Remember last year when we kept getting increasingly dire stories about how the military was in a recruiting crisis? Odd how those stories seem to have disappeared off the collective radar screens, isn’t it? However, Strategypage notes why these stories have disappeared:
Except for a few months in 2004-5, the military has been able to maintain its strength, despite wartime conditions. The biggest problem has not been casualties (only about 10,000 soldiers have been killed or disabled so far, less than one percent of overall strength), but the disruption to family life caused by so many troops getting sent to combat zones. This discouraged re-enlistments in reserve units, although mainly among the non-combat troops. In combat units, re-enlistments were at record levels.
Now, the idea that Iraq is a “quagmire” has been the idée fixé with the media for some time, but the fact that the people most likely to be shot at or blown up keep coming back for more seems to betray that notion. Then again, much of the danger in Iraq lies with the logistical units – the units most likely to be ambushed or attacked with IEDs and VBIEDs. This is one of the reasons why simply adding more troops in Iraq wouldn’t necessarily have been better – more troops means more and more frequent supply runs, which increases the number of targets for attackers.
Strategypage also notes something else of interest:
But the biggest asset in the recruiting effort has been the world-of-mouth from the troops themselves. They believe in what they are doing, and accomplishing. They believe they are well equipped, trained and led to do it. This angle has not gotten much press coverage, probably because so few members of the press know troops personally. The army recruits largely from the middle classes and non-urban areas. Just the kinds of places and people where you won’t find journalists and pundits. When the media does address the recruiting situation, it is dismissed as not relevant. The troops are described as not “getting the big picture,” or worse.
If anything, it’s the press who “doesn’t get the big picture” given that they barely ever leave the Green Zone of Baghdad. The troops spend a significant fraction of their time interacting with the Iraqi people, both on patrols and also just interacting with them. The media will report on dramatic stories of insurgents seizing police stations, while the troops in the city where it all went down already know the whole story was false.
The media’s perceptions of Iraq continue to be at odds with the reality of Iraq. If Iraq is in a “civil war” because of the violence there, isn’t it also true that Brazil is facing a civil war due to the violence in Sao Paulo? The situation in Iraq is admittedly more dire, but there’s a significant difference between sectarian violence and open civil war. Indeed, despite all the violence in Iraq the political process continues to press on as Prime Minister Noori al-Maliki forms his new government.
There are many challenges we face ahead of us before the situation in Iraq will be sufficiently stable for us to depart – and one of the biggest of them all is the way in which our media intentionally and unintentionally distorts the news to make victory seem impossible.
If more people did see what was happening “over there,” I think it would be an eye opener. Check out what the Coalition is doing at the CENTCOM website: http://www.centcom.mil.
Sgt. Gehlen
U.S. Central Command Public Affairs
“Now, the idea that Iraq is a “quagmire†has been the idée fixé with the media for some time”
And how many years of low-level civil war (or no-holds-barred civil war) will it take before you to concede the “quagmire” classification. We’re at more than three years now. Does this war actually have to surpass the length of time spent in Vietnam before you accept reality.
Because the sort of sectarian conflict we’re seeing isn’t a sign of a “quagmire.” It doesn’t indicate the overall level of progress in Iraq. The political process continues as the truly difficult issues start to get ironed out. The sectarian militias don’t have any legitimacy in Iraq. The Iraqi people have soundly rejected terrorism. Al-Qaeda in Iraq has been rendered largely useless. The supply lines across the Euphrates have been smashed. The Iraqi Army is much, much more capable than they were even before the war.
The idea that a few car bombs and assassinations equate to a “quagmire” is only possible if you only focus on one aspect of the story and ignore all the rest.
Except this is nothing like Vietnam. It’s a utterly idiotic comparison to make, and the people who use it demonstrate a profound ignorance of both conflict. We lost more troops in months in Vietnam than we’ve lost in the past five years. Every single metric of conflict in Iraq is vastly different than the situation in Vietnam. There is absolutely no comparison beyond the most superficial between Iraq and Vietnam. They are different wars with different situations in different times with different actors and different outcomes.
If people actually bothered to educate themselves on the whole situation in Iraq, the “quagmire” argument would quickly be revealed for the sham that it is.