|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
The Unraveling of the Military
| Article
# : |
11696 |
|
|
Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
|
| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1994 |
1,572 Words |
| Author
: |
Albert M. Santoli
Albert M. Santoli, a combat veteran, is author of Leading the
Way: How Vietnam Veterans Rebuilt the U.S. Military. |
We are witnessing the rapid unraveling of the United States military. The arduous post-Vietnam rebuilding of a carefully architected all-volunteer force demonstrated its professionalism and integrity with quick-strike operations in Panama and Kuwait. It has come unglued in the halls of the Pentagon and Department of State.
A new generation of Defense Department "whiz kids" and politically sensitive generals and admirals seems to have forgotten a primary lesson of the Vietnam era: The key ingredient for quality military service is trust.
The October 3 tragedy in Somalia that resulted in 18 elite Army Rangers and Delta soldiers dead and more than 75 wounded dramatically illustrated the lack of strategic and tactical planning by the Clinton administration. Consequently, Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, whose followers killed and mutilated American troops, was elevated by the Clinton administration as a negotiating partner and key player in forming a Somali government.
As surviving Rangers departed Somalia, they expressed frustration and bitterness about vacillating policymakers ordering them to perform--and then abandon--an unclear mission that had no bearing on vital American interests. Pentagon and congressional leaders' attempts to cloak the pullout with rhetoric of "victory" failed to dampen soldiers' heartfelt sense of the physical and emotional loss of their comrades.
For a dedicated defense force to be maintained, young people in uniform must believe that our political and military leaders will not waste their lives on foreign battlefields for ill-defined reasons. It was disturbing that President Clinton vacationed at the home of Robert McNamara, the Vietnam-era secretary of defense whose overreliance on statistics and technology led to the decline of the American military in Vietnam. At the same time, McNamara's former protégé, Les Aspin, was refusing to send a handful of tanks to protect American forces in Mogadishu for fear of negative political spin in Congress.
Similar to the Joint Chiefs of the early 1960s who failed at the time to condemn McNamara's "gradual escalation" policy in Vietnam, Gen. Colin Powell and his deputies refrained from publicly expressing their concern about Aspin's life-threatening policy decision--which resulted in the decimation of the Ranger company and elite Delta Force operatives--during numerous congressional testimonies.
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
