Help the Military, Help Ourselves Posted by Lorelei Kelly

Today, Senator Joe Biden (D,DE) circulated a Dear Colleague letter with some strong language about the need for Congress to take more responsibility for ongoing Iraq policy. (Dear Colleagues are one of the ways Members of Congress explicitly communicate with each other. They are hand delivered office to office by the internal mail service)

"To get out of the impasse that we're in, Congress must forge a new compact with the Administration to gain the informed consent of the American people on Iraq. Specifically, the Administration should develop with us clear benchmarks or goals in each of the key areas: security, reconstruction, governance and internationalization.  The six of us and the committees we represent should aggressively assert our oversight responsibilities by insisting that the Administration report on progress toward those goals every month in public testimony.  I'd expect the Administration to detail what we had achieved, where we had fallen short, why we had fallen short and what we were doing to remedy the shortfalls.

In my judgement, this combination of benchmarks and regular public accountability could go a long way toward convincing the American people that they are getting the facts on Iraq and that we have a strategy for success.  We need to win back their confidence, our troops deserve nothing less."

Senator Biden is right. We need a public conversation on Iraq.  If Congress isn't going to take his advice and do it, then the public should lead. This is important not only for its own merits--but we need to get a dialogue process started that will inhibit the kind of divided and bitter public legacy left by VietNam. By organizing public interactions in a constructive way, progressives will benefit. We will not only  learn more about today's security issues and create relationships with military professionals but also help build the political constituency for a better post 9/11 national security strategy.

The military would greatly benefit from this type of public interaction. They are learning at a remarkable pace just what combinations of power and policy are effective in today's wars. Yet they can only take their knowledge and feedback so far. It will be up to the rest of us to initiate the conversation, to take the time to understand, to translate jargon and to build a political constituency for change.

I spent two days last week at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Their Center for Strategic Leadership convened a conference entitled "Addressing the Conditions that Foster Terrorism".The premise for the conference was the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism which establishes four goals for addressing the breadth of the terrorist threat: Defeat Terrorists and their Organizations; Deny Sponsorship and Support to Terrorists;Diminish the Underlying Conditions that Terrorists Seek to Exploit; and Defend US Citizens and Interests at Home and Abroad.

The discussions over the two days centered on the concern that the least prioritized and coordinated of these four goals appears to be the foundation of the terrorists' efforts--the underlying conditions they exploit to reconstitute and grow.  The Army fully understands the recommendations of the 9/11 commission report--until these underlying conditions are addressed the defeat of terrorism cannot be assured.

The Army and Marine Corps--America's landpower forces-- have led the way in figuring out how to problem-solve in today's chaotic and complicated war zones. We discussed how we might take the lessons learned from post war experience in democracy building and apply them to prevention strategies. Progressives who want something to say "yes" to about the military would do well to check out a few military publications.  Try the Joint Electronic Library for starters...then have a look at the Army Manual for Peace Operations.  This is the guidance our soldiers take with them into war. It includes chapters on negotiation, conflict resolution, civil law, demobilization and disarmament, civil law and order.

In the break out sessions, we also discussed the drastic changes needed in budget priorities, and the difficulties of the military being both good cop and bad cop. In other words, how, in the long-term, our hearts and minds campaign may not be able to overcome a strategy based on pre-emptive war and hardware dominance.

Acknowledging, documenting and discussing these issues is something that military brain-trusts do very well. But for anyone in a uniform,  bright lines exist between these activities and acting to actually change policy priorities. Talking about budgets and about how we can translate the military's conflict resolution activities into a strategy of prevention is up to the rest of us. Is anybody out there initiating local public conversations about the Iraq war? If so, I'd love to hear about it. If not, what are we waiting for?

Comments

[Cal]

--In my judgement, this combination of benchmarks and regular public accountability could go a long way toward convincing the American people that they are getting the facts on Iraq and that we have a strategy for success.-- Biden

I'm all for public accountability, but it's not clear that telling the American people the truth about Iraq will presuade them that a strategy for success is even possible right now. Electricity and oil production are down from pre-war levels, despite billions spent in reconstruction. We have too few troops to stabilize Iraq, and we've trained 3 brigades of Iraqi troops in 2 1/2 years.

If Biden's goal is to prevent a US withdrawal in the near-term, disseminating these facts is not the way to do it. A majority of people already want at least a partial withdrawal within a year, and this would only increase if more people knew the truth.

No, if you want to stay in Iraq, then Bush has the right idea: lie to the people and hope against experience that we can turn this around.

[rosignol]

We need a public conversation on Iraq.

-----

Have you been living in a cave for the last two years?

[Stygius]

Not just Iraq, but some proper legislative oversight of the GWOT/GWOE. The Dem caucus should come out in support of Arlen Specter's intervention over Guantanamo. Even if it is not closed down, it needs to be brought under Congressional purview. Congress has War Powers in the Constitution as well, and it has spent the past few years abdicating them. It hasn't done the country much good to buy into this fallacy of Executive unilateralism embodied in documents like the Bybee Memo.

[David Billington]

Lorelei,

I don't think Senator Biden is calling for a public conversation directly. His letter calls for greater accountability of the executive branch to Congress, so that the public has a clearer sense of what is going on in Iraq. What is really needed now is public pressure, not public discussion, to bring our means and ends in that country into alignment.

Your larger point, though, about public understanding of the armed forces is important. Most people in uniform have relatives and friends back home with whom they stay in touch, and the military has a fairly good idea of what public opinion is like back home. The general public on the other hand knows much less about the military.

There are three approaches I see to solve this problem. One is to include military institutions in the teaching of high school civics. This would have to be done in a careful way (if it verges on recruitment it will inflame opposition and hurt the armed forces). But I don't think it would be controversial to argue that Americans need to learn about the military as part of their basic education in citizenship.

A second approach is for national security peer groups (uniformed and civilian) to offer peer review to a broader range of people. Peer groups tend to recognize people whose backgrounds, ideas, and forms of expression are congruent with those of the groups. Dialogue with the general public could be a major distraction if the signal to noise ratio is high. But offering peer review to outsiders who make a disciplined effort to contribute could broaden the range of ideas and people involved.

A third approach would expand your idea of adult self-education. Military strategy documents and tactical manuals written for intramural use can be informative to outsiders but what is needed is explanatory context for this kind of raw information.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has long had its own graduate school that enrolls private citizens. There is no reason why the National Defense University and the various military graduate colleges couldn't at least automate some of their courses on CD and sell them to the public. People who avail themselves of resources like these could then participate in public debate with more of the knowledge that military officers themselves receive.

[Lorelei Kelly]

Rosignol. Yes. I live in a cave called Washington, DC and I work on national defense issues. This cave is populated by older white men who don't always know about anything happening at the grass roots. I don't mean the media conversation. I mean public discussions that have some sort of problem-solving element to them.
p.s. are you named after the ski?

Mr. Billington. Great ideas. I'm working on the raw-data translation one.

[doc]

…while i applaud biden’s move in a general sense, it is worth remembering that section 4, (a), of the joint resolution authorizing military force against iraq states:
“The President shall, at least once every 60 days, submit to the Congress a report on matters relevant to this joint resolution, including actions taken pursuant to the exercise of authority granted in section 2 and the status of planning for efforts that are expected to be required after such actions are completed, including those actions described in section 7 of Public Law 105-338 (the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998).”
so, what biden is asking for is what congress should have been receiving all along: the fact that biden and the rest of congress have not yet held the WH’s feet to the fire to get more detailed information, or not held public hearings on those reports before now (and certainly not used that information to generate a public discourse) is to his and congress’s discredit.
that said, if biden can finally get congress to honestly oversee the iraqi mess, more power to him. however, like stygius, i also want that supervision to include strict oversight of the GWOT/GWOE, from global planning to the individual proposed actions in the field, from true oversight and responsibility for our ‘gulags,’ to our absurd and shameful policies on rendition. if that happens then the country can have a true conversation.
“…the least prioritized and coordinated of these four goals appears to be the foundation of the terrorists' efforts--the underlying conditions they exploit to reconstitute and grow.”
after reading the goals and objective portion of the national strategy for combating terrorism, i can easily understand why. for instance…
“While we recognize that there are many countries and people living with poverty, deprivation, social disenfranchisement, and unresolved political and regional disputes, those conditions do not justify the use of terror.”
well, sure, not in our opinion…

“Objective: Partner with the international community to strengthen weak states and prevent the (re)emergence of terrorism.”

…as long as they agree to our current social bete noires: no funding for birth control, despise that neighbor – support this one, etc…

“Objective: Win the War of Ideas. Together with the international community, we will wage a war of ideas to make clear that all acts of terrorism are illegitimate…”

correct me here, but I’m thinking the rest of the world is painfully aware that terrorism is illegal…

i don’t mean to be flip about the above, but it is crystal clear that the document was written by folks who were just rudely awakened and expect it not to happen again, ever, realpolitik be damned. until the current administration realizes that an ethnocentric viewpoint will not serve us in all occasions, altering underlying conditions that contribute to terrorism will remain undone.

[Carl Nyberg]

The Iraq War isn't going to get more popular.

It can't be turned around.

U.S. policy should be formulated with this reality in mind.

[rosignol]

Rosignol. Yes. I live in a cave called Washington, DC and I work on national defense issues. This cave is populated by older white men who don't always know about anything happening at the grass roots. I don't mean the media conversation. I mean public discussions that have some sort of problem-solving element to them.
p.s. are you named after the ski?

-----

The reason the old white guys don't know much about what's happening at the grass roots is because it's not particularly relevant to what those old white guys do.

Think about this: How do you disseminate the information used to make decisions related to defense issues to the 'grass roots' in a way that allows the 'grass roots' to have useful problem solving ideas without revealing information that should be limited in it's distribution?

The best 'grass roots' problem solving is what is being done by the grunts over in Iraq and Afghanistan. They've got firsthand experience with the problems, it is very much in their interest to resolve those problems, and they can't help but be informed about what works and what doesn't, and won't be distracted by philosophical discussions about the importance of soft power or public diplomacy- their focus is very much on the practical and effective stuff, not the theoretical and abstract.

The best thing the stateside civilian types can do, IMO, is listen to the platoon-level guys and put pressure on the more senior types to cut through the bureaucracy and streamline procurement procedures so that they get what they need ASAP.

One example: http://americansnipers.org/

ps: yup. the 'misspelling' is due to an 8-character limit.

[doc]

“How do you disseminate the information used to make decisions related to defense issues to the 'grass roots' in a way that allows the 'grass roots' to have useful problem solving ideas without revealing information that should be limited in it's distribution?”

…a valid point. one response would be a national willingness to instruct our citizenry in a truly meaningful way – minimum 2 year mandatory government/military service for every adult over 18, to be served by the time they reach their 25th birthday. it would be less than a generation before the general populace started taking a more thorough and informed stance on foreign and domestic policy – I doubt you could stop meaningful public discussion then.

however, beside the obvious road-blocks (mitigating cost, public opinion and spineless politicians et al) it won’t happen; it’s become more and more obvious that an informed public is the last thing this WH wants.

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