighting now for pride in their unit, professionalism, loyalty to their fellow soldier and chain of command.”
To O’Flarity, the Iraqi security forces are militias beholden to local leaders, not the Iraqi government. “Half of the Iraqi security forces are insurgents,” he said.
As for his views on the war, O’Flarity said, “I don’t believe we should be here in the middle of a civil war.”
“We’ve all lost friends over here,” he said. “Most of us don’t know what we’re fighting for anymore. We’re serving our country and friends, but the only reason we go out every day is for each other.”
“I don’t want any more of my guys to get hurt or die. If it was something I felt righteous about, maybe. But for this country and this conflict, no, it’s not worth it.”
Bush signed his own political death warrant when he did not get a Declaration of War. Absent that, the spineless Congress was bound to flip on him. Since he could not get a DoW, he should have abandoned the plan. But Nooo.
But remember, Democrats are part of that gutless organ called Congress too. Very few from either side of the room voted no.
I feel like William Wallace pleading with The Bruce… LEAD US! LEAD US! Surely one of the candidates has the strength in em’. Ah, but Mr. Lieberman was run out of the “other” party…
Have we heard anyone talk about a phased withdrawal that saves the Kurds? Is there another honorable exit strategy? The only stategy I hear is to beat up on the Democrats/Republicans for their positions.
“Bush signed his own political death warrant when he did not get a Declaration of War.”
Huh? Declaration of War against Terror, Inc.? This is not a war that will end with a signing ceremony on the deck of a battleship.
Oh, and why won’t anyone debate Senator Biden on the war? Because Fox will be the venue? Please.
If the young men who went to Europe and the Pacific to fight totalitarianism and imperialism in WWII were the Greatest Generation, then what we have here on the home front is truly the Weakest Generation.