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chaotic_nippleI figured today was a good day to unscreen a long-ass entry that I wrote, and marked "private", lo, many months ago. The reason for said privacy is that I didn't want to get shut down, as so many military folk have had their blogs shut down for criticizing Dear Leader Bush and his Glorious Administration. Since that's not as big a concern now, what with me being 3 months away from freedom, I may as well unscreen it. Here goes:
Originally titled: Bob: Yet another post to unscreen if I die!
Why I joined the Army: For a variety of reasons: Patriotism, a desire for adventure, money for college, etc, but mainly because I wasn't doing much else at that particular moment. A more common reason than you might think. When my first enlistment was up, I got out, and never thought I'd ever be tempted to go back in.
Then Septemeber 11th happened. I felt it was my duty to join back up and defend America from the Barbarian Hordes. I expected that I'd get deployed to Afghanistan, where we would rebuild the country into a secular democracy, based on our own Enlightenment ideals, with freedom for all and oppression for none. I was all afire with patriotic fervor, I just _knew_ with all my heart that we were making history. Incidentally, I was also closer to being a Republican than ever before, or since.
We got the word that we were preparing to go to Iraq. If Saddam didn't give up his Weapons of Mass Destruction, we were gonna take 'em from him. If the rest of the world didn't like it, tough on them; we were the GOOD GUYS. Whenever anyone pointed out holes in the 'evidence' that was presented, I argued that the President must know more, but he couldn't tell us for security reasons. Surely he wouldn't _LIE_ about the quality of evidence that he had; people would find out and he'd be finished. Oh, for the lost naivete of yesteryear!
We got to Kuwait. We trained harder than ever before. We showed the world that yes, we can go through the Best Army in the Middle East (not counting Israel, they'd probably kick our asses, if only because they've had a lot more practice) like a hot knife through butter, with ridiculously few casualties, and with half the troops that conventional doctrine said would be needed. Yeah, we were Bad Ass.
Then came the actual occupation, and we saw first hand the fatal flaw of the "Shock and Awe", technology-as-a-force-multiplier doctrine: It doesn't actually multiply the number of boots on the ground. Yes, we could destroy an Army far quicker and more thoroughly than anyone expected, but we could not maintain control of the population with as few troops as we brought in. Every pre-war briefing we had ended with the words: "...and then, transition to SASO*". We always assumed that that meant we'd be briefed on the rest of "The Plan" once the fighting was taken care of. Little did we realize that those three words were the entirity of "The Plan", with the unspoken hope that "The Iraqi people will welcome us with open arms and happy blowjobs, and foreign investment will come rolling in once all government services are privatized" left as an exercise in inference.
We probably _could_ have immediately imposed order on the cities, if our leaders had actually had a workable occupation strategy. We'd have taken a lot of casualties, but almost certainly less than the current figure. Instead, we holed up in relative safety, and let the country fall into total anarchy. Then, once a semblance of order returned, the head of the Provisional Government did the most unimaginably stupid thing possible: He fired the entire Iraqi Army. And almost everyone else in the government.
Suddenly, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who had comfortable jobs were penniless, including almost eveyone with command experience. How that idiot thought that this was a good move is beyond me. Worse, since we didn't have the troops to secure all of Saddam's conventional weapons, they could drive into any of a hundred abandoned bases and go home with a truckful of RPGS, Mortars, and AKs. That's when the IEDs and ambushes started.**
(continued in first comment)
Originally titled: Bob: Yet another post to unscreen if I die!
Why I joined the Army: For a variety of reasons: Patriotism, a desire for adventure, money for college, etc, but mainly because I wasn't doing much else at that particular moment. A more common reason than you might think. When my first enlistment was up, I got out, and never thought I'd ever be tempted to go back in.
Then Septemeber 11th happened. I felt it was my duty to join back up and defend America from the Barbarian Hordes. I expected that I'd get deployed to Afghanistan, where we would rebuild the country into a secular democracy, based on our own Enlightenment ideals, with freedom for all and oppression for none. I was all afire with patriotic fervor, I just _knew_ with all my heart that we were making history. Incidentally, I was also closer to being a Republican than ever before, or since.
We got the word that we were preparing to go to Iraq. If Saddam didn't give up his Weapons of Mass Destruction, we were gonna take 'em from him. If the rest of the world didn't like it, tough on them; we were the GOOD GUYS. Whenever anyone pointed out holes in the 'evidence' that was presented, I argued that the President must know more, but he couldn't tell us for security reasons. Surely he wouldn't _LIE_ about the quality of evidence that he had; people would find out and he'd be finished. Oh, for the lost naivete of yesteryear!
We got to Kuwait. We trained harder than ever before. We showed the world that yes, we can go through the Best Army in the Middle East (not counting Israel, they'd probably kick our asses, if only because they've had a lot more practice) like a hot knife through butter, with ridiculously few casualties, and with half the troops that conventional doctrine said would be needed. Yeah, we were Bad Ass.
Then came the actual occupation, and we saw first hand the fatal flaw of the "Shock and Awe", technology-as-a-force-multiplier doctrine: It doesn't actually multiply the number of boots on the ground. Yes, we could destroy an Army far quicker and more thoroughly than anyone expected, but we could not maintain control of the population with as few troops as we brought in. Every pre-war briefing we had ended with the words: "...and then, transition to SASO*". We always assumed that that meant we'd be briefed on the rest of "The Plan" once the fighting was taken care of. Little did we realize that those three words were the entirity of "The Plan", with the unspoken hope that "The Iraqi people will welcome us with open arms and happy blowjobs, and foreign investment will come rolling in once all government services are privatized" left as an exercise in inference.
We probably _could_ have immediately imposed order on the cities, if our leaders had actually had a workable occupation strategy. We'd have taken a lot of casualties, but almost certainly less than the current figure. Instead, we holed up in relative safety, and let the country fall into total anarchy. Then, once a semblance of order returned, the head of the Provisional Government did the most unimaginably stupid thing possible: He fired the entire Iraqi Army. And almost everyone else in the government.
Suddenly, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who had comfortable jobs were penniless, including almost eveyone with command experience. How that idiot thought that this was a good move is beyond me. Worse, since we didn't have the troops to secure all of Saddam's conventional weapons, they could drive into any of a hundred abandoned bases and go home with a truckful of RPGS, Mortars, and AKs. That's when the IEDs and ambushes started.**
(continued in first comment)
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Continued
Date: 2005-11-12 12:52 am (UTC)The only thing worse than starting an unjustified war is losing it, and we were set up for failure from the day "Mission Accomplished" was declared. With proper planning, this War _could_ have been a success, but right now I don't see any way that it can be. The best case scenario is another third-world autocracy that's not as blatently corrupt as the last one, and a chance for us to withdraw our forces without looking like we're admitting defeat. There's approximately a snowball's chance in Hell that the new government is going to be a functional democracy, but a dictatorship is better than chaos, and a friendly strongman is better than an unfriendly one.
Have you ever seen a four year old whose entire body below the neck is covered by third degree burns? You ever have to tell a son that we're sorry for the rioting that his mother was killed in, but we were too busy to keep order? You ever have to explain to a family that you regret that their son/father/brother was injured/killed in the crossfire, but that the friendly folks at Civil Affairs will help get them compensation? It sucks. But it ALL would have been worth it, if it made America even the tiniest bit safer.
We've alienated our allies. We've shown that our President is willing to lie to the entire world, and that We, the People, are unwilling to hold him accountable. We've emboldened the jihadis, we haven't made America any safer, and we haven't made the Middle East any more democratic. We probably will go down in history, though. Bush Jr. will be remembered as the President who destroyed the Pax Americana.
*SASO = Stabilization and Sustainment Operations. Peacekeeping.
**Contrary to the Party Line, most of the insurgents aren't foreign Jihadis, the vast majority of them are Iraqis. The Jihadis do a disproportianate amount of damage to us, since they're willing to be used as suicide bombers, and don't care about inflicting civilian casualties. The Iraqi insurgents either take care to avoid killing their countrymen, or they get ratted out real quick.
Re: Continued
Date: 2006-01-29 10:18 am (UTC)I keep thinking about that book "The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam".
I wish our leaders would read it :P In the introduction it says,
"A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests. Mankind, it seems, makes a poorer performance of government than of almost any other human activity. In this sphere, wisdom, which may be defined as the exercise of judgement acting on experience, common sense and available information, is less operative and more frustrated than it should be. Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests? Why does intelligent mental process seem so often not to function?"
Historians .. they're all psychic you know.