AUTHOR'S NOTE: For those who may think I am supportive of notions of American empire, I ask you to read my entry of April 9, 2006,
The Liberal's Patriotism Compared to The Neoconservative's Nationalism. As you will read in today's posting, which focuses a bit more closly on personnel and the problems of overexstension--as well as the earlier posting--I do not support the neoconservative unilateralism.
Liberal patriotism understands important concepts that neoconservative nationalism fails to grasp: our military is an asset to be used discretely; that war is the failure of international policy, not its tool of first use; and most of all, as Confederate General John Bell Hood proved at the battle of Franklin, a military can be run into the ground by a reckless leadership that constantly fails to empathize with the rank and file. That is the cost of having "...to much lion and not enough fox."
War is not merely entertainment for the students of the classic tradition; it is the killer of flesh and blood humanity. War drains national treasures, while eroding the national confidence. Neoconservatives such as Victor Davis Hanson like to point out that the situation in Iraq more than two years removed from war's onset because at the same point in time during the Second World War the tide of battle had just turned. Hanson further notes that the greatest casualties were yet to come.
But Hanson's analogy is wrong. He omits that at this same point the shear weight of American industrial might was about to pay off. The great waves of men that would land in Normandy, the Philippines and Iwo Jima along the supplies they would need were pretty much assembled by our mighty democracy. And while 1944 and 1945 would see some of the greatest suffering, tangible progress was readily apparent: the nooses were clearly tightening around the necks of the fascist powers. His analogy doesn't wash because instead of progress we are seeing setbacks; instead of increasing might being brought to bear upon the enemy, the Bush administration continues employing the same failed tactics with no discernable increase in truth strength. Either the war is to be fought correctly or our involvement should end.
Liberals must revisit their relationship with members of the armed services. It is time to put away the all too automatic disdain for all things military. While there always have been the Curtis LeMay super hawks, our military, unlike most others in the world, have produced many more clear-thinking, democratically-minded officers such as Generals Omar N. Bradley, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Colin Powell, Ulysses S. Grant, George Marshall, Eric Shinsheki, Wesley Clark and Anthony Zinni. Many of today's four-star generals and admirals entered service during the Vietnam conflict. As such, they had ringside seats to watch the misdirected application of military strategies during the course of a war. They know all too well the danger of military arrogance. Remember, they were second lieutenants and captains during the firefights of Hue, Da Nang and the Mekong Delta. They know the lessons of Vietnam, first hand.
The current American military leadership knows from its own personal battle experiences that it is possible for a nation's army to win every single land battle and still lose the war. Many of these same leaders had doubts about the second Iraqi conflict. They were second-guessed by the administration as to troop strength and supply needs. As it turned out, the brass was right and the neo-cons in the administration were wrong.
The members of our military are often separated from their families for long periods of time for a relatively low amount of pay and benefits. They can lose their lives in battle and leave their children motherless as well as fatherless. And they do all this for us as a people. These brave and unselfish Americans provide us all with the essential freedom from fear. We need them to protect us and they need us to help them do that job. Liberals can show that they are truer patriots than "Top Gun Dubya" by demanding better pay for these folks and by restoring the unforgivable Bush budget cut of 5.3 billion dollars to veterans' medical benefits. They must also stand up to Donald Rumsfeld's insane plan to reduce the number of on-base schools for our soldiers' children. Many of those right wing-nuts will say "God Bless America" in one breath and then cut a veteran's honorably earned benefits in the next.
Why? Well, just to make sure one of those Halliburton V.P. millionaires gets a six-figure tax cut. And many of these pikers are among those who benefit the most from the protection our military offers us! It is they who have cushy jobs waiting for them at the Carlyle Group after they step down. But then again, what else should be expected from an administration full of men who never served a day of combat in their lives? That is why if liberals embrace our military, the enlisted ranks may be ready to listen to liberalism's ideas for governance.
And consider this fact: If you look closely at the ethnic and gender make-up of the military, you will see a dormant constituency who will vote our way if we just show them some concern and respect.
Our military also holds perhaps this nation's best hope for finally smashing down the doors of racism and sexism once and for all. Why? Because there increasing numbers of minorities and women in the officer corps of all branches of the military, while within the enlisted ranks there are more and more mixed marriages. If anything should give liberals pause to rethink their opinion of our military, this is the issue with which to begin.
According to a story that ran online on March 26, 1997, "White men who served in the military were three times as likely to marry women of color as white men who never served. White women who served were seven times more likely to marry outside their racial group than those who never served." Wouldn't they be more likely to elect candidates who will look after their children's interests by standing up to racial discrimination? Don't you believe these "ultimate-responders" who protect our wealth and our ability to speak freely deserve our support and respect? If liberals do so and give them the real financial support they and their families need, more of the military will be there for our candidates come Election Day.
Today there are too many military families who need food stamps simply to survive. That should never be the case. More and more, promised benefits are never awarded, deployments keep getting longer and the pace of pay increases has slowed to a trickle. Too many fine soldiers want to leave the military solely to get better paying jobs. That is if the back-door draft lets them leave.
And that, in turn, raises another serious problem. If too many career-minded soldiers leave the military before retirement age, the nation is further weakened. This is because the NCO corps (non-commissioned officers; sergeants and corporals) will be greatly diminished. They are the ones who hold platoons and squads together under fire. Furthermore, they are the experienced soldiers whose careers tend to span several military conflicts. It is they who have the experience that keeps less-experienced soldiers alive during baptisms-by-fire. Losing too many of these career soldiers easily could translate into losing too many lives.
OVEREXSTENSION.
Currently, there are approximately 1.5 million was citizens in our military. Of this overall number, the publication Defense Watch estimates that the United States Army has about 390,000 troops in over 120 countries engaged in a variety of missions. Of the Army's 33 combat brigades, 16 are in Iraq: Normal doctrine calls for only one brigade in three to be deployed abroad, while the other two retrain and refit. The current deployment also violates the "two for five rule." The Army believes that for every soldier who is stationed overseas, it needs two to five more soldiers at home to effectively support that single deployment, doing everything from medical treatment to clerical work. As General Zinni has pointed out, "We can't go on breaking our military and doing things like we're doing now."5
As many in our military have warned, the Army is becoming seriously overextended. Several former military leaders have pointed out that the invasion of Iraq was purely elective and not truly a response to an imminent threat. They, as well as other high-ranking officers, have been loudly suggesting that the war was fought "on the cheap," with not enough troops and with even less planning for "the peace" after the war. Now, that the Bush Administration has dangerously overextended our forces, the U.S. Army may find itself hamstrung if a volatile Korean crisis escalates into a shooting war. History has consistently shown us that ill-supplied troops often become unnecessary casualties.
Another issue that is emerging is the continued emphasis on "transformation." Although begun under Eisenhower and accelerated under JFK, the concept of modernizing the military to fight smaller, Afghanistan-type wars has taken on a life of its own with the ascendancy of Donald Rumsfeld. As George W. Bush's Secretary of Defense, he has imposed a mantra of fighting making the military more apt at meeting the challenge of the asymmetrical enemy. This means a greater emphasis upon Special Forces and less upon conventional infantry divisions. This vision of the military conveniently fits the Bush dogma of lower taxation. A reduced military costs less in monetary terms, but it can also cost the nation dearly in terms of security. Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover all would be so proud of Top Gun Dubya.
And as Washington Post reporter Dana Priest has adroitly pointed out in her recent book on the current state of the American military, The Mission, the Republican-controlled Congress, and not just the Clinton Administration, also failed to pay for an effective reorganization of the military. The only real difference is that the GOP spin-machine seems better at selling the American people the proposition that 2 + 2 = 5.
There are a few huge problems with transformation, notably North Korea and the Peoples' Republic of China. If we were to find ourselves at war with either of these two nations, a smaller military would be an invitation to disaster. When the Clinton Administration did an assessment of the cost of winning a war on the Korean Peninsula, the price in soldiers' lives alone was 100,000. Imagining the cost of fighting even a limited engagement against a Red Chinese Army (say, for a push into Japan or Southeast Asia to extend influence) is beyond objective comprehension. And keep in mind that the goal of the military is to simultaneously fight two wars in different parts of the world. That is why the scrubbing of the fast-firing Crusader self-propelled artillery piece is troublesome. If you were a grunt in the Second Infantry Division watching a brigade of North Korean regulars charging your position, having fast firing artillery would be very reassuring.
But who ultimately pays for sending an ill-prepared military into battle? We, the American people do. After all, it is our military, defending our society. In a greater sense, this is our problem just as much as it is the problem of everyday soldiers. Their well being is important to our well being. If they do not have the right equipment and the best morale when being sent into battle, then we as a society ultimately will suffer as we become more and more vulnerable to hostile intentions.
NOTES:
1 When Jefferson Davis replaced Joseph E. Johnston with John Bell Hood as the Commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, Robert E. Lee, counseled Davis against this choice. Lee, because of Hood's penchant for recklessness, was purported to comment have commented that Hood was "...all lion, no fox."
2 See-Hanson, Victor Davis; "2000 Dead, in Context,"_ New York Times_, October 27, 2005, Section A, Page 31.
3 CNN.com citing the U.S. Census Bureau, and research from the University of Michigan. Link: http://www.cnn.com/...
4 See-Priest, Dana, The Mission, page 47
5 Priest, Dana, Washington Post, September 5, 2003
6 Schoomaker's Challenge, By William F. Sauerwein, August 14, 2003.