Letting in the Draft? Between Iraq and a Hard Place

[chlamor]

April 28, 2005

Letting in the Draft?
by Michael Schwartz and Tom Engelhardt
Tom Dispatch

An overstretched military? You bet. Things going terribly in Iraq? No kidding. Why only yesterday, Jill Carroll and Dan Murphy of the Christian Science Monitor reminded us that, with 140,000 troops (and untold numbers of mercenaries) in Iraq, the Americans can't defend a crucial six-mile stretch of highway between the two lodestars of the American occupation – Baghdad International Airport, a vast, fortified military encampment, and the Green Zone in the heart of the capital, another vast, fortified encampment.

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This seems to be more or less the state of things – impunity and quiet desperation – as the Bush administration tries to keep the world it dreamed of dominating under some kind of control; and yet, as Michael Schwartz makes clear in his latest TomDispatch commentary, it faces a daunting task simply keeping boots on the ground in Iraq. By the way, General Eric Shinseki's prewar comments – which more or less got him laughed out of Washington by the neocons – that we would need "several hundred thousand troops" to succeed in a postwar, occupied Iraq – have often been quoted by critics, who invariably point out how right he was. I've never, however, seen anyone explain where exactly those 200,000-300,000 extra troops were going to come from. What we can now see is that, before the invasion of Iraq ever began, the Pentagon had already traded in those boots-on-the-ground for its high-tech Army. (This is why, as the Boston Globe reported recently, ill-prepared Air Force and Navy personnel find themselves assigned to duties like "protecting supply convoys traveling along Iraq's violent roadways" – and dying.)

<snip>

A key reason for the ever more evident strain on military resources is that more than 40 percent of the 150,000 soldiers in Iraq are Army Reserves and National Guards. As Army historian Renee Hylton told Salon reporter Jeff Horowitz, use of these forces creates pressure to "win and get out … there's a definite limit to people's service." When they are called to active duty, these troops risk their jobs as well as their lives; so, when their mandatory two-year terms expire, a significant proportion of them, under the best of circumstances, are likely to refuse further service. And service in Iraq has already proved something less than the best of circumstances. Little wonder then that, just past the two year anniversary of our invasion, the military is under increasing pressure to replenish this crucial element in the recruitment mix – without much of an idea of how to do so.

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Add to this a constantly increasing casualty toll, now well beyond 30,000, which, in a variety of ways, places yet more pressure on recruitment. Finally, as embittered double-deployment veterans and angry Reserves, along with wounded and mentally stressed discharges, return home, they only stiffen the resistance to enlistment among the young in their neighborhoods.

http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=5759

[bemildred]

1. This one is good too:

Pentagon between Iraq and a hard place

After two years of intensive fighting in Iraq, the Pentagon is feeling the strain in every military muscle and has been looking for relief in just about every direction but one - the draft. All across the United States today, young people are wondering whether, sooner or later, in its increasingly airless military universe, the administration of President George W Bush will open the window a crack and let the draft in.

A key reason for the ever-more-evident strain on military resources is that more than 40% of the 150,000 soldiers in Iraq are Army Reserves and National Guards. As army historian Renee Hylton told Salon reporter Jeff Horowitz, use of these forces creates pressure to "win and get out ... there's a definite limit to people's service". When they are called to active duty, these troops risk their jobs as well as their lives; so, when their mandatory two-year terms expire, a significant proportion of them, under the best of circumstances, are likely to refuse further service. And service in Iraq has already proved something less than the best of circumstances. Little wonder then that, just past the two-year anniversary of the invasion, the US military is under increasing pressure to replenish this crucial element in the recruitment mix - without much of an idea of how to do so.

In addition, in order to maintain troop strength in Iraq at anything like present levels, large numbers of active-duty soldiers must return there for more than one nine-month tour of duty, and this redeployment too generates distrust and distaste. Sooner or later, sizable numbers of these angry soldiers must nevertheless be persuaded to re-enlist, or else the pressure for new enlistees will escalate out of control and beyond the bounds of the present system to satisfy.

Add to this a constantly increasing casualty toll, now well beyond 30,000, which, in a variety of ways, places yet more pressure on recruitment. Finally, as embittered double-deployment veterans and angry Reserves, along with wounded and mentally stressed dischargees, return home, they only stiffen the resistance to enlistment among the young in their neighborhoods.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GD29Ak03.html