Like Fussell, who wrote his own deeply affecting memoir of World War II, Sledge is a conscious witness to the "insanity" (his word) of war. He never doubts the necessity of the Second World War, but he does write with great force and purity of how alienated he and other soldiers were from the folks back home, who had no idea -- and who could have no real idea -- what kind of terror their soldiers were undergoing. It wasn't so much blaming the folks back home (though Sledge did say that men who had had to kill and watch their buddies be killed had zero patience for Americans who whined about small things) as it was a shock at the unreality with which those who didn't live with combat saw life.
I was thinking about Sledge and his men this morning when I read about how former CIA director George Tenet is now saying -- here's a quote from him -- "There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat."
Think about that. The president and his inner circle, according to someone who was there, never seriously discussed whether or not Iraq was a clear and present danger to our country. They apparently just assumed it was, and went forward. They were determined to start this war, facts or logic or prudence be damned.
And now look: Gen. Petraeus says that the U.S. effort "clearly is going to require enormous commitment and commitment over time," and that the fight in Iraq "may get harder before it gets easier." More American lives. More resources taken from an already strained military. Without an end in sight.
And for what? Bush shellacks the Democrats for pushing for an "artificial timetable" to leave Iraq, but all Bush promises is an open-ended commitment, with no plausible explanation of how our soldiers are supposed to succeed in stopping a civil war. The timetable passed by the Democrats is a bad option. But what the president offers is worse.
How much more of this kind of thing do we have to see before we understand what's right in front of our eyes? Please read it. Please. Read. It. It is a searing indictment of America's generals, published in the Armed Forces Journal and written by Army Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, deputy commander of the 3rd Army Cavalry Regiment. Here's the lede:
For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war.
These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps. America's generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America's generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress.
This officer is risking his career to sound the alarm. Lt. Col. Yingling clearly wishes to differentiate himself from the conformist officers who have helped lead the country and its military to the Iraq disaster:
While the physical courage of America's generals is not in doubt, there is less certainty regarding their moral courage. In almost surreal language, professional military men blame their recent lack of candor on the intimidating management style of their civilian masters. Now that the public is immediately concerned with the crisis in Iraq, some of our generals are finding their voices. They may have waited too long.
Neither the executive branch nor the services themselves are likely to remedy the shortcomings in America's general officer corps. Indeed, the tendency of the executive branch to seek out mild-mannered team players to serve as senior generals is part of the problem. The services themselves are equally to blame. The system that produces our generals does little to reward creativity and moral courage. Officers rise to flag rank by following remarkably similar career patterns. Senior generals, both active and retired, are the most important figures in determining an officer's potential for flag rank. The views of subordinates and peers play no role in an officer's advancement; to move up he must only please his superiors. In a system in which senior officers select for promotion those like themselves, there are powerful incentives for conformity. It is unreasonable to expect that an officer who spends 25 years conforming to institutional expectations will emerge as an innovator in his late forties.
It is clear that we cannot win in Iraq. We have to end this thing, and let the chips fall where they may. We have to have accountability at the senior level of our military, and certainly within the civilian leadership (the 2006 election was only the first steps toward accountability; the coming 2008 blowout will be the next one). We have got to rebuild ourselves and our institutions, because the enemy, who has won a substantial victory because of the foolishness of our civilian and military leadership, the press corps (mea maxima culpa) and yes, even the American people, most of whom were all too eager to send our men into war (again, mea maxima culpa). As Lt. Col. Yingling writes, "The hour is late, but not too late to prepare for the challenges of the Long War."
But the first thing we have to do is get out of Iraq. And remember Robert Novak's words: "Always love your country -- but never trust your government!
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If you want a really nasty read about warfare, try this one: A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah. It's a first-hand account of a child soldier fighting in the brutal wars of Sierra Leone. READ IT. If close combat in the Pacific Theater doesn't touch your desensitized heart, then maybe drug-addled 13 year-old killers will.
We soldiers who serve in Iraq and Afghanistan, even those of us who are not banging down doors on patrols, do feel a little bitter and alienated from the rest of you. Especially when you complain about little things. You are perfectly safe and have 18 brands of toothpaste to choose from. Your schools and buses are not blowing up everyday, you are not being mortared by night, you aren't spending parts of everyday trying to calculate if gunfire is being aimed AT you, and if so, how far away it is. We watch and experience these things every day. We come home, and people see us in uniform, and sort of look the other way. It ain't what it used to be.
General Petraeus is rock star to us. He calls it like it is, acknowledges our hard work and sacrifice. He knows we might not succeed, that we will be in more danger for longer tours in country, and that many of us will die in the process. But his honesty and inspiration are enough to keep us going. When he says that more commitment is needed, and more over time, however, I hope that means more will be asked of the average American than an extended shopping spree.
But even after Iraq, we have a long way to go. Especially since the current administration doesn't think too highly of diplomacy. I will go no further down that road.
LTC Yingling's comments were published in an unofficial journal which openly states that its purpose is free and open discourse. He has a few good points. Conformity and loyalty and supremely important in the armed forces, ESPECIALLY in the higher ranks. Us juniors at the bottom of the heap can only cause so much damage by insubordination. But at the top, it risks everything below breaking down. Inexcusable in war or peacetime. The Lieutenant Colonel may well suffer for his words. But I hope that they will be heeded anyway. The loyalty must not extend past the point of moral courage.
We have, as a nation, entrusted a great deal to General Petraeus. Let him play it out for another six months. Things are not going to work out perfectly to our advantage. A stable government in Iraq will likely NOT be a great power-sharer. The most likely outcome: it will be a Shia-dominated Iran-friendly government which will curtail sharply the civil liberties of its minority citizens (of a necessity, as the Sunnis will continue to cause mayhem until we withdraw, and then will tone things down but still cause damage on a regular basis.) If it can do this without killing or openly persecuting very many of them, I think we will have to take it, and hand power over to it, and go home somewhat gracefully. We may very well have to settle for stability only slightly better than Saddam's regime. Because I don't see partition working out peacefully. Read up on the split of India and Pakistan sometime. And I don't foresee these people willingly choosing to compromise.
My heart goes out to those Iraqis who helped us, and who have fled Iraq for their lives, and who wait in refugee camps for someone to take them in. Our government has shown no signs of being willing to do this.
Matt: I think that because a majority of Americans supported this war, we ought to bring back the draft. Of course, there would be an exemption to anyone who could prove that they thought this war to be folly from the night the first bombs dropped, right? Just checking. If we're going to reinstate the draft because "most Americans supported this war," then we should have an exemption for those who thought it was crass, overreaching, and unjustifiable to begin with, no?
Dub, what about "conscientious objector"? AnotherBeliever, I've never worn a uniform. I've never had any sort of military training. I know what war is like from my immigrant parents: my Jewish mother and family were hidden and protected by Italian farmers for 4 years; my father was a chetnik (let me know if you don't know that term, but he was a Lt. in the Serbian Army). I'm also 51, and I've lived most of my life in or near an urban center. I've witnessed murder, gang violence, and attended the funerals of neighbors killed in their homes or because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time during a drug war battle. My wife has taught for 35 years children of crack addicts, kids living in poverty most Americans can describe only because they've seen it in a movie. I know a few 13-year-olds. They live right around the corner from me. If you learn one thing during your service -- a service I, personally, will get down on my knees and thank you for without being asked -- it's that the vast majority of a society is exactly like me. We will never see a gun, hear a bullet meant for us go by, never see a human dead at our hands. If you are going to be proud of your service, be proud that you were one of the few who understood that our ignorance is the point of it all. But don't ever assume that we can't understand. Too many of us found that understanding before you were born. I believe we all need a stiff dose of reality once in a while. There are many who thought as you seem to see, that a soldier is worthy of contempt because his hands are dirty from his job (or he's a handy target for the present administration), but whose minds and hearts were opened by 9/11/2001. You may not meet them very often, but they are out there, in large numbers. Do not judge them by those whose ignorance is so strong that even a 9/11 is not enough to make them see. Come home safe and proud. Don't let the assholes sour it for you.
I thought after Vietnam that in my lifetime I would never see this sort of quagmire war folly again. But I have lived long enough to see it in spades. The same arguments for 'staying the course'. The same accusations that those questioning the leadership were giving 'comfort to the enemy', undermining those 'in harm's way'. One cliche after another, another war 1/4 century later, when half the nation has only heard the word Vietnam but knows nothing of it other than it is where their GAP cargo shorts were made. All this serves to prove that Knowledge is indeed Power...and the lack thereof (sometimes called ignorance) is the REAL comfort given to any 'enemy', real or imagined.
Rod, you complain about the possibility of an open-ended commitment to Iraq. You forget that, once upon a time during the Big Bad Cold War, we had an open-ended commitment to Western Europe. Why? Because we realized that the Soviet Union was perfectly capable of taking over -- and that this, somehow, was considered intolerable. Of course, organizing the defense of Western Europe was far different than organizing the occupation of Iraq. But, once again, you are confusing and conflating two issues: the incompetence of an invariably short-term presidential administration with the necessity to confront an intractable enemy that thinks in terms of centuries. What we need is a new NATO consisting of nations that recognize the jihadist threat and are willing to join us in fighting it. India, Israel and Australia would make fantastic inaugural members of this organization; except for the UK, we can write off most of Western Europe in this venture, unfortunately.
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