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The US Military is 'Exhausted'
The call for over 30,000 more troops to be sent to Afghanistan is a travesty for the people of that country who have already suffered eight brutal years of occupation.
It is also a harsh blow to the US soldiers facing imminent deployment.
As Barack Obama, the US president, gears up for a further escalation that will bring the total number of troops in Afghanistan to over 100,000, he faces a military force that has been exhausted and overextended by fighting two wars.
Many from within the ranks are openly declaring that they have had enough, allying with anti-war veterans and activists in calling for an end to the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with some active duty soldiers publicly refusing to deploy.
This growing movement of military refusers is a voice of sanity in a country slipping deeper into unending war.
"They shifted me from one war to the next"
Eddie Falcon, Iraq and Afghanistan veteran
The architects of this war would be well-advised to listen to the concerns of the soldiers and veterans tasked with carrying out their war policies on the ground.
Many of those being deployed have already faced multiple deployments to combat zones: the 101st Airborne Division, which will be deployed to Afghanistan in early 2010, faces its fifth combat tour since 2002.
"They are just going to start moving the soldiers who already served in Iraq to Afghanistan, just like they shifted me from one war to the next," said Eddie Falcon, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Soldiers are going to start coming back with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), missing limbs, problems with alcohol, and depression."
Many of these troops are still suffering the mental and physical fallout from previous deployments.
Rates of PTSD and traumatic brain injury among troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan have been disproportionately high, with a third of returning troops reporting mental problems and 18.5 per cent of all returning service members battling either PTSD or depression, according to a study by the Rand Corporation.
Marine suicides doubled between 2006 and 2007, and army suicides are at the highest rate since records were kept in 1980.
Resistance in the ranks
US army soldiers are refusing to serve at the highest rate since 1980, with an 80 per cent increase in desertions since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to the Associated Press.
These troops refuse deployment for a variety of reasons: some because they ethically oppose the wars, some because they have had a negative experience with the military, and some because they cannot psychologically survive another deployment, having fallen victim to what has been termed "Broken Joe" syndrome.
Over 150 GIs have publicly refused service and spoken out against the wars, all risking prison and some serving long sentences, and an estimated 250 US war resisters are currently taking refuge in Canada.
This resistance includes two Fort Hood, Texas, soldiers, Victor Agosto and Travis Bishop, who publicly resisted deployment to Afghanistan this year, facing prison sentences as a result, with Bishop still currently detained.
"There is no way I will deploy to Afghanistan," wrote Agosto, upon refusing his service last May. "The occupation is immoral and unjust."
Within the US military, GI resisters and anti-war veterans have organised through broad networks of veteran and civilian alliances, as well as through IVAW, comprised of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
This organisation, which is over 1,700 strong, with members across the world, including active-duty members on military bases, is opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and openly supports GI resistance.
"Iraq Veterans Against the War calls on Obama to end the war in Afghanistan (and Iraq) by withdrawing troops immediately and unconditionally," wrote Jose Vasquez, the executive director of IVAW, in a December 2 open letter.
"It's not time for our brothers and sisters in arms to go to Afghanistan. It's time for them to come home."
No clear progress
GI coffee houses have sprung up at several military bases around the country. In the tradition of the GI coffee houses of the Vietnam war era, these cafes provide a space where active duty troops can speak freely and access resources about military refusal, PTSD, and veteran and GI movements against the war.
"Here at Fort Lewis, we've lost 20 soldiers from the most recent round of deployments," said Seth Menzel, an Iraq combat veteran and founding organiser of Coffee Strong, a GI coffee house at the sprawling Washington army base.
"We've seen resistance to deployment, mainly based on the fact that soldiers have been deployed so many times they don't have the patience to do it again."
As the occupation of Afghanistan passes its eighth year, with no clear progress, goals that remain elusive, and a high civilian death count, this war is coming to resemble the Iraq war that has been roundly condemned by world and US public opinion.
The never-ending nature of this conflict belies the real project of establishing US dominance in the Middle East and control of the region's resources, at the expense of the Afghan civilians and US soldiers being placed in harm's way.
The voices of refusal coming from within the US military send a powerful message that soldiers will not be fodder for an unjust and unnecessary war. By withdrawing their labour from a war that depends on their consent, these soldiers have the power to help bring this war to an end, as did their predecessors in the GI resistance movement against the Vietnam war.
And the longer the war in Afghanistan drags on - the more lives that are lost and destroyed - the more resistance we will see coming from within the ranks.
Sarah Lazare is an anti-militarist and GI resistance organiser with Dialogues Against Militarism and Courage to Resist. She is interested in connecting struggles for justice at home with global movements against war and empire.
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106 Comments so far
Show AllTime for the pro-war politicians to 'lead by example', hop on a plan together with some of their relatives and spend some time in Iraq or Afghanistan to win some hearts and minds. And if they don't go voluntarily, they should be forced to go.
Every representative and senator who votes to continue funding for Iraq and Afghanistan, regardless of age or infirmity, should be required to perform a tour of duty with the grunts, not at the rear, but with the grunts. That would be "putting your money where your mouth is".
some one correct me if I'm wrong....but didn't Obama already send 20+k troops to afgamistan? so this is the 2nd increase in troops?
read "3 cups of tea" or "stones into schools"
Then consider we spend over 18,000 per man woman and child in Afgan - where the average wage is 500 per year and the answer is easy......
subsidize schools and health clinics throughout Afganistan....BUT make the afgans build and run the things on their own.... while we simply pay for the building materials, books, medicines, wages for the nurses, doctors and teachers and let's see if that isn't more effective than killing to make them love us.
Greg Mortensen should have won the Nobel Peace Prize!
Viet Nam cost enough that we could have given every man, woman, and child in the country enough money to have them set for life AND a plane ticket to anywhere else in the word they wanted to go, but then the contractors would not have been as rich.
The movement of the Cherokees west was effected by contractors who let the Indians starve and kept the money necessary for a humane removal (if such a thing is possible)
In the case of the Cherokee nation , the Supreme Court of the United States of America ruled the constitutional rights of the Cherokee were being violated and it would be illegal to relocate the Cherokee.
Andrew Jackson simply ignored the ruling and stated "let me see them try to enforce the ruling".
The soldiers that shot dead any Cherokee that resisted or that removed them from their lands to haul them to Indian territory WERE breaking the law. That no one did anything about it is no different then no one doing anything about trying the Contracters that were torturing people.
The same holds true with the Illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. They were violations of international law and to treaties to which the USA is a signatory. Following orders to deploy and killing Afghanis is no different then following orders to run The Cherokee off their lands.
to gw; good commentary. even then, our soldiers were fighting for someone else's profit. we paid jackson's boys to run indians off prime agricultural land, and then, lo and behold, the state of georgia sells the land to slaveholders for pennies an acre! same with custer and the gold miners and railroaders. we paid his seventh calvary to make the west safe for capitalism! and when we were finished conquering this continent, well, you know the rest of the story.
The trick here is of course trying to get these monies in past the corrupt Government officials to the people that really need it. You see much the same sort of corruption at even a larger scale in the USA with taxpayer dollars filling the coffers of Corporations and banks as the people tossed into the streets.
One might suggest using NGOS. There a problem there as well. The personel working for the NGO require security. This means the Military forces of the West can justify their prescence in order to "protect" the NGO.
Add to that the fact that many NGOS are revealed as fronts for the CIA and Intel services of the western powers and we end up with what we were trying to prevent. A fix via Militarism violence and occupation.
I am all in favor of your suggestion of helping the peoples of Afghanistan directly. How can it be ensured the help gets TO the right people?
How about paying for building materials to fix our own schools, and pay for books and teacher wages in the US? I think setting an example that shows we know how to take care of our own would go a long way in convincing others that we know what we are doing.
Bring back the draft. Next stop: Afganiescam.
How many times have we heard " They volunteered for this ". Having an all volunteer army allows people to skate over the issues of the illegality and imorality of these wars. These soldiers have a moral and legal obligation to refuse to participate.John Demjanjuk is on trial for not refusing illegal orders some 50 years ago yet we punish those who choose not to obey illegal orders today.
The ones that I personally feel bad for is the National Guard. I'm sure a lot of them figured they'd sign up for military duty where they would do things domestically like disaster relief, only to find themselves getting shipped halfway around the world to fight a foreign war.
Great point and one I had not considered
thanx
Eight years ago I would have agreed with you, but now, anyone who joins the Guard MUST know what they are getting into. How could they not know now?
That is what I was referring to, people that signed up early in this debacle. I think why most sign up now is that it is the only job around for most folks in this sick joke that is masquerading as a economy.
The Mad Loon
Very well said. One has to wonder why parades are not given in this country for those soldiers who have had the courage and intelligence to say NO to American imperialism. But Americans do not wish to be labeled unpatriotic by daring to actually challenge what the government is telling them. They and the soldiers in the military today would do far better to listen to the words of former Green Beret Master Sergeant Donald Duncan who pointed out in the powerful documentary Sir! No Sir! that:
"I was doing it right but I wasn't doing right."
The military personnel today should also take to heart the wise words of former marine Dan Felushko who deserted from his unit in 2003 because, as he was quoted in Robert Fantina's Desertion and the American Soldier:
"I didn't want 'Died, deluded in Iraq' over my gravestone."
That above quote should, of course, apply to the current stupidity carried out by the American military in Afghanistan, also.
A far better way to help the people in the Middle East is by carrying out the advice of a bumper sticker:
"BOOKS NOT BOMBS"
Screw the US military. They volunteered for it so send them over there.
It's imperative that we keep them at war. This war is making billions of contracting dollars and you're suggesting that we end it to let some poor soldier rest? He can rest when he's dead. It's not like we would lose an upper class citizen anyway and who cares about some Afghani? Get over the human element people and get on the money wagon!
Note: This message brought to you by the Obama (bush) adminstration.
Brilliant, couldn't have put it better myself. If you volunteer to kill, you deserve to die.
Certainly Mortensen has the secret to peace in that region of the world. Of course, unlike most Americans he is fluent in their language. A military occupation without building infrastructure is never going to work. Roads, indoor plumbing, schools, and information technology will change the Afghan culture. Of course, the world has to shun religions that practice intolerance, namely the fundamentalists of each who rely so much on mythological nonsense to inform them about how to behave.
As long as we can afford a bloated ineffective military, we should be able to afford creating the jobs and prosperity that comes with building and not bombing. No matter how intelligent our troops might be, they are out of their element trying to act like police in a country of which they are woefully ignorant of culture and language.
Just like Vietnam, we are putting young, poorly trained, scared troops with automatic weapons to "fight" a largely unseen enemy and then wonder why they hate us so much. However, in Vietnam the biggest mistake was to prop up the wrong side of a civil war. All of the dire predictions of falling dominos have proven to be totally stupid. In Afghanistan our policy is not informed enough by the history of tribal conflicts that exist. Like other empires we are trying to back thugs of our own choosing not realizing that foreign occupation resistance is what Afghanistan does best. The Persians, Greeks, Romans, Brits, and Soviets met their Waterloo there.
It is too early in the Obama Administration to assess his Afghan policies. If we are successful at raising the standard of living there, we will experience a "victory" beyond what was possible with Bush Jr.'s holy war ways. Our Israeli-centric policy in the region has to change dramatically before peace will come. Unfortunately, almost every politician is hopelessly in pocket of Zionists fanatics.
The draft will be back soon enough. The only alternative is ending the wars, and that just ain't gonna happen.
I'm saving up to transplant my grandkids in some decent country.
I hope the US military is exhausted so they will stop trying to dominate the world but I'm sure they will just hire more for profit killers to do their dirty work.
Stop complaining. Reinstate the Draft. Problem solved!
We'll need new cannon fodder for Yemen.
There are two ways to stop this war:
1. Raise taxes to pay for it and
2. Start a draft
Either or both of these will enrage the public and put protesting in the streets.
I thank the war resisters and applaud their courage and moral sensibilities! It may be helpful if more citizens from around the world show their support and admiration for these courageous war resisters! I welcome all war resisters to Canada!
from a Canadian
Shame your government doesn't agree with you.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Cindy Sheehan was always right on this issue and still is. Even when the rest of the celebrity-Left were whining about giving Otoken a chance ALL YEAR until the AfPak escalation about which they have since been spinning their thumbs.
But because Sheehan dared to question the thoroughly questionable official line on the 9/11 attacks she was denigrated by "progressive in name only" & neo-con media nitpickers, flakes and global warming deniers--like the self-promoting former Wall Street Journal columnist and unaccomplished activist wannabe Alexander Cockburn--in league with other cornflakes including the likes of Chris Matthews & Faux News. [Hey, I read several writers on Counterpunch.org too, but have you read Cockburn's lastest slur of Sheehan as a kook and 9/11 conspiracist or any of his numerous pro-global warming rants? Cockburn has a serious problem with working up the energy to read scientific evidence. With lazy-minded media fools like him proclaiming themselves as progressives who needs enemies? At least he doesn't have a following on the scale of his ideological mirror opposite Bill O'Reilly]
No doubt the fact that Cindy is a woman had something to do with her systematic media diminution, since her most ardent critics, "Left" or Right are invariably old white men. She is, in fact, one of the only consistent American socio-cultural figures of any real historical substance in our time.
Alexander Cockburn is an idiot. Darn, I didn't mean to compliment him.
Metal and Civis Americanus
Very well said. David Ray Griffin does an excellent job of taking Cockburn and other left wing gatekeepers to the woodshed in his intelligently and persuasively argued book Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory.
Yeah, I have similar feelings about Cockburn. I too still read Counterpunch and even Cockburn, but I do so fully aware of his analytical limitations. Same as I do a lot of people these days because many people are in denial about one or another aspect of our present global and national crises.
I join the Cockburn consensus here.
He's one of those writers/analysts that must be taken with more than a grain of salt-- it's more like a pinch of salts because of his idiosyncratic lapses.
Like gathering wild mushrooms, I guess-- once one learns to avoid the poisonous varieties, one may proceed to harvest the edible kind.
· Yr Obd't Servant
"Oct 13 2008
The Department of Defense (DOD) has announced its recruiting statistics for the active and reserve components for fiscal year 2008.
All of the active duty and reserve branches met or exceeded their recruiting goals for the fiscal year.
DOD is calling this the strongest recruiting year they've had since fiscal year 2004. Notably, the Army and Marine Corps had raised their recruiting goals for fiscal 2008, as both services continue to grow their ranks to meet the demands of the wars on two fronts. In fact, the Army was the sole active-duty service to exceed its goal by a full 1 percent, recruiting 517 more soldiers than its 80,000 target. "
"Fiscal Year 2008 Recruiting Statistics to Date
(October 1, 2007 to September 30, 2008)
FY 2008 Recruiting
Componant Accessions Goal Percent
Army
80,517 80,000 101
Navy
38,485 38,419 100
Marine Corps
37,991 37,967 100
Air Force
27,848 27,800 100
Air National Guard
10,749 8,548 126
Air Force Reserve 7,323 6,963 105"
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/2008recruitingstatistics/a/september.htm
Ol' Barack has unemployment up since the above, therefore, recruitment will remain strong to support his foreign criminal wars.
This is such a sad statement on our country. The only "jobs" available are those that teach hatred, bigotry, and killing. Our young people enter a lottery. They accept a salary and health care, with the possibility that they will survive and be healty enough, physically, mentally, and emotionally, to get their education paid for. That's the first place prize. Second, third, and all others include the possibilities of brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, death, or loss of limb, mind, or soul.
The architects of this war would be well-advised to listen to the concerns of the soldiers . . .
If there's one thing you can be certain of it's the undeniable fact that the architects of this war don't give a damn about the soldiers. The soldiers' concerns will never be listened to. President Blanc de Noir is a man sitting on top of a golden tower, eating grapes one at a time, watching the people pass by below and considering them to be nothing more than ants. Now and then he tosses down a grape and watches the ants scramble for it. He chuckles. Rahm Emanuel chuckles. The First Lady chuckles. Hillary Clinton chuckles. It's oh so funny watching the worthless scum scramble about. Blanc de Noir grows bored, makes a dismissive gesture with his hand, lifts his chin and repeats for the umpteenth time his Nobel Peace Prize speech while the attending toadies coo and fawn.
The number of times I have called soldiers pawns and have then been jumped upon by the raving righteous as being disrespectful and unpatriotic (and other unprintable descriptions), but that is par for a militarized society that honors wars of aggression above all else.
LMAO! Great immagination Shib!
Great stuff. I am such a fan!
yes shib I'm imagining all of this very well articulated gathering of the vainlies and I can see them all, strutting around in roman attire.I can hear the nobel peace prize speech and he is clutching the prize money,fondly( which he traded in for gold coins) and he is eating the grapes in between admiring himself in the adjacent over sized mirror.
Why are we still talking about this as though it is anything but a Money/Power/Oil grab? Ending this so called "war" is not in the plan.
Here is the US position on use of nuclear weapons as of 2002:
"The United States reaffirms that it will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapons States parties to the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of nuclear weapons EXCEPT IN THE CASE OF AN INVASION OR ANY OTHER ATTACK ON THE UNITED STATES, ITS TERRITORIES, ITS ARMED FORCES OR ANY OTHER TROOPS, its allies or States towards which it has a security commitment carried out or sustained by such a non-nuclear weapon-state..."
This very open-ended and flexible position would allow us to drop a nuclear bomb, or at least threaten to, if we really wanted to end the "war". What is far more profitable is a long, drawn-out expenditure of taxpayer money persuing a nebulous and ever-changing goal.
But we are sorry about those poor "troops" with all those mental problems, so we're working hard on some expensive new drugs to help them out...
May I also just say that I abhor and despise the use of the word "troop" to denote just one soldier? Troop is a plural word of which there is no singular form. A soldier is a person, a troop is more like a thing. Nice bit of psychological manipulation IMHO.
I'm not attacking this author, just feeling cranky, I guess.
An Attila the Hen grammer checker! Bah Humbug! That will sure help a disabled vet.
I said I was cranky, didn't I?
But mostly I mentioned it to point out the way it de-humanizes people. Shit, I wish we could mention every man and woman in the service by name instead of calling them the "troops" or even worse, a "troop".
Sioux Rose
Hi, Elaine: If you read my above post in response to AMFORTAS, you will realize why you felt cranky. This Christmas hardly carried the stellar light reminiscent of any "joya noel." Heavy gravity, sister, heavy gravity as Kurt Vonnegut once related, although it's doubtful he understood the astrological implications behind that sentiment.
Hi cranky elainem. Troop is not a plural noun, it is a singular collective noun. Usage such as 'a troop of soldiers' and '55 troops of soldiers' illustrate that troop is singular and troops is plural.
In common usage troops is often used to replace soldiers, in this usage there is no singular and troops is a plural noun.
Now let me check Websters: yes it appears the rules haven't changed.
Cranky old prof.
Thanks for saying it better. And it's nice to know I'm not the only one who's cranky. I found a good article on the subject here http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/dictionary/2062/
if you're interested.
Thanks for the definitions.
"A crowd can do nothing, though every single member does the thing, because a crowd (and an army) is an abstraction and has no hands"----SK
'Exhausted', you say? I worked Christmas Day (I am a nurse) with many of these poh soldiers suffering substance abuse and mental health issues,and it was the typical fair for them. Pills, TV, splatter style films, and turkey. I dare say that their many victims in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere had a day much more 'exhausting', and besides, the condition that this group of kids have today is much the same they had before they got signed up into the Pentagon welfare system.
I'm just so fed up with the faux liberal weeping faux patriotically for Our Boys and girls. Get a grip on it.... PLEASE.
pilarerecto PRAISE THE LORD AND PASS THE AMMUNITION.I forget,DIXIE CHICKS?
Any revolution in this country is going to have to start with, or at least have the backing of the military. It's encouraging to know that many grunts in the military are getting fed up. Now, if that discontent would just go up the chain of command, at least to corporal level.
If you think the troops are exhausted, think about the dead children and other civilians who have been under U$A attack since 1991. They did NOT ask for this war/occupation.
The troops have all volunteered. Killing for money is not an honorable career field.
Sioux Rose
ROSEMARIE: Totally right-on! Whenever the (usually male) pundits start talking about the benefits to our troops, etc and NEVER speak of the pain, loss, and death to so many who happen to RESIDE in the countries where these "theaters" of war are playing... it becomes clear that they are sociopaths who can not differentiate between the video game version and the actual blood, sweat and organic tears variety, brutal unelected legacy to so many thousands these days of horror for profit.
What is a soldier's basic job, basic use, basic purpose? To kill. In this effort they are knowingly killing innocents, calling them collateral damage. These are not collateral damage. They are being knowingly and intentionally murdered. Our soldiers and airmen are knowingly murdering innocents. Play with semantics all you want. Call it collateral damage if it makes you feel better. Killing non-combatants knowingly, and there is no other way to kill non-combatants since it is foreknown that non-combatants will be killed is murder with malice aforethought. Sorry to say this, but our "troops" are murderers. Some of them, realizing the horror of what they have done, are honorably taking their own lives.