It is an interesting read that provides some perspective into the mindset and experiences of a junior combat officer serving in Iraq from 2006 to 2007. What I found most interesting was the ignorance before and after his time in Iraq and later in Afghanistan as to the events and reasons for the two invasions and occupations.
He seems to be completely unaware of how the US military targeted power plants and water treatment facilities and hospitals during the invasion of Iraq and left the major cities unable to provide basic services. He comments on the high number of “mutant children” and fails to mention that birth defects are a magnitude greater in Iraq than anywhere else in the world and it has been attributed to the widespread use of radioactive munitions (“depleted” uranium which retains 95% of the lethality) by the US Air Force and the Army.
Most interesting were the author’s comments regarding his having too few men to maintain any semblance of control over the enormous area they were supposed to patrol. In June of 1999 the U.S. Central Command or USCENTCOM produced a Desert Crossing report and seminar and this report is easy to find and download from internet sources. This report recommended against a US invasion of the country and against having a “High Commissioner. If the US did invade then at least 300,000 ground troops were needed, however Bush-Cheney and Rumsfeld decided to commit half that number of soldiers. The report also stated that “U.S. involvement could last for at least 10 years”. The report also recommended against disbanding of the Iraq police forces and the Iraqi Army which was ignored by Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld. If the US undertook policing of the country it would require more than 600,000 ground troops to maintain control.
The author talks at length about the lack of appreciation by most Americans of the sacrifices made by the soldiers overseas and is oblivious to the facts that the Iraq invasion was to protect the US dollar after Saddam publicly stated his intention to switch to payment in Euros for the country’s oil.
Even later as he joined the troops in Afghanistan he is unaware of how the U.S. bases were located to protect the new Trans-Afghanistan oil pipeline running across the country from Azerbajaijan and Central Asia to Pakistan. Evidently the U.S. soldiers bought the lie that they were there to promote democracy. Doubly ironic considering how the CIA helped topple democratic governments in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan, to further British and American corporate interests in the region.
In 1935, US Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler wrote a short book “War is a Racket” that was based on his combat experiences in Central America, China, and the Philippines, where the marines were used to suppress any revolts by the people against their rulers. He came to realize that he was helping the bad guys.
He mentions how during the “surge” that he and his fellow soldiers had their tour of duty extended from 12 months to 15 months while the tour of duty for those in the Air Force, Navy, and the Marines, was only 7 months. Nonetheless he fails to appreciate how the ground troops, as always, were considered expendable and nothing more than canon fodder.
It was refreshing to read his disdain for all the “Support our Troops” bumper stickers by civilians who he feels should have been protesting against these wars if they really cared about the men and women in uniform.
George Orwell put it best when he stated "It is the same in all wars; the soldiers do the fighting, the journalists do the shouting, and no true patriot ever gets near a front-line trench, except on the briefest of propaganda tours."
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I coasted thru the Army as a technical guy so this helped me understand what some of our guys really went though in Iraq.
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