by Col. W. Patrick Lang (Ret.)
"Politics cannot solve what ails Iraq now. It can help, and certainly the constitution is an important step in that direction. But at the end of the day, it’s only when the so-called dead-enders are either dead or vanquished that one can count on the political process moving decisively forward as most Iraqis desire."
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Schmitt, the author of the Washington Post op/ed quoted above, is boss of the "Project for the New American Century," a foundation seemingly designed to provide a final refuge for the Jacobin crowd.
This is pretty tough stuff. I always worry when all this bloodthirsty, death and destruction language pops up in the utterances of those who wish to influence policy and who clearly did so.
This guy is one of the head Neocons. I was on a panel yesterday in which a former NSC staffer was asked to what extent the Neocons were responsible for President Bush’s decision to go to war. He said, "They made the Kool-aid that others drank." Schmitt’s present opinions are clarifying with regard to the quality of the brains in the heads of the men who took us to war. Nothing is more warlike than a civilian with a political obsession and minimal combat experience.
Contrary to popular mythology and the drivel that soldiers tell women on occasion, there are always a fair number of people in armies who are not personally averse to combat. They are the people who keep the outfit functioning under fire. Shh! Don’t tell anyone! Nevertheless, it has been my experience that most of those so blessed (or damned) are not willing to advocate an easy resort to arms. In the years that I spent in the Pentagon, it was almost a joke that the Joint Chiefs of Staff would always advise against war when the government gave them the opportunity to advise. "A Council of War Never Votes To Fight" is an old military aphorism and I have known it to be true. Now, in the time of Generalissimo Rumsfeld it may be different.
So what is it that this paragon of the civilian tough guy crowd has as an option for extricating ourselves from the mess that he and his pals convinced the president to create? He says we have to fight until "the so-called dead-enders are either dead or vanquished."
Continued BELOW:
What a brave soul! "Let’s You and Him fight" might be the summation of this op/ed piece. Political accommodation of the Sunni Arabs? No. A retreat from the lunacy of "One man, One vote" in an essentially tribal society? No! A Willingness to talk to the non-Jihadi insurgents? No! No!
"Let’s You and Him Fight!!!" This begins to make the idea of recruiting the "Young Republicans" as special counterinsurgency troops more and more attractive.
Yesterday Robert Kagan, who, along with Bill Cristol, advocated intervention in Iraq for years wrote a column in the Washington Post in which he essentially whined over the fact that victory has many friends but misfortune is an orphan. Translation: People are nasty to us now and those on the Left who engaged their private obsessions on our behalf are now deserting us. Sob…
People like Kagan schemed for a decade to achieve armed intervention in Iraq. They wrote and caused to be passed by compliant members, the "Iraq Liberation Act" 0f 1998. They did it "to force Clinton’s hand" on Iraq. The staffers who did it boasted to me of their achievement at the time. And he wants sympathy? His column ends thusly:
"It’s interesting to watch people rewrite history, even their own. My father recently recalled for me a line from Thucydides, which Pericles delivered to the Athenians in the difficult second year of the three-decade war with Sparta. "I am the same man and do not alter, it is you who change, since in fact you took my advice while unhurt, and waited for misfortune to repent of it."" Schmitt
Ah, the Funeral Oration. My Classics teachers would be glad that it is still remembered, but Pericles was a fighting man as well an orator.
My favorite part of the "Peloponesian War" has always been the "Melian Dialogue" in which Athens attacks and utterly destroys a small, harmless and neutral city state with which the Athenians had no real cause for anger.
it was just "policy" to do so, and the "greater good" of Athenian leadership of the Greek World was served.
Don’t whine! Any of you!
Pat Lang
Personal Blog: Sic Semper Tyrannis 2005 || Bio || CV
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“Drinking the Kool-Aid,” Middle East Policy Council Journal, Vol. XI, Summer 2004, No. 2
Yes! The imperial bully’s interest selfishly trumps what is right in it’s pathological need for (any) victory, and as Thucydidides remarked, “…the weak suffer what they must”.
Contrary to popular mythology and the drivel that soldiers tell women on occasion, there are always a fair number of people in armies who are not personally averse to combat. They are the people who keep the outfit functioning under fire. Shh! Don’t tell anyone!
In our unit there were soldiers that would walk in from basic with an “I want to go to war and KILL!” mentality.
The seasoned Seargents would regularly remind these green recruits that when a unit goes in to battle for the first time, according to military statistics (or so they said?), roughly two thirds of the unit will be too busy trying to get cover and/or trying to hide the fact that they pissed their pants in fear to even fire off a single round.
It was the other one third of the unit that would be doing all of the firing and keeping the guys alive to make it to (hopefully) their second battle.
I have had to take aim… But I have never had the order to fire at a live target. (I count myself as lucky for that fact!)
My brother-in-law has not been so lucky… He came in hoping for a chance to go to war, he has sinced changed his views on that given what he now realizes Iraq ia all about. He has had to pull the trigger in Iraq, and he said the fucked up thing is that “He will never be sure if they were really the enemy or just civilians”. There is just too much grey area. He is really tore up about this all. BUT he is a good Infantry soldier and follows his orders, even if he doesn’t like them sometimes.
He goes back to Iraq for his second tour shortly. Now he is a platoon daddy. He has had no sense of any real mission there since the mission where they took out Uday and Qsay (His platoon pulled security on that one). He said his only goal is to try and get everyone back alive now.
I think we had won the war (as best we could ever hope to) the day we caught Saddam… And we lost it all, any hope of winning the war or “the hearts and minds of Iraqis,” the day after when we didn’t start preperations to leave Iraq.
If we had started to pull out, right then and there, we still probably would have seen civil war break out in Iraq, but we would not have been seen as the “ultimate” enemy of all of the Middle-East as we are now, nor would we still be sitting targets for them to shoot at or blow up.
Considering we never should have attacked Iraq to begin with… Well, that is just my opinion. I am glad that more Americans are begining to share in that opinion everyday.
BTW: Another awesome post Mr. Lang…
5 or 6 years ago I would have said “PNAC??? Who? What?” Now when I hear any of them talking I only worry about who will die needlessly next?
I am really starting to think that we need to ban all “political think tanks”… It seems like very few of them really care about America, only their corporate funded agendas. (Who me? Paranoid? Maybe… lol)
Perhaps this is an uniquely American phenomenon–“I want to kill!”–because I recall no similar bloodthirstiness in the ranks of us Brits during Gulf War I. As you will recall, we did quite well in our bit of that war–which we code-named Operation Granby–and somehow managed to do it without jumping up and down like a bunch of Hottentots. I do recall American soldiers being rather more aggressive than Brits, not to mention trigger-happy, but I chalked that up to different training in which American commanders are encouraged to reduce their own casualty rate even if that requires unnecessary fire.
Of course soldiers come from basic training fired up and ready to kill–that’s the point of basic, to brainwash them and overcome their natural adversion to killing their fellow human beings. However, that doeesn’t meant that the attitude carries on–there are always seasoned soldiers to knock that bravado out of the new squaddies (a bravado which would get them killed if carried into actual combat). It is no accident that the military prefers its raw recruits to be young men and women who haven’t experienced much of the world and don’t quite know their own minds yet, as they are far more pliable than we older folk who have our minds and hearts fixed more firmly on what we believe to be right and wrong.
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=SRTIGERFORCE
“As a military journalist, he watched platoon soldiers force 35 women and children into a pasture in the heart of Vietnam’s Central Highlands.
As the people huddled – some crying-the soldiers moved the villagers into small groups and led them to the edge of the field.
Then came the gun shots, with bodies falling.
“They just killed them – mothers, with little kids and old people,” he recalled.
Though he wrote for an Army newspaper, he said he was banned from reporting about the killings that July day in 1967.
It would be 36 years before the American public would learn of the elite unit known as Tiger Force, and its unprovoked attacks on Vietnamese villagers.
The platoon’s war crimes were revealed in a recent Blade series, “Buried Secrets, Brutal Truths,” which described the slaughter of unarmed civilians by the soldiers between May and November, 1967.
The Army investigated the case for 4 1/2 years, substantiating 20 war crimes involving 18 soldiers. But no one was charged.”
What is the connection between the war crimes of American soldiers in Vietnam and Colonel Lang’s offhand remark?
I don’t see one, although you obviously do.
The fact that the US Army committed war crimes in the Vietnam War is well-documented and established.
Does this mean that all soldiers have this attitude? Are you saying that all American soldiers, or many of them, are not only capable of these atrocities today but also quite willing to do them?
quite capable and in some caes very willing. They are being driven by the same policies, and the policies are in some cases by the same people who set them in motion in Vietnam.
One does not need to go back to the Greeks to draw distinctions between those who, from a safe distance, advocate a flawed policy and, from a safe distance, direct it to be excecuted.
Distance allows for the justification of torture; or “free fire” zones and “pacification.”
The culture in this country is one that refuses to address the sins of 30 plus years ago, much like a Japanese society that refused to address the atrocities that happened in Korea ot a Turkish society that refuses to address the mass murder of a nation…
The only thing that keeps a military “sane” is a strong civilian government with an uncompromised judiciary and uncompromised press.
The military protects their own. They have to.
We don’t have to.
And shouldn’t.
Perhaps this is an uniquely American phenomenon–“I want to kill!”–because I recall no similar bloodthirstiness in the ranks of us Brits during Gulf War I.
You have to consider this line of thinking (a bit, at least) when it comes to American soldiers…
No one becomes a hero in times of peace.
It may be different in Britain, but soldiers here get tagged with sayings like “they work for Club Fed” because when there is no war the only thing they would ever see us doing publically is excercising, or the occassional friday off in the nearbye towns or cities.
What they never consider is the fact that we are excercising to be ready for the training we will do in the training areas that are (generally) off limits to the public and they won’t see, and the occasional long weekend we might get once in a while, on days that the public will not, are after long excercises in the field where we worked 24/7 often for weeks to months at a time.
But when at war… Americans will always change their views of those in service. They are all suddenly heroes!
This not the case for all Americans perceptions of the military and service. But there is a LARGE MINORITY that create this perception. And it does echo through American society.
And this excludes the fact that no matter where you are from in the world there are always some sick MOFOS that really do enjoy the idea of killing people… What better place to be, where you are you actually encouraged to do that and get rewarded for it if you are good at it, than in the military?
As for brainwashing at basic? Nah… The bulk of the kids go through it and never lose their original hopes of serving, getting some education benefits, and getting out without the battle scars. That is not to say they aren’t trained to be violent, but a methodically controlled violent reaction is not the same as a bloodlust.
I agree with the military’s assessment that genrally soldiers are not quite ready for battle after Basic, or boot camp, but they have only developed the most basic skill sets. It takes another full year of training at a good unit for a soldier to realize their full potential and be trained well enough to go to battle. That is why the military was so reluctant to cut down Infantry enlistments to less than a few years. An 18 month or 2 year enlistment means that you are losing that soldier just at the time where they are becoming a “fully trained soldier”. The most valuable asset that the military will ever have.
I have to laugh a bit when I say that because I also realize that as far as training goes, well, American soldiers are not that well trained when compared to soldiers in other armies. IMHO, Brittish, Israeli, Canadian, and many other nations, if given the same technological advantages (same tanks, weapons, etc.) would likely outmaneuver and outmuscle American soldiers (in a hypothetical battle, of course!) simply because their soldiers, overall, are better trained and better disciplined. I have seen several training excercises where American soldiers would be suffering from a serious case of FUBAR after taking on a “fictitious enemy X” that was composed of our real world allies’ foreign soldiers.
Technology can only overcome so many factors in a battle, especially when the enemy already knows your weaknesses.
Well, I didn’t want to say…but, no, I am not overly impressed with the quality of training for most American soldiers. The British Army is smaller but is still a highly effective force because of discipline and rigorous training. It seems to me the American army could do more with the soldiers it has if they were better-prepared.
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In Northern Baghdad, or North of Baghdad, 17 men were dragged from their homes and executed by unknown gunmen, some dressed in Iraqi Army uniforms.
More ugly violence as more than 40 were killed when a suicide car bomb exploded in central Baghdad as men were waiting for a day’s employment.
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First, an historian’s quibble–it’s the Peloponnesian War, not the “Peloponesian War”. If the Colonel wishes to use this war as an example stretched to cover America’s current imperialist misadventure, then he ought to consult Thucydides (the Athenian general who chronicled the war) for the proper spelling. I find it quite surprising that the Colonel makes this simple mistake after purporting to have studied the “Peloponesian War” under his “Classics” teacher.
Second, and more importantly, there are many cautions we can discover in the Peloponnesian War about being too quick to prefer war over diplomacy and wise policy, but there are so many differences in circumstances between America’s current circumstances as to render its examples meaningless.
Just a few of the differences:
First, the Athenians were not the sole aggressors in the Peloponnesian War. The Spartans played their role, as well, and the tensions amongst the Greeks meant that sooner or later Sparta and Athens would be forced to clash. Sparta also was the supreme Greek land power, while Athens was the supreme Greek naval power–thus, the war was between two great military powers. In contrast, Iraq did nothing to provoke America’s invasion of its soil, and the mismatch between their military forces is quite obvious even to one who has not studied the “Peloponesian War”.
Second, initially Athens was guided in its military strategy by Pericles, who advised a defensive rather than an offensive strategy. Unfortunately, a plague wiped out one quarter of the Athenian population in 430 BCE, including Pericles and his sons. With Pericles and his sons gone, the hawkish demagogue Cleon was able to push Athens into a less conservative offensive strategy, which was successful but later turned against them as the war dragged on (for nearly three decades!) and Athens exhausted its resources. However, during the war, Athens actually won many victories under its great general Alcibiades. Not only that, but the loss of so many Athenians in the plague also reduced the number of men available to serve in the military, as well as causing other understandable societal disruptions.
In contrast, the United States has had an offensive military strategy ever since 11 September 2001, has not suffered a plague killing 50 or 60 million Americans (which would be the equivalent of the Athenian plague in 430 BCE), and has never had the equivalent of either the able Pericles nor Alcibiades to guide its policies and strategies.
Third, all throughout the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians husbanded their resources–for example, they set aside 100 ships and a portion of its treasury as a “rainy day” fund.
The United States, under George W. Bush, has exhibited no similar prudence nor foresight.
Fourth, the Athenians were finally defeated only through bad planning and bad luck. They retired Alcibiades (a spectacularly bad move) and were unlucky in the opponent they faced: Lysander of Sparta. Lysander was unlike the other Spartan commanders because he understood how to use naval power, and did so–it was Lysander’s naval blockade of the Athenian grain supply that starved Athens into surrender.
America’s oil supplies from the Middle East are somewhat tenuous, but it would be ludicrous to suggest that the Iraqis or the loosely-knit al-Qaeda or its equivalent have the ability to disrupt the flow of oil from the Middle East. Not only that, but the United States imports as much oil from Mexico, Canada, and Venezuela as it does from the Middle East, and could–with typical American technological know-how and conservation–easily eliminate its dependency on Middle Eastern oil if it wished. The Athenians HAD to have the grain that came out of the Hellespont and had no alternative sources.
I have some other minor quibbles with “Colonel” Lang (by the by, I was a captain in the British Army and don’t use my military title to identify myself–and have never understood what compels retired soldiers to do so), particularly his offhand remark that “Contrary to popular mythology and the drivel that soldiers tell women on occasion, there are always a fair number of people in armies who are not personally averse to combat.”
Well, I suppose the Colonel and I served in different militaries–but there’s a huge difference between doing your duty (which includes killing the enemy) and not being “averse” to doing so. Those soldiers I observed, and particularly those I commanded, in Gulf War I, did kill enemy soldiers, but only a very few lived for the battle. Actually, what kept the British Army functioning was able officers and non-coms who kept discipline and morale in the ranks and were able to train the squaddies to overcome the natural human aversion to killing other humans. You may notice that in American society, it is the civilians, not the military, who are the most bloodthirsty (a point which Mr. Lang does make).
In short, I’d rather we discussed the American imperialistic misadventures under Bush on their own terms, and not confuse things by dragging in discussions of ancient Greek history and the Peloponnesian War–however one decides to spell it. It’s actually quite insulting to compare the ancient Athenians to modern day America. The Athenians had many able political and military leaders and often prevailed against the mighty Spartans–whilst America can’t even tamp down a rag-tag insurgency in Iraq.
In all fairness to Patrick Lang, I believe his references to the Peloponnesian War was in response to the quotation by Mr. Schmitt in the Wapo op-ed, and was not the primary focal point of his article. As for the spelling error, I can forgive him for dropping a single n.
As for using his title, I doubt he goes around calling himself Colonel on a regular basis. However, it is a fact of life that Americans tend to credit those who write commentary on war and foreign policy if they can display some “expertise” in military matters. I suspect that is the reason for the use of the title. It is more an indication of a flaw in our society, than of personal aggrandisement, I suspect. I have known many former military officers in my time, and too a man none of them insisted upon using their former military rank in everyday discourse to identify his or herself.
Blame me.
I edited in his title because his military experience is relevant here.
He ALWAYS signs his posts, at his own blog, as “Pat Lang.” Nothing more.
And I might note that the only reason he put up his CV and Bio are because people wanted to see them … a lot of people don’t know who he is, unless they watched PBS Newshour or caught him on Hardball, etc.
I also add his name at the top of his pieces because, on our RSS feeds, you can’t tell who wrote what story … sigh … and so I want those who check our RSS feeds to know that it’s not just me and BooMan but another writer. Do the same for Larry Johnson.
in his name is a necessity here too. The military tends to be very difficult for most civilians to understand. People need to know that his time in service and military experience are large and his accounts and assessments are credible. Experiences, situations, and rules of life in the military can be so extremely different from civilian experiences, situations, and rules of life that civilians need to know from where his opinions and knowledge are gleaned!
Well, I just find it odd. Many British officers insist on being called “Major” or “Colonel” long after they have been out of harness. I have no objection to posting a man’s c.v. but the title seems a bit pretentious.
However, that is a minor aside and not the substance of my post–which is that example of ancient Athens is absolutely useless to understanding present circumstances.
You ignored my response to you in which i said that I added his rank. he had nothing to do with it.
Find something new to bitch about.
Reply to the substance of my post, which was about the fact that comparing ancient Greece to modern day America yields us a big fat zero.
And don’t be a dick. Booman Rule #1–or does that not apply to front-page posters, but merely to us lowly helots?
over the spelling is somewhat dickish Shadow. As is giving a fuck about Susan adding his rank.
And Alcibiades didn’t exactly bring much success or honor to Athens. He would have been executed for cutting the cocks off all the fertility statues in the city, if he hadn’t been assigned to Syracuse before the investigation implicated him. His expedition there was a disaster, and then he defected to Sparta. Once in Sparta he fucked the king’s wife and was forced to defect to the Persians. He is a fun character but he was no Themistocles.
Alcibiades was certainly an able general, but he was also a warmonger. He manipulated the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians in order to break the peace established by his rival Nicias. He also pushed the Athenians to launch the expedition against Syracuse which marked the beginning of the end for Athens (here you could find a parallel with Iraq…). He then betrayed them by joining Sparta, and later the Persians!
At least, unlike Donald Rumsfeld, he was known for his overwhelming beauty…