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Deep
Throat Returns: |
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Transformation, Evolution… Whatever “Inside the Army” reports on 6 January that
there are 135 different missions the Army will need to accomplish
the day after in Meanwhile, Rummy is funding up Special
Forces, further shredding the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986. When the 1987 amendment to Goldwater-Nichols
created USSOCOM, the command was designed to be independent of service funding.
For 15 years, USSOCOM has been repeatedly challenged to ensure service
interoperability and to prevent acquisition system stovepiping
– the same problems that drove the 1986 act in the first place. We are now pushing PRK
and laser surgery to reduce our soldier’s need for glasses and contacts
– the gas mask optical inserts never really worked for those who needed
them, but now its urgent.
Thanks, Saddam, for taking us where our health-care and protective
engineering system wouldn’t go. Sorry
– that’s pretty rude. Of course,
we in the DoD have always put people first.
What was I thinking! We have evolved from Air Force emergency wartime
use of speed and downers to just saying “yes” every
day. This is an Expeditionary
Air Force design side effect – EAF was created by fighter pilots,
for fighter pilots. We don’t
spend money on long range bombers where crews can rest on long haul
missions. Our backbone is flying fighters for long missions
from limited and often inopportunely located forward land bases. The Expeditionary Air Force concept sounds good
– every airman a warrior, anywhere, anytime – but it is a lot like
former CSAF McPeak’s failed Air Force uniform
change, moving officer ranks to the sleeves.
Diagnosis: Another textbook case of Navy envy.
And now the Navy has one more thing the Air Force wants. Lower
addiction rates for Dexadrine. We will all be getting anthrax, smallpox and
as many other vaccinations as we can handle within acceptable risks. “Acceptable,” of course, is a word with at least
two different meanings. One
for crusade-oriented chickenhawks who are
not veterans by choice and one for folks who are and will someday
be veterans, by both choice and conscription.
We are looking at a renewed national discussion
of the draft to support our nation building imperial army. Military folks and historians know that conscription
is the worst method of creating a military, if you want competency
and efficiency. Draftees don’t
want to be there, and they represent a complete cross section of American
society – never a melting pot but nowadays even more of a mixed salad
of language, culture, skill sets and attitudes.
What’s worse, a draft causes the average Joe
and Susie Smith, Estevez, Kung, and Lee to ask their congressperson
to explain what Washington is doing and why.
Joe and Susie will also ask “why not someone else’s daughter
instead of my two sons?” in this age of 2.1 children per American
family. The Pentagon and the White House don’t want
a draft because it’s no good for effective warfighting
or secret policy-making. But
the upcoming election cycle will lead non-Likud
leaning Democrats bring it up -- appearing pro-war while really being
anti-war and preferring expensive domestic programs over expensive
imperialism. 2003 is now thirty years of the all-volunteer force
. As active duty and reservists start to tell their nieces, nephews,
children and siblings that maybe they ought to get a student loan
or a Pell Grant to get through college, the idea of a draft may sound
more attractive. And seriously,
if we can loyally submit ourselves and our children
to federal searches in our airports for security’s sake, why shouldn’t
we submit to a draft? Thus, like the lowly platypus — the only mammal
that lays eggs
— and the giraffe who cannot drink without
spreading its legs and bending over
in a most vulnerable way, we have transformed and evolved.
We are left with only one question. Does the Joint Forces Quarterly offer a Darwin Award? |