May 13, 2004
Those Who Serve
We citizens often regard those who serve in wartime with respect and sometimes even reverence. Now we are faced with the moral ambiguity of war and particularly a war that was accepted by us based on lies and effective PR work by our government. The truth is that Soldiers, Sailors and Marines are the most vulnerable of all of us to being misled by leadership into believing that wrong is right.
It is clear that those who serve in our military in Iraq are now being systematically treated as if their misconceived belief that abuse constitutes softening up and not war crimes was wrong, only now that their actions are public. Today is clearly different from yesterday when they were being treated as if their abuses were “required” parts of their care of prisoners. Lots of people who will never become particularly moral beings, ethicists, or even principled citizens have served in our military throughout our history.
The military is supposed to take raw material in and reject the really dysfunctional people. It is then expected to turn the rest of us into members of a disciplined force. This must be a force that obeys orders and functions according to plans developed by officer corps personnel. Nowhere in this process is there room for either chain of command ambiguity, or failure to comprehend what is the individual mission that you will perform. It is in accepting that essential discipline that every individual in our military force becomes a member of an effective larger group with a mission defined from above. No individual in that force can be free to act on their own as even civilians who work for their employer under contract usually are; the mission denies them that right. In the military the mission is everything, the lives of individuals are willingly sacrificed to that mission as a matter of course.
This is why Iraq is in such a mess today, the missions were ill defined prior to our entering this war. Since then the mission of our military in Iraq has become less well defined and now most of our troops are more concerned with survival than anything else that they are doing. When that happened in Vietnam we left that nation in disarray. Then we called it “mission creep”. It is the use of our guards in a creepy softening up process that may even have saved a life or two, but has cost us infinitely more, that Bush, Rumsfield and their local commanders have failed these troops. The mission at Abu Gharib clearly became one of interrogation of prisoners rather than one of incarceration under well controlled conditions as is required by law. Our law, military law, requires that interrogation is secondary and treatment of prisoners is primary in defining regimens of treatment. It is those laws that will be used to prosecute the known abusers at that prison. It was the flawed missions that came from the highest levels of our government that made their abuses possible and even inevitable.
The military and civilian leaders of our forces have been failing our troops from the beginning of this war when they substituted devotion to doctrine for vital mission plans. By doing so they sacrificed our initial victory to a welter of illegal activity that destroyed our prospects for a peaceful period just after combat. When combat with organized Iraqi forces ended the new mission was not well defined enough nor well enough supported for a necessary transition to take place. It is the Rumsfield doctrine of wars fought by small effective forces that was to blame for that failure. The war went fine, the peace has not. Without adequate troops to police a civilian population the mission was not able to include control of looting and other lawless acts in the immediate aftermath of combat. The consequences of Rumsfield’s continuing failure to define missions clearly, and to support them adequately, are now becoming obvious to those of us who have served in the past.
One consequence is that the separation of our military guards from civilians working in roles that contravene the troop’s mission required by law, to protect our prisoners, was not adequate. It is clear in some cases that our troops believed that they were under the command of the civilians who conducted interrogations. With a failure to educate the troops in regard to their legally defined mission and to control the troop’s behaviors while they carried out that mission the mission had to fail. With that failure has come the worst damage that the new overall mission, holding the peace while democracy is established, has suffered. Nothing done by opposition forces has compromised that essential mission more than our own actions.
The actions in Abu Gharib were enabled and even aided by “mission creep” a well studied phenomenon that occurs only when leadership at the top fails to define or support missions adequately. Even if Rumsfield did not approve the use of our guards for these systemic softening up sessions, his primary failure lies in that lack of clarity and definition in the missions he expected our troops to execute. His secondary failure has been the level of support that those fighting this war have received. The overall mission planning structure for this war was abysmally weak. That is why he should go now; he is a bad military planner. Aside from his arrogance and his noted lack of respect for military professionals, he is bad at his job. Clearly so is his commander in chief. The cost in Iraq has been major damage to our troops, our military power, and our image in the world. That positive image, which we have now lost, has done more to protect us from attack than our military could have in our recent past. It is gone because of ill defined and weak leadership emanating directly from this Administration. God bless and keep you safe in this increasingly dangerous world where “mission creep” has once again entered our lexicon of reasons for failure.
©Henri Reynard/GoldenBrush
Hey Henri, why dont you bring your little story over here to Iraq and see how many of us on the ground actually buy what your selling. Its your kind who paraded the pictures of the prison abuse that put more of us in danger over here. YOU DO US NO FAVORS with your rants of pretending to be concerened for us for the sake of filling your column. Give me a call when you land at the airport and Ill pick you up! Spec 4 Armon Dweir
Posted by: Armon Dweir at May 13, 2004 04:18 PMArmon Dveir, so you believe that our government should run on secrecy like Saddam’s did, that the press should withhold information important to voters in an election year. All Americans, including yourself, pay taxes which pays your salary all the way up to the President’s salary. We the public have a right to know whether our leadership is leading our nation in a responsible and efficient manner toward our national goals.
You do not know, and we do not know, yet, how far up the chain of command instructions for the abuses in Abu Ghraib and other prisons go. Since, these abuses seriously compromise our efforts there, we have a right to know who is responsible. Hundreds of billions of our tax dollars are being spent over there and we have a right to know the job is being handled efficiently and not wasted by wrongheaded leadership.
When we have a President who says, “we will do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes” with regard to the war on terror, a President who says we will not abide the Geneva Convention for conduct in war where terrorists are concerned, and a Secretary of Defense who indicates we are treating Iraqi prisoners a damn site better than terrorists treated us on 9/11; and then we learn of some of our military personnel engaged in violations of the Geneva Convention and of the kind of abuses we learned Saddam took part in, we have a right to know what the hell is going on and who is responsible.
I am not going to thank you for your service unless you thank me for mine. You have a job, you get paid, I have a job, I get paid. I spend a fair amount of my time working for citizen rights and liberties in this country and you work to carry out the orders you are given as part of your job. I will say that I am thankful we have a volunteer military and to the extent they carry out their duties and responsibilities as they should, they should be praised and be promoted and receive fair compensation.
But, let’s not forget that it is as dangerous to drive a car in the U.S. as it is to soldier in Iraq. We all live with danger, whether it be drunk drivers or criminals here at home, or insurgents in Iraq. You are an American citizen, you have a right to your opinion and the folks here at WatchBlog welcome your opinion. But, I must say, Henri’s opinion is everybit as valuable as yours. You seem to imply that because you are in Iraq, your opinion has more value or weight than Henri’s. Perhaps to you it does, but in a democracy where freedom of speech is prized, opinions are all of equal value in the realm of public discourse.
Posted by: David R. Remer at May 13, 2004 09:50 PMWhat worries me about this is how long stories have been told about what was going on in there. The sharp, sudden shock of those photos may have numbed us to the fact that allegations of torture have been going around long before hand. The question isn’t only whether it will harm our war efforts now, but whether it has been harming our efforts for some time now.
If that is the case, then we must ask the question of how much resistance rumors of this abuse may have inspired over the course of our occupation. If these rumors have been fueling that resistance, then the cost of these practices has been higher than just those we’re paying now.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at May 13, 2004 10:06 PMWell, I like what Mr. Dweir says, but I’m a little skeptical when I see folks showing up on blogs saying they’re either Iraqis or American soldiers in Iraq (who generally have more important things to do than engage us in our piddly squabbles back home). I only say this so Henri doesn’t go and board the next plane to Iraq and then have nobody to pick him up at the airport!
But David, golly: “I am not going to thank you for your service unless you thank me for mine.” Some attitude toward our military.
You wonder why so many Americans don’t trust the left on these issues—you expect soldiers serving in war zones to thank YOU?!?
We have Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day, and the Fourth of July to show them our gratitude, but as yet there’s no David R. Remer Day. Hard luck.
Posted by: Martin at May 13, 2004 10:20 PMArmon
You, like every human being in the world I am seeking but know will not exist in my lifetime, are entitled to your opinion in regard to this war. Your opinion may actually be that of many of our troops, or it may not. If it is that opinion may change over time or it may harden, I have seen both. Those who fight in our wars do not decide where or when we will fight, not the troops alone, not the military leaders alone, not even their civilian leadership in the Bush Administration decides in the end. Here it is all of the people combined who eventually decide.
In order to decide they need to be informed and they need to speculate and be both right and wrong some of the time. I think about these things a lot trapped in my own aging body here. We all face a death sentence the day we are born, I have known that for a long time. I genuinely hope that you survive Iraq and stay healthy as long as I have, some of that is in the hands of a more powerful being than any of our leaders.
Are you one of the people who think that any order given to you is OK and we just need to let you get on with pacifying Iraq? Obviously I cannot tell by your words on an internet message but I hope not. Military discipline as I have pointed out has failed us in Iraq on many occasions. I believe that our leaders are responsible for the reprehensible conditions in the POW facilities there.
I know a few people serving in Iraq today, by internet connection only, and they do not all agree with you. If you are writing from Iraq I am glad that you have the time to use the internet and be involved in our debate. I am not going to take you up on your invitation to come there until our citizens are more welcome there than they are today. I will probably die before that happens. But I may live longer than I suspect I will “or the horse may learn to sing”. That is the punchline to an old joke, if you have never heard it please request it and I will send it to you.
I would have published the photos if they had come into my possession. You are quite right about that fact. I would do it knowing that it might cost someone their life, as it may have cost Mr. Berg his life. Doing what is right is like that; you do what you believe in and accept the consequences. Even when you abhor those consequences you take the action that will serve what you believe in if you are sincere about your beliefs.
Hiding those photos would not help us win this war. Even more important than this war is our nation’s integrity and accountability to the people for our uses of power. Our military power is amazing in this world, we are the biggest baddest force in the valley, no doubt at all. I am reading a book written by a retired general, Mr William E. Odom, called “America’s Inadvertent Empire. I would be glad to send you a copy if you will send me a copy of your physical address. He believes that our military role in the world is vital and that we are the only nation that can perform it. He also believes that we need to leave Iraq to the Iraqi’s as quickly as possible. He is a Conservative Republican and I am a Liberal Democrat but we both believe that this war is doing our nation more harm than good.
I wish you well and hope that you will come home into the arms of those you love and who love you as soon as possible. I will continue to work toward that end here in my way and you will continue to work toward that end there in your way. Hopefully we will both prevail. God bless and keep you and all of your mates as safe as your mission there will allow.
Henri
Its your kind who paraded the pictures of the prison abuse that put more of us in danger over here.
Hey Armon, if your colleagues hadn’t felt the need to immortalize their “victory” over Iraqi prisoners on film, this wouldn’t have even been an issue.
You’ll find me in Singapore across the street from the Masjid Abdul Hamid Mosque. I’d appreciate it if you could police those MPs a little better. Unlike you, I’m not allowed to carry a rifle.
And Martin, just because the guy’s in the military doesn’t mean he knows what he’s talking about. I’m related to a career military guy who thinks Ann Coulter is the failed result of a Republican breeding program to create an uber race (looks good, but dumber than dirt).
Martin, have you served 3.5 years in the military as I have from ‘72 to ‘75. I earned the right to say what I said.
Posted by: David R. Remer at May 14, 2004 09:07 AMArmon, as they say, don’t shoot the messenger. This gallery of crimes was a time bomb of bad publicity and anti-American propaganda just waiting to go off. It wasn’t the media that armed this particular device, it was your fellow soldiers. The enemy that set this bomb was not some liberal blogger back home, but the soldiers who committed the atrocities themselves, and then recorded it for posterity.
The people who did this, who allowed this to happen, should not be protected. They should not be allowed to believe that their actions were merely par for the course, They should not allowed the mercy of the delusion that they only have a problem because the media reported these things. That’s just wishful thinking. They have a problem because what they did was sadistic by any standards, and we as a nation are supposed to be better than that.
Not releasing the photos would have been hardly the solution to the problem. I would not be surprised if it turns out Abu Ghraib has been making us look bad for some time now. Continued denial would have let the problem fester. The problem becomes even worse if those photos fall into the hands of Al Arabiya or Al Jazeera, especially with their penchant for showing explicit violence. Our own media’s revelation of this is blessing in disguise, because we are forced to outright admit it, instead of damaging our reputation further with denials in the face of evidence.
Without the crime, none of this would have happened. Without the coverup or the fostering of a friendly environment for this, the charges of torture would not have been so damaging. Without a military willing to cover for the atrocities of it’s members you do not have such an adversarial relationship between civilian and soldier.
I know Soldiers like to protect their own, but such protection also extends to the way one’s conduct reflects on one’s fellow soldiers in the field. Put simply, soldiers should not do things in the midst of a war that aggravate already dangerous situations, or make their comrades more vulnerable.
If people cover for them, it only makes sure that the problem will continue. Soldiers who are not disciplined for wrongful actions will continue to screw things up for their brothers in arms, having been mollycoddled about their mistakes before.
In the end, it is the truth of our behavior and our awareness of it that determines our ability to deal successfully with the reality of the battlefield. The more disconnected and fogged out we become in regards to our behavior, the more vulnerable we become to our enemies.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at May 14, 2004 09:24 AMMartin, have you forgotten David’s Vietnam-era service? Or is it so incomprehensible to you that a left-leaning person might be inclined to join the military, or that a person in the military might be inclined to lean to the political left? I mean, yeah the military skews right but it’s not like it’s an arm of the GOP or anything.
Let’s dispell a few myths here (not that you, Martin, subscribe deeply to these myths). It is interesting to note that the Right/Left divide among veterans in Congress is pretty close to an even split, with an edge to the GOP (in part because the GOP has the numerical edge overall). The Senate shows 16 Dems, 18 Republicans, and 1 independent who are military veterans. The proportion is 42(D)/57(R) in the House.
Military service is hardly the exclusive purview of the right. Likewise contempt for the military is hardly a hallmark of the left. The extreme right thinks the military should be used to kill as many people as possible on a daily basis. The extreme left thinks the military should be disbanded. Pretty much everyone else feels the same way: we respect our troops.
-Cf
Posted by: Christopher Fahey at May 14, 2004 10:12 AMI’m not sure what bearing the fact that members of all parties have served in the military has on the discussion—was anybody disputing that? David could be Rambo and Patton wrapped into one for all I know, and wearing so many medals he can’t stand up from his chair. But what he said—or seemed to say—was that he expected to be thanked by soldiers in combat zones not for his own military service but for his domestic activism. If that’s not what was meant, that’s sure what it sounds like:
“I am not going to thank you for your service unless you thank me for mine. You have a job, you get paid, I have a job, I get paid. I spend a fair amount of my time working for citizen rights and liberties in this country and you work to carry out the orders you are given as part of your job.”
Even if military service is what’s meant, though it sure doesn’t look like it, can you imagine John McCain saying that he’ll thank troops currently fighting overseas if and only if they thank him for his time spent in the Hanoi Hilton? It would be plain unseemly.
This is the kind of example John Kerry has set during this campaing season, actually—if anybody criticizes you for any reason whatsoever, just change the subject to your mililtary record and wrap yourself in the flag.
> can you imagine John McCain saying that he’ll
> thank troops currently fighting overseas if and
> only if they thank him for his time spent in
> the Hanoi Hilton?
Can you imagine if a soldier in Iraq asked John McCain to thank him?
> But what he said—or seemed to say—was that
> he expected to be thanked by soldiers
David didn’t say he was “expecting” anything - he was responding to someone else’s unprovoked challenge. He wasn’t the one who brought up the issue of thankfulness. David was clearly making a rhetorical statement to point out the inappropriateness of any American demanding gratitude from another when in fact we’re all in the same boat and we’re all working, presumably, towards bringing peace and stability in the world.
This whole line of thinking is making me sick. I am thankful for our troops for their volunteer service to protect our country. I am also thankful for my country-men and -women who work outside of the military towards noble goals. I am thankful for being allowed to debate our country’s methods and policies with those who disagree with me. But I am not going to stoop to a pissing contest about who should be more thankful to whom. We’re all in this together, and it’s insulting and silly for us to begin demanding gratitude from each other.
-Cf
Posted by: Christopher Fahey at May 14, 2004 01:34 PMOh, jeez, I’m embarassed to see that, in fact, David was the one to bring up “thankfulness”. Still, it was all rhetorical.
-Cf
Posted by: Christopher Fahey at May 14, 2004 01:39 PMMartin, I don’t see anyone wrapping themselves in a flag. BTW, answer the question, please, have you served?
My point was, I know you missed it from your comment above, is that Dweir deserves nothing more added to his opinion than anyone else’s here. I am not going to thank him for his service by granting more credence to his opinion just because he happens to be a soldier. I was in the Army, and I can tell you, the military relects American society - there are dumb soldiers, smart soldiers, independent thinking soldiers and followers who have to be told when to go to the bathroom.
The troops I pushed through Advanced Individual Training in the Army were all different. Just because a soldier speaks, does not mean that soldiers speaks wisely, intelligently, or with more credibility than civilians back here at home.
And I think it was very poor sportsmanship Martin to select a quote out of context to make your point. If you read my whole message that upset you, you will see that I also said, “I will say that I am thankful we have a volunteer military and to the extent they carry out their duties and responsibilities as they should, they should be praised and be promoted and receive fair compensation.”
I guess it is not reasonable for me to assume subtle remarks and arguments will be appreciated by all readers here.
The thing is that Dweir was not demanding any special deference or consideration for his views—though he was promptly lectured on why he would recieve none. I agree with Christopher that running around demanding thanks from each other is pretty silly, and although the Democratic party seems to disagree this year, I don’t think that somebody must have served in the military to serve as president—much less post on a blog. My father’s family has a long tradition of military service (you’d probably recognize several names from American history), but I haven’t served myself. I’m not exactly swishy, if you get me, but you wouldn’t have to ask in order to tell.
Posted by: Martin at May 14, 2004 02:36 PM
