Our Soldiers Are Not Numbers To Add

by hilzoy

The NYT has a headline that it could have used at any time throughout the last month and a half: "Bush Weighing Strategy Shift on Iraq".

He's weighing something, but I don't know that I'd dignify it with the term 'strategy'. It's an escalation in terms of a mission:

"How additional American troops would be employed in Baghdad remains a central point of discussion among Mr. Bush’s top advisers and top ground commanders in Iraq, officials said. But two officials said there was growing agreement that most would not be attached to American teams training Iraqi Army and police units, because doing so would not necessarily yield the quick improvements in security the White House wants."

Or, as Matt Yglesias said, before the Times article appeared:

"Consider the process here. It's not that the president has some policy initiative in mind whose operational requirements dictate a surge in force levels. Rather, locked in the prison of his own denial he came to the conclusion that he should back an escalation, prompting the current search for a mission."

I agree with Barack Obama on this one (and I'm glad he's weighed in):

"As the New Year approaches, we are told that the President is considering the deployment of tens of thousands of additional troops to Iraq in the desperate hope of subduing the burgeoning civil war there.

This is a chilling prospect that threatens to compound the tragic mistakes he has already made over the last four years. (...)

Now we are faced with a quagmire to which there are no good answers. But the one that makes very little sense is to put tens of thousands more young Americans in harm's way without changing a strategy that has failed by almost every imaginable account.

In escalating this war with a so-called "surge" of troops, the President would be overriding the expressed concerns of Generals on the ground, Secretary Powell, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group and the American people. Colin Powell has said that placing more troops in the crossfire of a civil war simply will not work. General John Abizaid, our top commander in the Middle East, said just last month that, "I believe that more American forces prevent the Iraqis from doing more, from taking more responsibility for their own future." Even the Joint Chiefs of Staff have expressed concern, saying that a surge in troop levels "could lead to more attacks by al-Qaeda" and "provide more targets for Sunni insurgents." Once again, the President is defying good counsel and common sense. (...)

In November, the American people sent a resounding message of change to the President. But apparently that message wasn't clear enough.

I urge all Americans who share my grave concerns over this looming decision to call, write or email the President, and make your voices heard. I urge you to tell them that our soldiers are not numbers to add just because someone couldn't think of a better idea, they are our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters, our neighbors and friends who are willing to wave goodbye to everything they've ever known just for the chance to serve their country. Our men and women in uniform are doing a terrific job under extremely difficult conditions. But our government has failed them so many times over the last few years, and we simply cannot afford to do it again. We must not multiply the mistakes of yesterday, we must end them today."

Amen.

I have said this before, but I'm not sure I can say it too often: it is an astonishing thing to have a military willing to accept civilian control: to go off and fight and die without insisting on the right to decide when their sacrifice is worth it and when it's not. It is an extraordinary gift. And if we value it, as we should, we owe it to the men and women in the military to be the best citizens we can possibly be, especially on matters of national security: to be informed, thoughtful, and as wise as we can be, and to make our views known. We owe them this especially when we have reason to doubt that our leaders are exercising the good judgment that people in the military have a right to expect.

Because they are not numbers to add just because someone couldn't think of a better idea; and it is not acceptable to ask them to sacrifice their lives not to defend our country against its enemies, but to defend our President against the possibility that he might have to admit failure.

Comments

[Ugh]

GWB: Alright, I want more troops.

Anonymous Advisor: Ok Mr. President, how many?

GWB: I don't care, just more.

AA: Ok, what would you have them do?

GWB: Look, there's thousands a people runnin' around sayin' I hafta do sumthin' diffrent, so, here it is: more troops.

AA: Ok, should we put them in Baghdad, elsewhere in the country, should they train Iraqi troops, fight insurgents, figh-

GWB: You're not listening. I want more troops in Iraq, and I want them there now. Don't go askin me a bunch a questions, I told you what to do now do it.

AA: Yes sir.

GWB: Good, now hopefully everyone will shut the f*ck up. I'm goin' ta bed.

[cw]

From the AP, President Bush worked nearly three hours at his Texas ranch on Thursday to design a new U.S. policy in Iraq, then emerged to say he and his advisers need more time...

Three whole hours! Is this what he means by "hard work"? Five more troops died on Thursday, plus at least 30 Iraqis.

[John Thullen]

GWB: I'm going into this room for three hours and I don't want any interruptions. I've got to carry out the mandate the merican people gave me in November.

Advisor: Do you need anything, Sir?

GWB: Bring me a protractor, some string, and a dartboard. Hold the darts. My Father already knows where they will land so I don't need to go through the rigamarole of throwing the durn things!

Advisor: Do you require a map of Baghdad?

GWB: (voice rising) No, I don't need a map of Baghdad! If I needed a map of Baghdad, I'd ask for one! I know Baghdad like I know the back of my hand (the Advisor notices a yellow smiley face pasted to the back of the President's hand). (pauses) You can bring me some polar bear jerky in a couple of hours because I can see I'll be feelin a might bit peckish.

Advisor: Are you taking calls?

GWB: Nope! And no emails either. Who cares what they think? You can let Kissinger through but only because I like the idea of receiving counsel from a guy who talks like Jackie Mason. His voice sounds like the one in my head, and I don't mean Metternich or Mellencamp or Ribbentrop or whatever their names were.

The Advisor closes the door behind him and in a few moments hears the unmistakeble sound of a child bouncing a baseball against the wall and catching it on the rebound in a baseball glove. After a while, some diversionary paper shuffling, and silence. Then snoring.

[Pops]

Bush will make mystics of you yet. I would find him more believable if he would hold his breath while speaking.

[dmbeaster]

Love the sardonic humor.

Waiting for Bush's New Direction to be announced definitely has its Waiting for Godot quality.

Estragon: Nothing to be done.

Vladimir: I'm beginning to come round to that opinion.

...

[bob mcmanus]

"It's not that the president has some policy initiative in mind whose operational requirements dictate a surge in force levels."

I hate to break in here with a serious note, but there are some "initiatives" available to the President. As I posted in an earlier thread, many involve a considerable increase in brutality and atrocity. If y'all don't think there are ways, if not to win the war...which may indeed not be possible, always depending on the definition of "win"...then at least to kill a whole bunch more Iraqis on the way out of town you
are wrong.

Like callin the B-52s and JDAMS and flattening everything that doesn't have oil under it. There are precedents for Presidents, in 1968 and 1972. There are steps short of that, still unacceptable, that I guess we would just have to accept. I am still not completely certain the war can't be "won":there are likely only 3 million Sunni Arabs left in Iraq, and Sadr influences 2 million. That's doable. Still leaves like 15-20 million alive, and maybe a little more co-operative. Probably not.

Yeah sorry, I care more about the 100 Iraqi casualties to the one American casualty. It's a flaw.

It could be the Pentagon and soldiers won't help Bush kill Iraq. But the problem with the multiple tous is the combat fatigue andburnout. Now combat fatigue shows up in a lot of forms, but many able to go over for their third tour will have become disillusioned, calloused, exhausted just determine to personally survive at whatever cost. Either a bug in the too small military, or a feature.

[bob mcmanus]

Riverbend is back h/t Juan Cole

I cry everytime I read her posts, for a bunch of reasons.

[Ugh]

Riverbend is back

bob bob bob, I don't know why you cry, can't you see we've given Riverbend the wonderful gift of Freedom™? How often before the U.S. invasion did headless corpses show up in the streets of Baghdad, hmm? I bet it wasn't everyday, but now, just look at them, sprinkled here and there like daisies.

And certainly Saddam wouldn't have let his people enjoy fun little games like "dodge the car-bomb," or "identify the dead relative" or the ever so entertaining "guess who's been tortured and beheaded." All of which your average Iraqi gets to enjoy, if not daily, at least several times a week.

I know that her post seems dire, but that's just from the fact that she is so overjoyed for her new found Freedom™ that she laughed so much she was driven into despair. I mean, there's so much happiness to go around in Iraq these days that I'm surprised there's not more desparation and depression!

[Ugh]

And I would note that the Somalis are the next ones who get to enjoy their Freedom™, so graciously provided to them by the Ethiopians and a helping hand from Uncle Sam.

[Ugh]

Plus, take a look at all the Freedom™ in this article.

An excerpt:

Even on the relatively ''safe'' side of the river, a dizzying assortment of armed men roamed freely. In the space of an hour, we encountered the Badr Organization militia, the Mahdi Army militia, the Kurdish peshmerga militia, the Iraqi police, Interior Ministry commandos, the Iraqi military, American troops, the Oil Protection Force, the motorcade of a Communist Party official and Central Bank guards escorting an armored van.

All jolly bunches to be sure. Civic organizations, like the Shriners or your local bowling team.

And even more games, like "assassination roulette":

Even Mr. Milk is dead. The grocer we called by the name of his landmark shop in the upscale Mansour district was kidnapped and killed, along with his son, my colleagues said. The owner of a DVD shop where I once purchased a copy of Napoleon Dynamite also had been executed.

and "bomb the dead":

So many blindfolded, tortured corpses turn up that an Iraqi co-worker recently told me it was "a slow day" when 17 bodies were found. Typically, the figure is 40 or more. When the overflowing morgue at Yarmouk Hospital was bombed last month, one of our drivers wearily muttered, "How many times can they kill us?"

Freedom™: live it!

[Fledermaus]

I urge all Americans who share my grave concerns over this looming decision to call, write or email the President

I like Obama. He's a smart guy, way smarter than myself. But he could have just as well said "I urge all Americans who share my grave concerns over this looming decision to sing 'I'm Henry the VIII I am, I am' over and over again" and it will have the same outcome