Are Americans really dying in vain in Iraq?

[mloutre]

Last night I was watching Larry King interview a sitting Senator, and like other pundits he kept trying to pin the Senator down on a question that is, at its heart, unanswerable: Are Americans dying in vain in Iraq?

It's a difficult issue to address properly in drive-by cable news show interviews, or even in at-length reasoned discourse. Semantics become especially important in discussions of this sort, because there are conflicting concepts at the core of the debate.

Psychologists use the term "cognitive dissonance" to refer to the rather difficult mental balancing act involved in simultaneously holding contradictory or otherwise incompatible attitudes and beliefs. That's kind of what we're dealing with here.

On the one hand, we want to believe (and rightly so) that no honorable soldier truly dies in vain because each individual is one of what the same Senator once referred to as the "young men and women who in the end were fighting as much for their love of each other as for the love of country that brought them there in the first place."

In that context, every honorable solider is fighting for his or her comrades in arms; for his or her own sense of honor and duty; and for his or her love of home, hearth and country.

The first is quite concrete, and it is something that every soldier absolutely must be able to count on if he or she is to survive the horrors of war. The latter two are more abstract, but such abstraction is also necessary if a military organization and society as a whole is to survive the horrors of war.

So from that standpoint, this statement is absolutely correct: No, they are not dying in vain in Iraq. But from another opposing and often antithetical standpoint, this statement also is absolutely correct: Yes, they are dying in vain in Iraq.

Military history is full of examples of botched plans, faulty tactics, invalid strategies, false missions, and immoral reasons for war. When the decisions made upstream of them are wrong, when the policies upstream of them of them are wrong, when the rationale of those upstream of them are wrong, then those honorable soldiers' courage is misused, their lives are needlessly sacrificed -- and, yes, their deaths are in vain.

Like I said, the psychologists call this cognitive dissonance. But the logic of war, by its very nature, is essentially unsound. There simply is no rational way to resolve the inherent conflicts of the many causes and concerns and ethics and morals and rationales involved in the waging of war. War is not just hell; it is fundamentally insane.

That being said, there is one larger aspect of this question that I really wish the Senator and those asking him to address it would have covered: we are not just discussing whether American soldiers are dying in vain in Iraq, we are also discussing whether other Americans are dying in vain in Iraq as well. To my mind, the answer to that is unequivocally yes.

Soldiers who die in avoidable accidents in Iraq die in vain. Soldiers who die from friendly fire in Iraq die in vain. Non-combatant support personnel and contractors who die from unfriendly fire in Iraq die in vain. Doctors, nurses, missionaries, teachers, peace activists who are murdered in Iraq die in vain.

But there is one more unmentioned and unmourned class of Americans in Iraq who absolutely die in vain -- and, imho, fully deserve to. These are the legions of so-called 'security contractors' who are fighting over there not for honor, not for glory, not for the love of country or the sake of their loved ones at home, but for the blood money that they receive in return.

Call these men and women what they are: mercenaries, pure and simple. Soldiers of fortune, hired guns, paid killers -- men and women whose very choice of profession renders them fundamentally without honor.

The dirty little secret of our much-vaunted all-volunteer army is that it is made possible by this country's, and this country's corporations', shameless employment of of mercenaries -- hired killers without honor -- to do their nasty business while still keeping their political and financial hands clean.

The American military effort in Iraq depends on the widespread use of mercenaries. Everybody knows about it, but nobody talks about it and nobody does anything about it.

And that, to my mind, is truly obscene.

[DemoTex]

1. Short answer: YES

I'm still too deep in the blood of Viet Nam to respond any other way.

[Kelly Rupert]

2. K'd, R'd, and I love you.

[Redstone]

3. Whoa. I'm impressed. DAMN well-said. I couldn't believe the "outrage" when the

four "American civilians" were strung up from that bridge.

They were driving around in a fucking COMBAT ZONE, brandishing weapons out the windows of their SUVs, probably killing Iraqis...no sympathy from me for mercenaries.

Excellent post.

Redstone

[nolies32fouettes]

5. yes, VERY EXCELLENT post.

[PassingFair]

23. Have you seen "Iraq for Sale"

Listen to the families, they are trying to sue Blackwater.

Limited sympathies for the mercs, but it was early
in the "war" and these families were blind-sided.

[karlrschneider]

4. Dying in vain is not dying without honor.

They are different things. The service and potential sacrifice is a measure of personal integrity and has nothing to do with the rationale or the outcome. Good people (and even those not so good) can
die for valid or invalid reasons. If it happens for the wrong reasons, it does not detract from their willingness to do "the right thing" if they believe in it.

[bluerum]

6. So if I am decieved, and die because of it, I should feel good about it?

[karlrschneider]

7. Well, dead people don't have the ability to feel anything, let alone good

but there's no shame in being deceived. That judgment belongs to the deceiver.

[bluerum]

9. Well - if I put my life on the line for a lie, and I found out, I would be

pissed off. I would be pissed at the people who lied to me, and I would pissed at myself for letting someone get away with devaluing my life.

But I agree that once you are dead you are dead - the reasons and circumstances for your demise cease to have meaning.

edit sp.

[karlrschneider]

11. You would be right to be pissed but that's not the point.

When I say "in vain" I'm referring to the big picture, NOT the individual's personal involvement or sacrifice. When I was in the military in the late 1960s, several of my friends lost their lives in
the Viet Nam "war" - to me, they gave their lives in vain, meaning to no good ultimate purpose but
I still love them even in death for doing either what they believed in, or were ordered to do. What they did was in good faith but to no good ultimate purpose. I'm probably not explaining it well but it's what I feel.

[bluerum]

13. You care for them and love them - the reasons for that do not need to

be justified.

Maybe it is that the big picture, the purpose for the war was a lie. And it is criminal and tragic that anyone had to die for that.

On the humanistic scale, on the ground in the war zone, all that becomes an abstract concern that you do not have the luxury of fretting over. You take care of each other and yourselves as best you can.

And that is part of the tragedy - that those who are true and faithful to each other on the ground have been betrayed by those who sent them to war.

[Toots]

21. But once you have enlisted would you have the courage to say no

Most of our "troops" don't want to be fighting the Iraqis. They did not enlist for that. From what I have read in the Stars and Stripes a great many are against this war but they are forced into doing the killing. There are extreme penalties for not doing what they are told. They must obey or go to prison. They are not fighting for their country, they are fighting to stay out of prison...

[bluerum]

22. They are fighting to stay alive too. nt.

[mloutre]

27. more thoughts re honorable sacrifices vs. dishonorable missions

In my original post I made reference to an unnamed sitting Senator who had been interviewed on the Larry King show, and I included a brief quote from a speech he'd given a few years back. I didn't name him then because I didn't want this discussion to digress into a debate about personalities and partisan politics.

I still won't, because I still don't. I do want to quote from that unnamed Senator's speech at greater length now, though; because I think what he had to say on the 20th anniversary of the dedication of the National Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington directly addresses some of the same issues we're discussing here today:


----------------


Seven letters — that's all it takes to make the word Vietnam.

But we know it is much more than a word. More than the name of a country. Vietnam. It is a period in time — it is a one-word encapsulation of history — a one word summary of a war gone wrong, of families divided, generations divided, a nation divided. It carries in its seven letters all the confusion, bitterness, love, sacrifice and nobility of America's longest war. It is a one-word all-encompassing answer to questions: What happened to him? Where was he injured? When did he change?

Say the word Vietnam to a veteran and you can smell the wood burning fires, hear the AK-47's and B-52's, see pajama clad Viet Cong skirting a tree line and the helicopters darting across the sky — you can feel all the emotions of young men and women who in the end were fighting as much for their love of each other as for the love of country that brought them there in the first place.

Today we come here to remember and to memorialize forever all that was Vietnam. In doing so we do not just read the names and remember those who gave their lives. We remember and celebrate what they were and remain part of — a great nation committed to peace, individual liberty, freedom for all — a nation which outlined in the writing of a constitution fundamental rights which belong to every one of its citizens and which we remember today are worth dying for. Today — because of those engraved forever on these black panels — we celebrate rights and aspirations that are bigger than any individual and which each of us as individuals are willing to defend with life itself.

We celebrate the nobility of young Americans willing to go thousands of miles from home to fight for the notion that in the final measurement someone else's freedom was connected to our own.

It doesn't matter that politics got in the way. It doesn't matter that leaders remained wedded to their own confusion. Nothing — not politics, not time, not outcome — nothing will ever diminish one iota the contributions of these brothers and sisters, nothing can ever lessen the courage with which they waged war. Nothing reduces the magnitude of their sacrifice, nothing can take away the quality of their gift to their nation.

{snip}

The Vietnam soldiers, airmen and sailors fought with as much conviction, as much commitment, as much courage and as much selfless sacrifice as soldiers in any war. And we did so with love of country and love of fellow soldiers as great as any despite our nation's political divisions at home and the difficult circumstances we were required to confront. This memorial will forever remind the generations to come of that special spirit — the special bond of soldier to country and soldier to soldier.

{snip}

The truth is that every advance we've made on behalf of our veterans has been the result of the commitment of veterans and to each other and their vows never to give up the fight. This Wall itself grew out of that spirit.

That spirit bonded men and women together — making us more than we were when we left for Vietnam, and didn't diminish once we had returned. Each panel, each name, tells the story of that journey.

{snip}

That is why we come here today. To keep faith. To celebrate the 58,226 brave men and women who didn't return from Vietnam, who knew the Lord's words that "There is no greater love than sacrificing yourself for a friend." And so, it is in that spirit that we remember all who fought with our brothers and sisters — for our families — for our nation.

[buddysmellgood]

8. If we can't says what they are dying for, then yes, they are dying in vain.

[WritersBlock]

10. They're dying because Bush lied. That's about as "in vain" as it gets...

...in more ways than one.

And well said, your point on the mercenaries. They are dying for their own, and their masters', greed.

[marions ghost]

12. the case of the 4 Blackwater contractors

has been in the press recently. The families claim that the contractors did not get protections they were promised. This might have an effect on this kind of 'mercenary' in future.

There are lots of civilians employed in military support. It's a job. I'm not sure I'd agree that the contractors are "killers without honor" exactly. Or at least I fail to see the distinction you are making as far as the individuals are concerned. The government is at fault for depending on contractors and sending them into an imperialist occupation disguised as an honorable war to protect American "freedom."

ALL of those dying in Iraq are dying for a lost cause, an ill-conceived and futile bloodbath IMO. I blame those who created this mess at the top, not those who got sucked into doing the dirty work.

---------------------
"Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens' decision means the families of the murdered contractors can start pressing Blackwater Security Services for documents and testimony about what led to the massacre shown on televisions and in newspapers around the world.

The lawsuit was one of the first in the nation to be filed against a military contractor for death on the battlefield in Iraq, where the United States has used more private contractors than in any previous war." (excerpt)
http://www.newsobserver.com/511/story/515438.html

[mloutre]

17. I agree that 'contractors' and 'mercenaries' are not synonymous terms

...which is why I drew the distinction I did between the "non-combatant support personnel and contractors" who go there to do honest work, and the 'security contractors' who go there to shoot at people for money. I can see that I didn't make clear, though, that I do recognize there's a certain amount of overlap between those categories as well.

I'm thinking right now of a small-town policeman I read about recently, a man who went to Iraq hoping to help keep order the way he'd been doing at home. He knew it was more dangerous, but the pay was high and he really wanted to buy a house for his family to live in. He planned to stay over there for one year, make enough money for the house and few extras for his family at home, and then come back to his old job.

By the time he was nearing the end of that year, he was sad and demoralized and disgusted by what he'd seen and how badly things were being handled over there. He wrote to his wife expressing his doubts and fears and praying that he would be able to get through the final weeks of his contract so that he could come home safely.

He didn't make it. He was killed in an ambush while escorting a convoy of trucks carrying non-essential material. He didn't die for honor or country, he died for KBR. He didn't die protecting the law or the citizenry, he died protecting the property of a giant war-profiteering corporation who couldn't give a rat's ass about his life, his family, or his dreams of providing home and hearth for them.

And as far as I'm concerned, that's just plain all kinds of wrong.

[Clarkie1]

14. Nobody knows for sure. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. nt

[GreenZoneLT]

15. Mercenaries?

I keep reading posts about mercenaries, and I'm not sure what you're talking about.

There are a lot of private security guards over here. Mostly, they do convoy escort and guard buildings. They have occasionally shot civilians from their convoys, but it's not frequent enough for the Iraqis to complain about it. They don't do combat at all, to speak of; when they do, it's of the shoot-while-running-away variety. They're more rent-a-cops than soldiers of fortune.

We uniformed troops, on the other hand, kill a LOT of Iraqis, including some civilians, because of bad command decisions, mainly. Personally, I'm of the "do no kinetics unless absolutely required" camp, because every time you kill an insurgent, you push several of his cousins into becoming insurgents. But the constant unit turnover means you get new, hard-charging eager beavers in here all the time, with a commensurate spike in combat ops and American-Iraqi deaths. The Army is running this show, and the Army is not culturally competent at fighting insurgencies or nation-building. It's like asking the high school linebacker to go into the alternative school and set up and run a student government.

I think people have a wrong idea about the "fighting" here. Except for the militia-on-militia battles, it's rarely what you'd think of as combat. More like Philly cops dealing with the MOVE riot, over and over and over. A couple of snipers shoot at a patrol, they shoot back, and eventually something large and explosive is called in on the snipers' position, blowing them to kingdom come and "inadvertently" killing everyone else in the building.

In Ramadi, substitute a tank main gun round for the air strike.

In Baghdad, an Iraqi army patrol with American advisers goes to arrest a death squad leader in Sadr City, gets spotted, of course, gets in a big firefight with the local population, and extracts itself with the aid of helicopter gunships. More dead civilians.

Those are the failures. The successes are when we arrest a bunch of guys at a fake checkpoint in fake military uniforms and rescue kidnap victims, or when we uncover a cache containing a ton of mortar rounds. These are not infrequent. We have built an enormous amount of new infrastructure in parts of the country that NEVER had infrastructure. The power's even getting back on in Baghdad recently.

Certainly, the invasion and botched aftermath are at fault. It's W's fault. But it's a moral dilemma at the moment. Do you let the minority of insanely murderous religious crazies take over? Can you just pull out the U.S. troops now and NOT have that happen? I mean, it's bad that we're here, but al Qaeda and some of the other Taliban-style groups that want to take over are really, REALLY evil. They don't kill people inadvertently.

I've kind of given up; I don't think we're doing enough positive to make up for all the violence we engender as a sort of a gigantic irritant on the whole country. And the Iraqis, other than the Green Zone government, clearly want us to just go. I'm also not convinced that we're making enough progress with the Iraqi Security Forces for it to matter WHEN we go.

But it's not that that's a completely morally superior solution; lots of innocent Iraqis will be murdered if we do leave immediately BECAUSE we left immediately.

[druidity33]

16. welcome to DU!

We are glad to have your perspective...

keep posting!

[mloutre]

18. Thank you for your service, and for your thoughtful reply

That's one of the most concise and informative descriptions of life on the ground in Iraq I've read, and I appreciate your taking the time to share your experiences with us here.

As I mentioned in my reply to marion's ghost above, I do recognize that not all of the private security guards working in Iraq are mercenaries per se. Many of them are, as you say, basically rent-a-cops trying to do a job and get back home on their feet rather than in a box. The real evil in the cases of those men and women stems from their being maimed and killed to protect the obscene war profits of heartless corporations like KBR.

But a lot of the 'security contractors' working for companies like Blackwater are mercenaries, and I have some real problems with the system that allows and encourages them to be where they are.

I have a real problem with highly-trained Rangers and Delta Force-type personnel treating their services as revolving-door trade schools that they can't wait to graduate from so they can start making the big bucks for doing what other soldiers are doing for chump change.

I have a real problem with under-trained and under-equipped National Guard troops getting stuck on their second and third assignments in Iraq at risk of being killed and maimed while having to do the dirty work that the big-bucks hired guns consider themselves too good to do.

I have a real problem with highly-paid 'contractors' swaggering around like they're some kind of military elite force while there are honorable soldiers who are facing the same, and in some cases greater, dangers while worrying about whether their families back home will have enough food stamps to get them through the rest of the month.

I have a real problem with cadres of heavily-armed combatants who owe allegiance to nothing but but money and to no one but themselves operating without oversight or accountability in the middle of a war zone, while honorable soldiers and helpless civilians are being indiscriminately killed and maimed around them.

I respect what you and your comrades in service are doing in Iraq, GreenZoneLT. You are doing difficult and often thankless tasks in dangerous situations while dealing with all the day-to-day dilemmas you described so well in your reply.

It's because of that respect for honorable soldiers like you that I so greatly resent those who I call mercenaries, and why I am so disgusted with the corrupt political entities that take our tax dollars and gives them to the soulless corporations who pay those killers without honor to be there beside you.

The mercenaries are the symptom. The immoral, unethical system that hires them is the cause. Brave men and women are dying for honor while others are killing for money. And that, to my mind, is truly obscene.

[marions ghost]

26. good points

The security contractors are the product of an unethical system. I agree that it's important for people to see it that way. It speaks volumes about our society that so many want to join the ranks of highly paid privately-controlled special forces, and this is considered a cool occupation. Agreed. But you have to admit that these people are force-fed the same propaganda as the army recruits --ie. that actions like Iraq are necessary for the protection of the country. So it's understandable that the private contractors themselves perceive no moral conflict with it. They see it as important work for national security, not "killing for money." I'm sure that's how they are brainwashed to rationalize it. It's still obscene all right.

The only point on which I differ is about the artificial line you draw between those who are tempted to do this 'contractor' work and the regular soldiers, calling one dishonorable and the other honorable. They are both products of the same system, both are expendable fodder for a corrupt government, no matter the difference in wages.

We just don't have enough honorable work at decent wages of any kind in this country. I don't judge young prospects who are attracted to "security work" so harshly.

[Laurab]

28. If I could recommend a single post, I would recommend yours

I did K&R the OP - well written indeed, but your post here is, too.

I'm reading a book now about the hired guns that they recruit straight from the military, process their paperwork so that they can start right when they get out of the military.

I have mixed feelings about it, though. Obviously we don't have enough troops, and I sure as hell don't want anyone else sent there. Someone has to do the security details, etc., I supposed, but it is a slap in the face to our military that they get paid something like $550 to $1200 a day to do the same job our military is getting paid for. WITHOUT rules, really, without having to answer to anyone, able to leave whenever the hell they want, able to drink, and many take steroids, as well.

They give our government what is called "plausible deniability" when someone gets shot that wasn't "supposed" to get shot - and I'm not even halfway through the book. They get better equipment, too. Since asshole-in-chief took office, private security is big, big business.

On the other hand, no matter how much money is being paid, it's not worth it, or it wouldn't be to me, anyway. I think we should let all our military people who want to come home, come home, and replace them with this new private military, who, apparently WANT to be there. Money doesn't appear to be an object with our government, Blackwater says there is no shortage of volunteers, and there are many other private contracters, as well. Let the guys who WANT to be there do it all. Then they could truly call it an "all volunteer" military.

edited for typo.

[dwahzon]

20. First,

thank you for your service. Stay safe or at least, as safe as you can.

And thanks for taking the time to post on this. I appreciate your insight.

[moondust]

24. Thank you for the valuable insights LT.

And for your service.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

25. Better question. What are they killing for?

[seemslikeadream]

29. Blood money

That's what I see

[seemslikeadream]

30. The Dogs of War

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=125&topic_id=9558

[sendero]

19. Yes they are...

... and they have been since DAY ONE.

[Vinca]

31. Yes - it's a tragic and unnecessary loss of young life.

I don't know how their families can bear it.

[Retired AF Dem]

32. Make no mistake the war on terror is real

I don't agree on how it is being conducted. From day one I thought it would be spec ops guys globe trotting around keeping the bad guys on the run so they wouldn't have the time to plan anymore attacks. Saddam could of been taken out without causing all the bloodshed that is happening now. I don't believe in any timetable for Iraq. If we are going to leave get the tropps out today. I don't want anymore friends dying if we aren't going to complete the "mission" whatever the mission is.

[heidler1]

33. Bush not being able to define his own mission is real also.

If Bush don't know what the mission is how could anyone else know? Anyone putting his/her life on the line has the right to know why. If the mission is undefined how would anyone know when it is finally full filled? When Bush finally gets his belly full of being exposed as a lier he is a cinch to call it all off and claim to be satisfied much like Boris in Rocky and Bullwinkle.