The Andrew Bacevich collection
I felt this article by Andrew Bacevich from this month's Atlantic Monthly would generate some interest given the debate surrounding LTC Yingling's article.
From the article:
Quote:
In fact, however, empowering groups of soldiers to join in the debate over contentious issues is short-sighted and dangerous. Implicit in the appeal is the suggestion that national-security policies somehow require the consent of those in uniform. Lately, media outlets have reinforced this notion, reporting as newsworthy the results of polls that asked soldiers whether administration plans meet with their approval.
On matters of policy, those who wear the uniform ought to get a vote, but it’s the same one that every other citizen gets—the one exercised on Election Day. To give them more is to sow confusion about the soldier’s proper role, which centers on service and must preclude partisanship. Legitimating soldiers’ lobbies is likely to warp national-security policy and crack open the door to praetorianism.
The Appeal for Redress does not pose an immediate threat to the republic. It’s been signed by only a tiny minority of U.S. soldiers, and the movement could simply peter out, becoming little more than a minor historical curiosity, rather than a harbinger of something larger. Yet in either case, it offers further evidence of advancing constitutional decay.
There's also an interview where Bacevich really fleshes out his thoughts that can be found here.
Andrew Bacevich's Son KIA
Just a note, Andrew Bacevich of Boston University lost his son this past weekend in Balad. Bacevich senior is a graduate of West Point, Vietnam and Gulf War veteran, and critic of the war since 2003.
My sympathies to the Bacevich family.
Tom
More at
Quote:
Son of professor opposed to war is killed in Iraq
By Brian MacQuarrie, Globe Staff | May 15, 2007
Boston University professor Andrew J. Bacevich has been a persistent, vocal critic of the Iraq war, calling the conflict a catastrophic failure. This week, the retired Army lieutenant colonel received the grim news that his son had been killed on patrol there.
First Lieutenant Andrew J. Bacevich , 27, of Walpole, died Sunday in Balad of wounds he suffered after a bomb explosion, the military said yesterday. The soldier, who graduated from BU in 2003 with a degree in communications, is the 56th service member from Massachusetts to be killed in Iraq.
I Lost My Son to a War I Oppose. We Were Both Doing Our Duty.
27 May Washington Post commentary - I Lost My Son to a War I Oppose. We Were Both Doing Our Duty. By Andrew J. Bacevich.
Quote:
Parents who lose children, whether through accident or illness, inevitably wonder what they could have done to prevent their loss. When my son was killed in Iraq earlier this month at age 27, I found myself pondering my responsibility for his death.
Among the hundreds of messages that my wife and I have received, two bore directly on this question. Both held me personally culpable, insisting that my public opposition to the war had provided aid and comfort to the enemy. Each said that my son's death came as a direct result of my antiwar writings.
This may seem a vile accusation to lay against a grieving father. But in fact, it has become a staple of American political discourse, repeated endlessly by those keen to allow President Bush a free hand in waging his war. By encouraging "the terrorists," opponents of the Iraq conflict increase the risk to U.S. troops. Although the First Amendment protects antiwar critics from being tried for treason, it provides no protection for the hardly less serious charge of failing to support the troops -- today's civic equivalent of dereliction of duty...
back peddle and see what happens
Just as a question, not a serious proposition, I wonder what the reaction of the American people would be if the President came out in the next couple of days, and told America that we cannot stablize Iraq, so we will begin a rapid phased withdrawal of our troops within the next few weeks?
Of course no ones knows what would really happen in Iraq if we did this, I still think the Al Qaeda would be destroyed by the Iraqis, once they loose their reason for being there, which is primarily to fight us. None the less the talking heads would rapidly start shaping U.S. opinion, and explain how Saudi and Iran may wage a proxy war, which could cause the price of oil to sky rocket if Iraq's southern oil fields are threatened, and the Kurds and Turkey wouldn't have the U.S. in the middle to mitigate their disputes, not to mention the perception that U.S. lost and the power that will give our foes worldwide. Once people seriously start talking about the consequences of simply quitting I think the rhetoric will change, and it will become more sober.
Prof. Bacevich on U.S. Grand Strategy
Testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on Oversight and Investigations Tuesday. I'm inclined to agree with him.
Quote:
Yet there is a second way to approach questions of grand strategy. This alternative approach – which I will employ in my very brief prepared remarks – is one that emphasizes internal conditions as much as external threats.
Here is my bottom line: the strategic imperative that we confront in our time demands first of all that we put our own house in order. Fixing our own problems should take precedence over fixing the world’s problems.
....
Since the 1970s, Americans have talked endlessly of the need to address this problem. Talk has not produced effective action.
Instead, by tolerating this growing dependence on foreign oil we have allowed ourselves to be drawn ever more deeply into the Persian Gulf, a tendency that culminated in the ongoing Iraq War. That war, now in its sixth year, is costing us an estimated $3 billion per week – a figure that is effectively a surtax added to the oil bill.
Surely, this is a matter that future historians will find baffling: how a great power could recognize the danger posed by energy dependence and then do so little to avert that danger.
Example number two of our domestic dysfunction is fiscal. Again, you are familiar with the essential problem, namely our persistent refusal to live within our means.
When President Bush took office in 2001, the national debt stood at less than $6 trillion. Since then it has increased by more than 50% to $9.5 trillion. When Ronald Reagan became president back in 1981, total debt equaled 31% of GDP. Today, the debt is closing in on 70% of GDP.
....
In fact, the Long War represents an impediment to sound grand strategy. To persist in the Long War will be to exacerbate the existing trends toward ever greater debt and dependency and it will do so while placing at risk America’s overstretched armed forces.
To imagine that a reliance on military power can reverse these trends toward ever increasing debt and dependency would be the height of folly. This is the central lesson that we should take away from period since September 11, 2001.
....
In the end, how we manage – or mismanage – our affairs here at home will prove to be far more decisive than our efforts to manage events beyond our shores, whether in the Persian Gulf or East Asia or elsewhere.
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2008/07...tegy/#more-758