Veterans Angry Over Bush's Iraq Speech

There are, as you may expect, a few angry men over at OpTruth, the website for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, today.

Here's Perry Jefferies:

He never referred to his earlier reasons for going to war in Iraq. He did not mention, or I think even say, the word 'Afghanistan' one time. President Bush did not tell us what became of his promise to hunt down Osama Bin Laden and the "people who knocked down these buildings." He made no mention of his vice-president's "last throes" ruminations. He certainly didn't mention the Chinook shot down in Afghanistan today. Although he cited uneven progress and terrible pictures, he didn't discuss the thousands of injured Soldiers or their after-care.

He said some words that sounded like he was defining a mission or a strategy for success, even enumerating three steps on the "Military Track": 1) Partnering Iraqi forces and Coalition troops 2) Embedding Coalition forces with Iraqis as transition teams and 3) Working with the Ministries of the Interior and Defense to conduct leadership training. This reminded me of foreign bands that used to play in the NCO clubs in Korea. If you didn't pay much attention, they seemed to be singing familiar songs. But when you listened close, you realized they weren't really singing words in English - but making sounds that were similar. Although he trotted out the 160,000 number of Iraqi forces, he contradicted this by saying not many were trained. He detailed no condition or measurable goal that would spell success. He gave no indication of how close or how far we were from achieving that goal. The items he listed were activities and not end-states. He did take a moment to blame any troop shortage on military commanders and ignored any influence from the Department of Defense.

And David Chasteen:

His speech says basically "we were attacked on 9/11 and so we went to war." And then he goes on to "we're fighting terrorists in Iraq." But it's like, woah. Wait a second. They weren't there before we fucked it up...That shit may be convincing if you just arrived on the scene, but we saw the whole thing go down up close and in person.

And I've just never been a big fan of the "live bait" theory of national security. That being that it's better to send volunteer Americans to a target range in the middle east so they can be killed there rather so that non-volunteer Americans don't get killed on our own soil. If we're going to be sending Americans to a war that WE start, it had better have a pretty damn good, well-thought-out strategic objective from start to finish, and I don't think that standard was met. I'm furious every time I hear some asshole say "it's better for Americans to die overseas than here at home." To paraphrase someone much more famous than me, the point of combat is not to die for your country, it's to make the other poor bastard die for HIS country.

That being said, the President is obviously right. We ARE being attacked by terrorists in Iraq now, thanks to our own piss-poor planning. And we do have to defeat the terrorists and it is, to some extent, nice to have them all in one central location so we can kill them there. But that assumes that the guys that are showing up in Iraq are terrorists who have been diverted from operations elsewhere (like our own CIA and other spooky operatives) rather than new recruits who were recruited on the basis of the invasion itself. Unfortunately, the available evidence seems to indicate that our presence in the region is manufacturing plenty of local (though not necessarily Iraqi) insurgent recruits so that operatives elsewhere can continue work as usual, and THAT is not a strategic objective that is worth our effort, in my opinion.

Pretty cutting stuff, from guys who know their military asses from their elbows.

Now, I've heard criticisms of OpTruth, mostly centering around their "left-wing agenda", but those criticisms miss an important point.

These guys were actually there, at the sharp end. If they have left-wing leanings over the Twin Wars (and no-one knows whether they are leftwing over say, the Supreme Court or gay rights or a dozen other issues as they don't speak about them) then they got there for what they see as good reasons from their own experiences.

You can't just write them off with a glib phrase about an "agenda".

They fought, they bled, they watched their buddies die. They earned the right to stand up and say if they think current policy is fucked up as no-one else has. They certainly have more right to bitch than non-military rightwing pundits have to cheerlead. It's a right paid for in blood and sweat and no-one with an ounce of honor could suggest otherwise.

They have done more too, to support other troops (their pressure over combat armor or medical supplies) and their fellow veterans (their work on recognition of and aid for the deficiencies in PTSD care or the underfunded VA), than any number of people who simply fly a flag or slap a ribbon on their truck and think that's enough.

Lastly, by showing that the military is not a single lump - that there is dissent from the Bush line - they do one last vital service. They include ALL Americans ( and even us foreigners who live here - any idea how many troops "over there" aren't citizens?) in an important discussion when others would consign a whole 49% of the country to the outer dark simply because they do not support Bush.

More power to them.