I have long been a fan of the Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan, who described war as "The Little Red School House". "When our identity is in danger," he wrote in War And Peace In The Global Village, "we feel certain that we have a mandate for war. The old image must be recovered at any cost. But...the symptom against which we lash out may quite likely be caused by something about which we know nothing." Not only do wars force you to learn about your opponent (as the U.S. has learned about Islam and the Arab world since 9/11) but you also learn about yourself, as we did after imprisoning 150,000 Japanese Americans during World War Two, and as the American right wing "No New Taxes" crowd is slowly learning from their boy wonder's adventures in Iraq.
In December of 1916 the ambitious, arrogant General Robert Nivelle won appointment as commander-in-chief of the French army by promising the government he could end the slaughterhouse of World War I in just two short days. I can sympathize with Prime Minister Briand's willingness to believe such outrageous foolishness. The Western Front had already bankrupted France and swallowed a generation of Frenchmen, and all that wealth and all those deaths had bought was stalemate. There were voices of sanity to be heard. War minister Lyautey didn't believe Nivelle's easy answers, and he resigned in protest. The British commander Sir Douglas Haig was very vocal as to his own doubts about Nivelle's plans. But Briand was desperate for a quick and cheap solution to the problem.
On April 16, 1917 Nivelle threw 19 divisions against a lovely, rolling, heavily wooded ridge called Chemin des Dame. On that first day the French suffered 40,000 dead and wounded. And in the days that followed Nivelle was unmasked as more arrogant than innovative. Nine days and 187,000 casualties later Nivelle was removed, replaced by Henri-Philippe Petain. Briand's government fell as well, paying the political price for wanting to believe in the illusion of quick and easy answers.
But the real cost of that illusion was paid by the French soldiers, the great unwashed, the uneducated masses who could be driven to fight and die in the name of liberty and fraternity. They were cruelly disciplined; the random execution of one man in ten - (to decimate a unit) was standard when an attack failed. As a result, by 1917 replacements often bleated like sheep when being reviewed by their officers. The French solder was badly underpaid, often badly fed and almost never given leave. Some Frenchmen, fighting in France, had not seen their homes in three years. Nivelle's illusion of an easy solution was their final straw.
On May 8th a company of soldiers in the village of Laffaux were ordered to march back into the trenches. They refused. Instead they marched into a nearby wood and established a camp with foxholes, sentries and latrines. They were fed by sympathetic villagers. When troops were ordered to arrest them they joined their comrades instead.
By May 20th what is called the French Mutiny had spread to 54 divisions - half the army. But it wasn't a rebellion so much as a sit down strike. Some units agreed to relieve fellow soldiers in the trenches, but refused to even send out patrols. The illusion that the war had a cheap and easy solution was finally set aside.
Petain had twenty-four thousand men tried and found guilty of mutiny. A regular rotation of leave was established for the entire army. Four hundred men were sentenced to death. The supply of hot meals was standardized and new uniforms were issued twice a year. The practice of decimation was drastically reduced. Fifty men were executed; three hundred and fifty were exiled to Devil's Island. And the French Army was finished as an offensive force until late in 1918.
As they say, history is prologue.
According to today's Washington Post the United States Army expects to maintain 120,000 troops in Iraq for at least two more years. With a total core force of only half a million troops, with long term commitments in Korea and Europe and Asia, with a simmering crises in Iran, such an extended commitment to Iraq already requires a staggering draw on reservists and National Guard units. And it is going to get worse.
A trial balloon was floated in today's article suggesting the Army may request a lifting of the 24 month cap on how long reservists can be forced to serve. And some National Guard units already called up for three tours in Iraq, can expect to be asked to serve a fourth rotation.
According to a Pentagon 136 page draft report, as reported in the Post yesterday, the U.S. Army cannot sustain such a commitment. The report says the Army is "...in a race against time...", risking, "...a catastrophic decline...in recruitment and re-enlistment." Meaning, you can't have a volunteer army when the volunteers get fed up.
Throughout 2005 the U.S. Army missed their recruiting goals, for the first time since 1999, and unlike 1999 the levels of re-enlistments by veterans and their willingness to join the reserves after their service is also down and declining. Because it seems their service never ends. The backbone of these people's commitment to national service has been broken by the constant and extended tours of duty demanded of them.
The very foundation of the Army, the carefully built up and nurtured training cadres have been broken up and used to plug the dike in Iraq; sacrificing our future national security to avoid facing a current unpleasant reality.
The White House is requesting another $80 billion to finance Iraq and Afghanistan, on top of the regular Pentagon budget, and the $25 billion already set aside for Mr. Bush's war. At the same time the President, ever loyal to one ideal, is asking Congress to make his tax cuts for the top 10% of Americans, permanent. The best and brightest in America seem to be the only ones being asked to sacrifice for the tax cuts and the war. And they are growing understandably weary of maintaining the illusion that Mr. Bush's tax cuts and his war make any sense on any level.
And yet,this administration continues to claim they support the troops; evidently only as long as the troops support them.
Retired NATO commander, four-star general George Jowlwan, told CNN just last month; "...if we don't change the way we're doing business, (the U.S. Army, is )...in danger of being fractured and broken..."
Meanwhile, returning Iraqi veterans continue to sign up to run for political office as Democrats; yet another sign that this administration may wear the title and claim the inheritance of the Republican party, but that is just another illusion.