Larvatus Prodeo

3 Responses to “We don’t do body counts”

1. 1 dk.au
   Oct 31st, 2005 at 9:33 am

   I await Fred Kaplan’s ‘devastating critique’, and subsequent silence.

2. 2 Brian Bahnisch
   Nov 1st, 2005 at 12:02 am

   Phil, thanks for this post. I was going to do one on the topic, but it would never have happened. Now my computer is busted and I have only stolen moments on my younger son’s machine.

   Paul Rogers has an article on the topic at openDemocracy. He likens it to a return to the Vietnam style body-counts. Rogers thinks it is a sign that the American strategy is in big trouble. The frustration at being continually shot at has three effects.

   First, there is an overwhelming response to any attack, so a single sniper shot can result in rivers of lead being sprayed everywhere in the general direction.

   Second there is the habit of calling in air stirkes.

   Third he seems to think that mistreating prisoners is endemic and can be a form of stress relief:

   The numerous interviews with military personnel revealed to Human Rights Watch a widespread pattern of abuse that frequently constitutes “stress relief” for many American soldiers. By beating up detainees, they are able to relieve the tensions caused by the bitter war they are waging. Such behaviour is not limited to one or two centres but appears to be endemic across many US military units, including some with reputations for efficiency and discipline.

   Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper‚Äôs Magazine and writer of political and satirical essays, gave an address in May this year for the opening of the Sydney Writers‚Äô Festival in which he delivered a stinging and trenchant critique of contemporary America. He thinks the American people don’t have much stomach for getting shot at in foreign wars:

   Americans never have had much liking for what President John Quincy Adams in 1828 said ‘Going abroad in search of monsters to destroy‚Äô, and we‚Äôve never had much liking for the heroics cherished by the ancient Romans and by the neo-conservative thinkers who surround the President.

   Given a good or necessary reason to deploy the military virtues of courage and self-sacrifice, we can rise to the occasion of Bastione or Guadalcanal but as a general rule we don’t poke around in the cannon’s mouth for the Easter eggs of fame and fortune. And that given any choice in the matter, we prefer the civilian virtues, the fast shuffle, the smooth angle, the safe bet.

   He then goes into considerable detail as to how troops have had to be ‘encouraged’ to actually fight in diverse wars over the centuries. The second WW was different as the US was directly attacked by the Japanese and their shipping sunk by German U-boats.

   Entusiasm has slipped since then and now it is almost impossible to recruit:

   recent events in Iraq have wrecked the sales pitch, which is why the Bush Administration is having a great deal of trouble finding recruits for the American supremacy. I have somewhere here a piece of paper that will say what we are now doing is offering prospective, boots-on-the-ground bonuses of $90,000 over three years, $20,000 in cash, $70,000 in supplemental benefits. Also the forgiveness of college loans, the promise of citizenship to foreign nationals, who now comprise three per cent of the American army, the acceptance of older recruits, now eligible to the age of 39, a general lowering of the intellectual and physical requirements, wavers granted for poor test scores, for chronic illness, in some instances for the disability of a criminal record; the chance of a generous pension and an opportunity to study the art of restaurant management.

   And yet despite the inducements and the Army‚Äôs annual $300,000 appropriation for a seductive advertising campaign, the ranks continue to dwindle and thin; the generals speak of exhausted, degenerating, broken force levels, and recruiting officers give way to unmanly bouts of depression when they fail to enlist more than one soldier for every 120 prospects to whom they show the promotional brochures. And we now have a desertion rate that stands at 31 per cent — or 3.1 per cent of the active inductions and of the new recruits coming into camp, 30 per cent depart within six months of their arrival.

   So Bush makes grandiose speeches about democracy and freedom, but if this one drags on much more it is difficult to see a satisfactory outcome. In this context body-counts are possibly supposed to convince the folks at home of the superior productivity of their sons and daughters abroad.

3. 3 Kim
   Nov 1st, 2005 at 12:38 am

   Well and passionately put, Brian!

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