Put War Powers Back Where They Belong

I'm happy to see two former secretaries of state take up this issue while presenting a viable alternative. The War Powers Consultation Act of 2009 can help prevent wars and help ensure finger pointing is kept at a minimum after a conflict begins... Here is an excerpt:

A bipartisan group that we led, the National War Powers Commission, has unanimously concluded after a year of study that the law purporting to govern the decision to engage in war — the 1973 War Powers Resolution — should be replaced by a new law that would, except for emergencies, require the president and Congressional leaders to discuss the matter before going to war. Seventy years of polls show that most Americans expect Congress and the president to talk before making that decision, and in most cases, they have done so.

Congress passed the 1973 resolution in response to the Vietnam War. But it is ineffective at best and unconstitutional at worst. No president has recognized its constitutionality, and Congress has never pressed the issue. Nor has the Supreme Court ever ruled on its constitutionality. In fact, courts have largely shied away from refereeing war-powers disputes between the two political branches.

After passing this Act, the next step is to require an activation of the selective service system whenever troops are sent to conflict... even if it just calls up one person. This would bring the war home to Main Street USA, force the American public to truly think about their initial support for a conflict, help mitigate the problems associated with America's Achilles' Heel ADD when it comes to armed conflict, and help end the divorce between the military and the civilian population in America.

Frustration in the Army officer corps - the untold story

This is a great read. Capps does a fantastic job summarizing the problems the Army is having in retaining officers. He deals with many issues that are not often covered in the mainstream media today like how most reporters are not schooled in DoD jargon and, therefore, have a hard time understanding and interviewing soldiers. This, he concludes, is a factor in divorcing the "all-volunteer" Army from the rest of society. Shifting back to officer brain drain, if the Army continues to hemorrhage good officers, we will be left with an officer corps composed of 1LT Calleys.

Is the Insurgency Our Own Creation?

During my two tours in Iraq I witnessed two different approaches to counter-insurgency, aggressive versus passive, and took note on how the infantry's culture naturally accepts the aggressive style. I am not arguing for passivity, clearly we need aggressive soldiers, but in a counterinsurgency, where the people are the key terrain, we need to tread lightly. My basic question is: How much are we contributing to the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan while trying to prevent it?
Unfortunately, I do not offer any answers, but only present my experiences to serve as an analogy to the infantry's disincentives to conduct a good counterinsurgency.

During my first tour from 2003 to 2004, I was an Infantry Platoon Leader in the 101st Airborne, near Mosul, tasked with stopping the looting of a university and to impose peace on the local neighborhoods. I was in Alpha Company where we would rotate once a month with Charlie Company using the university as our headquarters. As we did the hand-over, Charlie Company would tell us about the unruliness of the town, and that they were constantly fired upon. Because of this they recommended many patrols and nightly cordon and searches because there were a lot of “bad guys.” Once we took responsibility of the patrols we were hardly shot at and rarely mortared, as compared to the nightly experience of Charlie Company. It took us a little while to figure out why this was happening--of course the Charlie Company Commander never figured it out. Basically, the Charlie Company Commander had an offensive, conventional approach, which angered a lot of the locals. He treated the towns-people as subordinates by issuing orders as if they were his children. To stop the locals from shooting at his troops the Charlie Company commander increasing the patrols, and conduct more nightly raids, only to infuriate the locals more so. From the American point of view, the Charlie Company Commander was seen as more productive than Alpha Company because he was conducting more patrols and capturing more “bad guys.” Quantitatively, Charlie Company appeared more productive than Alpha Company who appeared to be lazy. After a while the locals could tell when Charlie Company was in charge because their commander had twice the amount of guards on the roof and twice the amount of patrols, because there was twice as much activity. So the locals knowing that Charlie Company was in charge would attack them more often. Then when Alpha Company was in charge, we essentially did half the work because there were half the attacks. Of course doing half the work is counter-culture to the hyperactive infantry, nor does it report well that we are in a combat zone doing nothing. When the relieving unit took over, they let their hyperactivity get the best of them and annoyed all of the locals, who in turn shot at the soldiers--or supported those that did.

During my second tour in Kirkuk, 2005-2006, I noticed the same disincentive of passivity, where those units that conducted the most raids and produced the higher numbers in killing or capturing the “enemy” received more accolades, more medals, and more bragging rights. They got to play with the bigger toys—had air support and all the newer gadgets—because they needed them more. Those who were interested in “keeping the peace” and talking to leaders and exercising patience were seen as less productive than the aggressive unit. This low productivity level was highlighted when the companies put their weekly accomplishments side-by-side on a PowerPoint slide in front of their peers, superiors, and subordinates at the weekly battalion meetings. It seemed that the higher commanders would question the existence of a low producing company commander—what were they doing in Iraq?

In the infantry there is an incentive to be aggressive. These aggressive feelings further mount when people are trying to kill you. Then when you cannot find the enemy, the entire population is seen as the enemy. This is where the difficulty rests: in counterinsurgency, an aggressive unit is actually counter-productive. In sum, I wonder how much of our troubles in Iraq and Afghanistan are brought on by ourselves?

Homeless Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans

Perhaps DoD will attempt to fix the problem in classifying veterans' disabilities when they leave the service. Instead of giving them a lower rating so they don't qualify for a retirement check and Tricare, perhaps they should... instead of just pushing them off onto the VA. "Oh the VA will take care of them," they think to themselves. Isn't the VA the same department that employs program coordinators that request staff refrain from diagnosing PTSD as much as they have been?

So if many veterans are receiving inadequate care and inaccurate mental health diagnoses perhaps this is a contributing factor towards a large homeless veterans population?! Just think of when in 30 years all of the veterans that have undiagnosed Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) start feeling the effects of all of the concussions that went unreported from IED attacks they experienced... we will have a crop of "punch drunk" homeless veterans on our hands.

This situation is occurring because the military industrial complex collectively said, "Hey, these vets chose to join and are looking for a handout... they should have just stayed in the military and done their 20 years. I did it, they should have too. None of those vets even go to college anyway, why should we support a new G.I. Bill? These vets going to the VA don't really have anything wrong with them. Screw them, their future career prospects, their mental health, and general well-being. Oh yeah, and no I don't have any money for a homeless vet. On another note, did I tell you that Northrop Grumman is making a new KC-45 Fuel Tanker for the Air Force? We NEED that fuel tanker NOW!!! Also, the ballistic missile defense shield just needs a trillion or so more dollars to be functional!!! Oh, did I tell you that right now I'm on (INSERT RETIRED GENERAL'S NAME HERE)'s team working on a new weapon system for (INSERT DEFENSE CONTRACTING COMPANY HERE) that should be ready by 2100 that can cripple the enemy using mind bullets - all without any collateral damage! By the way, do you want to go to the Army-Navy Club and get a round of golf in this weekend?"