Silencing the Reservists: Rumsfeld’s plan to remake the Army?

[coda]

Silencing the Reservists
Is Donald Rumsfeld’s plan to remake the Army designed to ease the political pressure during unpopular wars?

By T. Trent Gegax
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE

Oct. 10 —

<snip>

The Army National Guard and Army Reserve are mobilized in numbers not seen since World War II. And reservists are either staying away longer than their families ever imagined or they’re coming home in body bags. We can’t wage a large-scale conflict without them, thanks to a Vietnam-era policy—a strategic check-and-balance—established to prevent politicians from waging war without broad popular support. That you hear growing grousing and, lamentably, mourning coming from reservists’ homes means that the system is working exactly the way it was envisioned by former Army chief of staff Gen. Creighton Abrams.



It became known as the “Abrams Doctrine,” a shuffling of the war machine right after the Vietnam War that made the Reserves an indispensable part of large-scale war. It was a recognition that active-duty soldiers are relatively rare among the general population, found only in insular, mostly Southern military-base towns; whereas reservists are woven into the fabric of the country’s car dealerships, professional firms and farm towns. It may be unfair, but whatever happens to reservists ripples further than the fates of active-duty soldiers. The Abrams Doctrine “was designed so that the Army couldn’t get involved in sustained operations without the Reserves,” says Renee Hylton, historian for the National Guard Bureau. “By doing that, the politicians could never play with the military again like they did in Vietnam. If they had used more reservists in Vietnam they would’ve been a lot more serious about military power and spent more time building political support.” At the time, President Johnson bucked when urged to tap the reserve ranks for more troops. They would’ve been better trained than draftees and the war would’ve come to resolution faster “because you don’t call them up for long periods of time for unstated goals,” Hylton says. Instead, he drafted kids who were poor and unconnected. After the war, Hylton says, “the senior leadership said, ‘We can’t let this happen again’.”


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True to predictions, reservists in Iraq are making their voices heard in Washington. “Many of us have written to our congresspersons,” Capt. Blaise Zandoli, a civil-affairs reservist posted in Kirkuk, said recently after the Pentagon doubled the reservists’ mobilization time. “All of us are completely bitter about what has happened.”

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Now, Secretary Rumsfeld wants to rebalance Abrams’s check-and-balance. While the administration tries to fit the ongoing war in Iraq into a more attractive frame, Rumsfeld is trying to reframe the way the nation wages war. The Pentagon calls it “rebalancing” the Army (one element in its overall military “transformation” project). It ain’t easy.



more......

http://www.msnbc.com/news/978175.asp

[lcordero]

1. His remaking means that

young people won't be able to learn a trade inside the military. The military will become a lot less desireable because of this. He already advertising that service members by all counts will be cannon fodder.

[Jack Rabbit]

2. An important point

the White House’s “global war on terror” can’t operate without the Reserves—the National Guard supplements the infantry and the Reserves provide support services. They’re people—Midwestern farmers, young rural poor from the South, Eastern lawyers—who thought they’d pad their income in exchange for training one weekend per month, two weeks each summer and maybe a six-month peacekeeping tour in the Balkans.

. . . and yet . . .

The Abrams Doctrine “was designed so that the Army couldn’t get involved in sustained operations without the Reserves,” says Renee Hylton, historian for the National Guard Bureau. “By doing that, the politicians could never play with the military again like they did in Vietnam. If they had used more reservists in Vietnam they would’ve been a lot more serious about military power and spent more time building political support.” At the time, President Johnson bucked when urged to tap the reserve ranks for more troops. They would’ve been better trained than draftees and the war would’ve come to resolution faster “because you don’t call them up for long periods of time for unstated goals,” Hylton says.

We must bear in mind that this war is fought over unstated goals; that is not because no goals were stated, but because the stated goals were not the real ones.

In any case, the junta's lies have been exposed. The reservists know this. Consequently, the dissension in the ranks emerges just as though no goals were stated. The problem is not so much unstated goals, as deception in stating goals.

To a degree, it makes sense. Right now there are U.S. soldiers in Iraq doing nothing to rebuild Iraq because they’re only trained to fire artillery, or because they drive gas trucks and only drive gas trucks—and the Army isn’t firing artillery anymore and is using just a fraction of the gas it needed during heavy combat. But because troops are deployed in divisions, they come home that way, too. Rumsfeld wants to break down divisions—the Third Infantry Division and the 101st Airborne Division look to be first up—and deploy brigades that bring to battle only what’s relevant to the task at hand. In other words, he wants to downsize “big Army” into something more akin to nimble Special Operations units . . . .
Critics—including Congress and some military officers—are asking whether this downsizing would simply make it easier for the United States to rush to war. Rumsfeld’s proposed “rebalancing” would convert the most heavily used reserve jobs (military police, civil affairs, psychological operations) into active-duty Army positions. That would effectively reduce the number or reservists—and the number of complaints—needed for full-scale military operations.

So, what Rumsfeld's "rebalancing" means is to make those units that are now reserve units into regular army units. His stated reasons are to be more "fair" the the families and employers of reservists. Without the reservists being called up, there will be a further alienation of the citizen from US foreign policy. It will make it easier for future US administrations to deceive the public into supporting a war for falsely stated reasons.

It is noteworthy that the kinds of units Rumsfeld would convert are the very kinds of units needed to control a society. In other words, these plans would facilitate the administration a foreign country without the consent of that nation's inhabitants. If the goal is to make corporate colonialism the policy of the United States without having to be concerned about dissent at home, then this is a good way to go about it.

[coda]

3. Rumsfeld has effectively drafted the Reserves.

The guy is strongly against a draft but the shoddy treatment of the Reserves is going to kill recruitment.

They can go on about the fine print and that people knew what they were signing on to, but the Reservists know better. They're beginning to realize that there wasn't this big misjudgement about what was needed, and that Rummy's Office of Special Planning were fully aware, from the start, that they would hold the Reservists in Iraq far longer then they first indicated.

Do whatever it takes to get into Iraq while retaining unilateral control, then worry about politics/diplomacy later. That's what happens when the Sec of Defense is allowed to assume a half dozen other Cabinet positions, namely the State Department.

[Jack Rabbit]

5. Let's look beyond that

Rumsfeld knows better than most people what's happening. He actually understands it. That doesn't mean he isn't twisted.

He realizes that the reservists in Iraq are like the draftees in Vietnam. Many of them would be okay being yanked out of their comfortable, civilian lives and whisked off to fight a foreign war if it were clearly necessary. We wouldn't be seeing this dissension if Saddam, in addition to being the brutal tyrant that he was, was also a gneuine threat and Iraq were a cesspool of biochemical weapons like Rumsfeld and Powell told us; it would probably help further if instead of tearing down Iraqi society in order for it to be rebuilt by American contractors, we were facilitating the rebuilding of Iraqi society with Iraqi resources for the benefit of the Iraqi people.

There is no war on terror. This is a colonial war. Americans are not fundamentally colonialists. American political traditions are democratic and libertarian. Colonialism requires the brutal oppression of the natives least they rise up and liberate themselves.

Rumsfled and other members of the junta know that they have lied to drum up support for this war. Americans would not have supported this war if they knew the truth. Thus, he sees those American traditions as a problem. The American people, once properly informed, will not allow him and the multinational corporations who sponsor the junta to loot Iraq. The Iraqi people will take up arms and the American people will resent Americans being killed trying to prevent them from taking control of their own country. That Iraqis should control Iraq is something Americans see as the natural order of things. That many Americans whom the junta has put in harm's way see the big picture are people who desire to return home to their families and jobs sooner rather than later further aggrevates the dissension.

Therefore, Rumsfeld wants a professional army that can be rebuilt into an army for colonial occupation. Americans must not know the truth. Draftees in Vietnam and reservists in Iraq come home to join the peace movement. Professional soldiers simply do as their told in one war and then go on to fight the next.

[Vitruvius]

6. "...the units Rumsfeld would convert are the needed to control a society"

-- which would also facilitate a Rethug-military coup at HOME -- in the USA. In addition to facilitating reckless invasions & occupations of other countries -- as mentioned in the article.

Specificially, "Rumsfeld’s proposed 'rebalancing' would convert the most heavily used reserve jobs (military police, civil affairs, psychological operations) into active-duty Army positions..." Those are just the specialties needed to execute a coup and keep control afterwards.

Having these specialties in the reserves is a critical check-and-balance to prevent a Rethug-military coup; historically, coups are executed by professional military, because citizen-reservists are apt to say "no" if asked to execute a coup against their fellow-citizens.

Vitruvius

P.S: The cold warriors created a covert assassination capability -- to kill liberal foreign leaders they didn't like -- and we ended up with repeated assassinations of liberals here at home as a part of normal politics. Now the Bu$h Rethugs are creating a professional military all geared up to overthrow governments and occupy countries.

Historically, whatever dirty capabilities they create today "to use on foreigners" have ended up being used on us sooner-or-later.

[Jack Rabbit]

7. They won't need to do that at home

They will have succeeded in alienating the American people from its foreign policy. The only Americans outside the ruling class who will be concerned about foreign policy are thise who volunteer for military service. Meanwhile, the rest of their underlings just get their information from CNN and Fox. Even that worked pretty well in this war. They will continue to vote in elections, choosing among candidates whose campaign bills are paid by the same multinational corporations that benefit from invading developing countries.

A footnote on this discussion would concern the draft. There is a good argument for the draft in that it forces the involvement of the American people with their government's foreign policy. It might be noteworthy that in 1968, when the Vietnam War was a campaign issue, Senator McCarthy, for that reason, was opposed to ending the draft; most of his supporters were in favor of it. Richard Nixon won the election and continued to wage war against the Vietnamese; however, long before Americans withdrew from Vietnam, Nixon had ceased to send draftees there.

I don't know if I favor bringing back the draft, but that is a point to consider.

[Vitruvius]

8. They may have to do it at home -- esp. if the people realize that Bu$h is

looting them (tax cuts for the rich, giveaways to the rich, enabling looters like Enron, raiding the Social Security trust fund, using our tax dollars to subsidize big business in sending our jobs abroad) as well as looting Iraq.

The Bu$h administration is all about looting -- abroad and at home. People don't like to be looted -- so the Bu$hes need ways to keep them in line -- abroad and at home. And if the crooked media and the crooked voting machines aren't enough at home, they'll want a backup. A military backup.

Another way of saying the same thing is: the majority of Americans are downwardly mobile -- thanks to the Bu$h gang's mismanagement & looting. People don't like being downwardly mobile, people don't like being pushed out of the middle class -- and if they figure out who's doing it, Bu$h may need some military muscle to keep the people in line.

Or -- if the public turns against Bu$h because of his scandals and he's afraid he might lose his office and go to prison. If LIHOP/MIHOP came out, Bu$h & co. might fear worse punishment than prison -- in which case they'd have little to lose by attempting a coup.


Looters and probable murderers need muscle to stay in power and to avoid the just punishment for their crimes.

[0007]

4. Rumfsfield trys to fool us,

when in reality he is no better than a tyrant.