Reinstate the draft

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Oct 04, 2010 at 20:00:08 PM MST

"It is also true that whatever their fond sentiments for men and women in uniform, for most Americans the wars remain an abstraction, a distant and unpleasant series of news items that do not affect them personally.

"... For a growing number of Americans, service in the military, no matter how laudable, has become something for other people to do."

Indeed, Mr. Gates said, fewer and fewer Americans know someone with military experience in their family or their social circle, and that is particularly true in certain areas of the country, such as the Northeast, where family military traditions and college ROTC programs are more scarce.

The reason for this, of course, is the country's all-volunteer force, which essentially creates a "warrior class" of soldiers who serve in a military as a profession:

The change has been startling -- and unique in American history. Unlike the draftees of the Civil War or even the Greatest Generation of World War II, these soldiers do not become farmers or businessmen or schoolteachers when their tour is over. They reenlist. They are proud, lean and hard. If they have families, their wives and children are battered but tough. The soldiers of this generation are arguably the best fighters in the world.

Gone are the days of the citizen soldier. Today's wars are fought by a small group of dedicated, well-trained men and women who do multiple rotations in our war zones, but who "disdain what they perceive as the loose values, sloppy discipline and quick-buck self-centeredness of civilian life." According to Wood, these men and women find it hard to form civilian relationships between deployment, and end up making their lasting, personal bonds with those they serve with.

As Gary Schmitt of the American Enterprise Institute relates, Gates called this group "the best educated, the most capable force this country has ever sent into battle." And there's no doubting that. Gates finishes his point:

And, indeed, it is hard to imagine, he notes, that the country would have been able to undertake the "complex, protracted missions" it has in Iraq and Afghanistan "without the dedication of seasoned professionals who chose to serve-and keep on serving ... Going back to compulsory service, in addition to being politically impossible, is highly impracticable given the kinds of technical skills, experience, and attributes needed to be successful on the battlefield in the 21st century."

Indeed.

In fact, Gates' and Schmitt's only worry about the separation between the military and the rest of the country is that it's not drawing from a varied enough civilian population. Gates' speech was aimed at ginning up excitement for the service among Duke students, and Schmitt thinks the Secretary of Defense needs to "use his good reputation to increase public pressure on the faculties and administrations of the nation's elite schools to let ROTC back on campus." The disconnect, to Schmitt, is between reg'lar folks and the pointy-heads.

But where Gates and Schmitt find solace in the fact that Iraq and Afghanistan would have been possible only with an all-volunteer force, I think it's an excellent argument for reinstating the draft - or, heck! how about compulsory military or civil service for all 18-year-olds? After all, it was Nixon who implemented the all-volunteer army in reaction to domestic antiwar sentiment surrounding Vietnam. Could you imagine rushing in like fools into Iraq if every 18-year-old in the country were on the front lines?

The First Amendment does not protect you from the consequences of what you say

by: Jay Stevens

Tue Sep 07, 2010 at 07:24:45 AM MST

A few of the less stable righties are dang furious someone dares criticize their God-given right - nay, necessity - to burn heretical books in the public square. 'Cause they're out to kill us all, and burning their favorite book will show them!

Whatever. What's more interesting to me is John Hinderaker's reaction:

...I personally am not in favor of burning Korans. My advice to the Florida church would be, don't do it.

Still, is it not highly problematic when a senior military officer warns American citizens against exercising their undoubted First Amendment rights?...

Of course, the First Amendment only prohibits the establishment of a religion by government. Which is where we came in--there is a fundamental difference between my telling Terry Jones, senior minister at the Dove World Outreach Center, that a mass Koran-burning is a bad idea, and General Petraeus saying the same thing. Especially when Petraeus, probably the most respected person in the federal government, warns that the likely effect is to endanger our troops. In many contexts, taking actions that endanger the troops would be regarded as giving aid and comfort to the enemy, a concept that Petraeus came uncomfortably close to endorsing.

Um...? Where were these *sshats for the last nine years, when their political, military, and blogger friends were saying the same thing about anti-war liberals? Only it turned out we were right about Iraq, and these people are wrong.

Hinderaker brings up the comparison between rightie's reaction to Park51 and their reaction to Petraeus' statements - but while he dodges the hypocrisy, the Mahablog tackles it head-on:

...in the case of Park51, the arguments against the "rightness" of it are not just subjective; most of them are unadulterated bunk. There is no rational reason to not build an Islamic Center on Park Place. The building was functioning as a mosque, a place for Islamic prayer services, for several months before the controvery kicked off, and it didn't bother anyone until a few hotheads decided to raise a stink about it.

But in the case of the Quran burning, there could be real consequences. U.S. troops could die. The effort in Afghanistan, into which this nation has poured considerable blood and treasure, could be set back.

Whatever. This isn't meant to be a post about the efficacy of the Afghanistan mission. IMHO, it's a black hole. And the Florida church is free to say what it wants - although they're not free from the criticism that should flow naturally from their decision to burn Qurans, because Petraeus is probably right when he says rightie wingnuts are putting troops at risk with their manly chest thumping.

That's the thing here. You hear a lot from conservatives about how their speech is prohibited because lefties often criticize it for being racist, homophobic, or just plain stupid. But what they're really angry is that their racism, homophobia, and stupidity actually has consequences.

The decade of right-wing fear

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Jan 04, 2010 at 13:06:32 PM MST

It's odd actually - but, personally, the last decade has been pretty incredible. The birth of my children. Attending graduate school in Missoula, the swirl and rush of the 2006 election campaign, the completion of the work in 2008. Other things, too, like the Red Sox finally cracking it open - not once, but twice - the dominance of the Patriots, some memorable trips to faraway places, a brief and enjoyable hiatus in the Bay Area, these things made the naughties, for me, pretty swell.

But on a wider level, the naughties were a stinker: 9/11, sinking earnings and a flat-lining economy, looming ecological disaster, the Bush administration, Iraq and the associated collapse of the media, a bungled Afghanistan, Dick Cheney, the hamstringing of progressives on health care reform, Blackwater, and torture, just to name a few off the top of my head. An evil, vile time, and lot of the most reprehensible events that occurred are clearly lain at our own feet.

And why? Read Steyn's simpering, fear-soaked column wringing its hands over airport security and cloaked in gutless he-man bravado. It's a voice worshiping Armageddon, and demanding you, too, get on your knees in obeisance to his fear, cloaked in nationalist rhetoric, and demanding the blood sacrifice of liberals. It's craven, calculated, political, and completely amoral. And that's what drove us to Iraq, to the loss of habeas corpus, to torture: the careful manipulation of fear for partisan, political gain.

I remember when it began: with John Walker Lindh's capture a few weeks after 9/11. Say what you will about the man - whether he's a traitor addled by religious fervor or a misunderstood pilgrim caught up in events - there was something rotten about his treatment after capture...the beatings, the torture, the quick application of "justice," and the weird gag order imposed on him and his family that forbids them to speak about his handling by the US government, clearly none of which serves our national security interests.

But the really notable element to come out of Walker Lindh's capture was the rhetoric coming out of the right that was prominently featured on cable television talk shows. Remember this?

We need to execute people like John Walker [Lindh] in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors.

Ann Coulter said this, January of 2002. Later Coulter hid behind her claim it was a joke, but it wasn't funny when I heard it sitting on my inlaws' couch in Berkeley, California, when she and her ilk d*mned an entire metropolitan area of several millions as treasonous because of Walker Lindh. What was notable, though, was that it marked the end to that that post-9/11 feeling of unity that was so pervasive everywhere. Coulter's remarks were an announcement, a piercing fanfare, that 9/11 was going to be crassly exploited to go after the left, politically.

To be fair, what really sunk us was that a lot of lefties - and notably, the media -- bowed down for fear of appearing "weak." Still, it was right-wing fear that moved them. And that grating, arrogant, fear-laden tone is what I'll remember most about the politics of this decade...

The Afghan "surge"

by: Jay Stevens

Wed Dec 02, 2009 at 10:27:56 AM MST

Me? I'm not really sure I know what the right decision is. I really like Fred Kaplan's take on the war, not necessarily because of the suppositions, but because he honestly feels gross ambivalence about what to do:

Columnists are supposed to have firm views and express them with steadfast certainty. Since I write a column called "War Stories," the least a reader might expect from me is a clear opinion on whether the United States should escalate or pull out of the war in Afghanistan.

Recently, a friend told me that he couldn't quite figure out where I stood on the issue. I replied that I couldn't quite figure it out, either.

Personally, I supported going into Afghanistan. The Taliban - unlike Saddam Hussein - was connected to al Qaeda, and was harboring Osama bin Laden. Seemed the right thing to do. But now? It seems like our only goal is to keep the Taliban from returning to power. A fool's errand at which we keep throwing troops and money, hoping that the political and cultural system will somehow magically change while we're there. And while we all squabble over health care reform - you know, on programs that actually help people, that improve health and lives - we're throwing a sh*tload of money at a black hole of a war, without knowing why we're there, or what it is we're actually trying to accomplish.

Seymour Hersh was on Fresh Air recently, talking about the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. He had this to say in reaction the news that President Obama had demanded an "exit strategy" from Afghanistan from his national security team:

...this could be a...really important step for the president. Because many are concerned...about the fact that he delegated much of the war-making policy to the generals in the field...There isn't a general in the armed forces asked to do that would say, I can't win...So he put himself into a box, and he was very passive for a long time about it. That's why, if you had asked me four days ago about it, I would have thought he was going to make a political decision to do something, to send some token troops, because he doesn't want to lose more independents, he wants to show he can run the war, he can be a tough guy.

But what Obama's done - if he has done what he seems to have done - is he's telling the military, you know what? I don't think it's going to fly. This is huge, because he's basically saying, I'm not going to play politics with the war, I'm not going to do what other presidents have and continue fighting a war that I don't think we can win, and I'm just stalling for time until I can find a way out.

That's what I would have guessed three or four days ago.

Well, Obama's speech last night didn't exactly signal a break from the kind of politicking with the war that Hersh was hoping for - Rachel Maddow even compared Obama's rhetoric to the "Bush Doctrine", the radical rhetoric that endorsed pre-emptive war -   but he did set a kind of amorphous exit timeline, something that hasn't yet been discussed for Afghanistan. Still, it reeks of compromise and politics. Worse, all the support from the same folks who were egregiously wrong about Bush's foreign policy - Fred Barnes at the Weekly Standard, say, and other assorted righties -  should give us pause.

The reality is that any justification for us going into Afghanistan in the first place is long gone. We're there to baldly protect our own "national" interests, which obviously have more to do with the exchange of commodities than they do with national security or democracy or anything like that. And while there's a commitment to an exit, I guarantee we'll see this whole debate again when it comes up again in a year-and-a-half, at which time we should expect another "compromise."

But...did Obama promise us anything else during the election? Isn't this exactly what he said he was going to do?

Fort Drum: The Tip of a Tragic Iceberg

by: Jason Forrester - Veterans For America

Thu Feb 14, 2008 at 10:56:10 AM MST

After months of investigative work, talking to our troops and veterans, we released a report on the situation at Fort Drum in Watertown, New York. Since 9/11, the 2nd Brigade Combat Team has been deployed for more than forty months, more than any other brigade in the Army, and we are seeing what is nothing short of a cry for help from the men and women on the base; a cry we will answer for troops in Montana as well.

A cry for help that is also coming from the leadership on the base. In a New York Times article today about our report, Major General Michael Oates, commander of the 10th Mountain Division, says: "We recognize that there is stress on our force and their families from this conflict, but until recently, we have not fully appreciated the extent of some of the mental stresses and injuries or how to best identify them." Please read the rest of the article here.

What is happening at Fort Drum -- with Soldiers still on active duty suffering from PTSD, with Soldiers and their families in need of counseling, with Soldiers literally dying while still on duty -- is going to happen all around America unless we begin to address some of the basic issues of this war.  As our report explains, DoD itself has stated that the likelihood of troops having mental health problems increases by 60% with every tour of duty. So, in short, through ourdeployment policies, we are consciously compounding the wounds of war.

This is unacceptable to us. Veterans for America's Wounded Warrior Outreach Program will continue to address these problems from the bottom up.  

We are going to go to as many bases as we can afford to go to, see what is happening on those bases and see how we can help. If you can help us, we would greatly appreciate it.

We are going to continue our Wounded Warrior Registry Outreach -- if you or someone you know needs help getting help with PTSD or TBI, please click here.

And above all, we are going to continue to serve and help those that serve and have served us with the same level of dedication and courage they have shown. Click here to learn more about what we are doing.

Stu Bykofsky: we need another 9/11!

by: Jay Stevens

Fri Aug 10, 2007 at 17:45:00 PM MST

America's fabric is pulling apart like a cheap sweater.

What would sew us back together?

Another 9/11 attack.

The Golden Gate Bridge. Mount Rushmore. Chicago's Wrigley Field. The Philadelphia subway system. The U.S. is a target-rich environment for al Qaeda.

Is there any doubt they are planning to hit us again?

If it is to be, then let it be. It will take another attack on the homeland to quell the chattering of chipmunks and to restore America's righteous rage and singular purpose to prevail.

Ugh. I don't know if this guy is a conservative, but this sure sounds like the usual war-proponent's bluster about how we should all shut up and follow "our" President, because...well...because he's "ours," even is if he is incapable of leading.

Steve Benen:

Our political system is premised on the notion that people are going to disagree with one another. To borrow a phrase, "That's a feature; not a bug." Americans have substantive policy disagreements about national security and foreign policy. The past several years have, thanks to an intentional White House strategy, driven people apart, which leads us to the contemporary debates Bykofsky seems troubled by.

Benen also notes that Bykofsky doesn't really mention exactly what or who we'd rally around if another 9/11 came. Personally I wouldn't be willing to put my trust in this current administration in anything they did in response to a massive terrorist attack, outside of immediate aid or investigation. I'd just suspect it'd be more of the same: pushing their radical ideology in the name of preserving national security. (And this is from a guy who supported - and still supports - our mission in Afghanistan.)

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Update: Weird. Apparently some righties are agreeing with Bykofsky! Wishing a massive terror attack so they can go ahead with their policies? I mean, I know some of these *sshats wanted to win their rhetorical wars at any cost...but are their egos really worth the deaths of thousands?

In any case, don't hold your breath for a post 9/11 II to actually benefit Bush or his few remaining hangers-on. Quite the reverse. I suspect most of us would prefer having someone competent and not so radical in office at a time of crisis...

The price Montanans are paying for the war...(with more)

by: jhwygirl

Sun Feb 18, 2007 at 23:11:50 PM MST

This came from something else I'm working on, and I thought it deserved a post of its own.

my math was wrong on Montana, these are the corrected numbers. 
Per capita deaths of Montanans in the Iraqi war theatre:  1 per 58,125
Per capita deaths of Montanans in both the Iraqi war theatre and in Afghanistan:  1 per 54,706

Compare that with this:
Per capita deaths of Pennsylvanians in the Iraqi war theatre:  1 per 83,581
Per capita deaths of Pennsylvanians in both the Iraqi war theatre and in Afghanistan:  1 per 77,312

Per capita deaths of Californians in the Iraqi war theatre:  1 per 109,816
Per capita deaths of Californians in both the Iraqi war theatre and in Afghanistan:  1 per 101,130

Per capita deaths of Texans in the Iraqi war theatre:  1 per 84,229
Per capita deaths of Texans in both the Iraqi war theatre and in Afghanistan:  1 per 77,814

Per capita deaths of Coloradians in the Iraqi war theatre:  1 per 129,167
Per capita deaths of Coloradians in both the Iraqi war theatre and in Afghanistan:  1 per 113,414

Per capita deaths of Idahoans in the Iraqi war theatre:  1 per 81,765
Per capita deaths of Idahoans in both the Iraqi war theatre and in Afghanistan:  1 per 81,765

Per capita deaths of Utahans in the Iraqi war theatre:  1 per 165,000
Per capita deaths of Utahans in both the Iraqi war theatre and in Afghanistan:  1 per 145,58

Per capita deaths of Wyomingites in the Iraqi war theatre:  1 per 56,111
Per capita deaths of Wyominites in both the Iraqi war theatre and in Afghanistan:  1 per 45,909

I used figures from the U.S. Census Bureau's Annual Population Estimates 2000 to 2006, and ballparked the above states average estimated population for the period between 2000 and 2006 (I used 930,000 for Montana; 12,370,000 for Pennsylvania; 35,800,000 for California; and 23,500,000 for Texas.  4,650,000 for Colorado; 1,390,000 for Idaho; 2,475,000 for Utah; and 505,000 for Wyoming)

I took military death information from the Department of Defense, but I did use other more up-to-date death figures for Montana.  I used 16 for the number of Montanans killed in Iraq, and 1 for the number of Montanans killed in Afghanistan. 

You can nosh that around any way you'd like - but a consistent approach will show one thing that I started thinking about back at the beginning of the year when I wrote the original post linked to above - that Montanans are paying a pretty high price for an illegal war in Iraq.

17th Montanan killed in Iraq, 3rd in the last 12 days.

by: jhwygirl

Sat Dec 23, 2006 at 13:35:41 PM MST

Prayers and tears for each and every one of these brave soldiers and their familes and loved ones.

Army Spc. Scott Dykman, 27 - Helena
Army Pfc. Shawn Murphy, 24 - Butte
Marine Lance Cpl. Nick Palmer, 19 - Great Falls
Sgt. Travis M. Arndt, 23  - Bozeman
Pfc. Andrew D. Bedard, 19 - Missoula
Staff Sgt. Aaron N. Holleyman, 26 - Glasgow
Capt. Michael J. MacKinnon, 30  - Helena
Cp. Dean P. Pratt, 22  - Stevensville
Lance Cpl. Jeremy S. Sandvick Monroe, 20  - Chinook
Cpl. Phillip E. Baucus, 28  - Wolf Creek
Lance Cpl. Nicholas William B. Bloem, 20 - Belgrade
Petty Officer 2nd Class Charles V. Komppa, 35  - Belgrade
Sgt. 1st Class Robbie D. McNary, 42  - Lewistown
1st Lt. Edward M. Saltz, 27 - Bigfork
Cpl. Raleigh C. Smith, 21  - Troy
Pfc. Kristofor T. Stonesifer, 28 - Missoula
Pfc. Owen D. Witt, 20 - Sand Springs