NationStates Jolt Archive

PBS show "Frontline" has made two very important episodes for those interested in the politics and economics of US military affairs. If you can catch them on air you'll save yourself the money, but here are links to site where you can find the VHS and DVD versions.

This one, called "Rumsfeld's War"
http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.jsp?productId=1876312

And this one entitled, "Private Warriors"
http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.jsp?productId=2018344

I personally consider Frontline to be one of the most solid and factual of sources. There is no "spin", no editing tricks, just documentary, interviews, and research. As such it scares the pants off of those with something to hide; its only saving grace is that no one watches it.

I invite everyone who can to watch these very important shows. I can only tell you that they provide significant weight to my near-daily arguments on NS in such areas of discussion.

Damnit ... why must you always make me think?!

Damnit ... why must you always make me think?!

Simple; I'm not happy with the way things are...so I will make all of YOU unhappy until this changes. :)

My power to influence policy by myself is so limited as to be laughable. Only determined outside pressure from the public will allow those on the inside to act.

The Pentagon is under siege from within, and its more or less an open secret that our military institutions are being defiled by wrongheaded civilian idealouges; yet the outrage from the American people lies dormant. The message is not out, nobody realizes just what is happening, nor what is likely to follow.

In my own small way I hope to change that, and secure the saftey of the US soldiers and civilians alike. Its ambitious of me, and failure is a very real possibility...but failure means the deaths of thousands more Americans as these wars continue to be conducted by the wrong people.

so..assume that Im not going to pay to download these.

Maybe you can provide a brief synopsis?

so..assume that Im not going to pay to download these.

Maybe you can provide a brief synopsis?

I hope it can be found in other...less expensive...venues as well, but for now, sure.

Rumsfeld's War is a series of interviews, news confrences, and memos that detail Donald Rumsfeld's Vietnam experience, appointment, rise to power, consolidation of control in the Pentagon, meteoric rise in the aftermath of the initial Afgan and Iraq invasions, and the fallout as his plans started to show their weaknesses.

It provides very real insight into the inner workings of the Pentagon duality; a Military institution run by constantly shifting Civilian overseers. It goes into considerable detail about what happened in the struggle for power between top Pentagon Generals and Rummy. It also shows just how we arrived in Iraqi with about 200,000 less troops than the estimates showed we needed.

"Private Warriors" is a careful examination of the Private Contractors that are working in Iraq. It details the numbers of civilians in theater: 50,000 "non-combat" personel, 20,000 guards, and an unknown number of civilian contractors working for international corperations in Iraqi under direct American auspices.

It shows how the chain of command has been disrupted severely by the overuse of contractors, it shows how our supply lines are being taxed by KBR employees refusing to run suicide missions through dangerous roads without gaurds or armored trucks.

It shows how those missions are bringing in ludicrous luxury goods into bagdahd, often at great costs in human lives. It provides an example that 4 gaurds died to bring in Kitchen supplies, because KBR didn't hire enough gaurds to provide rear gunners on the unarmored SUVs.

It shows how the costs of Private contractors are essentially unknowable, and how the deaths of private contractors is also unknowable, due to several companies not releasing casualty reports. It shows how the lack of transperancy is so encompassing, that often the Pentagon does not know when its supplies are being delivered, and when they are attacked, it does not know who was protecting them.

The mysterious killing of 4 blackwater employees in Falluja several months ago, who were then burned and dragged through the streets. Though their identities are known, no one can confirm just what they were doing there, who had hired them to go there, and the military had no idea of their actions. The resulting "siege of Falluja" was a result of the Marines having to scrap all their careful planning to avenge the fallen contractors.

In short...pretty damming stuff.

I hope it can be found in other...less expensive...venues as well, but for now, sure.

Rumsfeld's War is a series of interviews...
Seen both. And liked them. Well made, serious documentaries definately worth watching. (and available in less expensive forms too...)

<snip>

The Pentagon is under siege from within, and its more or less an open secret that our military institutions are being defiled by wrongheaded civilian idealouges; yet the outrage from the American people lies dormant. The message is not out, nobody realizes just what is happening, nor what is likely to follow....


If you haven't already, read "The Pentagon's New Map", Thomas Barnett.

While it's largely about globalization it contains in-depth anaysis of Pentagon thinking and future challenges. There are big changes afoot now.

If you haven't already, read "The Pentagon's New Map", Thomas Barnett.

While it's largely about globalization it contains in-depth anaysis of Pentagon thinking and future challenges. There are big changes afoot now.

Yup, big damaging changes. Change needs to occur, but the people doing it now are doing it wrong. I'm pleased that this thread has gotten almost 100 views...But I had hoped for more talk...'cause I'm a chattybitch ;)

No wonder Karl Rove and his neocon pals over at the PNAC are trying to force PBS to put a heavy conservative spin on their reporting. I've watched the privatizing war one, but not Rumsfeld's War. It's sad how many people are making money off of this war and how people don't object to the thought of profiting off of senseless killing.

But September 24-26, 2005 (http://www.unitedforpeace.org/) we can change all that.

No wonder Karl Rove and his neocon pals over at the PNAC are trying to force PBS to put a heavy conservative spin on their reporting. I've watched the privatizing war one, but not Rumsfeld's War. It's sad how many people are making money off of this war and how people don't object to the thought of profiting off of senseless killing.

But September 24-26, 2005 (http://www.unitedforpeace.org/) we can change all that.

War is hell, but I see no problem at all with someone profiting from it; so long as it in no way interferes with the US's ability to fight the war. Just as I have no problem at all with people protesting the war or those who started it, but if someone verbally attacked our soldiers (a la Vietnam Veterans), I'd be the first to wade into the fray.

Obstructing a military campaign by viciously slandering the soldiers in the media is no better or worse the obstructing a military campaign by the methods listed in these two programs. Its two sides of the same horrid coin.

To suggest that being in an industry that makes a profit from war is bad or wrong is either overly moralistic for real political use or simply naive.

To suggest that if such an industry is misbehaving, obstructing our war effort, and getting our soldiers killed, that THEN they are bad and wrong...that's a good statment in my eyes. For obvious reasons I guess ;)

That why I speak against mercenaries, not because I believe they themsevles are always evil, nor do I belive there is no potential use for them, I speak against them for the simple fact that all the evidence of history speaks agaisnt their use, including the Iraq and Afgan wars.

War is hell, but I see no problem at all with someone profiting from it; so long as it in no way interferes with the US's ability to fight the war.

Agreed. Face it, no nation in the history of nation got into a war they didn't think they could profit from.

...but if someone verbally attacked our soldiers (a la Vietnam Veterans), I'd be the first to wade into the fray.

Why?

2 points:


I don't think the modern American solider needs a whole lot of protecting. They signed up for the job, and if you sign up for the American military you have to expect to be fighting in some dodgy war every, oh, 2 or 3 months or so. They're not draftees (as in Vietnam).
From an objectors point of view, the war in Iraq is the invasion of a country resulting in the deaths of many innocents, and some of the soliders that have been sent. If verbally attacking the soliders advances the anti-war cause, then I don't think that consideration for the feelings of the soliders is going to count for much.


Anyway, those are my thoughts. In something as serious as sending several hundred thousand troops to the other side of the planet to liberate/invade it is curous to set boundaries of what is 'fair' in supporting or undermining it.

War is hell, but I see no problem at all with someone profiting from it; so long as it in no way interferes with the US's ability to fight the war. Not even when someone profiting from it is the primary reason for fighting the war in the first place?

2 points:

I don't think the modern American solider needs a whole lot of protecting. They signed up for the job, and if you sign up for the American military you have to expect to be fighting in some dodgy war every, oh, 2 or 3 months or so. They're not draftees (as in Vietnam).
From an objectors point of view, the war in Iraq is the invasion of a country resulting in the deaths of many innocents, and some of the soliders that have been sent. If verbally attacking the soliders advances the anti-war cause, then I don't think that consideration for the feelings of the soliders is going to count for much.


Anyway, those are my thoughts. In something as serious as sending several hundred thousand troops to the other side of the planet to liberate/invade it is curous to set boundaries of what is 'fair' in supporting or undermining it.

Your first point is actually fairly invalid. Regardless of what a soldier can expect to do, the point is that the conduct of soldiers is on the whole exemplary. If I saw evidence to the contrary, say, that soldiers were commiting more than a few stray acts of brutality, I'd tackle the issue. As it stands, I'm more worried about the climate in the chain of command that allows those soldiers who do transgress to evade prosecution. That is a travesty of justice.

IF attacking the soldiers advanced the cause, perhaps a strategist within the anti-war movement might make that desicion. However everything I saw in regards to such tactics is that it sacrafices innocent soldier's good names in the pusuit of a cause that takes very little of the "aftermath" of a war into consideration.

Case in point; the Hawks in washington DC are widely considered to have made little or no post-war planning. However, a charge that could be quite rightfully leveled against those in opposition to the war have little in the way of solid plans either. Moreover, attacking the soldiers has proven to have disasterous side-effects. Ruining the very lives they hoped to protect, the anti-war movement has created a generation of veterans who have great antipathy towards them. I regard that chain of events as the product of short-sighted policies looking for short-term gains; not something I'd like to associate myself with.

If Vietnam taught me anything, it was that some in the anti-war movement may have had good intentions, but in the end it sacraficed just as much on the pyres of war as the military itself did.

Yes, if you look at the world in black and white, my more nuanced stances will seem alien to you. If one only cares about preventing wars, regardless of the cirumstances, or if one supported the war despite all of the arguments against it, I cannot fully argue with that person because I have no ground to stand on. In this subject I argue policy, not idealism.

From an objectors point of view, the war in Iraq is the invasion of a country resulting in the deaths of many innocents, and some of the soliders that have been sent. If verbally attacking the soliders advances the anti-war cause, then I don't think that consideration for the feelings of the soliders is going to count for much.

Deaths of many civilians*. There's a difference.

Not even when someone profiting from it is the primary reason for fighting the war in the first place?

That's a grey issue. If the US interests are well served by the war, I can justify such actions. If they are not served by the war, I cannot sanction it. This also flows into the way the war is fought. A war that is fought well is fought without transgressions against the people, does not unduly endanger our soldier's lives, and it does not place overburdening costs on US citizens.

If the war is fought for personal profit, at the expense of US interests, then that person is guilty of hijacking the American armed forces and using them as a private army. As such they would be totally unfit to serve the American public.

If the war is fought for personal profit, but also greatly aids US interests, then I would personally dislike their actions but forgive them in the end. Because in this case their profit and my profit are mutual.

If a war is fought for personal profit at the expense of US interests and is fought poorly...You see me here on Nationstates causing a ruckus.

If Vietnam taught me anything, it was that some in the anti-war movement may have had good intentions, but in the end it sacraficed just as much on the pyres of war as the military itself did.

I think I might be misreading this, so I'll say that up front: but are you actually saying that protestors sacrificed as much as soldiers did?

I think I might be misreading this, so I'll say that up front: but are you actually saying that protestors sacrificed as much as soldiers did?

In a way. The protestors themselves might not have, but the anti-war movement as a whole did tremendous damage to the American civil fabric, it ruined thousands of lives, causing and exacerbating extremely high rates of PTSD in our returning veterans.

The goes into the intelligensia of the anti-war movement as well, how many had ties to less-than-savory elements of the radical left? How is that different than the hawks in Washington propping up a dictator? Again, its two sides of the same coin.

In a sense, it was a civil war. Its true that few died, but how many wounded? The anti-war movement was not a clean operation. It had much dirty laundry, dark little secrets, and unsavory methods. Just as we argue against torture against detainees, I argue against shouting "baby-killer" at every GI that comes off the plane. Both destroy the mind.

Wow. Nobody, and I mean nobody, that wasn't in Vietnam at the time sacrificed as much as someone who was.

Deaths of many civilians*. There's a difference.

So the difference between innocents and civilians is that it's okay to kill civilians for profit?

???

So the difference between innocents and civilians is that it's okay to kill civilians for profit?

???

A civilian who is actively resisting under arms is not innocent. That's the definition of a valid target.

I think that taking out our frustration with the war (whichever war) on the soldiers that fought it is a mistake.

The soldiers didn't choose to go fight a war of their own free will. They are slaves and property of the military and have to do what the Big Chief says.

It's not their fault that the Big Chief is a moron or short-sighted, or a war-profiteer.

Granted, i think it's kinda silly to sign up to kill whichever nation's people that the current administration decides it wants you to kill at the time. But i also understand that a great deal of soldiers are in the military because it is the only job available to them. Their economic reality does not depend on their politics. NOt all the soldiers in Iraq support Bush's policies ideologically, but yet they still have to support them physically.

So i don't hate or blame the soldiers for fighting in the wars. I blame the men who sent them there instead of finding another solution.

Especially regarding Vietnam and Iraq, who never attacked America to begin with.

And i think that is a totally bogus claim, saying that the PTSD came from getting yelled at by anti-war demonstrators. PUH-LEASE! I am pretty sure that Vietnam itself was far worse than any name calling they endured afterwards.

A civilian who is actively resisting under arms is not innocent. That's the definition of a valid target.

Just to get this straight...you are telling me that the dead babies, lying limp and bloody in their mothers' arms were carrying guns and resisting the americans?

or do you plan to tell me that no babies have died in Iraq as a result of american munitions?

Most Vietnam veterans I know found the anti-war people far more offensive than anything they endured in the war.

Speaking as someone who already was enlisted in the Army, and served in combat, I find your hypotheses on the reasons for enlistment to be ridiculous.

While that may be true of many who enlist in specialities that have nothing to do with combat arms (such as truck drivers, mechanics, pharmacy techs, etc), most people who enlist in the infantry and in Special Forces do so because of a desire to see combat.

As I did. And I was not alone. When I was in the 101st, the majority of low-ranking enlisted infantrymen had 2 or more years of college - 1 out of 4 had bachelor's degrees.

They didn't enlist for economic reasons. And neither did I. At the time, I left a lucrative job with a consulting firm in Washington, D.C. to serve as an infantryman (not an officer).

Wow. Nobody, and I mean nobody, that wasn't in Vietnam at the time sacrificed as much as someone who was.

It is of course a subjective argument. In addition you seem to be interpreting "sacrafice" in terms of what the person gave of themself to a cause; in this case I was referring to what the person did to themselves and others in pursuit of a cause. Very different things, no?

If you give up your job and life of comfort for a cause, you are sacraficing of yourself. If you ruin a person's mind and destroy their livelyhood in pursuit of your goals, you are sacraficing THEM to your cause. There's a very basic difference.

So some protesters gave up a considerable amount to try and stop a war that was demanding the sacrafice of other's lives, a noble effort. But my assertion is that the anti-war movement in Vietnam also sacraficed the soldiers unduly, all in the name of helping them. It was a tragic mishandling of affairs.

What Whispering Legs is talking about supports my argument; to give up a good job to aid you nation is sacraficing of yourself for a cause. To attack soldiers as they return from the war zone is sacraficing them to help the anti-war movement...less noble, more dirty, and thus questionable.

That's a grey issue. If the US interests are well served by the war, I can justify such actions. If they are not served by the war, I cannot sanction it. This also flows into the way the war is fought. A war that is fought well is fought without transgressions against the people, does not unduly endanger our soldier's lives, and it does not place overburdening costs on US citizens.

If the war is fought for personal profit, at the expense of US interests, then that person is guilty of hijacking the American armed forces and using them as a private army. As such they would be totally unfit to serve the American public.

If the war is fought for personal profit, but also greatly aids US interests, then I would personally dislike their actions but forgive them in the end. Because in this case their profit and my profit are mutual.

If a war is fought for personal profit at the expense of US interests and is fought poorly...You see me here on Nationstates causing a ruckus.
I can see your point, and it is quite valid. However, I have to disagree. Not for any of the reasons that you stated, but that I think that having a war for profit changes the way the war is fought compared to having a war for other reasons. (This may have been what you were saying, but I interpreted it differently.) For instance, U.S. soldiers in Iraq protected the oil wells (oil was just a small part) and in doing so, gave looters the opportunity to seize artifacts from Iraqi museums. The seizing of artifacts doesn't exactly put soldiers in danger, but nonetheless undermines our professed reasons for being there, and also our standing in the world.

So some protesters gave up a considerable amount to try and stop a war that was demanding the sacrafice of other's lives, a noble effort. But my assertion is that the anti-war movement in Vietnam also sacraficed the soldiers unduly, all in the name of helping them. It was a tragic mishandling of affairs.I have to agree. It's unfortunate that the anti-Vietnam War protestors were unable or unwilling to distinguish the bad soldiers (such as the ones who perpetrated the Mi Lai massacre) from the good ones. And in doing so, severely undermined the anti-war movement.

I can see your point, and it is quite valid. However, I have to disagree. Not for any of the reasons that you stated, but that I think that having a war for profit changes the way the war is fought compared to having a war for other reasons. (This may have been what you were saying, but I interpreted it differently.) For instance, U.S. soldiers in Iraq protected the oil wells (oil was just a small part) and in doing so, gave looters the opportunity to seize artifacts from Iraqi museums. The seizing of artifacts doesn't exactly put soldiers in danger, but nonetheless undermines our professed reasons for being there, and also our standing in the world.

I have to agree. It's unfortunate that the anti-Vietnam War protestors were unable or unwilling to distinguish the bad soldiers (such as the ones who perpetrated the Mi Lai massacre) from the good ones. And in doing so, severely undermined the anti-war movement.

To me, such things fall under the "fighting a war properly" designation. If we had enough soldiers in theater that we could have protected both, as they SHOULD have done...Then I would profess that it was a war properly fought for slightly dubious reasons, but since in my scenerio nothing was lost, forgiveness of extra motives could be possible. Alas, things did not transpire that way.