Our Troops Are On A Chessboard In Iraq

"Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy."
-- Henry A. Kissinger, quoted by Monika Jensen-Stevenson, Kiss the Boys Goodbye, Dutton, 1990, Page 97, citing The Final Days, Woodward and Bernstein (Simon & Schuster, 1976)

Spc. Thomas Wilson was the third one to pose a question to Secy. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who said they could ask tough ones. He seemed surprised and taken aback by a question posed by the Tennessee Guardsman. It was a town hall style meeting with about 2300 troops in Kuwait waiting to go north into the bloody Iraq quagmire.

"We've had troops in Iraq for coming up on three years and we've always staged here out of Kuwait. Now why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles and why don't we have those resources readily available to us?"

It must have been a question on many minds because after a few seconds of stunned silence, the warehouse, filled with troops from all branches of the military, erupted with loud cheers and applause.

Rumsfeld is usually a master of doublespeak. "There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns - that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know, but there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don't know." This question seemed to catch him at a loss for words.

After asking Wilson to repeat his question, the answer Rumsfeld gave seemed to emphasize the thinking expressed in the earlier Kissinger quote. The assembled "pawns" heard the Secretary say, "As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time." That may hold true for an Army used for defense. This is an Army that was ordered to launch a pre-emptive strike. Starting a war without preparing "the Army you want" is just another example of the miscalculations and failures of this administration.

Showing additional disdain for the safety of our troops, in an attempt to minimize a serious problem Rumsfeld said, "And if you think about it, you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up. And you can have an up-armored humvee and it can be blown up." It wasn't a confidence building statement.

There have been other startling scandals regarding the military's treatment of those we ask to enter harm's way for reasons that have all since been proven groundless.

Spc. Robert Loria had his hand and forearm ripped off by a roadside bomb while riding in a Humvee near Baghdad. He also sustained a broken leg and shrapnel that penetrated the left side of his body. After recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Loria was sent back to Ft. Hood, TX and discharged last week. Unfortunately, he was unable to return to his family in NY because he didn't have enough money to buy gas for his car. The Army had confiscated his last paycheck and presented him with a bill showing he still owed a balance of $1768.81 that included travel expenses from Ft. Hood back to Walter Reed for a follow-up and $310 in unreturned equipment. Perhaps when his hand was blown off he was unable to collect all of his gear as he was being loaded on a stretcher. It took three Democratic legislators, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Charles Shumer, and Rep, Maurice Hinchley to straighten out the paperwork that finally allowed Loria to be able to get home.

Another shame on the military and our nation is the plight of homeless veterans. According to the Homeless Veterans coalition 300,000 veterans seek shelter on any given night. Almost half served during the Vietnam era, but veterans from the Iraq war are already starting to turn up.

If the military continues to treat America's young sons and daughters in uniform like "dumb, stupid animals" perhaps the only recourse is to ask PETA to intervene.

12-12-04