| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 9:33 am Post subject: PNAC Neocons Want Bigger US Military for More War for Israel |
| PNAC Neocons Want Bigger US Military for More War for Israel
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/184mgmxz.asp
Open Letter
A bipartisan group urges the congressional leadership to substantively increase the size of the Army and the Marines.
01/28/2005 12:00:00 AM
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Dear Senator Frist, Senator Reid, Speaker Hastert, and Representative Pelosi:
The United States military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume. Those responsibilities are real and important. They are not going away. The United States will not and should not become less engaged in the world in the years to come. But our national security, global peace and stability, and the defense and promotion of freedom in the post-9/11 world require a larger military force than we have today. The administration has unfortunately resisted increasing our ground forces to the size needed to meet today's (and tomorrow's) missions and challenges.
So we write to ask you and your colleagues in the legislative branch to take the steps necessary to increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps. While estimates vary about just how large an increase is required, and Congress will make its own determination as to size and structure, it is our judgment that we should aim for an increase in the active duty Army and Marine Corps, together, of at least 25,000 troops each year over the next several years. There is abundant evidence that the demands of the ongoing missions in the greater Middle East, along with our continuing defense and alliance commitments elsewhere in the world, are close to exhausting current U.S. ground forces. For example, just late last month, Lieutenant General James Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, reported that "overuse" in Iraq and Afghanistan could be
leading to a "broken force." Yet after almost two years in Iraq and almost three years in Afghanistan, it should be evident that our engagement in the greater Middle East is truly, in Condoleezza Rice's term, a "generational commitment." The only way to fulfill the military aspect of this commitment is by increasing the size of the force available to our civilian leadership.
The administration has been reluctant to adapt to this new reality. We understand the dangers of continued federal deficits, and the fiscal difficulty of increasing the number of troops. But the defense of the United States is the first priority of the government. This nation can afford a robust defense posture along with a strong fiscal posture. And we can afford both the necessary number of ground troops and what is needed for transformation of the military.
In sum: We can afford the military we need. As a nation, we are spending a smaller percentage of our GDP on the military than at any time during the Cold War. We do not propose returning to a Cold War-size or shape force structure. We do insist that we act responsibly to create the military we need to fight the war on terror and fulfill our other responsibilities around the world.
The men and women of our military have performed magnificently over the last few years. We are more proud of them than we can say. But many of them would be the first to say that the armed forces are too small. And we would say that surely we should be doing more to honor the contract between America and those who serve her in war. Reserves were meant to be reserves, not regulars. Our regulars and reserves are not only proving themselves as warriors, but as humanitarians and builders of emerging democracies. Our armed forces, active and reserve, are once again proving their value to the nation. We can honor their sacrifices by giving them the manpower and the materiel they need.
Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution places the power and the duty to raise and support the military forces of the United States in the hands of the Congress. That is why we, the undersigned, a bipartisan group with diverse policy views, have come together to call upon you to act. You will be serving your country well if you insist on providing the military manpower we need to meet America's obligations, and to help ensure success in carrying out our foreign policy objectives in a dangerous, but also hopeful, world.
Respectfully,
Peter Beinart - Jeffrey Bergner - Daniel Blumenthal - Max Boot - Eliot Cohen
Ivo H. Daalder - Thomas Donnelly - Michele Flournoy - Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
Reuel Marc Gerecht - Lt. Gen. Buster C. Glosson (USAF, retired) - Bruce P. Jackson
Frederick Kagan - Robert Kagan - Craig Kennedy - Paul Kennedy
Col. Robert Killebrew (USA, retired) - William Kristol - Will Marshall
Clifford May - Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey (USA, retired) - Daniel McKivergan
Joshua Muravchik - Steven J. Nider - Michael O'Hanlon
Mackubin Thomas Owens - Ralph Peters - Danielle Pletka - Stephen P. Rosen
Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales (USA, retired) - Randy Scheunemann - Gary Schmitt
Walter Slocombe - James B. Steinberg | |  | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 11:29 am Post subject: Re: More on PNAC |
|
The Story of the Ghost
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 31 January 2005
"United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting. According to reports from Saigon, 83 percent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong. A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam."
- Peter Grose, in a page 2 New York Times article titled, 'U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote,' September 4, 1967.
January 30, 2005 | A mortar attack at a polling station in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad killed at least three people.
(Photo: AP)
In all the media hoopla over Sunday's "election" in Iraq, a few details got missed.
The powerful and influential Association of Muslim Scholars is not buying the idea that there was some great democratic breakthrough with this vote. AMS spokesman Muhammad al-Kubaysi responded to the election by saying, "The elections are not a solution to the Iraqi problem, because this problem is not an internal dispute to be resolved through accords and elections. It lies in the presence of a foreign power that occupies this country and refuses even the mere scheduling of the withdrawal of its forces from Iraq."
"We have consistently argued," continued al-Kubaysi, "that elections can only occur in a democracy that enjoys sovereignty. Our sovereignty is incomplete. Our sovereignty is usurped by foreign forces that have occupied our land and hurt our dignity. These elections... are a means of establishing the foreign forces in Iraq and keeping Iraq under the yoke of occupation. They should have been postponed."
Al-Kubaysi likewise raised grave concerns about low turnout in Sunni areas such as Baghdad, Baquba and Samarra, and stated flatly that the deep secrecy that shrouded the candidates themselves invalidated the process. "The voter goes to the polling stations not knowing who he is voting for in the first place," he said. "There are more than 7,700 candidates, and I challenge any Iraqi voter to name more than half a dozen. Their names have not been announced but have been kept secret. Elections should never have been held under these present circumstances."
The American media is painting these newly-minted Iraqi voters as flush with the thrill of casting a ballot. In truth, however, some other more pressing motivations lay behind their rush to the polling places. Dahr Jamail, writing for Inter Press Service, reported that "Many Iraqis had expressed fears before the election that their monthly food rations would be cut if they did not vote. They said they had to sign voter registration forms in order to pick up their food supplies. Just days before the election, 52 year-old Amin Hajar, who owns an auto garage in central Baghdad, had said, 'I'll vote because I can't afford to have my food ration cut. If that happened, me and my family would starve to death.'"
'Will Vote For Food' is not a spectacular billboard for the export of democracy.
"Where there was a large turnout," continued Jamail, "the motivation behind the voting and the processes both appeared questionable. The Kurds up north were voting for autonomy, if not independence. In the south and elsewhere Shias were competing with Kurds for a bigger say in the 275-member national assembly. In some places like Mosul the turnout was heavier than expected. But many of the voters came from outside, and identity checks on voters appeared lax. Others spoke of vote-buying bids. More than 30 Iraqis, a U.S. soldier, and at least 10 British troops died Sunday. Hundreds of Iraqis were also wounded in attacks across Baghdad, in Baquba 50km northeast of the capital as well as in the northern cities Mosul and Kirkuk."
Perhaps the most glaring indication that this "election" did little to settle the bloody reality in Iraq came three days before the ballots were cast. In a letter to congress dated January 28, the neoconservative think-tank/power broker known as The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) essentially called for a draft without actually using the 'D' word.
Project Censored, the organization that tracks important yet wildly under-reported stories, declared the existence, motivations and influence of PNAC to be the #1 censored media story for 2002-2003. Most t r u t h o u t readers are familiar with PNAC, but for those who missed this story, a quick refresher is required.
The first vital fact about PNAC has to do with its membership roll call: Dick Cheney, Vice President of the United States, former CEO of Halliburton; Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense; Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense; Elliot Abrams, National Security Council; John Bolton, Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security; I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's top National Security assistant. This list goes on.
These people didn't enjoy those fancy titles in 2000, when the PNAC manifesto 'Rebuilding America's Defenses' was first published. Before 2000, these men were just a bunch of power players who got shoved out of government in 1993. In the time that passed between Clinton and those hanging chads, these people got together in PNAC and laid out a blueprint. 'Rebuilding America's Defenses' was the ultimate result. 2000 became 2001, and the PNAC boys suddenly had the fancy titles and a chance to swing some weight.
'Rebuilding America's Defenses' became the roadmap for foreign policy decisions made in the White House and the Pentagon; PNAC had the Vice President's office in one building, and the Defense Secretary's office in the other. Attacking Iraq was central to that roadmap from the beginning. When former Counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke accused the Bush administration of focusing on Iraq to the detriment of addressing legitimate threats, he was essentially denouncing them for using the attacks of September 11 as an excuse to execute the PNAC blueprint.
The goals codified in 'Rebuilding America's Defenses,' the manifesto, can be boiled down to a few sentences: The invasion and occupation of Iraq, for reasons that had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein. The building of several permanent military bases in Iraq, the purpose of which are to telegraph force throughout the region. The takeover by Western petroleum corporations of Iraq's nationalized oil industry. The ultimate destabilization and overthrow of a variety of regimes in the Middle East, friend and foe alike, by military or economic means, or both.
"Indeed," it is written on page 14 of 'Rebuilding America's Defenses,' "the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."
In the last three years, PNAC has gotten every single thing it placed on its wish list back in 2000. This is why their letter to congress last week is so disturbing. The letter reads in part:
The United States military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume. Those responsibilities are real and important. They are not going away. The United States will not and should not become less engaged in the world in the years to come. But our national security, global peace and stability, and the defense and promotion of freedom in the post-9/11 world require a larger military force than we have today. The administration has unfortunately resisted increasing our ground forces to the size needed to meet today's (and tomorrow's) missions and challenges.
So we write to ask you and your colleagues in the legislative branch to take the steps necessary to increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps. While estimates vary about just how large an increase is required, and Congress will make its own determination as to size and structure, it is our judgment that we should aim for an increase in the active duty Army and Marine Corps, together, of at least 25,000 troops each year over the next several years.
Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution places the power and the duty to raise and support the military forces of the United States in the hands of the Congress. That is why we, the undersigned, a bipartisan group with diverse policy views, have come together to call upon you to act. You will be serving your country well if you insist on providing the military manpower we need to meet America's obligations, and to help ensure success in carrying out our foreign policy objectives in a dangerous, but also hopeful, world.
Brush aside the patriotic language, and you have the ideological architects of this disastrous Iraq invasion stating flatly that the American military is being bled dry, and that the ranks must be replenished before that military can be used to push into Iran, Syria and the other targeted nations. The 'D' word is not in this letter, but it screams out from between the lines. All the lip service paid to the Iraq elections by these people does not contrast well with their cry for more warm bodies to feed into the meat grinder.
Lyndon Johnson was excited about voter turnout in Vietnam in September 1967. Eight years, three Presidents and millions of dead people later, that excitement proved to have been wretchedly illusory. There is no reason, no reason whatsoever, to believe that the Iraq election we witnessed this weekend will bring anything other than death and violence to the people of that nation and our soldiers who move among them. History repeats itself only when we are stupid enough to miss the lessons learned in past failures. The wheel is coming around again.
Author's Note | The fascinating New York Times article on the Vietnam election in 1967 was first located and published by patachon on the DailyKos blog forum.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.' | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 11:48 am Post subject: Why the US will not leave Iraq |
| Feb 1, 2005
THE ROVING EYE
Why the US will not leave Iraq
By Pepe Escobar
Shi'ites will be in power in the Arab world for the first time in 14 centuries. So Iraqi elections are indeed historic. But it's not for US President George W Bush to proclaim Sunday's elections "a success", even before the results are known: it's for the Iraqi people, those who did and also those who did not vote. The undisputable fact is that apart from the Kurds - who since the first Gulf War in 1991 have lived under American protection - most Iraqis, Sunni or Shi'ite, voter or non-voter, in public or in private, blame the United States for the current chaos and their "liberation" from electricity, water, jobs and security. History may still reveal the case that Sunday's elections under occupation, with rules established by the occupier, suit everyone except the long-suffering 27 million Iraqis.
Up to 8 million Iraqis, about 60% of eligible voters, are believed to have voted nationwide, although this could not be verified. Voters in Shi'ite and Kurdish areas turned out in large numbers. The turnout in Sunni-dominated areas such as Fallujah and Mosul, where the insurgency is strongest, and where Sunni leaders had called for a boycott, was substantially lower.
The contenders
The White House, the Pentagon and the neo-conservatives were forced - by Shi'ite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's brilliant brinkmanship - to accept these elections, in which a Shi'ite victory is assured. For many Iraqis, Sunni and Shi'ite, Washington's endgame is not withdrawal, but finding the right proxy government: only the naive may believe that an imperial power would voluntarily abandon the dream scenario of a cluster of military bases planted over virtually unlimited reserves of oil.
Washington doesn't even try to disguise it, and in Baghdad, US-appointed interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is widely referred to as either "the man from the Americans" or "Saddam without a moustache". In these elections, where security was extremely tight - many candidates dared not appear in public for fear of being shot - Allawi benefited from three exclusive assets: name recognition; protection by 1,000 heavily armed guards; and US-sponsored saturation television exposure (although most Iraqis have no electricity at the moment). His campaign slogan was "A strong leader for a strong country". Allawi is a secular Shi'ite, but as a former Ba'athist, he also appeals to moderate Sunnis.
Asia Times Online sources in Baghdad suggest that the newly elected National Assembly and new government will be very similar to Allawi's: a mix of religious and secular parties, all of them led by former exiles. A "Sunni parliamentary quota" is almost inevitable, for two reasons: Sunni voter turnout was low; and Sunnis must be represented in the drafting of the new constitution. It's important to remember that the assembly itself will not write the new constitution; instead, it will supervise the drafting committee. So it's imperative that Sunnis are part of the committee, otherwise the constitution may be shot down in the four Iraqi provinces with a Sunni-majority when it is submitted for a referendum next September.
The United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the Sistani-blessed Shi'ite list that will capture most of the popular vote, has officially dropped its demand to negotiate the American departure. This essentially means, from many a Sunni point of view, that the Shi'ites will rely on the Americans to protect them from the Sunni resistance, both secular and Islamist - as well as from the hundreds of thousands of disgruntled, unemployed former Ba'athists who may or may not (yet) be part of the resistance.
Ibrahim Jaafari, the official spokesman of the Hezb al-Dawa al-Islamiya party, founded in 1957 (the oldest Iraqi Shi'ite party), the third most popular figure in Iraq after Sistani and Muqtada al-Sadr, the No 2 at the UIA list and a serious contender for becoming the new prime minister, has already spelled it out: "If the US pulls out too fast there would be chaos." Jaafari, crucially, also enjoys a lot of respect by moderate Sunnis.
Current Finance Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, a former Maoist and Ba'athist turned free marketer, also a member of the UIA and strong contender for becoming premier, has repeatedly talked about "realistic thinking" in terms of securing Iraq. Mahdi is very close to some members of the White House's National Security Council.
And the prize goes to ...
Shi'ites swamped the polls in part because Sistani told them it was a "religious duty" to vote. It's unclear how far the next Sistani-blessed government will go to dispel the widely-held Sunni perception of the elections as "a movie" directed by the Americans and packaged to the rest of the world. The Shi'ite leadership at the UIA cannot afford an enduring, widely held Sunni perception of a Washington-Shi'ite alliance. Things may get much worse. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the No 1 in the UIA list - who has ruled out becoming the new prime minister - was the leader of the Badr Brigades for almost 20 years. The Badr Brigades - trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards - were the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Now they're rebranded as the Badr Organization, a political party also represented in the UIA. One can imagine the volcanic possibility of the Badr Brigades being employed by the Shi'ites to fight the Sunni resistance.
Muqtada will immediately pounce at any suggestion of a Shi'ite cozying up to the Americans and denounce a Jaafari, Mahdi, or better yet Allawi II government as an American puppet. Sheikh Hassan al-Zarqani, the Sadrists' press officer, has already delivered the message in unmistakable terms: "The Iraqi people want a pullout timetable, security, job opportunities and social services. We will obey the new elected government if it serves the best interests of the Iraqi people. If not, we will be its arch enemies."
If the US stays, the resistance will become even bloodier. In the unlikely possibility of the US leaving soon, this could open the way to civil war and a balkanization of Iraq. If the US leaves following a negotiated timetable, an elected Shi'ite government in Iraq will be more than empowered - a terrifying prospect for its undemocratic Sunni Arab neighbors.
As the Sunni resistance will inevitably become bloodier, balkanization is arguably the preferred Washington strategy - as is widely feared in the Sunni triangle. Sunnis mention the Central Intelligence Agency for promoting suspicious bombings; Shi'ite militias used in the leveling of Fallujah; peshmerga (paramilitaries) used to fight Arabs in Mosul; and the possibility of the Badr Brigades being called back. In a civil war, the Americans would divide Iraq in three parts - the juicy ones attributed to US corporations, the rotten ones controlled by warlords. Just like in a previous "movie", liberated Afghanistan.
Iraq's Arab neighbors, for their part (as well as American neo-conservatives) are afraid by the emergence of a so-called "Shi'ite crescent" of Iran-Iraq-Syria-Hezbollah in Lebanon. What these anti-democratic Arab regimes - Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, all of them American allies - fear is not only the specter of Bush-exported democracy, but first and foremost the Shi'ites in power. It's no secret that the Sunni resistance in Iraq gets a lot of help from inside Saudi Arabia, Egypt and especially Jordan. Washington insists "terrorists" move in total freedom from Syria to Iraq. This is false. Islamists cross the border from Jordan, with no hassle by American patrols, then take the highway to Baghdad.
The governments - not the people - of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan all want the Americans to remain in Iraq. For their part, competing big powers Russia, China and the European Union are not exactly displeased to contemplate, from a distance, Bush and the neo-cons' clumsy attempts to replicate the British post-World War I empire in the Middle East.
It's the resistance, stupid
If the Sunni resistance is really 200,000-strong, as Iraq's chief spook has announced, it is the resistance that will have the last word. In a perverse twist of "reaping what you sow", American abuses in Iraq have reaped so such anger that nobody wants them to leave - even moderate Sunnis, because everyone fears total chaos. The Americans created the conditions for the emergence of a hardcore resistance. They created the conditions for the emergence of suicide bombers. And they created the conditions for staying: after all, now they need to engage in counterinsurgency. As the Iraqi Islamic Party, the biggest Sunni party puts it, even the resistance does not want the Americans to leave. What moderate Sunnis want to see is a detailed plan on the table, with fixed dates.
Americans - but not the rest of the world - are still unable to understand why the resistance has become so powerful. Every faction has its own reasons. Ba'athists are longing to recapture their lost power. Salafists want Iraq to be part of the new caliphate. Moderate Sunnis want the restoration of Sunni rule - which has always been the rule in Iraq. Iraqi nationalists want to kick the foreigners out - like they did with the Mongols, the Ottomans and the British. That's why the resistance is a relentless, ever-expandable proposition, but always under a unifying umbrella: to defeat the occupiers.
The Shi'ites may be on the brink of power after 14 centuries. Their premier electoral promise - later reneged - was to negotiate a total American withdrawal. If now their strategy is a "wait and see" - let's train Iraqi forces to fight the Sunni resistance and then we negotiate the American withdrawal - they may be in for a rude shock and awe.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2005 11:20 pm Post subject: [Fwd: RE: 21 DEMOCRATIC SENATORS FOR WAR] |
| Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2005 15:16:30 -0800
From: "Jeffrey Blankfort" <jblankfort@earthlink.net> Details
To:
Subject: [Fwd: RE: 21 DEMOCRATIC SENATORS FOR WAR]
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: 21 DEMOCRATIC SENATORS FOR WAR
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 15:22:04 -0600
From: davidepeterson
Dear Friends:
According to the Boston Globe, “21 Democratic senators sent a letter to
President Bush [on Jan. 13] urging him to set aside money in the fiscal
2006 defense budget also headed to Congress for review in February to
increase the Army and Marine Corps.” (“War’s ‘Hidden Cost’ Called Heavy
<http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=8806>,” Bryan Bender,
Jan. 14, 2005.)
“The United States military is too small for the missions it faces,” is
how the letter opens.
The letter continues (Open Letter to President George W. Bush
<http://reed.senate.gov/EndStrenghtLetter1-13-05.htm>, Jan. 13, 2005):
Today, the United States confronts an enormous challenge in
Iraq....Simply put, success in modern war requires sufficient boots on
the ground. With nearly 150,000 troops and Marines in Iraq, nearly
20,000 in Afghanistan, and tens of thousands more in Korea and
elsewhere, we are left to conclude that the American military is too
small, not simply for the challenges we face today, but also as an
appropriate hedge against future dangers.
............
Mr. President, the need to further expand the American military in this
time of war is apparent for all to see....
Begin now, Mr. President, to build the larger American military that
will protect this country in the decade ahead.
Well. I for one don’t agree with a single word of this. But at least we
can recognize the two major factors at work behind this Open Letter.
First, the majority of the Democratic leadership in the Senate is
arguing that the “American military is too small"---not too large,
please note well---"not simply for the challenges we face today, but
also as an appropriate hedge against future dangers.” Rhetorical
posturing aside, this is a formula for an escalation of the American
war
over Iraq. As well as for a deepening of the American commitment to
state violence as the preferred policy option across the rest of the
world.
Second, this Letter was drafted and signed not by some alleged gang of
crazed, right-wing “Neoconservatives.” Not by George Bush, Dick Cheney,
Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice. Quite the contrary. This Letter
was drafted and signed by what the Globe reports to be “21 Democratic
senators”---the leadership of the Democratic opposition, that is.
(Minus
just one or two of them---California Senator Barbara Boxer, for
example.)
Among the 21 Democratic senators signing this letter were Massachusetts
Senator John Kerry---his party’s candidate in last November’s
presidential election, and one of the leading hopefuls for 2008. (At
this very early stage, anyway.)
Also signing-on were senators Jack Reed (RI), Carl Levin (MI), Hillary
Clinton (NY), Patrick Leahy (VT), Christopher Dodd (CT), Richard Durbin
(IL), Edward Kennedy (MA), Joseph Biden (DE), Joseph Lieberman (CT),
Bill Nelson (FL), John Rockefeller (WV), Charles Schumer (NY), Herb
Kohl
(WI), Tim Johnson (SD), Frank Lautenberg (NJ), Daniel Akaka (HI), Ron
Wyden (OR), Thomas Carper (DE), Dianne Feinstein (CA), and Mary
Landrieu
(LA).
Now. Of the 16 states whose Democratic senators signed the letter, 12
of
these states voted “blue” last November 2 (MA, RI, MI, NY, VT, CT, IL,
DE, WI, NJ, HI, and OR), while the other 4 voted “red” (FL, WV, SD,
LA).
With support for the military system and for state-violence both this
bipartisan and this deeply-rooted within the American political
culture,
the philosophy of non-violence and the practice of conscientious
objection are going to have their work cut out for them, it would
appear.
Open Letter to President George W. Bush
<http://reed.senate.gov/EndStrenghtLetter1-13-05.htm>, Sen. John Kerry
et al., January 13, 2005
“War’s ‘Hidden Cost’ Called Heavy
<http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=8806>,” Bryan Bender,
Boston Globe, January 14, 2005
Sincerely Yours,
David Peterson
davidepet@comcast.net <mailto:davidepet@comcast.net>
____________________________________________
____________________________________________
http://reed.senate.gov/EndStrenghtLetter1-13-05.htm
President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
The United States military is too small for the missions it faces.
Accordingly, we write today to urge you to include funding for an
expanded active duty Army and Marine Corps in your FY2006 budget
request.
The men and women of the American military have performed
magnificently.
Their selfless service, sacrifice, and professionalism are in the best
traditions of this country, and we are all proud of them. But pride and
best-case planning must not blind us to the fact that the Army and
Marine Corps are stretched dangerously thin with too few men and women
in uniform.
Today, the United States confronts an enormous challenge in Iraq,
seeking to defeat an insurgency and create the conditions of security
vital to the reconstruction of that country. While this conflict has
affirmed that a lightening-fast, information age force can smash an
opposing military, there is no substitute for an appropriately sized
and
equipped ground force to secure strategic victory from tactical
success.
Simply put, success in modern war requires sufficient boots on the
ground. With nearly 150,000 troops and Marines in Iraq, nearly 20,000
in
Afghanistan, and tens-of-thousands more in Korea and elsewhere, we are
left to conclude that the American military is too small, not simply
for
the challenges we face today, but also as an appropriate hedge against
future dangers.
The Department of Defense has relied on the National Guard and Reserves
at historic rates. At present, more than 185,000 reservists are
mobilized and deployed around the world. They constitute more than 40%
of our forces in Iraq, and the services continue to rely on “stop-loss”
while also activating members of the Individual Ready Reserve.
Congress acted last year to add 20,000 troops to the active duty Army
and 3,000 to the Marine Corps. In doing so, Congress required that if
the Secretary of Defense plans to increase active-duty end strength in
any given fiscal year, it must be reflected in the budget materials
submitted to Congress.
Mr. President, the need to further expand the American military in this
time of war is apparent for all to see. As you prepare your FY2006
budget request, we urge you to include a plan and additional resources
to further expand the active duty end-strength of the Army and the
Marine Corps.
The men and women of the American military deserve wise leadership, the
best equipment, and an appropriately sized force. Begin now, Mr.
President, to build the larger American military that will protect this
country in the decade ahead.
Sincerely,
Signed by Senators Kerry, Reed, Levin, Clinton, Leahy, Dodd, Durbin,
Kennedy, Biden, Lieberman, Bill Nelson, Rockefeller, Schumer, Kohl,
Johnson, Lautenberg, Akaka, Wyden, Carper, Feinstein, and Landrieu.
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=8806
The Boston Globe
January 14, 2005, Friday THIRD EDITION
SECTION: NATIONAL/FOREIGN; Pg. A1
HEADLINE: WAR'S 'HIDDEN COST' CALLED HEAVY
BILLIONS EYED TO REPLENISH FORCES
BYLINE: By Bryan Bender Globe Staff
WASHINGTON - A forthcoming request for additional funds to continue
waging war in Iraq will not begin to address the "hidden cost" of the
conflict, according to Pentagon officials and other government
authorities who say that tens of billions of dollars more will
eventually be needed to repair or replace heavily used equipment and to
compensate for the wear and tear on members of the armed services.
The Pentagon next month plans to ask Congress for up to $100 billion in
supplemental funds to pay for the ongoing combat in Iraq and
Afghanistan, bringing the total budgeted so far to well over $200
billion. But military officers say the administration's estimates do
not
include the investment that will be necessary to fix what they say they
fear is becoming a broken ground force.
"We're going to be paying for this war for years to come,"
Representative Martin T. Meehan, a Lowell Democrat and member of the
House Armed Services Committee, said by telephone yesterday from the
Middle East, where he has been touring US military bases in Iraq. "We
are not preparing for much of the cost."
If the war were to end today, according to a preliminary estimate by
the
Congressional Budget Office that was described by officials who have
been briefed on it, the Army would still need at least $20 billion more
than budgeted over the next three years just to be at the same level of
preparedness as before the war.
All four branches of the military recently completed a "stress study"
ordered a year ago by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to determine
the impact the war is having on equipment. "What they found was an
amazing toll on combat vehicles, generators, just about everything,"
said a defense analyst involved in the study. "At some point it doesn't
make sense to overhaul the equipment, you have to replace it."
The forthcoming Iraq supplemental request is expected to include
several
billion dollars to replace lost and damaged equipment and pay for
maintenance in Pentagon equipment depots, according to a Pentagon
official who spoke on condition that he not be identified. However,
that
money will largely cover current expenses, not the long-term costs
specialists say will burden the federal budget for years to come.
The Army and Marine Corps, and a growing number of National Guard and
Reserve units, are burning through trucks and armored vehicles at rates
between five and 10 times the peacetime average, according to a
confidential briefing prepared by budget analysts and Army officials.
As a result, tanks, trucks, aircraft, and other equipment are aging
much
more quickly than anticipated. By some estimates, up to 40 percent of
certain classes of ground equipment will have to be overhauled or
replaced.
Yet the Bush administration's current practice of only asking Congress
for money to cover the operating costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars
does not account for the need to fund readiness for future missions.
"We have to account for the overall cost of this war not just the
public
cost, but the hidden cost," Meehan said.
The stress on Army equipment, and growing concerns about the impact of
the Iraq war on military readiness, has led to calls from members of
Congress to immediately begin increasing the size of the Army and
Marine
Corps.
Led by Senator John F. Kerry, who called for adding 40,000 ground
troops
to the ranks during his failed presidential bid last year, 21
Democratic
senators sent a letter to President Bush yesterday urging him to set
aside money in the fiscal 2006 defense budget also headed to Congress
for review in February to increase the Army and Marine Corps.
"The United States military is too small for the missions it faces,"
the
lawmakers wrote. "Simply put, success in modern war requires sufficient
boots on the ground. With nearly 150,000 troops and Marines in Iraq,
nearly 20,000 in Afghanistan, and tens of thousands more in Korea and
elsewhere, we are left to conclude that the American military is too
small, not simply for the challenges we face today, but also as an
appropriate hedge against future dangers."
Concerns that the Iraq war will ultimately cost billions more than
estimated before the end of the decade stem from the grinding toll the
conflict is taking on the US military machine ground forces in
particular.
Already the Iraq operation has uncovered funding shortages in the Army
that will have to be met with funds not included in the supplemental
spending packages. An estimate by the Army, which was obtained by the
Globe, paints an even bleaker picture than did the Congressional Budget
Office analysis. The Army briefing estimates that in fiscal years 2005,
2006, and 2007, more than $35 billion could be needed to pay for
backlogged equipment maintenance, battle losses, and to replace
dwindling stocks prepositioned in the Persian Gulf.
"The cost of the war will continue for a decade," said Brett Lambert, a
defense budget specialist at Defense Forecasters International, a
Washington consulting firm. "The roughly $500 billion we spend annually
on defense is just the retainer. On top of that you have the
supplementals, but they pay mostly for operations and maintenance," or
what is needed in the short term to keep the war going.
Steve Kosiak, a defense budget analyst at the Center for Strategic and
Budgetary Assessments in Washington, believes that equipment costs as a
result of the Iraq war will not be as great as some others predict,
noting that much of the equipment being overused would have to be
replaced anyway because it has already been in service for several
decades.
Nevertheless, he said, "the supplemental was designed to replace
equipment directly destroyed in combat or damaged. It hasn't paid for
replacing equipment because of the wear and tear."
Such hidden equipment costs now being estimated will even be larger
when
financial packages to keep soldiers in the ranks and attract new
recruits, disability and death benefits, and other healthcare costs are
factored in, specialists said. "That is a cost burden that continues
for
generations," said Lambert. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 12:46 pm Post subject: PNAC's Happy Warriors |
| See the PNAC link at the top of www.informationclearinghouse.info
PNAC's Happy Warriors
by JASON VEST
February 4, 2005
If love means never having to say you're sorry, its epitome was recently expressed by the Project for the New American Century. A glorified letterhead under which neoconservatives and liberal hawks have been affixing their signatures for years (primarily in the service of bringing regime change to Iraq), PNAC's latest communiqué was dispatched to Capitol Hill on January 28. It implores Congressional leaders to add at least 25,000 troops to the Army and Marine Corps each year for the next several years, as "it should be evident that our engagement in the greater Middle East is truly...a 'generational commitment.' "
"Generational commitment?" Quite a shift from PNAC's March 19, 2003, letter, in which it envisioned that US troops would constitute the bulk of military forces in Iraq for not much more than a year. "Should be evident?" It was, in fact, quite evident to scores of civilian and military professionals well before March 2003 that an Iraq war was likely to be a long, costly endeavor, especially in terms of manpower. And it was those people whom many of PNAC's signatories ignored or disparaged at every turn.
Signatory William Kristol's Weekly Standard, for example, gave little consideration to the estimates of then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki, who held that it would likely take hundreds of thousands of troops over a decade to secure Iraq; one Standard writer tacitly praised Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld for publicly rebuking the general. Indeed, the pages of the Standard in spring 2003 were confident on every front, proudly boasting of copious support from "coalition forces." Signatory Max Boot held, contra Shinseki's estimate, that a mere 65,000-70,000 US troops would be adequate to secure Iraq's future. Signatory Thomas Donnelly declared Iraq a victory with little possibility of a serious insurgency. ("The street-by-street slogging long predicted never materialized.... If there ever was an Iraqi plan for bleeding U.S. or British forces in urban combat, it could not cope either with the British care and precision in Basra or with the boldness of the American attack into Baghdad.")
Elsewhere, signatory Eliot Cohen described the war as "clearly won," called experts leery of the endeavor "fools," sneered at those who thought the US military force "too small to win" and bragged about the US military's "relentless technological development." In late 2003 Cohen was confidently predicting an imminent decrease in US troop presence.
In light of past and present circumstances, one might have hoped that PNAC's demand for Congress to rustle up more soldiers would be accompanied by at least a circumspect apology for past misjudgments, and some measure of detail as to where an annual 25,000 new troops might come from (the word "draft" is conspicuously absent in the letter to Congress). But as PNAC letters are notoriously short on humility and long on hazy and disingenuous rhetoric, why should this be any different? Indeed, to the PNAC crew, it's only a matter of numbers.
There's no call for, say, a radical overhaul of the Army's command structure, which active-duty reformers like Col. Douglas Macgregor and Maj. Donald Vandergriff have persuasively argued is bloated and archaic. There's no call for reform of key Army personnel policies, which have put an emphasis on careerism over soldiering. There's no demand that soldiers get the investment of time in the training they need. There's no demand for any changes or reconsiderations of doctrine. While the letter cites Army Reserve chief Lieut. Gen. James Helmly's recent memo about the precarious situation of the Reserves (he said it "was rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force"), it doesn't note Helmly's concern about giving financial incentives for repeat military service. ("We must consider the point at which we confuse 'volunteer to become an American Soldier' with 'mercenary,'" Helmly wrote.)
"This letter," one senior officer told me, "can be summed up as saying, 'Throw more money and bodies at the problem,' period. It addresses nothing that's really causing problems and has to be addressed to be fixed. And I love the line about 'insist[ing] that we act responsibly to create the military we need to fight the war on terror and fulfill our other responsibilities around the world.' These are the last people I'd look to to do that. I seem to recall these were the folks talking about the future of war being high-tech planes and weapons. Nice that they finally remembered the importance of the soldier, but too late."
Beyond the letter's lack of attention to detail, others in military policy circles note that it stands as something of a monument to the notion that Democrats as well as Republicans should effectively reward the Bush Administration for poor planning on Iraq and poor stewardship of the military. "John Kerry should be proud," quipped veteran Senate Armed Services Committee staffer Winslow Wheeler, now a fellow at the Center for Defense Information, as he surveyed the names of such Democratic luminaries as Peter Beinart, Will Marshall and James Steinberg gracing PNAC's latest epistle. "The expanse of the political spectrum of Washington's elite think-tankery has endorsed his campaign Iraq policy: that George Bush's policy is strategically good but needs to be implemented more effectively." Wheeler adds that the issue of troop strength may be resolved in a different way. "We'll have an excess of ground manpower soon enough," he says. "After the newly elected Iraqi government decides to establish its domestic credibility by telling the US to go home."
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050221&s=vest | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 3:32 pm Post subject: Liberals and Neocons: Together Again |
| The neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC) has signaled its intention to continue shaping the government's national security strategy with a new public letter stating that the "U.S. military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume." Rather than reining in the imperial scope of U.S. national security strategy as set forth by the first Bush administration, PNAC and the letter's signatories call for increasing the size of America's global fighting machine.
The Jan. 28 PNAC letter advocates that House and Senate leaders take the necessary steps "to increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps."
Joining the neocons in the letter to congressional leaders were a group of prominent liberals – giving some credence to PNAC's claim that the "call to act" to increase the total number of U.S. ground forces counts on bipartisan support.
After an initial spate of public pronouncements after 9/11 and during the onset of the Iraq occupation, the Project for the New American Century is again positioning itself as the policy institute that will set the second Bush administration's security agenda. Although PNAC's 1997 statement of principles included only prominent right-wing figures – many of whom later joined the first-term Bush administration – the neocon policy institute has repeatedly reached out to liberals to give its public letters to the Congress and the president the gloss of bipartisanship.
Its new call for congressional leaders to increase overall U.S. troop levels includes endorsement of key liberal analysts. Among the signatories are the leading foreign policy analysts at the Brookings Institution and the Progressive Policy Institute, which are closely associated with the Democratic Party. The endorsees of the letter are largely neoconservatives who are principals in such neocon-led institutes as PNAC, American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and the Center for Security Policy. However, this call for a larger expeditionary force was also signed by prominent liberal hawks, including Michael O'Hanlon, Ivo Daalder, James Steinberg, and Will Marshall – all of whom have signed previous PNAC letters and policy statements.
Support for a "Generational Commitment" in Middle East
PNAC's "Letter to Congress on Increasing U.S. Ground Forces" endorses Secretary of State Rice's assessment that U.S. military engagement in the Middle East is a "generational commitment." To meet that commitment, the PNAC signatories call on Congress to fulfill its constitutional obligation to raise and support military forces – which they say means increasing the number of ground forces by at least 25,000 troops annually over the next several years.
PNAC, which has repeatedly called for increases in the military budget and for military-backed "regime change" around the world, is concerned that the "United States military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume." The neoconservative policy institute, which produced the blueprint for the national security strategy of the first Bush administration, echoes the recent assertion by the chief of the Army Reserve that the "overuse" of U.S. ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan could be result in a "broken force."
Given that the military's reenlistment rates are declining and recruitment goals are not being met, PNAC's call for Congress to increase troop levels implies either reintroducing the draft or dramatically increasing the pay for volunteer enlistees. The latter option would in effect create a global mercenary force deployed to meet the new responsibilities of preventive war, regime change, and political restructuring of the Middle East.
Liberal Hawks Fly with the Neocons
The recent PNAC letter to Congress was not the first time that PNAC or its associated front groups, such as the Coalition for the Liberation of Iraq, have included hawkish Democrats.
Two PNAC letters in March 2003 played to those Democrats who believed that the invasion was justified at least as much by humanitarian concerns as it was by the purported presence of weapons of mass destruction. PNAC and the neocon camp had managed to translate their military agenda of preemptive and preventive strikes into national security policy. With the invasion underway, they sought to preempt those hardliners and military officials who opted for a quick exit strategy in Iraq. In their March 19 letter, PNAC stated that Washington should plan to stay in Iraq for the long haul: "Everyone – those who have joined the coalition, those who have stood aside, those who opposed military action, and, most of all, the Iraqi people and their neighbors – must understand that we are committed to the rebuilding of Iraq and will provide the necessary resources and will remain for as long as it takes."
Along with such neocon stalwarts as Robert Kagan, Bruce Jackson, Joshua Muravchik, James Woolsey, and Eliot Cohen, a half-dozen Democrats were among the 23 individuals who signed PNAC's first letter on postwar Iraq. Among the Democrats were Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution and a member of Clinton's National Security Council staff; Martin Indyk, Clinton's ambassador to Israel; Will Marshall of the Progressive Policy Institute and Democratic Leadership Council; Dennis Ross, Clinton's top adviser on the Israel-Palestinian negotiations; and James Steinberg, Clinton's deputy national security adviser and head of foreign policy studies at Brookings. A second post-Iraq war letter by PNAC on March 28 called for broader international support for reconstruction, including the involvement of NATO, and brought together the same Democrats with the prominent addition of another Brookings' foreign policy scholar, Michael O'Hanlon.
In late 2002 PNAC's Bruce Jackson formed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq that brought together such Democrats as Senator Joseph Lieberman; former Senator Robert Kerrey, the president of the New School University who now serves on the 9/11 Commission; PPI's Will Marshall; and former U.S. Representative Steve Solarz. The neocons also reached out to Democrats through a sign-on letter to the president organized by the Social Democrats/USA, a neocon institute that has played a critical role in shaping the National Endowment for Democracy in the early 1980s and in mobilizing labor support for an interventionist foreign policy.
The liberal hawks not only joined with the neocons to support the war and the postwar restructuring but have published their own statements in favor of what is now widely regarded as a morally bankrupt policy agenda. Perhaps the clearest articulation of the liberal hawk position on foreign and military policy is found in an October 2003 report by the Progressive Policy Institute, which is a think tank closely associated with the Democratic Leadership Council. The report, entitled Progressive Internationalism: A Democratic National Security Strategy, endorsed the invasion of Iraq, "because the previous policy of containment was failing," and Saddam Hussein's government was "undermining both collective security and international law."
PPI President Will Marshall said that the progressive internationalism strategy draws "a sharp distinction between this mainstream Democratic strategy for national security and the far left's vision of America's role in the world. In this document we take issue with those who begrudge the kind of defense spending that we think is necessary to meet our needs, both at home and abroad; with folks who seem to reflexively oppose the use of force; and who seem incapable of taking America's side in international disputes." Among the other liberal hawks who contributed to the Progressive Internationalism report were Bob Kerrey; Larry Diamond of the Hoover Institution and the National Endowment for Democracy; and Michael McFaul of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The repeated willingness of influential liberal leaders and foreign policy analysts, such as Marshall, O'Hanlon, and Daalder, to join forces with the neoconservative camp has bolstered PNAC's claim that its foreign policy agenda is neither militarist nor imperialist but one that is based on a deep respect for human rights, democracy, and universal moral values. Other liberal hawks signing the recent PNAC letter include New Republic editor Peter Beinart; Steven Nider, director of security studies at the Progressive Policy Institute; James Steinberg, director of Brooking's foreign policy studies program and former director of the State Department's Policy Planning office during the Clinton administration; Craig Kennedy, president of the German Marshall Fund and former program officer at the Joyce Foundation; and Michelle Flournoy, a self-described "pro-defense Democrat" who is a member of the Aspen Strategy Group and served in the Clinton administration in the DOD's strategy secretariat. Having Yale historian Paul Kennedy, the author of The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, sign the new letter was a major coup for PNAC.
Not surprising is the list of neocons signing PNAC's new letter. In addition to PNAC's founders William Kristol and Robert Kagan, other PNAC principals included as signatories were its deputy director Daniel McKivergan, executive director Gary Schmitt, military strategist Thomas Donnelly, Middle East associate Reuel Marc Gerecht; and board members Bruce Jackson and Randy Scheunemann. Signatories from the closely associated American Enterprise Institute include Daniel Blumenthal, Joshua Muravchik, Danielle Pletka, and Elliot Cohen. Other neocon luminaries among the 34 signatories include pundit Max Boot; Clifford May, executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies; and Frank Gaffney, founder of the Center for Security Policy.
One striking difference marking the new PNAC letter was its inclusion of several high-ranking retired military officers, including Gen. Barry McCaffrey, former SouthCom commander and Drug Czar, and Lt. Gen. Buster Glosson, who directed air strategy during the Gulf War.
Mugging and Hugging
Irving Kristol, known as the "godfather of neoconservatism," famously defined neoconservatives as "liberals who have been mugged by reality." That political mugging occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the rise of the counterculture, the antiwar movement, and progressive New Politics of the Democratic Party.
Former Trotskyite militants and Cold War liberals like Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, and Midge Decter switched their loyalties to the Republican Party. The "reality" that mugged the neocons was the progressive turn in the Democratic Party led by such figures as Jesse Jackson, Bella Abzug, George McGovern, and Jimmy Carter. In contrast, the neoconservatives found the militant anticommunism and social conservatism of the Ronald Reagan faction in the Republican Party invigorating. In the neocon lexicon, liberalism became synonymous with secularism, women's liberation, anti-Americanism, and appeasement.
Over the past quarter century, the neocons have sought, with increasing success, to rid the Republican Party of its isolationists, its anti-imperialists, and its realists. The younger neocons, such as William Kristol (son of Irving) and Elliott Abrams (son-in-law of Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter), have promoted a new right-wing internationalism that holds that America should be both a global cop and a global missionary for freedom.
Traditional conservatives and Republican Party realists say that the neocons' foreign policy agenda is, respectively, neo-imperialist and unrealistic about the capacity of U.S. military power to remake the world. Apart from their militarist friends in the Pentagon and defense industries, the neocons are finding that their closest ideological allies are the internationalists in the liberal camp. Having recuperated from their mugging, the neocons are now reaching out to liberals who share their idealism about America's global mission. To the delight of the neocons at PNAC and AEI, an influential group of liberal hawks share their vision of a U.S. grand strategy that will create a world order based on U.S. military supremacy and America's presumed moral superiority.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/barry.php?articleid=4799
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