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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (153118)	12/1/2004 1:06:52 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Um. The argument for more force at the outset was not an escalation argument, which is how we ended up with 500k in Vietnam, it was for security, to maintain order. Going back over the archives on another topic,I stumbled on this account, dating back to fall '03: At the end of a four-day patrol rotation, relations between young Americans and the Iraqis tend to deteriorate, according to one officer, into “guys kicking dogs, yelling at grown men twenty years older than they are, and pushing kids into parked cars to keep them from following and bothering them.” In September, soldiers in a platoon from Charlie Company were accused of beating up Iraqi prisoners. All the soldiers suffer from the stress of heat, long days, lack of sleep, homesickness, the constant threat of attack (about which they are fundamentally fatalistic), and the simple fact that there are nowhere near enough of them to do the tasks they’ve been given. For some reason, this last point continues to be controversial in Washington. Rumsfeld echoes his generals’ assurances that no additional American divisions are needed. Meanwhile, Iraq’s borders remain basically undefended and its highways unpatrolled; tons of munitions lie around the country unguarded. Overburdened soldiers have begun to lose hope even as their work begins to show results. One soldier at Prior’s base recently wrote me a lengthy e-mail: The reason why morale sucks is because of the senior leadership, the brigade and division commanders, and probably the generals at the Pentagon and Central Command too, all of whom seem to be insulated from what is going on at the ground level. Either that or they are unwilling to hear the truth of things, or (and this is the most likely), they do know what is going on, but they want to get promoted so badly that they’re willing to screw over soldiers by being unwilling to face the problem of morale, so they continue pushing the soldiers to do more with less because Rummy wants them to get us out of here quickly. These people are like serious alcoholics unwilling to admit there even is a problem. His letter concluded: There are great things we’re doing here, much has already been done, yet much more remains to be accomplished, and what we need now is the money, people, and most importantly, time to do it. We’ll win, that’s for sure, and this won’t be another Vietnam; I truly believe that. ( from newyorker.com ) Things have gotten a lot better since then, though, I understand. Every day, in every way. I'd sort of hoped that obligatory PR line would let up after the election, but apparently not.