Tweet
Re: Am I Right to be Angry About This?
Yeah, you should be angry. Outraged in fact.
At the chickenchokers in the white house and the whole policy making chain on the occupation, not on the grunts who are doing their jobs and getting ass****ed from both directions.
The candidness of the interviewees is rather interesting - seems it's already "What can they do to me, send me to Iraq?" syndrome over there.
(a) The MP's and others can only "get to work" if they have reasonable tools, supplies, support, and leadership on the ground with concrete goals. What you have is the mother****er of all cluster****s.
(b) You immediately have an intractible problem with the Iraqi police. "You can't arm them because you can't trust them" doesn't lead to good working relationships - the Iraqi cops are regarded as lackeys of the Americans, fools for putting up with disrespect, so they get it on both ends. The grunts understand the Iraqi people being pissed off with **** living conditions - no jobs, not enough money to buy the food that rots because you can't keep it cool, nothing to do except get pissed off in the heat, and no real signs of improvement. Nobody wants to be a target for people who you can understand why they're pissed off, because you're pissed off for the same reasons and you're just a foreign occupier.
(c) It doesn't matter if the Sergeant has an attitude. These pukes are reservists, so most of them have some experience with the real world. A *itching NCO in this sort of situation just indicates that he's got a clue too, (after all, they all know each other from their CONUS reserve duty), instead of just trying to put sunshine up their asses.
(d) It's dangerous when soldiers stop *****ing. It generally means they no longer give a ****, and all sorts of things can go wrong from that point.
(e) *****ing is currently the only R&R they have. That or shooting something.
(f) Your DC buddies have been so busy impressing each other with how they could beat the Iraqis with one hand in their pants, that they've decided they can continue the show and prove their manhood about how few troops they can use to occupy as well. Most of the troops have a fair idea of how many total are in different units and throughout the Army, so it's not too hard to imagine no rotations - especially when you have no official info as to rotation policy, because as yet, we don't have ****ing clue how long we're going to keep at this FUBAR, so there is no ****ing rotation policy. That lesson was learned a hell of long time ago - how bad for morale it is to stick troops in some ****hole "for the duration"
Unfortunately, all the precious ideologues who run the show haven't learned that. Shinseki was right about the occupation requirements, and he was publicly reamed by Wolfowitz, who was out of line (he's not in the chain of command), but was supported. So when Shinseki finally grew some nads, he got reamed for it - that discourages other officers from bothering to speak up about reality.
(g) With the onset of summer and the slow pace of improvement, you have a real problem building up - the geopolitical cost to the US, and and the cost in terms of encouraging Islamic radicals, is far too high to ever consider backing down. The US has to achieve a positive result here, but is not committing enough resources to do it, and is too ideologically hidebound. Nobody is going to wait for a bread and butter, picket fences, Republican fantasyland market economy to develop. We're already busting people for corruption, but in dysfunctional economies (like a decade of sanctions, or now), the corrupt are the only ones who can get stuff done.
With nothing to do, lots of heat, lots of guns, no money, no jobs (back to nothing to do), and nothing working, you're going to have trouble - especially when you can blame it on uniformed foreigners. Kill a few of them, they respond in kind, you hate the infidels more, they hate your ass more, and this whole "beacon of democracy in the Middle East" thing gets turned into a complete pile of goat**** for everyone to see.
Not at all.
LOTM - regulars realize there's a lot more that can be done to keep their asses in line, so they're not inclined to talk freely to reporters. There's nothing to gain, and maybe plenty to lose by doing so.
Yeah, you should be angry. Outraged in fact.
At the chickenchokers in the white house and the whole policy making chain on the occupation, not on the grunts who are doing their jobs and getting ass****ed from both directions.
The candidness of the interviewees is rather interesting - seems it's already "What can they do to me, send me to Iraq?" syndrome over there.
Originally posted by DanS
Here's an article about a military police sargeant and his experiences in policing a part of Baghdad.
After reading about this, I would say that the sargeant needs to stop B & M-ing about the situation that he's in and get to work. His bad attitude--after only two months in Iraq--is killing any progress that he or anyone makes on the ground. Also, how could any of his troops take a positive attitude, when his sargeant has such a bad one?
Here's an article about a military police sargeant and his experiences in policing a part of Baghdad.
After reading about this, I would say that the sargeant needs to stop B & M-ing about the situation that he's in and get to work. His bad attitude--after only two months in Iraq--is killing any progress that he or anyone makes on the ground. Also, how could any of his troops take a positive attitude, when his sargeant has such a bad one?
(b) You immediately have an intractible problem with the Iraqi police. "You can't arm them because you can't trust them" doesn't lead to good working relationships - the Iraqi cops are regarded as lackeys of the Americans, fools for putting up with disrespect, so they get it on both ends. The grunts understand the Iraqi people being pissed off with **** living conditions - no jobs, not enough money to buy the food that rots because you can't keep it cool, nothing to do except get pissed off in the heat, and no real signs of improvement. Nobody wants to be a target for people who you can understand why they're pissed off, because you're pissed off for the same reasons and you're just a foreign occupier.
(c) It doesn't matter if the Sergeant has an attitude. These pukes are reservists, so most of them have some experience with the real world. A *itching NCO in this sort of situation just indicates that he's got a clue too, (after all, they all know each other from their CONUS reserve duty), instead of just trying to put sunshine up their asses.
(d) It's dangerous when soldiers stop *****ing. It generally means they no longer give a ****, and all sorts of things can go wrong from that point.
(e) *****ing is currently the only R&R they have. That or shooting something.
(f) Your DC buddies have been so busy impressing each other with how they could beat the Iraqis with one hand in their pants, that they've decided they can continue the show and prove their manhood about how few troops they can use to occupy as well. Most of the troops have a fair idea of how many total are in different units and throughout the Army, so it's not too hard to imagine no rotations - especially when you have no official info as to rotation policy, because as yet, we don't have ****ing clue how long we're going to keep at this FUBAR, so there is no ****ing rotation policy. That lesson was learned a hell of long time ago - how bad for morale it is to stick troops in some ****hole "for the duration"
Unfortunately, all the precious ideologues who run the show haven't learned that. Shinseki was right about the occupation requirements, and he was publicly reamed by Wolfowitz, who was out of line (he's not in the chain of command), but was supported. So when Shinseki finally grew some nads, he got reamed for it - that discourages other officers from bothering to speak up about reality.
(g) With the onset of summer and the slow pace of improvement, you have a real problem building up - the geopolitical cost to the US, and and the cost in terms of encouraging Islamic radicals, is far too high to ever consider backing down. The US has to achieve a positive result here, but is not committing enough resources to do it, and is too ideologically hidebound. Nobody is going to wait for a bread and butter, picket fences, Republican fantasyland market economy to develop. We're already busting people for corruption, but in dysfunctional economies (like a decade of sanctions, or now), the corrupt are the only ones who can get stuff done.
With nothing to do, lots of heat, lots of guns, no money, no jobs (back to nothing to do), and nothing working, you're going to have trouble - especially when you can blame it on uniformed foreigners. Kill a few of them, they respond in kind, you hate the infidels more, they hate your ass more, and this whole "beacon of democracy in the Middle East" thing gets turned into a complete pile of goat**** for everyone to see.
From those who have been on the ground in these kinds of situations, are my expectations realistic?
LOTM - regulars realize there's a lot more that can be done to keep their asses in line, so they're not inclined to talk freely to reporters. There's nothing to gain, and maybe plenty to lose by doing so.
(I rarely ask people to cite, and only if they make direct cialms (this guy said this, this mountain is so tall) becuase I assume most people here do not come here to lie. Now, if you want a strict citation regime, fine, but as I said, you start)
He's on the ground dealing with it on a daily basis. What can they do, send him to Iraq? 
BTW, the Iranians have far more to maneuver for and far more to gain in the regional scene by playing the US. If they have to sell out a few radicals who aren't any use to them, why wouldn't they?
Comment