Extravagant Creature-Comforts for Our Soldiers in Iraq. Is there is such thing as Too Much Comfort?

[Mugsy]

"Extravagant Creature-Comforts for Our Soldiers in Iraq. Is there is such thing as Too Much Comfort?"
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet" - 3/8/07

Last January, I wrote about all the special creature comforts being provided to our soldiers in Iraq (from fast food to jewelry). It is difficult (if not impossible) to talk about such things without sounding like “You don’t support the troops! You want to deny them a few creature-comforts?” Of course not, but there’s “niceties”, and then there are “extravagances”, and when those extravagances could get someone killed, someone needs to say something (I highly recommend reading my previous Op/Ed, “Dying for a Cupcake“, first if you don’t know of what it is I’m talking about).

(...)

Not wanting to sound like an unappreciative jerk wanting to deny our troops in Iraq whatever we can do for them to make life in a warzone more bearable, I asked friend and former Vietnam Vet “LongFisher” to comment on some screenshots I took of the video, which I have arranged into a slideshow here:

There are several things that disturb me, an ex-Marine Infantry Officer, about the splendor the soldiers and Marines enjoy at their bases.

Firstly, as you so correctly point out, the logistical train which makes all that splendor possible is long and complex and costly to maintain. It’s not just costly in dollars. It’s costly in lives too as most of that stuff must travel via roadways and the insurgents in Iraq have made roadways very, very dangerous indeed. The fewer the convoys needed to bring that unnecessary stuff into the country and then distribute it to the bases the fewer would be the casualties to protect those convoys.

Secondly, there’s a problem with the basing system altogether. Essentially, you can’t fight an insurgency by venturing forth from bases once in a while...

(more)

[razors edge]

1. Abandon the Pizza Huts

and give em some Budweiser. And screw that under 21 bullshit, I joined the marines at 17 and never got carded on base. Telling someone they are old enough to be blown up for Freedom (copyright *) but too young for a beer sounds ignorant.

[IndyOp]

2. Holy Hell. Mugsy, did you see Chalmers Johnson on

DemocracyNow! on 2/27/07? He was interviewed about his new book and commented on the luxury of bases in Japan. I mention this because it underscores the points you are making about how having troops live in luxury isolates them from the local population and leads them to feel superior - making abuses far more likely.

DemocracyNow! interview with Chalmers Johnson...

In the southernmost prefecture of Japan, Okinawa, site of the Battle of Okinawa in 1945, there’s a small island, smaller than Kawaii in the Hawaiian islands, with 1,300,000 Okinawans. There's thirty-seven American military bases there. The revolt against them has been endemic for fifty years. The governor is always saying to the local military commander, “You're living on the side of a volcano that could explode at any time.” It has exploded in the past. What this means is just an endless, nonstop series of sexually violent crimes, drunken brawls, hit-and-run accidents, environmental pollution, noise pollution, helicopters falling out of the air from Futenma Marine Corps Air Base and falling onto the campus of Okinawa International University. One thing after another. Back in 1995, we had one of the most serious incidents, when two Marines and a sailor abducted, beat and raped a twelve-year-old girl. This led to the largest demonstrations against the United States since we signed the security treaty with Japan decades ago. It's this kind of thing.

I first went to Okinawa in 1996. I was invited by then-Governor Ota in the wake of the rape incident. I’ve devoted my life to the study of Japan, but like many Japanese, many Japanese specialists, I had never been in Okinawa. I was shocked by what I saw. It was the British Raj. It was like Soviet troops living in East Germany, more comfortable than they would be back at, say, Oceanside, California, next door to Camp Pendleton. And it was a scandal in every sense. My first reaction -- I’ve not made a secret of it -- that I was, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, certainly a Cold Warrior. My first explanation was that this is simply off the beaten track, that people don't come down here and report it. As I began to study the network of bases around the world and the incidents that have gone with them and the military coups that have brought about regime change and governments that we approve of, I began to realize that Okinawa was not unusual; it was, unfortunately, typical.

These bases, as I say, are spread everywhere. The most recent manifestation of the American military empire is the decision by the Pentagon now, with presidential approval, of course, to create another regional command in Africa. This may either be at the base that we have in Djibouti at the Horn of Africa. It may well be in the Gulf of Guinea, where we are prospecting for oil, and the Navy would very much like to put ourselves there. It is not at all clear that we should have any form of American military presence in Africa, but we're going to have an enlarged one.

Chalmers Johnson: “Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic"
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/27/1454229

[Mugsy]

4. Glad to see I'm not the only one botherd by this.

Thanks for the extra info.

It really is symptomatic of all the Contractors at the Millitary Money-trough. :(

[razors edge]

9. I was in Okinawa in 82

and 84, the Air Force has beautiful barracks, the put us up in a condemned barracks was better than anything we had seen before, 2 man rooms, coffee maker and a momma-son to make the bed and fix the coffee every morning, and this was the enlisted barracks.

[mike_c]

3. it's not combat, it's garrison duty, and you've got to keep the centurians happy...

...or they might go native.

[Mugsy]

5. Happiness

It's more about keeping the *Contractors* happy, don'tcha think? :)

[Mugsy]

6. A few photos

Here are a few photos from the slideshow so you can see what I mean:

[Mugsy]

8. Whose bringing it in? How's itgetting home?

Richard Perle talked about trucking in ice from Kuwait with military helicopter air cover in January's "Vanity Fair".

[Javaman]

7. The question that needs to be asked is:

exactly which troops are enjoying these comforts? Is the rear or the front line troops.

Some how I think it's the rear.

And if it's the front, well, why not? they have to spend time getting shot at and blown up because of moron*, the troops could stand to have a bit of comfort for R&R.