Posted by
on Sunday, February 04, 2007 3:45:16 PM
The Kos-Kiddies are on the loose and praising William Arkin's inept and classless attack on the troops. We knew this would not take long before the raving, barking moonbats of the blogosphere would step up. The post is authored by "n00161" and like Mr. Arkin he, too, dives into the absurd.Hat-Tip: Charles Johnson @ Little Green Footballs.All hell has broken loose on the right wing Milblogs concerning an article William Arkin wrote at the Washington Post. In this article, Arkin dared to cross the line and say that the Military is out of line when it criticizes the American Public for being against the war. The military’s place is to do the bidding of the United States citizenry .. period! It is not for them to criticize the American population for deciding they no longer want to fund a war.
This, of course, is a point I have brought up many times and the Milblogs when crazy then. You, the military, are the servants of the people. That is what you signed up for. We send you to war and we bring you home. We tell you when to wake up and when to go to bed. If you do not like that, GET OUT. But, that is the life you chose.
The next thing the milblog right wingers were upset about was when Arkin called our Military a mercenary force. Well, guess what, it is!! To get people to fight this war we have had to add all sorts of additional benefits, bonuses, insurance etc. The only way to get people to go was to pay them a lot more - the definition of a mercenary. Also, if you count the 100,000 or so “contractors” over there, that is even more evidence of a mercenary force. I called it at this post last year.
If the military is going to “take on” the American public by saying we have no right to change how we want to deploy them then they have joined the fight. I have said all along, and in the book, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War the idea that the American military has lost contact with the United States Citizens has been proven. They have. Arkin called it right!
The poster (or is it poseur) is ill-informed in his first paragraph. First off, the US military does not answer to the American citizenry. The buck, for them, stops at the president's desk. A civilian CANNOT give anyone in the military an order. That right and privilege is reserved for the president alone, as Commander-in-Chief. Secondly, the American population (what an obtuse generalization) has NOT told Congress they want the war defunded, and the troops bnought home. If the misconception stems from the midterm election results, I suggest the author take a closer look at why the American public rejected any further Republican leadership in Congress.
The war was a small point of their frustration. The majority of our ire was focused on the feckless leadership from the Republicans. From the Dubai Ports deal to the Gang of 14; from over-spending of taxpayer money to a failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform; from the refusal to abide by the higher ethics called for in Congress to the insane amount of pork spending and earmarks. The Republican Congress did this to themselves. The war had little to do with it.
Indeed, he is correct in his second paragraph on only one point. If the soldeirs do not like the life they lead, and would prefer to have a regular life, then when their enlistement is up, quit. Leave. There is no shame in admitting that the military is not what you thought it would be (though I must question the mentality of people who think that; they are, after all, trained to defend this nation, and that means being trained how to fight and to kill). But again, his allegation that WE, THE PEOPLE control the military is unfounded. They answer to the president, to the JCS, DoD, Pentagon, and their commanders in the field. I cannot order a general to withdraw. Were that possible, the military would be, as my brother is fond of saying, "a walking cluster-f**k." (Whoever the author is, it is apparent he lacks the basic knowledge regarding the military and how it works.)
His third paragraph is positively laughable. If one is to take the most basic definition of a "mercenary" (according to the Merriam Webster's 9th Collegiate dictionary sitting on Thomas's desk) it is "a soldier hired into foreign service," or "hired for service in the army of a foreign country." The troops in Iraq serve American commanders, in the service of this nation, not Iraq. Their loyalty is to America. Do we have to pay them? Of course we do, according to the US Constitution. The Preamble purposefully charges the federal government to "provide for the common defence" which means an army.
The soldiers will join out of patriotism--performing a duty that is higher than themselves (which is why serving in the military is seen as a selfless sacrifice)--but they need to be paid. They will not risk their lives for free, nor will the force their families to starve. The troops need to be paid. But their pay is meager, as I noted in my lengthy post this past Thursday. My brother earns a paltry $40,000 a year to put his butt on the line in defense of America. He could quit (which he has said he will not until this war is over), come home, and be a successful and prosperous lawyer, but his love of this nation and understanding that this enemy will not simply go away after being thwapped in the nose with a rolled-up newspaper keeps him going.
And I must address his naming of conractors in that paragraph as well. Those men work for private security companies providing protection for VIPs going to Iraq outside of the normal military itself. The military should not be responsible for those people. The contracted security forces are, for the most part, former US military people--usually from the Special Operations community--that have one simple mission: protect those that go abroad to check on their business enterprises there. These men, likewise, are not mercenaries. They are not fighting for another nation. They are paid a much fairer wage than our soldiers are, and serve the companies they are contracted with. Their loyalty to the nation is as deep as a soldier's is, and I refuse to question them in their endeavors.
I must disagree with the fourth paragraph, not only in the point he thinks he makes, but in citing a book by an author that seemingly has contempt for the military, which is entirely misplaced. Andrew Bacevich served in America's military through the Vietnam Era, and has basically accused the United States of relying far too much on her military in the late 20th Century, and into the 21st Century. Mr. Bacevich fails to note that we do employ diplomacy, and much of the time it is to our own detriment.
We have acted diplomatically with some of the nastiest, most repugnant regimes around the globe. Notably and recently Iran, North Korea, and the Palestinian Authority. All of these regimes have engaged in human rights abuses and terrorism. Yet, we are willing to give them chance after chance to mend their ways. We watch the United Nations pass useless sanctions against them. And yet these regimes still continue on their merry way. Do I endorse an attack on these nations? Absolutely not. Iran is the lone exception as they have been caught in Iraq attacking our soldiers, providing weapons and munitions to our enemy there, and continue to generally interfere with our efforts there. Let the president decide if Iran should be dealt with militarily. But to cite that author, and claim that the case has been proven--that Mr. Arkin's argument that the military is telling us to shut up--is pure fantasy.
The military leaders that have criticized Congress (and be default the American people) are doing so because they are tired of a meddling body that is content to interfere with the mission they were tasked by the president to do. They answer to him, not Congress. But their criticism is not directed towards the American people. They know that the public, for the most part, lacks the knowledge of what they are going through abroad. Their information comes from the media (of which the military is extremely critical of because the media tends to focus on the bad news rather than the good; a fault of the media, to be sure, but as the old dead-tree industry adage truthfully states "if it bleeds, it leads).
We knew the moonbats would come out swinging in Mr. Arkin's defense. It was simply a question of when they would. The author also makes another glaring mistake. He accuses the Mil-bloggers of leading the charge. I witnessed the response by the blogosphere over the issue. And if you refer to my post on the subject and scroll down to the second update I put up, I listed only TWO mil-blogs covering the story. The rest of the big guns in the blogosphere covering the issue were the standard poli-bloggers.
Before I put that update up, I checked the big mil-bloggers. Most had not updated in a day, or so, and have yet to do so. As of today, Wretchard @ The Belmont Club addresses it in part, but focuses on a scathing evisceration of the Kos piece that is the focus of this post. BlackFive also nails the Kos Kiddie. I can find no other big mil-bloggers touching on this subject.
The outrage arose from the general populace, not the mil-blogs. That is because we, as American citizens, understand what has been asked of the men and women abraod. We know that their job is not easy, and for the most part it is a thankless job. As I stated in my original post on this subject, the military asks only two things of us: Support them in their missions, and to give them the necessary means to win. They do not criticize the public as much as they criticize the media, or as much as they gripe about their commanders. This is typical of the average soldier, and nothing that we should not expect. But the Kos author's idea that Mr. Arkin was correct in calling our troops mercenaries is as idiotic as one can get. They are anything but mercenaries.
Marcie
ADDENDUM: I forgot to add this. At the end of Kos post authored by "noo161" is a poll asking readers if they agree with Mr. Arkin, or if he went too far. I will save you the trouble of clicking on it to view the results. After a total of 261 votes, 190 say that Mr. Arkin was out of line. Only 47 agree with Mr. arkin and "n00161." Stick that in your pipe and smoke it you looney moonbats.
Marcie