[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: US Army plagued by desertion and plunging morale

[Paul Etxeberri]

>
>
>US Army plagued by desertion and plunging morale
>
>TimesOnLine - December 10, 2004
>
>>From Elaine Monaghan in Washington
>
>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1397131,00.html
>
>While insurgents draw on deep wells of fury to expand
>their ranks in Iraq, the US military is fighting
>desertion, recruitment shortfalls and legal challenges
>from its own troops.
>
>The irritation among the rank and file became all too
>clear this week when a soldier stood up in a televised
>session with Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary,
>to ask why the world's richest army was having to hunt
>for scrap metal to protect its vehicles.
>
>The same night, interviews with three soldiers who are
>seeking refugee status in Canada, where they have
>become minor celebrities, dominated prime time
>television. They are among more the than 5,000 troops
>that CBS's 60 Minutes reported on Wednesday had
>deserted since the war began.
>
>Many experts say that America's 1.4 million active-duty
>troops and 865,000 part-timers are stretched to the
>point where President Bush may see other foreign policy
>goals blunted.
>
>The bleed from the US military is heaviest among
>parttimers, who have been dragged en masse out of
>civilian life to serve their country with unprecedented
>sacrifice. For the first time in a decade, the Army
>National Guard missed its recruitment target this year.
>Instead of signing up 56,000 people, it found 51,000.
>
>"This is something that the President and the country
>should be worried about," said Lawrence Korb, an
>assistant secretary of defence under Ronald Reagan and
>now a military analyst who opposes the war.
>
>A further sign of strain can be seen in the Army's
>decision this year to mobilise 5,600 members of a pool
>of former soldiers that can be mobilised only in a
>national emergency.
>
>More than 183,000 National Guard and reserve troops are
>on active duty, compared with 79,000 before the
>invasion of Iraq. Forty per cent of the 138,000 troops
>in Iraq are part-timers who never expected to be sent
>to the front line.
>
>Instead, as a woman soldier pointedly reminded Mr
>Rumsfeld on Wednesday, they face "stop loss" orders
>that delay their return to civilian life.
>
>Another soldier lost his court battle this week to stop
>the Army extending his one-year contract by at least
>two years. At least eight soldiers have turned to the
>courts, accusing the military of tricking them into
>enlisting for a fixed term without warning them that
>they could be forced to stay longer. Once they get out,
>soldiers are increasingly resisting hefty bonuses to
>re-enlist, an incentive that had helped to meet
>recruitment targets in the past.
>
>The crisis may be even deeper than the statistics
>suggest. Active-duty Army recruiters exceeded their
>target of 77,000 by 587 this year only by dipping into
>a pool of recruits who had not planned to report until
>next year, and by dropping educational standards, Mr
>Korb said.
>
>At 10 per cent, the death rate among war casualties is
>the lowest in history. But maimed men and women are
>flocking home with horror stories about the war, which
>is claiming more and more casualties. Between June,
>when the Iraqi interim Government took over, and
>September, the average monthly casualty rate among US
>forces was 747 a month, compared with 482 during the
>invasion and 415 before the coalition government was
>disbanded. With elections looming next month, the toll
>is expected to mount.
>
>Most soldiers keep their anger under wraps, partly out
>of patriotism but also out of loyalty to their units.
>"There's a thin green line that you don't cross," said
>a veteran with the 4th Infantry, who deployed to Iraq
>last year to help to plan counterinsurgency operations
>and train Iraqi forces.
>
>But at his home base in Fort Carson, Colorado, he has
>resisted a $10,000 re-enlistment incentive and plans to
>get out as soon as he can.
>
>He illustrates the long-term problem the Army faces. He
>served for five years, first in Korea, then in Iraq,
>where he was a combat soldier for almost a year. The
>Americans received little training for the
>counterinsurgency they face. "Every day you wake up
>alive, is a gift from above," the soldier said.
>
>Few experts are surprised to hear that a recent army
>survey discovered that half the soldiers were not
>planning to re-enlist.
>
>Experts are divided over how stretched America's
>military really is. But they agree that another
>conflict would put the military in overdrive. Another
>war would require a shift to a "no-kidding wartime
>posture in which everybody who could shoot was given a
>rifle and sent to the front," according to John Pike,
>of GlobalSecurity.org.
>
>_______________________________________________________
>
>portside (the left side in nautical parlance) is a news,
>discussion and debate service of the Committees of
>Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. It aims to
>provide varied material of interest to people on the
>left.
>
>For answers to frequently asked questions:
><http://www.portside.org/faq>
>
>To subscribe, unsubscribe or change settings:
><http://lists.portside.org/mailman/listinfo/portside>
>
>To submit material, paste into an email and send to:
><moderator at portside.org> (postings are moderated)
>
>For assistance with your account:
><support at portside.org>
>
>To search the portside archive:
><http://people-link5.inch.com/pipermail/portside/>


-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand