Protecting Themselves. The Pentagon is refusing to reimburse soldiers in Iraq who buy their own body armor. Stunning.
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The military sends men into battle without either adequate armor on vehicles or body armor, refuses for years to rush them this protection from Government resources, and then defies Congress, which passed a law almost a year ago requiring the Pentagon to reimburse soldiers who feel they cannot wait for the DoD to supply them with body armor, so buy their own. The Pentagon opposed the law! and has dragged its feet about implementing it.
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That's just amazing.
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A poll at the AOL site where that story appeared today shows that 72% of readers did not know that our soldiers in Iraq are buying their own equipment, at their own expense, because the Pentagon sends them into battle without adequate gear.
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I know that the military is stupid. I know that Republicans are callous about the deaths of poor people, who are the bulk of soldiers in our all-volunteer military. But for them to be this brazen about it is truly startling.
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There is a lot of bitterness among military families, especially survivors of killed soldiers (witness Cindy Sheehan). Once the general population fully appreciates that the military not only lies to get us into war but then doesn't even protect the American kids they throw into harm's way thousands of miles from our shores, or even reimburse them for providing their own protection, the antiwar movement is sure to grow.
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Patriotism goes only so far, and loyalty must be two-sided. If the Pentagon shows no loyalty to its soldiers, or their families, or the Nation in its expectations that our kids will be protected as much as is humanly possible, disaffection not just with the Iraq war but with war as an instrument of foreign policy more generally is sure to grow. Good.
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How can policymakers hope to continue to project U.S. power thru invasions or threats of invasion if Americans come to understand that the old men at the top of the heap don't care how many of our young people they kill in the process?
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Some good might thus emerge from growing bitterness over the Pentagon's refusal to protect our own soldiers. Maybe some kid traumatized by the death of a friend or group of friends snatched from their civilian life and weekend-warrior games in the National Guard to kill Arabs for Israel will come home so indignant and so brutalized that he takes out his own gun and kills Rumsfeld, Rove, Wolfowitz, or Bush. I'd love to see that. Why should those vile old beasts get to kill hundreds of thousands of people and lay waste to an entire country, but pay no price?
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There are dangers in teaching citizens to kill, and it may be that what goes around will come around to the militarists at home. I suspect that if Rumsfeld or Bush were shot dead by an embittered soldier, the Pentagon would suddenly find a way to supply all the troops with all their needs.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 1,928.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 1:26 PM