Costs of the Wars: Sacrifices by the Few
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-03-07/costs-wars-sacrifices-few
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates landed in Afghanistan today on an unannounced trip. Gates is meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to begin assessments of how many U.S. troops can be withdrawn from the country in July. The war in Afghanistan has been going on for nearly a decade, making this one of the longest periods of sustained combat in U.S. history. Yet unlike past wars, only a small percentage of the population, namely military members and their families, carries the burden. A look at the costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and whether the military has a growing sense of isolation in its sacrifices.
Guests
James Kitfield
senior correspondent, National Journal magazine.
Michelle Joyner
director of communications at The National Military Family Association.
Joseph Collins
professor at the National War College; retired Army colonel; former deputy assistant secretary of defense for stability operations from 2001 to 2004; author of the upcoming book "Understanding War in Afghanistan."
Matt Pottinger
fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, former Wall Street Journal reporter, and a U.S. Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Comments
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Sacrifice = http://lesliekamm.blogspot.com/
Start with May of 2008.
As for 'the elevation of soldiers above the ordinary citizen" -- you name the emergency; I'd rather have a soldier, sailor, airwo/man standing next to me
than anyone you can name.
HERE! HERE!!
First: Thank-you Robin for your service. I'm of that era and know first hand how you were treated. It was shameful mob mentality. And the media didn't help. Were these wars showing up nightly on local/national news, as they did then, and if they involved the sons & daughters more Americans, I think we'd have an entirely different dynamic going on right now.
You and other vets like you have created The Patriot Guard Riders to stand between the members of the Westboro Baptist Church and the families of fallen soldiers. I've never seen such commitment and such love in any group of people anywhere. Anywhere.
"The lack of sacrifice by the nation as a whole has led to a nation of give me everything for nothing."
Agreed
Perhaps if poiticians children/grandchildren were automatically required to serve in the war zones, we would have fewer I'll advised warsand more support for the brave and gallent soldiers and their families who do serve.
I just heard Diane's guest (James, I believe) repeat the myth that returning Viet Nam war vets were spat upon. Nobody's been able to verify a single instance via photos or reporting of such an event. Vietnam Veterans Against the War call the spitting myth bogus. Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes a political truth, unfortunately. Disinformation needs to be challenged.
I served in the military for over 25 years. I resent the statement by one of your guests that people don't understand why we got into Iraq, etc. I and many others KNOW why we got involved, and totally disagree with that erroneous reasoning. We never had any reason to get involved in Iraq in the first place, and we cut short the opportunity to deal with the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks in Afghanistan in 2001. I don't believe we should be in any of the current conflicts, and I don't believe we should even hint about getting involved in any other country in a military. We need to use other methods such as statesmanship, economic and other. We need to get out of the hait of using the military for any and every situation.
Hello Ms. Diane Rehm. So sorry I was not able to get onto your show today. I did call, however. Definitely a very interesting topic. You could not have in picked a better one. I just have these three points I want to make.
1. Contracting staff at foreign bases is often not staffed by fellow American citizens. While I myself am very open to diversity, perhaps persons sorting mail or cooking food for our soldiers should be blue blooded Americans like ourselves. I am very happy for the Filipinos and other nationals from around the world that help us, the United States, a broad. But you know what? There's a lot of Americans right now that are out of work. It's our war. Would not it be nice to send some of that money back home to America?
2. I disagree with the main thesis of this conversation. That it is the sacrifices of a few. That America is not involved. That could not be further from the truth. A large contingent of Americans has participated in this war. I myself was on active duty in the Navy on 9/11. While never directly participating in combat or overseas operations, I still participated in the reserves until 2005. But I do agree that America is not fully committed to this war effort. The stakes are as high as in World War II but the war mobilization has never materialized. God help us.
3. It's very disheartening to hear military families complaining about the stress they are under. Especially when they are paid so well and given so much opportunities. The military does not recruit from the poor and the most needy of this nation. They recruit the most capable and healthy persons among us. Like you said during your show, they volunteered. And if they stick with it, gun toters retire after only 20 years of work. Most just move into the civilian side of the military and work towards another retirement. If they survived that, they finished their old-age with two pension plans. Unbelievable!
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God Bless you Diane for bringing this issue to light. If only more Americans listened to your show, maybe something would actually be done about this issue. I am all for paying a "war tax" and I hope they impliment this I feel it would finally make the "war on terror" hit home for many Americans who are living in their comfy million dollar homes in their own little disconnected world.
Dear Lincoln Willis,
You have clearly never served in the military, nor been a military spouse. How dare you say that it is shameful that we military families complain too much about the stress we are under. You have NO IDEA what we go through. By the way, most military personnel ARE NOT paid that well. Did you know that many enlisted service members families are on WIC AND food stamps?! Oh, and most people don't make it to 20 years because of the stress it causes the soldier and their family.
As families we don't just face our spouses being deployed in harms way, but we also face long TDY's (business trips), training missions, war exercises, short tours, PCS's, etc. It is not cut and dry. While dealing with all of this we have to put on brave faces and wear both the uniform of Mom and Dad, while raising our children. Let's not get started on how hard all of this is on children.
It is people like you, and the other commentators who have the audacity to say that WE (the military families) chose to have these wars that make us feel like no one cares. Those comments are the ones that make us realize that we are on our own. So in the future, if you want to make slanderous remarks about military families how about you go and talk to one and then MAYBE you can make a more educated statement.
I pay my taxes on time and in budget, faithfully, and respect the law. I see no reason why I should be MORE involved in these deployments than I am, nor any reason why anyone should expect more Americans in general to "sacrfice." Sacrifice what, exactly? A goat? Another trillion dollars of our future? For what? A war that many of us never regarded as necessary or appropriate?
You want to do what? Reinstate a compulsory service program? Why would you want to do that? To ease the consciences of the people who send American troops overseas? To increase the pool of available labor or conscripts so that Presidents with a purely political agenda can further attempt to aggrandize themselves by deploying the armed forces?
The plain fact is that the Iraq war had so very little to do with the interests of Americans -- American sovereignty or liberty -- that many Americans rightfully resent being asked to give, yet more, again, of their time, money, or support, for these wars.
No thanks to all of that.
Great topic Diane!
What I fear most is a mercenary army, run by contractors, that is totally disengaged from the politics of our nation. We have a lot wrong with this country but it needs a prepared Military as a last resort to conflict and that is in-tune with its citizens.
As a Vietnam combat Helicopter vet, I can attest first hand to the waste of life and capital in conflict. It should be done judicially and not by some "war hawk" politician who has not served.
We need form of conscription to keep us all engage with Defense. I understand that Defense pays almost $20/meal/soldier in Iraq. In Nam, we had conscripted soldiers doing it for pennies.
JohnM, I agree with your post. Good for you.
Bush went to war against terrorists in Iraq at a time when there were none. And since all the prewar ‘intelligence’ of “mobile chemical weapons factories, yellow cake, aluminum tubes, and WMD’s” turned out to be either false or falsified; the only reason for Iraq War left to date (which by some estimates will cost the country over 3 trillion dollars as well as thousands of American and 100’s of thousands of Iraqi lives) has been “Oops!”.
Bush implied in his "if you're not with us, your against us" State of Union speech, that anyone who spoke out or questioned military solution in Iraq was "aiding the terrorists". Undoubtedly many Americans still believe this, just as 5 years into the war, a great percent of Americans STILL believed that Iraq was somehow involved with 9/11, even though Bush himself finally had renounced that view.
I can't help but think that many of the "terrorists" that magically appeared after occupation were simply individuals who took offense to the resulting carnage of having their country invaded, just as American citzens might if our own country was invaded (questionable pretenses or no).
Bush was also the first president who LOWERED TAXES IN TIME OF WAR.
I guess he reasoned our children and grandchildren would be happy to pay for such a noble endeavour.
As the war started Bush President Bush opposed increase in CAFE standards (increased fuel efficiency) at a time when Hummers were the status symbol of the day.
Anyone with the senses to invest in oil companies on the day Bush was elected would have been well rewarded.
But I digress.
And honor those who fight in the service of this country
There were a great many things that I took exception to in this broadcast. The false rhetoric that the U.S. citizen is "not involved", for instance, in the wars. Just because we're not having rubber drives doesn't mean we're not involved.
But I was totally appalled when I heard one of her guests say that, in the early 70's, Nixon "had to ring the white house with buses" during a march because he "feared violence". I was in that march. Yes, there were a million of us-- all pacifists. Violence? We didn't even spit on the sidewalk. Students? Yes, some of us were students, but most of us were ordinary average working people. I marched between a Connecticut Lawyer and a young couple from the midwest-- with babe in arms.
And the pundit conveniently forgot to mention that, in those buses that ringed the white house --and on tops of buildings-- were soldiers with guns, all trained on the unarmed marchers. And the only thing that made us marchers not fear violence was that most of the guns had flowers in the barrels, as a show of solidarity.
Almost as bad as a flat out lie is a half truth.
This is a heart-wrenching issue Pammity but thanks for understanding my POV. My mother first criticized my post as too harsh on service members when she read what parents of young servicemen were saying. Then she remembered that these parents stand to collect a death benefit (gratuity and insurance) for their unmarried sons or daughters who die in Iraq or Afghanistan. She looked it up and I checked behind her; finding that benefit could be as high as $400,000 untaxed payable in cash. True, some beneficiaries have been scammed by Prudential and Metlife (probably some other corporations) but there are many parents (and wives) who understand they are due mucho dinero if their soldier dies. There are a slew of residual benefits to spouses, kids and even parents too. Now I understand that there are some hard-hearted parents and spouses who would be eager to ship off a low-earning or wayward individual in hopes of a big jackpot. Get two or three sons or daughters killed in action and you're a millionaire. The odds are better than Lotto. I think some of these posting parents (and spouses) demanding more should be feeling plenty guilty. I'm sorry a jackpot mentality has made some soldiers expendable. A life cannot be compensated by money, despite the best efforts of Ken Feinberg. I wouldn't sell any kid to the military for a million. Indentured servitude is never a good career choice.