The Shame of General Casey
If your son or daughter is serving under the leadership of General George W. Casey, God help him or her. This man is a fool and a disgrace to the U.S. Army. Today during a press conference in Baghdad with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, General Casey decided to play politics and apple polish the Bush Administration rather than tell the truth. According to Casey:
The Baghdad security plan continues to have a dampening effect on sectarian violence,
Extra U.S. troops dispatched to Baghdad have had a decisive effect. . . Iraqi security forces operating in and around Baghdad also are making significant contributions in reducing the violence, he added.
Iraq isn"t awash in sectarian violence, . . .Most sectarian violence in Iraq is concentrated across a 30-mile radius around Baghdad, and, 90 percent of all violence in Iraq is taking place in five of the country"s 18 provinces.
What planet is this man on? Is he auditioning to be the Army's version of Baghdad Bob?
Unfortunately, today's comments are part of a pattern. Casey made many of these same stupid claims last March:
But I will tell you the violence in Iraq is not necessarily widespread. There is sectarian tension and there is sectarian violence, but it's primarily focused in the center of the country around Baghdad.
In 15 of the 18 provinces, there are six or less incidents of violence a day. That's not just sectarian. That's all kinds of violence. In 12 of the provinces, it's two or less incidents of violence a day. So the country is not awash in sectarian violence.
Alright, here are the facts (based on news reports). When Casey made those comments last March there were 1092 Iraqi soldier and civilan deaths. That number soared to 2966 in August and 3539 in September. When John Hopkins' School of Public Health updated its 2004 survey of civilian deaths in Iraq (which estimated as many as 655,000 Iraqis have died since the war started in 2003), the Iraqi Government responded by announcing its plan to restrict information on civilian casualties. Nonetheless, the preliminary data for for October (as of 23 October) points to at least twice as many dead Iraqis compared to March 2006.
Casey foolishly and ignorantly takes comfort in the fact that most of the provinces do not have daily sectarian strife. Shows how little this crazy General knows about Iraq. The majority of the Iraqi population lives in the provinces that are wracked by sectarian violence.
So, here's the bottomline--since U.S. troops beefed up their presence in Baghdad Iraqis are dying in greater numbers. But Iraqis are not the only ones paying a terrible price. U.S. troops are dying at escalating rates, with October marking the largest loss of life by U.S. soldiers and Marines in 2006.
This kind of rah-rah bullshit from a ground commander is criminal. Unfortunately, he is gladly carrying water for a Commander-in-Chief who insists we must stay the course but denies saying that we must stay the course. I guess Casey believes he must behave like President Bush and endorse deception, delusion, and lies. But in making this Faustian bargain, Casey seems oblivious to the price being paid in blood by our men and women serving in Iraq. This may explain in part why some U.S. soldiers and Marines are petitioning their members of Congress to end the war in Iraq.
Its not only Casey, its the whole rotten active duty gang of Generals who stand by as Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld oversee the death and maiming for life of American troops, not to mention the dismantling of the Constitution which they swore to uphold. Casey, Abazaid, Hayden, and Pace who is ass kissing the Administration just as much as ex Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Air Force General Myers did. The Generals in charge of the IRAQ ground operation should be fired for incompetence and/or dereliction of duty, but then again, this is the Bush administration where incompetence gets you the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
October 25, 2006 4:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
We are two countries . I have friends with military aged children some of whom don't want their offspring to even consider military service given Iraq. One has a son in the 101st Airborne who has recieved apurple heart and is ready and willing to go back, despite a tour prior to the one in which he was wounded. Another has a son who has been accepted to Navy corpsman school in San Diego, and would willigly see him off to serve in Iraq.
I realize that to serve you must have the mindset that whatever conflict you are facing is the "right" one. To have doubt could be fatal. Personally, when I read of the death of a gifted female West Point grad in Iraq in Newsweek, I grew angry at the losses GW has brought down on a segment of the country. The sad reality is that with a volunteer military, most of the country is on the sidelines personally, including myself. Only a draft would really bring the cost of war back to the homefront. The entire country would then have to face whether Iraq is worth whatever the new phrase is for staying the course.
October 25, 2006 7:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
I completely agree in principal with your comments about the draft. Having said that, as the mother of two 17 year-old sons I would shoot them each in the foot before I would let them go to be cannon-fodder for the sake of Halliburton.
[And by the way, if I could still rate, I would give you a 4]
Jan Knaus
October 25, 2006 7:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nice compare and contrast of reality in Iraq vs. spin. Less than two weeks ago a general reported that troop levels would need to be sustained through 2010. Of course, Casey was correct in pointing out that it was just an estimation, as are all of these projections. But yesterday Casey implied that we’d be out of there in a year to a year and a half. The media has swung a little bit away from regurgitating their B.S. but why don’t they call them on blatant distortions? Why do we still have to (by and large) read the truth on blogs?
October 25, 2006 9:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nah. Human nature don't work that way. The people who make decisions, the people who are comfortable and complacent aren't touched by the draft. They're too old, too rich, too well placed. They risk nothing. Most of their yahoo supporters are too old or inelgibile for the draft.
Most of them what have children, those children will be too young for the draft, or too old for the draft, or there'll be loopholes and deferments and exemptions for the right sort of people.
The draft will fall upon the young males who are mostly without political or social connections... the most vulnerable in our society. And while their families might be concerned, these families will be a small minority in the populatlion and mostly impotent.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the coin, we have an administration which doesn't give a shit what people thinks, which serves the elite slavishly, and which operates on the basis of bare majority, 51% politics, in which the decisions are taken by the majority of that majority, 26%.
Its an administration that recklessly and wildly spends every resource it gets its hands on, and then goes looking for more.
So let me put it to you guys straight... You put a draft in and here's whats going to happen:
1) The value of a soldier as a commodity is going to drop. It will potentially drop below the cost of body armour or humvee armour or other financial criteria. Which means that soldiers may die faster and more frequently because its cheaper to throw a new soldier in than it is to keep one alive. Supply and demand, if you've got lots of warm bodies, then you don't mind wasting a few. Ugly but true.
2) The tactical value of a soldier drops. Once again, if you've got limited numbers of soldiers that represent a big investment of time and resources and aren't easily replaceable, you don't spend those lives carefully. If you have hot and cold running marines on tap, then you take more tactical and strategic risks, you go into battles where more casualties are guaranteed because winning those battles pays off. And there's always more soldiers on tap.
3) Guarantee your ass they'll go into Iraq and Afghanistan, and into Iran and into Syria, and Cuba and North Korea because this is an administration that does what it wants and uses whatever its got. Giving them a draft is like writing a blank check. Trust me, they'll use it.
The notion that a draft would give the country more a stake in things is dangerously misguided. The notion that a draft would wake up people is foolish. The notion that it would restrain the Bush administration is insane.
October 25, 2006 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've seen this same analysis but in a different setting(maybe a financial journal?) and to a greater extent but you've done a good job of capture its essense.
I believe you meant to say "you spend those lives carefully".
Excellent point, the resistance is in getting started. After that it's much easier following alternative avenues. To put it another way, The draft, the gateway drug of war.
October 25, 2006 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Serious people think like this? God, that's just so depressing.
It's one thing to say horribly cynical things. It's another to see sincere professional people incorporating the unspeakable into their calculations in a normal normative world.
There are just certain things that must be voiced but should not be embraced, ever.
October 25, 2006 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
The traditional two-year draft isn't feasible, unless you want higher casualties. Forget motivation, even though it's a factor. With the much more complex combat systems, the general sense is that it takes a minimum of 18 months to have a soldier ready for infantry, etc., such that they have a good chance of effectiveness and survival, and also situational awareness and moving autonomously when necessary.
Specialties take a lot longer. For example, the basic Defense Language Institute basic Arabic course takes 62 weeks--and there are many higher level courses. Special Forces medic alone is almost a year, plus all the other parts of qualification.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
October 25, 2006 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hate to disagree with you Larry, but I have been following Casey's antics closely for over two years and I am convinced that he is engaged in a bureaucratic political game the goal of which is to end the open ended committment in Iraq and failing that, to embarrass the Bush administration, all without being "Shinseki'ed"
Now it may be that he and every other 3 and 4 star still employed are disgraces to the uniform.
It may be that he and the others should take a walk and join Generals Eaton and Batiste in calling for a Democratic takeover NOW.
But that's not the game he is playing.
Casey's no idiot. He knows his mission has been doomed and his troops dying for nothing just as long as you or I.
October 25, 2006 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
One of the best references, admittedly with a much more careerist military, on how decisions are made and opinions given is in HR McMaster's Dereliction of Duty. The author, a highly respected active duty soldier and historian, got some new interviews and documents about the decisionmaking involving Vietnam. Several members of the JCS, as well as other 3- and 4-stars, agonized over resigning in protest, but decided, at the time, they could be more influential inside. A number of them regret that decision.
I remember a conversation between the British general, Bernard Montgomery, and George Patton. Apparently, an order to a general in the British Army was regarded as more a basis for discussion than obedience. Montgomery, not understanding the US system, asked Patton why he followed an order of which he clearly disapproved. Patton made a comment along the lines of "I'm the best man in the US Army for carrying out, as effectively as I can, orders I don't like."
Before suggesting that US generals refuse orders or go public, look at some historical parallels. Air Marshal Arthur Harris, head of UK Bomber Command, refused to shift from population bombing to attacking German oil, with Sir Charles Portal, head of the Air Staff and his nominal superior, begging him to do so. Complicating the situation is that Harris had Churchill's ear. While I have learned some partially extenuating things such as Harris not being cleared for ULTRA communications intelligence and not seeing the direct evidence of the vulnerability of oil, I tend to be of the opinion he still committed war crimes, based on the information he had.
It's not simple. One might even think of the firing, for commenting to the press, of Air Force Chief of Staff Dugan during Desert Shield.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
October 25, 2006 1:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are incorrect about the general and 2010.
Can't remember the name but a US based general w/ responsibility for planning said that for planning purposes they were planning for manpower at something like the current level.
He did not say that level would be needed. He expressed no view as to what would be needed in the future.
October 25, 2006 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
[duplicate deleted]
October 25, 2006 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is a paradox showing up here. To have the most effectove force argues for professionals. To have the most humane and moral force argues for volunteers, who presumably will un-volunteer (or refrain in the first place) facing an unjust war.
The paradox also incorporates intended uses of force. If force is true defense (or pre-emption) against existential threat, "all options are on the table". If humanitarian intervention is the purpose, something approaching a nightstick-carrying London Bobby is called for. In other words, for humane use of force the soldier must not be invulnerable, but the opposite.
Consider the final extension of our highly-valued weapon system operators--all lethal fire is remotely controlled or autonomous, and system operators face zero risk. If such were the case in Iraq, in which our soldiers were not at risk, there would be something deeply unfair in risking Iraqi life at no cost to us, merely for our convenience. Or, if we won't put our own children's lives where our foreign-policy mouth is, we are evading the moral cost.
Perfection in military effectiveness may be the enemy of the good in international relations.
October 25, 2006 6:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
This comment deserves a 5. If we still had the old rating system I'd have to use a 4.
My verbal rating is "most excellent." You step back to find meaning and the hardest of questions.
October 25, 2006 6:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, don't hurt the kids. It's time for us all to be Thoreau, Gandhi, and King.
Tom
October 25, 2006 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, in a perfect world perhaps. But right now, they're lowering their standards dramatically for recruits.
Its easy to lower your standards for all sorts of things. Both the vaunted Nazi supermen and the fanatical Iranian Holy Warriors, in the end, wound up as 10 year old boys.
Do you seriously think that your current bunch of world conquerers have finer principles? More elevated plans?
In the perfect world, you'll always have perfectly trained American GI's, Aryan SS Supermen and Virtuous Holy Warriors.
It's not a perfect world. If there's a whole in the lines, they'll plug it with half trained draftees, and keep shoveling in half trained draftees to die until you've got the breathing room to do something else. Like bring in the highly trained and best equipped Republican Guard. I think that was Saddam's plan, wasn't it.
Or something else might be eventually reinstating the full training. Or it might be simplifying the training and infrastructure, the same way we've worked so hard to de-skill factory workers and McDonalds employees. I'm sure Rumsfeld can embrace a new paradigm or two, more live bodies, more dead bodies, more success.
Like I said, its easy to lower all sorts of standards, including moral ones.
October 25, 2006 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent indeed; I hope I don't disturb your flow that much.
Indeed, this has been the practice in the successful occupations after WWII. In the European Theater, a Constabulary was formed, separate from combat forces. In both Germany and Japan, the Constabulary was visibly different: spit-and-polish (MacArthur's guard had stainless steel helmets).
I can give you the link for the OPERATION RANKIN occupation plans. Counterintelligence people were behind the combat echelons, taking suspected war criminals into custody, while deNazifying others that were reasonably considered technocrats. For example, the firefighters and traffic police were technically part of the SS, later ruled a criminal organization.
Thomas Barnett, of The Pentagon's New Map, also has a two-part model, "Leviathan" as a hyperpower force (yes, the British qualify) to take down opposition (as the British did not long ago in Sierra Leone). Leviathan then pulls out and is replaced by a typically multinational "System Administrator" to do nation-building. SA still has on-call combat power, but it's very much out of sight.
I have to disagree with you about it being immoral to have troops at no risk. In practice, this is nearly the case in conventional combat operations, even the most extreme -- an ICBM crew in Wyoming is considered a combat crew. In wartime, and I'll stay conventional here, I can think of quite an assortment of German and Japanese monsters that, in the Texan phrase, "needed killin'". Now, if you stuck me in a time machine and put me nose-to-nose with COL Matsunobo Tsuji, I'd do my damndest to take him hand to hand, although he'd probably be better than I am. I might get lucky. Had I had a little more choice, though, I'd ask the time machine operator to drop me 800-1000 yards away, with a Star Gauge Springfield, preferably a sniper observer, and the old 173 grain rounds.
The decision to kill is the moral issue. If one decides that, I see no reason to be chivalrous to someone that I am morally certain is guilty of atrocities, and when capture and trial are infeasible.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
October 25, 2006 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
You’re right and maybe I phrased it poorly. But my point was that it was just planning (though I understand that the estimation was judt on paper). But this whole new “the Iraqis will really stand up this time and we’ll be home in a year” scheme that Bush is pushing (with cover from Baker’s commission and even Warner’s criticism) is also just “planning.” Only the new plan has absolutely no basis in reality.
The two-week proximity of these totally opposite projections (one from an internal working group, one from the media-liaison general who is shilling for the administration) calls the new stay-but-don’t-stay-the-course strategy into question. I know the expert planners, especially with this admin, have little say over actual plans and strategies, but that is just another thing wrong with this picture.
I think, to most people here, the war in Iraq, like the WOT, has always been more about politics than policy with our CIC. But the blatant political manipulation of a war where 100 American kids will die this month (along with, literally, countless Iraqi civilians) as part of an election campaign is beyond shameless and the MSM should be screaming that.
October 25, 2006 7:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
If someone is shooting at me, or about to, I have no qualms about dropping him from afar. You quoted me saying if the use of force was true defense all options were on the table.
BTW, the missile team would been at personal risk if things between us and the Soviet Union went south, considering counterbattery targeting. Our trained fliers, however, are about as likely to be shot down as a civilian flight. Not that it's safe, but they're darn good and so are the planes.
For the near future we are dominant militarily, so all use of force is at least somewhat constrained by our lack of existential threat. And it is the inability to be morally certain someone is guilty of atrocities that complicates life. An Iraqi or Afghan shooting at US forces may be guilty of nothing more than national pride.
October 26, 2006 5:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Larry
It isn't just Casey that is a terrible general. I would argue that the vast majority of American generals are not only bad, but completely inexperienced.
In fact, many of them have never even been in combat situations! The great American generals of yesteryear would piss on the heads of these guys. I can't even imagine what Robert E. Lee, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Ulysses Grant, Jeb Stuart, John Pershing, Douglas MacArthur or Dwight Eisenhower would say to these armchair sissies.
With this crew we might as well break out the boardgame "Risk" and roll the dice. But then again, that is the problem with the modern army. It's getting to the point where the brass doesn't even want a captain to be put in a dangerous situation.
No wonder our forces have been unable to quell the violence. We have 21 year old First Lieutenant's making the critical decisions on the ground.
Most 21 year old's can't even make decisions for themselves. Think alcohol and girls. How can they be expected to succeed here? They need LEADERSHIP.
Anyone want to speculate as to what William T. Sherman would say to an "Academic" general like John Abizaid?
Hard to say, but if I were a betting man I would be willing to wager that Uncle Billy would spit once, kick him in the balls, and send him off.
October 26, 2006 8:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
It depends on what you mean by inexperienced. Certainly, prior to 1990, the US had a habit of going into a war with senior officers that seemed good in peacetime, but were useless in real war. Fredendall was probably the worst in WWII, but Lucas was pretty close. Ghormley and Fletcher just seemed too cautious in the Pacific, although it is recognized that Fletcher was extremely wise in not trying to continue tactical command and Midway after his flagship and communications were crippled. Fletcher had the guts and self-awareness to turn tactical command over to Spruance, generally regarded as the smartest admiral in the US Navy, although pretty junior at the time.
In point of fact, quite a number of generals in the American Civil War had substantial experience in the Mexican War and Indian fighting, but many, especially Union, turned out to be incompetent in a larger war.
I do believe that just as the NTC and JRTC have revolutionized battalion and brigade level performance, the generals' battle lab, originally BCTP and now "Warfighter", seems to have a function of both screening out a lot of bad cases and polishing the skills of the new ones.
Historically, 18-21 year olds have made a fair number of military decisions, although a 1LT would probably be 23 or 24. One of the major initiatives, again for large-scale combat, is the information systems to give them the situational awareness to fight independently.
The problem is less incompetence in the military, and more that the military has been given a peace enforcement mission that was never intended as a mission for combat units. Historically, occupation troops were selected, trained, and equipped for the job. I have posted multiple links in the past about both WWII and more modern thinking that a combat force and a Constabulary-equivalent are not interchangeable.
As far as your examples, may I point out that neither Eisenhower nor Arnold had ever been in combat?
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
October 26, 2006 9:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know anything about the military, frankly, in fact or in theory. But the overwhelming evidence of the last few years suggests that competence is actually an impediment to promotion. The Bush family code of loyalty over competence has spread to the military.
In all seriousness, I'm wondering if to what extent Bush's own peculiar religiosity plays a role in this, following Myers remarks at the RNC convention, Pace's recent comment that he trusted Rumsfeld becaue Rumsfeld was guided by almighty god, the open proselteyzing at the Air Force Academy, etc etc.
Did Casey get where he is by moving his lips when he prays?
October 26, 2006 11:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
The real problem is the ignorance, incompetence, and racism of the Americans who put Bush, our Commander in Chief, in office. It was his decision to start this destined to fail debacle of war in Iraq.
October 26, 2006 6:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
That would be the 5 members of the Supreme Court who let the sabotage of the election in Florida stand.
Tom
October 26, 2006 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
While true, that ignores the rather broad group of voters nation-wide who voted in favor of Bush to become President. The Supreme Court, bad as it now is, could not be effective if they did not work with a great many voters who vote for the easy, ignorant answers that the Republicans offer.
October 27, 2006 3:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
In addition to the difference in mission the ground-pounders are being asked to take on there is the severe political problem that Rumsfeld personally vets every flag-rank promotion and significan assignment. Promotion depends on being the best lackey to an incompetent Sec. Def. in a totally incompetent administration.
That means the selection process is highly skewed against competence. One needs only look at who the Chiefs of Staff are to see that. The best are passed over for the most subservient and most easily cowed.
October 27, 2006 3:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hopefully, that number is dwindling.
Tom
October 27, 2006 3:30 AM | Reply | Permalink