Letters to the editor for Saturday, December 20, 2003

European and Mideast editions

(EDITOR’S NOTE: These are the letters that appeared in each edition of Stripes on this publication date. Click here to jump ahead to the Pacific edition letters)

U.S. needs help in Iraq

A recent AFN radio news spot announced that the Bush administration had gotten former Secretary of State James Baker on line to help reduce Iraq’s foreign debt with several countries. A week later, the Bush administration then went out of its way to alienate a number of those same countries to whom the Iraq debt is owed. Less than a month ago, President Bush asked many of those same countries to donate money toward rebuilding Iraq.

I see a much better way to handle, rather than mishandle, the Iraq reconstruction initiative and avoid sending mixed messages. My recommendation is to follow through with the plan to have Baker seek debt relief for Iraq. At the same time, Baker should also make the $18 billion in Iraq reconstruction contracts available to countries willing to invest in the spirit and intent of the effort. But the Bush administration instead continues to go far out of its way to give lip service to a problem that need not have been a problem. The lip service now being touted is the same mantra heard shortly after the war, when it was noted that only those countries on the extremely slim list known as the “coalition of the willing” should benefit from any of the war’s spoils.

The way I see it is that the U.S. is trying to reduce our military footprint in Iraq. Whether it’s because of the coming presidential election or common sense is not for me to argue. But that’s the general sense of things to date. The reality is that our forces are stressed and stretched. Maybe the above mantra had a place, but the realities on the ground now call for other options. The reality now is that the U.S. can use help to share the burden in Iraq far more than it can use international condemnation and resistance. If only the Bush administration could follow the sense in that perspective, maybe we could finally begin working from one enlightened sheet of music while working toward a better Iraq.

Lonnie Edwards
Bad Aibling Station, Germany

Rescreen civilian guards

About halfway through reading the article “In Iraq, some celebrate and some doubt” (Dec. 15) regarding the capture of Saddam Hussein, a few lines jumped out like a blue light in aisle 3 at Kmart.

The story said that at Baghdad’s Palestine hotel, which houses foreign journalists and American contract workers, Iraqi citizen Abil Daoud was sad. He was quoted as saying, “We lost our only hope and now we are stuck with the Americans.” The report went on to say that Daoud is employed by U.S. troops as a local security guard. Whoa. Read that again. He’s employed as a local security guard?

Does anyone else out there see a possible problem with this? Daoud is sorrowful about the capture of his “only hope” and has obvious admiration for the disgraced Saddam. So one can only imagine, using the access of his security guard position, what Daoud might be capable of doing, or the little tidbits of helpful information he might pick up that would assist other “sad” Iraqis in their terror campaign.

Maybe someone responsible on the ground in Iraq should think about rescreening civilian security forces before someone has to pay the price.

Christopher Rives
Stuttgart, Germany

Medical data

The article “War leaves little relief in sight for taxed medical troops” (Dec. 6) said Command Sgt. Maj. Sandra K. Townsend toured Army hospitals in Landstuhl, Würzburg, and Heidelberg, Germany. She and Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. James B. Peake also visited medical soldiers in Kuwait and Qatar. Command Sgt. Maj. Townsend said of Landstuhl’s 80 percent manning level, “What they’re saying is they need more people.” What caught my attention was that our two top medical military leaders were unable to visit base hospitals in Iraq because President Bush’s Thanksgiving visit “made it difficult to get clearance.”

Three days after the article was printed, 61 U.S. soldiers were wounded in suicide bombings in Mosul, leaving our highest-ranking medical military leaders with no first-hand observation of hospital conditions in Iraq. For some reason, Bush’s presence before a select group of soldiers on Thanksgiving preempted these leaders’ entry into Iraq, hindering the flow of vital information on wartime hospital readiness among those who need to know.

Why isn’t it possible for a three-star general and a command sergeant major of the medical corp to enter Iraq whenever they please, whether President Bush is there or not? And what are our medical readiness levels in Iraq? The article didn’t say.

At some point in his presidency, Bush must forgo his manic desire to grandstand with soldiers for his own self-aggrandizement. Instead, he should devote his remaining year in the White House to ensuring a constant exchange of information among our top military medical personnel and heads of government so that the care and treatment of our soldiers can be improved and maintained at optimal manning levels in preparation for further attacks. After all, wasn’t it the lack of shared information among federal agencies, or “dot-connecting,” that led to 9/11? No photo opportunity is worth the risk of being caught unprepared.

Michele Winter
Würzburg, Germany

West treated badly

As a multiple-tour Vietnam vet, I can’t believe the shoddy treatment that Lt. Col. Allen B. West is getting from the Army for extracting information from a captive.

Yes, he fired two rounds past the guy’s head. So what? He got the information needed to stop an ambush that saved the lives of our troops. Big deal. Worse things were, and have been, done to American captives during past wars.

The man should be promoted for having the courage to save lives without having to take one. If we would have had more leaders like him in Vietnam, maybe we wouldn’t have left so many dead behind.

The man is my kind of leader, and I’d be honored to serve with him. That’s more than I can say about many officers I’ve had to deal with. Lt. Col. West is also a better man than those who fined him.

It’s time to get the politics and newspeople out of the actions of the military and let the people do their jobs to the fullest extent of their capabilities. And someone please make Geraldo Rivera a security risk and get him off the air.

Jim Smith
Marietta, Ga.

War not for women

This is in regard to the story “How three little girls became three elite pilots” (Oct. 12). It never ceases to amaze and shock me that we place young women in these roles. The fact that young women are placed in positions so close to combat is shameful and tragic. War, contrary to politically-correct propaganda, is not a family affair.

I’m a fighting man in the U.S. Army in large part to protect my mother, my sister, and the beautiful woman I love from the dehumanizing and painful effects of close combat. Now, more than ever, our country is in need of devoted mothers and nurturers. Why do we feel it’s necessary to turn everyone in our society into potential killers? Is there no longer a sacred place for those who give life instead of taking it, and, in turn, have their lives taken from them in the most efficient and brutal ways that mankind can think of?

In this time of national crisis, in what will be a long war against terrorism and a potentially devastating war in Korea, the U.S. military cannot long stand the insidious and deteriorating effects of lower standards, rampant sexual misconduct and the politically-motivated gender norming of military culture. For years we have been bemoaning the loss of our warrior culture. For the most obtuse, I will state the obvious: it went out the door the moment our society decided that American women, in all their delicate, politically-correct glory, should be in combat.

2nd Lt. Travis Cole
Iraq

Pacific edition

Criticism familiar, still unfair

This is in answer to the Dec. 14 letter “Love it or leave it.” It had a familiar ring to it. The Vietnam War era comes to mind, and there were certainly lots of reasons to have a different opinion from the government back then.

It’s always the stout patriot who jumps out of the woodwork to tell a combatant to stop whining and condemns him for not feeling blind loyalty. Not all of us see President Bush as the “anointed one.” All these guys go through a lot.

By the way, letter writer, how is combat going in Kuwait? The writer is in the wrong theater, isn’t he? Is he seeing lots of blood and guts in order to defend the future of his five kids? It might be that the writer’s enthusiasm is so rampant because he’s in Kuwait and not in the line of fire.

It’s easy for the writer to drool with patriotic overflow and even go so far as to tell people who don’t feel like he does to get out of the country. Lots of them are in Arlington National Cemetery. And there are the rarely mentioned hundreds who have been maimed and crippled. They have to live years on end outside the norm without a real future. I don’t see President Bush taking pictures with them. It must be that they’re not able to gather around him cheering for the ever-important photo opportunity. Instead, they get the usual monotone of empty platitudes over the airwaves.

As for the letter writer, he should thank the troops who are fighting for his children’s future instead of accusing them of disloyalty.

Christel D. Fiore
Camp Darby, Italy

War is an all-inclusive term

Webster’s dictionary defines war as “armed conflict between nations or factions, the science or profession of armed fighting, any conflict or struggle, or to make or carry on war.” Once military operations have commenced, a state of war exists. It doesn’t matter if the enemy is a well-trained professional army in uniforms or composed of irregulars in civilian clothes doing hit-and-run attacks. It’s all war.

War is a perfect description for what is taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just because President Bush announced that major combat operations were over in Iraq didn’t mean there wouldn’t be any in the future. One only has to visit the Operation Iraqi Freedom Web site to get an idea about the operations coalition forces are conducting.

The Dec. 7 letter “West went too far” said, “This is not war.” This is the same diluted thinking that resulted in the weak responses to the several terrorist attacks throughout the 1990s. Those attacks culminated with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The United States has been at war for the better part of a decade, and the denial of this, in addition to intelligence failures, led to 9/11 and some present misguided foreign policies.

The letter also said that, “World War I and World War II were wars.” Why? Because Presidents Wilson and Roosevelt sought “formal” declarations of war from Congress? Given the times and the geopolitical situations, these declarations were called for. This is simply playing word games, an effective tactic of policy-makers. For example, the Korean War was called a “police action” so critics could be silenced about committing U.S. forces without a declaration of war. Never mind that WWII had ended five years before.

The “Vietnam War” is called a conflict for the same reason. Never mind that the U.S. military fought there for 10 years and that there’s a memorial with 58,000 names of young Americans who didn’t return home to their families.

All this seems to be alluding to Congress having the sole power to declare war, with the president as commander in chief as provided by the Constitution. But there’s something that many people need to understand. From the Korean War to the war in Iraq, Congress has seemingly relegated this power to the president, with financial backing and political support from resolutions. This is the result of the changing geopolitical situation, which allowed the United States to challenge communism around the globe until its ultimate defeat, leaving the United States without a serious rival.

Dion Harrison
Wiesbaden, Germany

Chasm of service not so wide

This is in response to the Dec. 9 letter “The difference is in options.” Here’s the real deal. The writer signed the same contract that all active-duty soldiers did. If the writer has so many options, why did he sign on the dotted line? Oh, let me guess. He’s just in it for the college money, right?

Contrary to the writer’s belief, we go to college. We attain degrees. We watch TV, and we have careers. We’ll gladly leave the being lazy, eating pizza and getting fat part to the writer.

But I have some “options” for him. He could: 1. Drop his gear, run for the border and swim back home. 2. Whine just a little bit more and go for the big Chapter 5-13, like Cpl. Klinger from “M*A*S*H.” Or he is more than welcome to join the ranks of the elite soldiers around him and perform his duties as per his contract.

I guess the writer thinks that active-duty soldiers run around in their full battle rattle all day and all night training for the next contingency. As far-fetched as this may seem to him, we can’t wait to go home to our families and lives as well.

Every business has standards, and it’s hard to believe that the writer is complaining, because he’s being trained to present himself as a professional by being told to “do this, do that, wear this, wear that, shave this and cut that.” The true mark of a professional is doing those things in the absence of orders. That’s probably why the writer is still a specialist.

Active-duty soldiers feel the need to ensure that the writer’s level of training is brought up to a standard that will increase his chances of survival in this type of environment. That has absolutely nothing to do with being “hooah.” I guess the writer thinks that the bullets, rocket-propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices are supposed to mysteriously curve around him because he’s a reservist. Or maybe he thinks that we’re supposed to simply accept his lackadaisical attitude, false sense of duty and substandard level of professionalism.

Apparently the writer doesn’t read the paper. A large number of active-duty soldiers are affected by the current stop loss just like him. But since the writer thinks we live our lives at our respective home stations like we live them out here, that probably doesn’t matter much to him. It’s become apparent to me that the writer really has no sense of being and has failed to develop the standards, levels of professionalism and warrior ethos that are required to achieve greatness in all walks of life, not just the military.

It’s “One Team, One Fight, One Standard,” not active duty, reservists and guardsmen. So let me echo this sentiment for all of the soldiers who do have a sense of patriotism and commitment to excellence: The writer should stop complaining, stop crying, do his duty and finish his contract. Then he can grace all of us with his absence when the time comes for him to sign on the dotted line again.

Sgt. Anthony Davis
Al Taqaddum Air Base, Iraq