RE: [Futurework] Ten simple rules

[Karen Watters Cole]

Good commentary as usual, Stephen.  HOWEVER, lest we forget one minor detail, sometimes you die while earning those prepaid education credits.   The recruitment of blacks into the services is a relatively recent program in the history of the US Armed Services, and thankfully, they have been moderately good employers and trainers as a general rule but uniform life was not free of bigotry and hardship, either.  But my main point is that instead of a few grand wars with long periods of relative peacetime in-between when the GI Bill really did have an impact on training and the advancement of the middle class, we seem to be entering a new stage of rapid deployments, longer tours and deadlier confrontations with the enemy civilian as well as enlisted population.    And yes, GI Janes, young mothers as well, died in Iraq this year, hoping to earn those GI benefits.  I believe that proportionately, there are still more minorities on the front lines and in the supply lines, which we know are also prime targets in today’s guerrilla warfare.  Wars produce widows and widowers, children without a parent.    Aside from that, promoting the armed services as an educational institution, regardless of survivorship, ignores debilitating illnesses contracted while exposed to toxic agents during one’s tour.  This is not recent history.  Many doughboys came home from WW1 exposed to nerve gas and suffered then-undiagnosed health conditions.  My ex husband’s maternal grandfather was one, prone to seeing enemy soldiers out the window of their little house in Cuero, Texas and shooting at them with the grandchildren nearby.  He was finally hospitalized and died there.     There are too many still-suffering Vietnam and Gulf War vets to mention who enlisted to earn an education.  Dying for one’s education should not be a prerequisite to access and affordability of education and training opportunities.  The original post was about Kaplan and others are promoting a superpower foreign policy dependent upon and glorifying soldiers as the best examples of modern, problem-solving citizens, and that I don’t find balanced or wise.   Below I’ve copied an OpEd that I found more realistic and bluntly honest than Kaplan’s Stealth piece about the new emerging American Empire.  This from a retired military brass of the John McCain school of public relations who was highly critical of the war plans set in motion by the current Pentagon leaders earlier this year. (color highlights, mine) – KWC   U.S. needs wisdom to stay world power By Gen. Merrill A. McPeak, Special to the Oregonian, Sunday July 20, 2003 America stands today at the summit of world power, a colossus reminiscent of Rome in its heyday.  History tells us such arrangement of power is a limiting case, holding within itself the seeds of its own undoing.  Still, if we can manage to be as clever as the Romans -- make that a big "if" -- we can stay on top for a while.  Being clever means using all the instruments of power, so when we can we'll rely on economics and diplomacy, propaganda and negotiation.  But instinct and experience tell us there are limits to nonlethal persuasion -- witness out-of-control states like Noriega's Panama or the Taliban's Afghanistan.  Necessity will dictate military intervention from time to time and in all parts of the globe. Many of us see this as an unpleasant and avoidable duty.  We hear, "We're not the world's policeman," but this is more wishful thinking than a description of reality.  When firmness is required, the rest of the world will wait for us to provide the leadership -- the case of Milosevic's Serbia comes to mind.  No one else can do it.  Like it or not, we are the world's policeman. By the way, being top dog has its advantages.  Trade is denominated in dollars, the world speaks English, the brain drain is headed at us.  We wouldn't want to change any of this.  Remember, Rome got rich, and so did a lot of other folks who cooperated with the Romans.  A nice long run, success on the Roman model, will mean we pay attention to three important ingredients of successful intervention, only the first of which was apparent this spring, when we launched into Iraq. Superior combat forces: That is, well-organized, well-trained and well-equipped soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.  We are not where we'd like to be on this requirement, but certainly we're good enough on all counts to handle an item like Saddam Hussein. This was, after all, the sort of engagement military professionals dream of, featuring a dusty, Third World country with a cardboard army, no navy and a disappearing air force -- all led by a nasty piece of work right out of Central Casting, a man apparently more interested in palaces than weapons of mass destruction. Over the long haul, keeping our forces large and at high readiness will be costly, but disposable wealth is the source of military power, and we are wealthy.  For a while, at least, we can count on having the muscle to do the job.  Willingness, and competence, to govern: In a variety of ways we've made clear our reluctance to manage the property we seize.  In keeping with this attitude, the Bush administration's Iraq scenario pictured a welcoming population, snap elections and a speedy withdrawal, leaving behind a friendly, Westward-leaning government. But pretending does not make it so, even in politics. Unbelievably, no planning for the "postwar war" seems to have been done -- none at all.  We had no clue even about who might run the place, which consequently was left for a time in the hands of the hapless Jay Garner.  Failing to prepare for the postwar situation was a national mistake of the same order of importance as pressuring the system to turn out faith-based intelligence. If we are successful, and lucky, we'll be running countries for a long time, which means we'd better get good at it.  We'll look to the army for many of the capabilities needed.  Unhappily, the occupational specialties required -- civil affairs, military police, transportation, civil engineers -- are supporting roles that were deliberately off-loaded to the reserves in the 1970s.  It was a way of making sure no president could repeat what Lyndon Johnson did: decide to fight a long war without calling up reserves and thereby involving the country at the grassroots level. (In 1994, we could not mount a 10,000-man operation into Haiti without a presidential recall of the reserves!)   These essential skills must be brought back into the active army, indeed, elevated in importance to become part of the army's mainstream.  Few officers have risen to high rank through the civil affairs career field.  If we want it done well, we'd better make sure you can get promoted doing it.  Political legitimacy: In Gulf War II we hid behind a fig leaf, the so-called "Coalition of the Willing," but the fact is we attacked Iraq against the will of the United Nations. Colin Powell, with all his star power, could not close the deal with small, impoverished African countries, who choked on voting with us in the Security Council. Turkey, a country that lined up beside us in Korea and over the long Cold War, could not be bribed into passive cooperation. The Brits held their hand up -- and Tony Blair is now paying the price -- but almost nobody else who mattered regarded the intervention as legitimate. Is this important? You bet. Legitimacy -- or the lack of it -- is what sets the initial conditions for a successful intervention.  It is not about the glow that comes with popularity. It's about making the job less costly in American blood and treasure. The Pentagon's most recent estimate is that we're spending nearly $4 billion a month in Iraq, more than the federal budget includes for grade and high school education, or highways, or farm subsidies.  And, so far, we've lost more than 200 people to all causes in Iraq, a third of them since May 1, when the president declared an end to major combat operations.  We can project the crossover point when occupation casualties will exceed combat losses.  We're on track for this to happen well before Halloween -- at the latest, Thanksgiving. The iron law of history is this: Great powers come and go.  Those that last a while show both the strength to make it happen and the brains to make it last.  So, if we do it right, we can be king of the hill for a long time. Make that a big "if." Gen. Merrill A. McPeak of Lake Oswego was chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force from 1990 to 1994 and is chairman of ECC International, a defense contractor based in Florida. http://www.oregonlive.com/commentary/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1058616824121890.xml