OPEN UNIVERSITY AUGUST 6, 2007
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By David A. Bell
The new Weekly Standard boasts a cover showing a U.S. soldier in Iraq, over the caption "Does Washington Have His Back?" The implication, of course, is that the politicians in Washington are letting our troops down, keeping them from completing their mission, holding them back from victory, etc. Sentiments of this sort have been commonplace on the pro-war right for years now, ranging in vehemence from the Standard's relatively polite version to the cries of "treason" that splatter continuously out of the loonier radio talk shows. In fact, these sentiments have become so common that few people even notice how deeply pernicious they really are.
It should an obvious point that in democracies, elected governments decide on policy and armed forces implement it. If you believe that armed forces should be doing the deciding--whether because of their greater expertise, or the moral superiority that comes from their greater willingness to sacrifice--then you are not a democrat (small d), but a militarist. In democracies, elected governments can certainly let their armed forces down. They can do so, for instance, by giving them a job and then failing to provide them with sufficient resources to accomplish it, as many argue the Bush administration has done in Iraq. But elected governments--and last I heard, our own included something called the "legislative branch"--cannot by definition let the troops down by debating policy, or changing it. This is the government's job. It can do it unwisely, but the fact remains that the troops' own job is simply to carry the policy out, however misguided it may be.
To say that "Washington" is letting the troops down by debating a change of course in the war comes dangerously close to implying that the troops, rather than "Washington," should be deciding whether the war continues. Of course the expertise and opinions of the armed forces should always be taken into account. But to suggest that the politicians should do more than this--that they should cease debate and let the troops "do their job," "complete their mission," and the like--is not "supporting the troops." It is betraying the spirit of the democratic constitution those troops have sworn to defend.
7 comments
While I would agree that it is appropriate for Congress to debate whether we should set as a goal bringing our troops home safely, putting a lid on the violence in Iraq or controlling transnational threats based in Iraq, should Congress accept a mission other than just bringing the troops home, imposing restrictions on tactics would be letting the troops down every bit as much as short-changing them on materiel. The problem we're having in the debate is that one side is basing its preferred strategy on what is compatible with its preferred tactics rather than what can reasonably achieve their stated objectives. To provide an example, a popular position is Congress today is that our troops should be limited to a small number of defined missions, one of them being counterterrorism, and that they not be allowed to be based in the center of Iraq. However, all historical experience shows that among attempts to counteract insurgents, whose modus operandi are very similar to those of the terrorists, the successful ones have established and expanded secure zones for the population and the unsuccessful ones have focused on force protection by keeping their troops in large bases. If Congress wants our troops to interdict the terrorists based in Iraq, it should allow them to implement a strategy that has historically worked and not dictate one with no track record of working. To do otherwise is letting the troops down.
- sighthnd
August 6, 2007 at 10:23am
sighthnd makes a good point. However, it is worth noting that for most of this conflict, actually, _both_ sides of the debate have been guilty of short-changing the troops by "basing [their] preferred strategy on what is compatible with [their] preferred tactics rather than what can reasonably achieve their stated objectives." Let's not forget that the shape of Iraq today was created largely by the civilian leadership of the military under the former Secretary of Defense, who consistently implied in his statements and put into force by his decisions the notion that what was most important was adhering to a particular tactical ideology, mainly one which could be summarized as "small, light, fast." Rumsfeld wanted to prove that the U.S. military of today and of the future could fight and win all over the world by abandoning the old-fashioned notions of how much military equipment and how many troops are necessary. The position sighthnd mentions is actually an extension of the same mistake, made for a different reason. But the point holds nevertheless. Because policy can intrude into tactics, and, I'd add, because it can render useful or useless, meaningful or meaningless the actions and sacrifices of the military, because it can point the military in one direction one minute and back away from it the next, policy-making certainly has the capacity for "letting the troops down."
- trajanmcgill
August 6, 2007 at 1:04pm
I agree completely with David Bell's central point---and so do the writers associated with The Weekly Standard. He is taking them out of context. The Left normally employs the argument that only soldiers have a right to speak about Iraq and the war on terrorism. Rarely, if ever, is this a conservative position.
- thomsondavid
August 6, 2007 at 1:17pm
David Bell is referring to two Weekly Standard articles, "The Turn" and "the Iraq Shuffle." Is he taking them out of context? Well, read the articles for yourself. They are both posted on The Weekly Standard's website---free of charge.
- thomsondavid
August 6, 2007 at 1:27pm
I absolutely agree with you on "the shape of Iraq today was created largely by the civilian leadership of the military under the former Secretary of Defense, who consistently implied in his statements and put into force by his decisions the notion that what was most important was adhering to a particular tactical ideology, mainly one which could be summarized as 'small, light, fast.'" The only issue is what to do to correct what Rumsfeld and his followers have done. One approach is that we should evacuate the people (Americans and whatever Iraqi we choose to include) and equipment we choose to evacuate and not worry about what remains. I would disagree with that approach, but it is legitimate in that it does not claim to do anything without allowing the means to do it. However, if you intend to do anything more than that, and a clear majority in Congress has expressed a need to combat terrorism, then you need to authorize methods that have a chance of getting that task done, and the only test of that that I am aware of historically have different methods have fared in comparable situations.
- sighthnd
August 6, 2007 at 9:44pm
on the Weekly Standard site, not only is Bell not taking them out of context, but the Weekly Standard articles are not truthful to themselves. Of particular import is the claim that Scott Thomas Beauchamp was 'lying' because all of the incidents in his Shock Troops diarist happened in Kuwait. In fact only one of these incidents happened in Kuwait, as the clarification makes clear (the one with the deformed female soldier). Too bad the Weekly Standard can't be honest in its own reporting. It would make its own arguments more credible. But in deliberately turning its face away from the horrors of the war, it is also deliberately seeing only what it wants to see -- much like it claims the war's detractors are doing.
- thufir
August 6, 2007 at 10:53pm
Honestly, when I read that headline, I thought, "Wow, even the Weekly Standard is trashing Bush's foreign policy." Alas, hope is ephemeral.
- guyminuslife
August 7, 2007 at 12:46am