US Marines & Army Soldiers - The Silence is Deafening
Politicians are not in a position to say much with authority about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
What they believe they know they have learned through the filter of administration reports and the mainstream media.
Reporters, with the exception of those who have patrolled the streets with troops or insurgents, know just about as much as politicians, though they don't have the benefit of all the reports.
The folks in the best position to describe how US foreign policy is playing out on the ground in the Middle East are those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
With hundreds of billions at stake, and millions of lives on the lines, doesn't it seem like the facts might matter? The Vital Role of the Citizen Soldier After World War II, the men who served in the European and Pacific theaters returned home to remake the United States.
Their productivity was the heart of an economic boom that lasted throughout the 1950s.
They presided over investments in Germany and Japan that turned those nations into economic power houses for 50 years (and counting).
Perhaps more important, their insights into how to wage war gave the US a commitment to the protection of human rights even when nations were at war.
The Nuremberg trials demonstrated the dedication these pragmatic men had to rules of engagement, the treatment of prisoners, and the protection of unarmed civilians.
There are those who credit these fighting men with unnaturally charitable natures and an unusual understanding of Christian values.
The truth is, these guys understood the mechanics of war.
If you want men to surrender to your armies, those men must believe they won't be tortured.
If you want civilian populations to support your occupation, you must deliver the food and medicine and other resources they need to survive.
These veterans understood that the path to an ugly defeat is paved with the bones of the people an army tortures, starves and executes.
The Citizen Soldiers Korea and Vietnam played a vital role in making and keeping the United States a super power, choosing to wage a cold war rather than a hot one in most cases, with some going so far as to question the use of war as an instrument of foreign policy at all.
Four years into the war in Iraq, and six years into the war in Afghanistan, why aren't recent veteransplaying a larger role in the national debate? Silent or Silenced? There are a number of films that attempt to document the experience of US forces who have served on the ground in Iraq.
BACK FROM IRAQ: The US Soldier Speaks, THE GROUND TRUTH, THE WAR TAPES,and IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS feature interviews with soldiers and Marines who have fought in Iraq.
But the vast majority of these independent films were created by activists or filmmakers rather than by ex-military men working on their own.
These films are not regularly featured on cable or broadcast channels though the topics they address and the men they interview are central to the future of the US and its foreign policy around the world.
Still, independent filmmakers have done far more than the national media to give veterans a voice.
Captains, Sergeants, Lance Corporals and Privates fresh off 21st century urban battlefields do not appear on CNN, MSNBC or FOX News with any frequency at all.
Discussions about the future of Iraq and Afghanistan, the condition of the people who live there, and the investments realistically required to make those nations into US allies are had without the help of the only US citizens who have worked on the ground in those nations day in and day out.
The only people we hear less from than soldiers and marines are the 140,000+ military contractors working in Iraq.
Well, that's not quite true.
We hear next to nothing from the Iraqi's and Afghan's who are working so hard to survive this war.
Why are the only real experts in this war the folks we almost never hear from? Is it because they do not want to be heard? Is it because what they have to say is so unpalatable that the country doesn't want to hear what they have to say? I think the answer may be .
.
.
we don't care enough to ask them.
Sometimes the Facts Really Matter When a newscaster or a magazine article tells you to bake your cookies at 250 degrees rather than 350, you end up with soggy cookies.
The facts in that case do not matter much.
When they tell you that Enron is an innovative, fast growing company you can invest in with some confidence, the facts matter a little more.
When the news media in a national election cycle fails to cover the facts on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan and actively gives you misinformation instead, the costs can be very high.
A Nobel Prize winning economist and a Harvard budget analyst are estimating that the cost of war in Iraq alone will be over $2 Trillion.
To put that in context, the full production of the United States is just $7 Trillion a year.
The costs of war are not limited to the $4-6 Billion we spend each month.
We have to care for the Vets who come home, pay the interest on the money we used to buy this war, and provide for the future security of Iraq and Afghanistan as well.
One might argue that we can walk away from both Iraq and Afghanistan, but many vets who have served in those nations will tell you that hundreds of thousands of civilians we have worked with will be killed, and many of the insurgents we created in those nations will leave attack US interests elsewhere.
These folks may ask you how neighboring nations like Iran and Turkey are likely to address a gaping power vacuum and millions of starving people right outside their borders.
They may suggest that what happens to those people will involve more deaths than you can possibly imagine.
They may ask you how quickly we can wean the US off foreign oil and how you plan to cushion the resulting impact on our economy which the world has depended on for so many years.
Alternatively they may tell you that our military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has to end soon because long deployments are resulting in broken families, increased mental illness on and off the battlefield, and a force that is not prepared to take on other challenges we may face in the decades to come.
The truth is, the facts on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan matter a great deal because what happens there will impact the world for decades to come.
The only folks who know those facts, who can speak with conviction and authority due to first person experience, are men who have served in, and the citizens living in, those nations.
When our foreign policy is built on something other than facts, our failure is assured and our national costs are maximized.
What Can You Do? The vast majority of the strategies the nation is being offered by this year's crop of politicians and the media are based on shocking ignorance and arrogance.
We, as a nation, must start encouraging our new crop of Citizen Soldiers to play a role in the national debate on US foreign policy.
We must ask radio stations, local television stations, news writers and the national media talk to vets and perhaps even to Iraqi's and Afghans, about the wars we are fighting.
With accurate information and rational analysis, our nation can come up with some good solutions to the problems we face overseas.
What they believe they know they have learned through the filter of administration reports and the mainstream media.
Reporters, with the exception of those who have patrolled the streets with troops or insurgents, know just about as much as politicians, though they don't have the benefit of all the reports.
The folks in the best position to describe how US foreign policy is playing out on the ground in the Middle East are those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
With hundreds of billions at stake, and millions of lives on the lines, doesn't it seem like the facts might matter? The Vital Role of the Citizen Soldier After World War II, the men who served in the European and Pacific theaters returned home to remake the United States.
Their productivity was the heart of an economic boom that lasted throughout the 1950s.
They presided over investments in Germany and Japan that turned those nations into economic power houses for 50 years (and counting).
Perhaps more important, their insights into how to wage war gave the US a commitment to the protection of human rights even when nations were at war.
The Nuremberg trials demonstrated the dedication these pragmatic men had to rules of engagement, the treatment of prisoners, and the protection of unarmed civilians.
There are those who credit these fighting men with unnaturally charitable natures and an unusual understanding of Christian values.
The truth is, these guys understood the mechanics of war.
If you want men to surrender to your armies, those men must believe they won't be tortured.
If you want civilian populations to support your occupation, you must deliver the food and medicine and other resources they need to survive.
These veterans understood that the path to an ugly defeat is paved with the bones of the people an army tortures, starves and executes.
The Citizen Soldiers Korea and Vietnam played a vital role in making and keeping the United States a super power, choosing to wage a cold war rather than a hot one in most cases, with some going so far as to question the use of war as an instrument of foreign policy at all.
Four years into the war in Iraq, and six years into the war in Afghanistan, why aren't recent veteransplaying a larger role in the national debate? Silent or Silenced? There are a number of films that attempt to document the experience of US forces who have served on the ground in Iraq.
BACK FROM IRAQ: The US Soldier Speaks, THE GROUND TRUTH, THE WAR TAPES,and IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS feature interviews with soldiers and Marines who have fought in Iraq.
But the vast majority of these independent films were created by activists or filmmakers rather than by ex-military men working on their own.
These films are not regularly featured on cable or broadcast channels though the topics they address and the men they interview are central to the future of the US and its foreign policy around the world.
Still, independent filmmakers have done far more than the national media to give veterans a voice.
Captains, Sergeants, Lance Corporals and Privates fresh off 21st century urban battlefields do not appear on CNN, MSNBC or FOX News with any frequency at all.
Discussions about the future of Iraq and Afghanistan, the condition of the people who live there, and the investments realistically required to make those nations into US allies are had without the help of the only US citizens who have worked on the ground in those nations day in and day out.
The only people we hear less from than soldiers and marines are the 140,000+ military contractors working in Iraq.
Well, that's not quite true.
We hear next to nothing from the Iraqi's and Afghan's who are working so hard to survive this war.
Why are the only real experts in this war the folks we almost never hear from? Is it because they do not want to be heard? Is it because what they have to say is so unpalatable that the country doesn't want to hear what they have to say? I think the answer may be .
.
.
we don't care enough to ask them.
Sometimes the Facts Really Matter When a newscaster or a magazine article tells you to bake your cookies at 250 degrees rather than 350, you end up with soggy cookies.
The facts in that case do not matter much.
When they tell you that Enron is an innovative, fast growing company you can invest in with some confidence, the facts matter a little more.
When the news media in a national election cycle fails to cover the facts on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan and actively gives you misinformation instead, the costs can be very high.
A Nobel Prize winning economist and a Harvard budget analyst are estimating that the cost of war in Iraq alone will be over $2 Trillion.
To put that in context, the full production of the United States is just $7 Trillion a year.
The costs of war are not limited to the $4-6 Billion we spend each month.
We have to care for the Vets who come home, pay the interest on the money we used to buy this war, and provide for the future security of Iraq and Afghanistan as well.
One might argue that we can walk away from both Iraq and Afghanistan, but many vets who have served in those nations will tell you that hundreds of thousands of civilians we have worked with will be killed, and many of the insurgents we created in those nations will leave attack US interests elsewhere.
These folks may ask you how neighboring nations like Iran and Turkey are likely to address a gaping power vacuum and millions of starving people right outside their borders.
They may suggest that what happens to those people will involve more deaths than you can possibly imagine.
They may ask you how quickly we can wean the US off foreign oil and how you plan to cushion the resulting impact on our economy which the world has depended on for so many years.
Alternatively they may tell you that our military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has to end soon because long deployments are resulting in broken families, increased mental illness on and off the battlefield, and a force that is not prepared to take on other challenges we may face in the decades to come.
The truth is, the facts on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan matter a great deal because what happens there will impact the world for decades to come.
The only folks who know those facts, who can speak with conviction and authority due to first person experience, are men who have served in, and the citizens living in, those nations.
When our foreign policy is built on something other than facts, our failure is assured and our national costs are maximized.
What Can You Do? The vast majority of the strategies the nation is being offered by this year's crop of politicians and the media are based on shocking ignorance and arrogance.
We, as a nation, must start encouraging our new crop of Citizen Soldiers to play a role in the national debate on US foreign policy.
We must ask radio stations, local television stations, news writers and the national media talk to vets and perhaps even to Iraqi's and Afghans, about the wars we are fighting.
With accurate information and rational analysis, our nation can come up with some good solutions to the problems we face overseas.
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