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icarusWilderness Guru and his military
Friday I just had the morning class so![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wildernessguru hung out at the university's engineering library while I was in sanskritsanskritsanskrit.
I came into the library to find him surrounded by grad student engineers, reading the stuff they read -- and understanding it. The giant tome of Jane's Warships in front of WG was the size of a print edition of the O.E.D. Sadly, I can't buy him his own copy. Jane's is $725 per book.
I like how many women engineers I saw. This pleaseth me.
Technically,wildernessguru was a poli-sci major with a focus on international security. If he had any interest in continuing his degree he could go to the Jackson School of International Studies with me and then get job offers from the CIA in Langley. ;) The military hardware is what he's taught himself with thirty years of study. I often say he picked the right major because his interest and effort didn't stop after he finished school. I didn't realize how knowledgeable he was until he was in conversation with someone with the Philippine military on a military forum. In terms of depth and breadth of knowledge, and the level of detail he can quote, he was one of the top five, the one the mods are friends with because he "knows his shit." He's frequently asked if he's currently in the military because he stays up to date.
The military analysts
It's an odd combination, my Buddhism andwildernessguru's military stuff.
I find the military hardware people are, well, cynical, but honest. They are as specific as mathematicians. They are very pro-gun (of course) and right-wing, so it strikes a balance with the liberal spin of much of the politics I follow. Following the hardware statistics acts as a handy bullshit detector for me on both the conservatives and liberals.
wildernessguru is strikingly liberal compared to 99.9% of these men, far more to the left than I am, a devotee of Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader who'd like to see European brands of socialist policies enacted in the US. Among WG's long-time mentors (and real family) is a liberal democrat ex-Marine with a medical science doctorate. (Although truly, I've never met an ex-Marine. There is no such thing. Once a Marine, always a Marine.)
The military guys have been against the Iraq war from the moment it was proposed, for very military reasons. For the same objections the Pentagon raised against the Iraq war, as general after general had his career ruined trying to oppose to the Bush administration's disasterous plan. The same objections retired generals raised against the Iraq war. The military analysts now seem smug about being right, if angry at being ignored by their own side.
Now the military analysts are researching the failures of Iraq with "I told you so" glee. I didn't realize how muchwildernessguru has kept me informed until some recent conversations on my f-list.
I'll try to do better in passing this information along to my f-list. Sometimes I have a conversation with one f-lister and I'll forget that I haven't told everyone. So the first piece of information I offer, something that's common knowledge in this house:
The U.S. military is broken.
What, do you ask, does "broken" mean?
It means that we don't have enough new troops in training to replace the ones on the front lines. All we can do is extend the tours of duty of the men there, wearing them down until eventually they snap.
We've instituted Stop Loss. We've recalled people who've been out of the military for years, sometimes a decade or more. We've lowered the requirements for our soldiers, played every card in our decks to get more volunteers, and no longer require anything above an eighth grade education. We've issued waivers for felonies to boost enlistment. We're now persuing immediate naturalization and illegal aliens U.S. citizenship if they enter into military service (or get two years of college, not an option for many because of the expense). The DREAM Act was defeated as part of the immigration bill but has now resurfaced as part of the Senate Defense appropriations bill (this article mentions it's part of the approprations bill while ignoring why the DoD is interested). While currently 3,700 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq, over 27,000 have been wounded.
Mercenaries are expensive and out of control in Iraq.
We're breaking the bank by paying over 100,000 "security contractors" (mercenaries, love the new euphemism). 48,000 of these are in military roles, being paid $15,000 - 30,000 a month. Yes, individually. Yes, that adds up. Yes, that's a lot more than our own soldiers.
Yes, these mercenaries are out of our control. These mercenaries -- like Blackwater for example -- have gone on a hiring spree to fill US demand and, contrary to the "security contractor" image, many of contract employees are from Sudan and other foreign countries not known for their excellent military training. Regardless of their origins, these mercenaries lack military discipline to such a degree that they have fired on unarmed civilians on multiple occasions. Even when ordered to stop by their own people, they continue to fire. They are so bad, one of the US Blackwater employees turned his own weapon on his comrades and yelled at them to stop firing.
That's as bad as it gets, folks. One step further and they'd have to shoot each other to keep discipline.
Yes, these mercenaries are representing the US.
The US officer corps is broken because of Iraq.
The US military is bleeding officers. Lieutenants, captains, and sergeants are leaving in droves. The army is in particular trouble. It will take us fifteen years to rebuild our military and replace them. We're adding men but they're all lower ranked soldiers. We're hemorraging the career soldiers and now have (numerically) an imbalance of less-qualified enlisted. This doesn't even take into account the number of top ranked generals we've lost in the Pentagon who had to leave because they fought the Bush administration.
Our military training has been cut because of Iraq.
In order to get men out to the field as fast as we can, every branch of service (except the Marines) has cut their training. The Army's the hardest hit. They've taken out two-three weeks of their training. In desperation we're sending men into conditions they're not trained for. The 10th mountain division is in Iraq -- they specialize in cold weather conditions. Yet they've been sent to Iraq to fight in the desert. US Air Force ground crews are cross-training with the Army and being used in combat roles because we don't have enough men in the Army especially. Prior to the cross-training, airmen were being put into Army units -- and a lot of them died.
The US military hardware is wearing out in Iraq.
The US military hardware -- tank treads, you name it, across the board -- is wearing out from constant use. $50 billion dollars of the recent military spending bill is going just to spare parts and repair. The US is having difficulty even supplying our own troops, and Iraq (as of today) is buying 100 million in small arms from China because the US can't supply them. We're also desperate for mechanics to repair our equipment. There are instances where soldiers with no mechanical training are being handed manuals and told, "See what you can do."
Strategically, the Iraq war has put the US deeply in debt to China (and Saudi Arabia).
China is one of the fastest growing militaries in the world, and already has the largest standing army in the world (roughly a million more than the US). Their military is obsolete but they are modernizing like mad. The US is running a staggering deficit in order to pay for our military campaign in Iraq. Who are we borrowing from? China, Saudi Arabia, Britain, and Denmark. These are listed in order. China (and Saudi Arabia) are the ones we've borrowed from the most to finance the war. We also have a severe trade imbalance with China. It is strategicaly stupid to give China this much power over our economy.
The definition of broken
To summarize, the US military is broken.
"Broken" means we do not have the manpower to maintain troop levels in Iraq.
"Broken" means we've relied on desperate measures to get the troop levels we have now.
"Broken" means we're bleeding career officers and it will take 15 years to rebuild to pre-Iraq levels.
"Broken" means we're cutting short our vaunted military training programs.
"Broken" means we're using our maintenance and ground crews from other services (like the Air Force) for Army combat roles, and they're dying.
"Broken" means our equipment in Iraq is suffering from lack of repair.
"Broken" means that relying on mercenaries has been an expensive failure.
"Broken" means we've dug ourselves deeply in debt to Saudi Arabia and China in order to pay for our own military.
Military analysts oppose the Iraq war for these reasons.
Friday I just had the morning class so
wildernessguru hung out at the university's engineering library while I was in sanskritsanskritsanskrit. I came into the library to find him surrounded by grad student engineers, reading the stuff they read -- and understanding it. The giant tome of Jane's Warships in front of WG was the size of a print edition of the O.E.D. Sadly, I can't buy him his own copy. Jane's is $725 per book.
I like how many women engineers I saw. This pleaseth me.
Technically,
wildernessguru was a poli-sci major with a focus on international security. If he had any interest in continuing his degree he could go to the Jackson School of International Studies with me and then get job offers from the CIA in Langley. ;) The military hardware is what he's taught himself with thirty years of study. I often say he picked the right major because his interest and effort didn't stop after he finished school. I didn't realize how knowledgeable he was until he was in conversation with someone with the Philippine military on a military forum. In terms of depth and breadth of knowledge, and the level of detail he can quote, he was one of the top five, the one the mods are friends with because he "knows his shit." He's frequently asked if he's currently in the military because he stays up to date. The military analysts
It's an odd combination, my Buddhism and
wildernessguru's military stuff. I find the military hardware people are, well, cynical, but honest. They are as specific as mathematicians. They are very pro-gun (of course) and right-wing, so it strikes a balance with the liberal spin of much of the politics I follow. Following the hardware statistics acts as a handy bullshit detector for me on both the conservatives and liberals.
wildernessguru is strikingly liberal compared to 99.9% of these men, far more to the left than I am, a devotee of Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader who'd like to see European brands of socialist policies enacted in the US. Among WG's long-time mentors (and real family) is a liberal democrat ex-Marine with a medical science doctorate. (Although truly, I've never met an ex-Marine. There is no such thing. Once a Marine, always a Marine.)The military guys have been against the Iraq war from the moment it was proposed, for very military reasons. For the same objections the Pentagon raised against the Iraq war, as general after general had his career ruined trying to oppose to the Bush administration's disasterous plan. The same objections retired generals raised against the Iraq war. The military analysts now seem smug about being right, if angry at being ignored by their own side.
Now the military analysts are researching the failures of Iraq with "I told you so" glee. I didn't realize how much
wildernessguru has kept me informed until some recent conversations on my f-list. I'll try to do better in passing this information along to my f-list. Sometimes I have a conversation with one f-lister and I'll forget that I haven't told everyone. So the first piece of information I offer, something that's common knowledge in this house:
The U.S. military is broken.
What, do you ask, does "broken" mean?
It means that we don't have enough new troops in training to replace the ones on the front lines. All we can do is extend the tours of duty of the men there, wearing them down until eventually they snap.
We've instituted Stop Loss. We've recalled people who've been out of the military for years, sometimes a decade or more. We've lowered the requirements for our soldiers, played every card in our decks to get more volunteers, and no longer require anything above an eighth grade education. We've issued waivers for felonies to boost enlistment. We're now persuing immediate naturalization and illegal aliens U.S. citizenship if they enter into military service (or get two years of college, not an option for many because of the expense). The DREAM Act was defeated as part of the immigration bill but has now resurfaced as part of the Senate Defense appropriations bill (this article mentions it's part of the approprations bill while ignoring why the DoD is interested). While currently 3,700 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq, over 27,000 have been wounded.
Mercenaries are expensive and out of control in Iraq.
We're breaking the bank by paying over 100,000 "security contractors" (mercenaries, love the new euphemism). 48,000 of these are in military roles, being paid $15,000 - 30,000 a month. Yes, individually. Yes, that adds up. Yes, that's a lot more than our own soldiers.
Yes, these mercenaries are out of our control. These mercenaries -- like Blackwater for example -- have gone on a hiring spree to fill US demand and, contrary to the "security contractor" image, many of contract employees are from Sudan and other foreign countries not known for their excellent military training. Regardless of their origins, these mercenaries lack military discipline to such a degree that they have fired on unarmed civilians on multiple occasions. Even when ordered to stop by their own people, they continue to fire. They are so bad, one of the US Blackwater employees turned his own weapon on his comrades and yelled at them to stop firing.
That's as bad as it gets, folks. One step further and they'd have to shoot each other to keep discipline.
Yes, these mercenaries are representing the US.
The US officer corps is broken because of Iraq.
The US military is bleeding officers. Lieutenants, captains, and sergeants are leaving in droves. The army is in particular trouble. It will take us fifteen years to rebuild our military and replace them. We're adding men but they're all lower ranked soldiers. We're hemorraging the career soldiers and now have (numerically) an imbalance of less-qualified enlisted. This doesn't even take into account the number of top ranked generals we've lost in the Pentagon who had to leave because they fought the Bush administration.
Our military training has been cut because of Iraq.
In order to get men out to the field as fast as we can, every branch of service (except the Marines) has cut their training. The Army's the hardest hit. They've taken out two-three weeks of their training. In desperation we're sending men into conditions they're not trained for. The 10th mountain division is in Iraq -- they specialize in cold weather conditions. Yet they've been sent to Iraq to fight in the desert. US Air Force ground crews are cross-training with the Army and being used in combat roles because we don't have enough men in the Army especially. Prior to the cross-training, airmen were being put into Army units -- and a lot of them died.
The US military hardware is wearing out in Iraq.
The US military hardware -- tank treads, you name it, across the board -- is wearing out from constant use. $50 billion dollars of the recent military spending bill is going just to spare parts and repair. The US is having difficulty even supplying our own troops, and Iraq (as of today) is buying 100 million in small arms from China because the US can't supply them. We're also desperate for mechanics to repair our equipment. There are instances where soldiers with no mechanical training are being handed manuals and told, "See what you can do."
Strategically, the Iraq war has put the US deeply in debt to China (and Saudi Arabia).
China is one of the fastest growing militaries in the world, and already has the largest standing army in the world (roughly a million more than the US). Their military is obsolete but they are modernizing like mad. The US is running a staggering deficit in order to pay for our military campaign in Iraq. Who are we borrowing from? China, Saudi Arabia, Britain, and Denmark. These are listed in order. China (and Saudi Arabia) are the ones we've borrowed from the most to finance the war. We also have a severe trade imbalance with China. It is strategicaly stupid to give China this much power over our economy.
The definition of broken
To summarize, the US military is broken.
"Broken" means we do not have the manpower to maintain troop levels in Iraq.
"Broken" means we've relied on desperate measures to get the troop levels we have now.
"Broken" means we're bleeding career officers and it will take 15 years to rebuild to pre-Iraq levels.
"Broken" means we're cutting short our vaunted military training programs.
"Broken" means we're using our maintenance and ground crews from other services (like the Air Force) for Army combat roles, and they're dying.
"Broken" means our equipment in Iraq is suffering from lack of repair.
"Broken" means that relying on mercenaries has been an expensive failure.
"Broken" means we've dug ourselves deeply in debt to Saudi Arabia and China in order to pay for our own military.
Military analysts oppose the Iraq war for these reasons.
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-06 11:21 pm (UTC)I was waiting, desperately, for a sound military analyst to prove my liberal semi-pacifist ass wrong.
But you're saying that, not only was I right, I had no idea how right I was.
Damn it.
I am developing the theory that this war was instituted to enrich Halliburton et al. rather than to do any God Damned thing about oil, let alone Mr. Hussein.
Gods damn them all.
I want every last member of the administration tried for high crimes, treason, and misdemeanors.
You just don't fucking do this to your military!!!
*weeps*
no subject
Date: 2007-10-06 11:49 pm (UTC)Icarus
no subject
Date: 2007-10-06 11:38 pm (UTC)Thanks very much for this, to both you and WG. Much appreciated.
I sort of which this wasn't a locked post, since there are a couple of non-fandom folks I'd like to share this with... but I can see why you wouldn't choose to unlock it, and I respect that.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-06 11:51 pm (UTC)The post was originally locked but only because that's a default setting in my LJ. I then went back in and unlocked it a few minutes ago. Feel free to link.
Icarus
no subject
Date: 2007-10-06 11:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-07 12:29 am (UTC)I'm curious what WG thinks about this.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-07 01:04 am (UTC)Yep. We're building permanent bases all over Iraq, so it's clear that we have no intention of leaving. Bush in interviews for his recent biography said that he's "playing at" pushing some troop withdrawals as late as possible so the next Republican candidate will support staying in Iraq.
Amazingly, according to Cheney himself in 1994 (links to video) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YENbElb5-xY), he at least knew that Iraq would be a quagmire. I know Cheney was one who pushed for taking Baghdad in the Gulf war. I don't understand where the pollyanna belief that Iraq would "work out" came from. They knew the facts and chose to ignore them.
Icarus
no subject
Date: 2007-10-07 01:13 am (UTC)They want the oil and they want the control and it doesn't matter what happens. Even five year olds have more cooperative spirit and ability to understand consequences. Unfortunately, I don't think a good nap and time out will do it.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-09 12:37 am (UTC)Is this one of those things where you hope 1 + 1 won't equal 2 this time? Did they want it just so badly they were able to convince themselves they were wrong, and yes, yes, Iraq is a good idea?
no subject
Date: 2007-10-13 07:55 pm (UTC)http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n20/holt01_.html
no subject
Date: 2007-10-13 08:01 pm (UTC)Icarus
no subject
Date: 2007-10-13 08:15 pm (UTC)I imagine that, based on the charts that were published in newspapers in 2003 of the "Iraqi Interim Government" (with American military in all the key positions and Iraqis at the bottom of the pyramid as advisors) that the plan changed. The US had to be less open about it, and got a lot more resistance than we expected.
Icarus
no subject
Date: 2007-10-13 08:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-13 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-13 08:34 pm (UTC)Ah, who cares if our international credibility has sunk like granite in the Mariana Trench if our gas stays under three bucks a gallon?
(Mind you, I must admit to preferring low(er) fuel prices.)
no subject
Date: 2007-10-07 01:39 am (UTC)May I link this post out?
no subject
Date: 2007-10-07 02:04 am (UTC)Me, too, and just in principle, although I've known the opposition to the Iraq war from the military from the get-go.
May I link this post out?
Absolutely.
Icarus
no subject
Date: 2007-10-07 02:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-07 03:03 am (UTC)Icarus
no subject
Date: 2007-10-07 06:24 am (UTC)Icarus
no subject
Date: 2007-10-07 03:02 pm (UTC)Give me a reply when you're good to go.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-07 06:00 pm (UTC)Icarus
no subject
Date: 2007-10-09 12:47 am (UTC)Icarus
no subject
Date: 2007-10-07 03:06 am (UTC)Am I missing something, here?
I don't much care for arguing the morality/ethics of the situation, but I'm trying to understand that practical value of this war. What are we getting out of being in Iraq?
There's gotta be something, but I'm not seeing it, and I don't know how to find out.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-07 03:30 am (UTC)Oil companies sneered at the oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge thirty years ago (it's difficult and expensive to extract). Now they want it.
There's also a quiet scuffle over oil rights under the melting polar ice caps between the US, Russia, Canada, and Denmark. Extracting oil from the bottom of the ocean in the Arctic? That's got to be difficult and expensive, too.
Iraq has the largest untapped oil resources in the world (I said in a comment here that the western oil companies never got their straws into it and then there has been embargoes for over a decade).
Then, I think back to all those estimates of world oil reserves back in the 70s. Written before China's economic boom with the assumption Chinese people would continue to ride bicycles to work. Although, true, we have discovered more oil since then.
So I'm making a guess here: Yes. The oil is that valuable. There's a note of desperation to all of this that gives me pause.
I don't have the proof, but the behavior we're seeing and the soaring prices suggests that we're running out of oil much faster than anyone realizes.
Icarus
no subject
Date: 2007-10-07 03:57 am (UTC)That's what is TERRIFYING me. Because I'm getting the feeling that the Bush administration got all the above info, knew that this Iraq thing was a bad deal, and then decided that circumstances were dire enough to necessitate it anyway. That destroying our military, ruining any rapport we had with surrounding nations, selling our souls to China, wasn't an act of negligence or incompetence, but of desperate necessity.
If I don't take this stance, then I can't understand Iraq. I can't understand the oil industry. Hell, I WANT to call incompetence and let it rest. But while I might concede that Bush is an idiot, I'm afraid that if I call his entire administration incompetent, then I'm burying my head in the sand, I'm refusing to see the larger picture.
Because if these last four years AREN'T just gross misconduct, then something is happening that demands these ridiculous sacrifices. That demands the possession of that oil above all other concerns. Which freaks me the fuck out, because it makes me aware that I don't fully understand the ramifications that oil has on modern society, our standards of living, and the balance of power, and what might happen when we run out of it within my lifetime.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-07 07:44 am (UTC)Both make sense when you realize that both Cheney and Bush get their money from the oil industry. Given Cheney's former buddy-buddy relationship with Kenneth Lay of Enron (writing our energy policy to Enron's benefit), and Halliburton's proved corruption in Iraq (yet they still have their Iran contracts in place), yes, Cheney at least is corrupt enough to destroy the US military for his own interests.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-07 03:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-07 01:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-09 12:38 am (UTC)Broken military?
Date: 2007-10-07 05:39 pm (UTC)- people who say "oh, sh*t" when told it's their turn to deploy, then leave that attitude behind to get their stuff together and go.
- people who routinely get up at 0-dark-30 to get fitness facilities open (at 0430) so people can train to survive heat and physical stress when deployed.
- people who take pride in making omelets and hashbrowns and washing dishes so people are well fed while they repair airplanes
- people who spend their lives reviewing purchase requests and budgets to make sure that our tax dollars are spent legally and ethically, and squeezing every drop of value out of every dollar so money is put first where it can protect people and then where it can educate them and then where it can help de-stress them
- people who spend years of their lives teaching newbies how to be responsible, dedicated and honorable
- people who have to decide that limited funds can't be spent on standard levels of air conditioning for office workers because savings on the electrical bill means runways can be repaired
- people who bang their heads against the walls of policy and self-interest trying to make them understand that the world is changing and they have to let the military change, too (that was a 4-star, btw)
If people worked with the military every day as I do, they'd see that the military itself is doing everything it can, but policymakers and the people who provide funding put restrictions on what the military can have and do - in the name of not burdening their constituents with higher taxes.
Fixing the military means fixing our elected representatives first - and not just the guys at the top.
We, collectively, have the power to fix this by letting our representatives - local and national - know that we don't like what we see.
Re: Broken military?
Date: 2007-10-07 10:41 pm (UTC)In terms of fixing the way we spend our money and protecting people, our first focus should be on getting rid of that rolling death trap, the armored Humvee. The Humvee is just a glorified jeep. Armored or not, it was never designed for combat.
The Humvee is the primary reason we have 27,000 wounded, a large portion of whom have been wounded by unarmored Humvees rolling over IEDs. (Our excellent medical corps is the main reason those 27,000 wounded are still alive.)
The armored Humvee has the armor in the wrong place: up top, while the undercarriage still acts like a cup over a firecracker when they hit an IED -- focusing the blast up into the Humvee to blow up our people. The armored Humvee is also top heavy and soldiers say they roll over. Great. Worse yet, the armored version is too heavy for its transmission to hold up. Wonderful.
We have tons of M-113 armored personnel carriers right there, in Kuwait, right now, in storage from the Gulf war. They are designed for transporting troops during combat and would save lives, limbs -- and we wouldn't be wasting money forcing Humvees to be what they aren't.
And they're right there. We don't even have to ship them.
A Lt. General in Iraq says that there are also plenty of Iraqi armored personnel carriers that we could use. Armored personnel carriers could roll over these IEDs and not even look back.
I'll get you the links in the moment (
Re: Broken military?
Date: 2007-10-13 08:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-07 08:36 pm (UTC)I spent the weekend in the city of Brno, Czech Republic, with a few friends who wanted someone who knew their way around to take them to all the best places. We were in Špilberk castle, which was used as a prison for all of the Habsburg Empire for decades in the 18th and 19th century, and again by the Nazis during WWII. There was a reconstruction of a torture chamber which was a little scary, and I turned to my friend and said, "Can't you imagine what the attitude must have been like, back then? With, you know, Joe, who lives next door, oh, he's a torturer, didn't you know? And being okay with that?"
And we ruminated a little bit and figured that, well, okay, at least the world's a little bit better, now. And then, since Brno actually carries the occasional foreign-language newspaper, I invested in an International Herald at the Newsagent's and one of the first stories I saw was about secret legal opinions given by the Justice Department to the CIA about interrogation methods. Apparently, simulated drowning is not degrading and inhumane.
The world never changes, does it? This is just an ordinary, garden variety, territorial war, just like they've been fighting them for centuries, only with more firepower.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-08 12:14 am (UTC)