US Military Collapsing Under Weight Of Iraq

[bemildred]

Wreck It And Run; By William S. Lind; 6-8-5

It is increasingly clear that under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. armed forces have also been taken over by "wreck it and run" management. When Rumsfeld leaves office, what will his successor inherit?

-- A volunteer military without volunteers. The Army missed its active-duty recruiting goal in April by almost half. Guard and Reserve recruiting are collapsing. Retention will do the same as "stop loss" orders are lifted.

===

-- The world's largest pile of wrecked and worn-out military equipment (maybe second-largest if we remember the old Soviet Navy). I'm talking about basic stuff here: trucks, Humvees, personnel carriers, crew-served weapons, etc. This is gear the Rumsfeld Pentagon hates to spend money on, because it does not represent "transformation" to the high-tech, videogame warfare it wrongly sees as the future.

===

-- A military tied down in a strategically meaningless backwater, Iraq, to the point where it can't do much else. A perceptive reader recently wrote to me that "China has the luxury of the U.S. inflicting grievous wounds, economic and military, on itself from our commitment to spread 'democracy' ... Although the Iraqi insurgents may have the limited purpose of ending an occupation, other global actors can sit back and watch us bleed ourselves slowly to, at least, a weakened state. From that point of view, the last thing these other actors wish to see is either a victory or a quick defeat. Instead, events are proceeding nicely as they are." Exactly correct, and those other actors include al-Qaida.]

Rense.com

[oblivious]

1. Why does he call Iraq a "strategically meaningless backwater"?

Doesn't it have the second largest oil reserves on the planet, while perched between the countries with the no. 1 and 3 reserves?

Seems pretty strategic to me.

[smoogatz]

4. Meaningless because

we could have bought the oil at market price (in Euros) from Saddam once the sanctions were lifted. Bushco were determined to preserve the dollarized oil economy at all costs, and to subvert OPEC by, in essence, stealing an OPEC nation and making themselves members. The author sees China as our true, big picture competitor going forward--figuring the current symbiosis is unsustainable. Which is a reasonable supposition, IMO.

[acmejack]

2. I agree with oblivious

Iraq occupies an extremely valuable little piece of real estate in the geo political scheme of things.

[smoogatz]

3. Yep.

The idea that you could invade and occupy a country of 26 million unhappy, unemployed muslims indefinitely and on the cheap was lunacy from the get-go--anyone with half a brain could see the current disaster coming way back when Bushco were assuring us it'd be a cakewalk. Two pertinent questions, at this point:

1. Were they really that stupid/deluded, or were they so focused on the prize--Iraq's $12 trillion dollar oil reserves--that they just didn't give a fuck about what might happen to Clinton's military?

2. How do they get themselves out of this freaking mess? Two options: A) declare victory (again) ASAFP and get the hell out, leaving the Iraqi government to fend for itself, or B) stick to Wolfowitz's original plan, or such tatters of it as are still operational, hunker down and wait it out--figuring that the current casualty rate of 1-2 soldiers/marines a day and the monetary cost of $4 billion+ per week is worth it if you get to keep the oil. I'm betting Bushco will go with option B.

[bemildred]

6. I don't see any way to conclude the neocons are not morons.

They did actually believe their own bullshit. There is no
way this is what they set out to achieve.

I agree about option B, and I think we will be allowed to pursue
that as long as we like. "Let it bleed" as the song says.

[Selatius]

16. In answer to your questions:

1. They don't give a flying fuck if the US wins or loses the war in Iraq. What counts is that they've made money off the war the same as the arms manufacturers in Vietnam. They walk away at the end of the day with a paycheck. They don't give a damn what happens to everyone else.

2. Wait a few years and then slowly withdraw regardless if the Iraqi government is stable or not. The point is the money has already been made. The rest of the time is simply spent milking the cow for all its worth before withdrawing.

The Neocons believe their own bullshit, but the corporatists who helped them gain office don't. The corporatists just need some patsies, the Neocons, to do the dirty work, while they walk away with the spoils.

[madrchsod]

5. absolutely right

the us military is broken and it will take years and billions to repair. the growing threat of chinese military,esp sea power in the next 20-25 years will put even more strain on the military,esp the navy and our economy. this adventure in iraq has provided the chinese and others in the future to replace the united states as the world sea power.
the destruction of our military is treason. i think there are those with in our military that feel the same way.

[cap]

7. they will replace it with mercenaries

they dont care. Mercenaries are more amenable anyhow.

[SharonAnn]

12. More willing to die for money? wow!

[fedsron2us]

17. Mercenaries are unreliable

When someone with a bigger wallet comes along they simply change sides.

[SweetLeftFoot]

8. Unwillingness

To admit that the Soviets (and now Chinese) had the edge in the weapons that really count - Sunburn and various torpedos.
Same with def anti-aircraft systems.

[bemildred]

9. Well, it certainly says a great deal about what we are getting

for all that money that we give the Pentagon, that the US military
is completely hog-tied in Iraq, and that the civilian leadership,
near as one can tell, does not care a fig about that.

[Tommymac]

10. Almost like the 60's ... but .... more like the 80's

US/IRAQ Doesn't quite compare to Vietnam...

It compares to better to the USSR's fatal invasion of Afganistan in the 80's.

Vietnam didn't bring our country down economically...or militarily all that much...we were still able to hold up our commintments in Europe and Korea and other places...

Afganistan bankrupted the USSR both economically and militarily to the point they could not hold their empire together...Iraq is doing the same to us...military withdrawals from Korea, billions of dollars of our National treasure pissed away...if we are not careful regardles of our technological superiority we'll soon be a second rate empire dressed in rags under our chain mail just like the Soviets were.

[eleny]

11. I keep thinking about Vietnam because the suits were in charge then, too

[salin]

13. missing one major factor per USSR collapse - and comparison

to today....

the US pushed a very expensive arms race at the same time - and that helped to collapse the USSR economy.

Today we are talking about not only funding the old Star Wars initiative - but additional high cost - but only theoretical (that is - probably wont work) space weapons. To fund Carlyle and others who make huge bucks in the military-industrial complex - we are engaged in our own arms race - against our selves. Combine that with your comparison above and it really is a looming problem.

Odd thing is that they were part of the Reagan plan ... it is as if they are trying to crash our economy and military strength while wringing every last penny out of it for their corporate funders in the process.

[Tommymac]

20. Agreed. Have I said how much I hate these people? nt

[Gothmog]

14. I feel a draft is coming

The only solution will be a draft at some point

[deacon2]

15. Much of the uniformed military hates Mr. Rumsfeld

With good reason. His callous disregard of their experience and input has brought us to this sorry state. It isn't like the son of a bitch wasn't told. And those who told him, like Shinseki, were handed their heads. Takes a peculiar blend of ignorance and arrogance to tell your top brass that you're not interested in what they think. But hey, he was given the Medal of Freedom, so what do I know?

[Pryderi]

18. Straight from the horses mouth.

we have found it difficult to deal with the Bush administration in light of the resemblance it bears to the regimes in our countries, half of which are ruled by the military and the other half which are ruled by the sons of kings and presidents.

<snip>

All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.

This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.

So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.

<snip>
And it was to these sorts of notions and their like that the British diplomat and others were referring in their lectures at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. for example, al-Qaida spent $500,000 on the event, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost - according to the lowest estimate - more than $500 billion.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/79C6AF22-98FB-4A1C-B21F-2BC36E87F61F.htm

[oblivious]

19. They learned well from history.

Question: ...You don't regret anything today?

ZBIGNIEW BREZINSKI: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/27c/467.html