U.S. Army & Marines are recalling thousands of
Inactive Servicemen
If one places a frog in a kettle of boiling water, the
frog will immediately jump and try to escape, but if you place the frog in
a kettle of cold water then heat the kettle gradually, the frog will
obliviously, without any notice, remain in the kettle as the temperature
of the water rises and the frog eventually boils to death. The
significance of this is that gradual change can be and is believed to be
unperceivable. This strategy and concept can likewise be used on
societies and groups in a variety of manners.
It is now being specified and openly stated that the U.S.
Marines have started recalling or legally summoning thousands of inactive
servicemen to serve in Iraq and the Middle East, where the number of U.S.
troops and contracted security personal are dropping towards hap-hazardous
levels that seem to be worrying American commanders in Iraq and the
Pentagons military planners, especially in light of the recent escalation
and intensifying tension(s) and resistance to Anglo-American occupation in
the Middle East and Afghanistan. The U.S. Army too, undermined by
shortfalls in manpower, has ordered over a reported 14,000 inactive
servicemen back to fight in what is cited as the War on Terror, as
opposed to the fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan.1 Already thousands of servicemen have
disserted, even applying for refugee status in Canada, and thousands more
are AWAL (absent without authorized leave).
The compulsory recall to military service has come about
and materialized in almost complementary and balancingif one can use
these words for what seem to be actions of an adversarial
naturecoordination with the timing of several other and important
international events. The compulsory recall of inactive servicemen in
the United States might even go unnoticed in North America and most the
world until analysts, historians and later generations look back at the
present events unfolding in these contemporary times, years from now and
place them into focus within a larger matrix of events. This could just be
the tip of the iceberg, but this seems to be nothing less than a watered
down and concealed military draft and it is only the continuation of a
systematic conscription of military troops and former servicemen in a
stealthy and cautious manner. This looks as if it is an unprecedented
event in the recent military history of the United States; something that
has not happened since the full draft during the American war in Vietnam
and the World Wars. The obligation of military service or military
conscription was not initiated after the tragic events of 9/11the trigger
that augmented and accelerated the aggressive militarization of American
foreign policynor during the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003. In
fact the only time a draft has seriously been mentioned or entertained
publicly is in the circumstances and likelihood that the United States
should find itself attacking Iran or both Iran and Syria.
The Timing of the U.S. Troop Build-up: Iran,
and the Broader Middle East
A look at the international
events unfolding concurrently within the same timeline and the same or
flanking geographic setting(s) of the Marine Corps deployment is something
that can be forgiven for arousing certain suspicion(s) in individuals
about the strategic methodology of such a move or rather series of moves.
Firstly the official multi-facetted Iranian response has been announced by
Ali Larijani, the Secretary-General of the Supreme National Security
Council of Iran, and by the Iranian government, via diplomatic channels in
Tehran to all the Permanent Members (the P5) of the Security Council and
Germany, in regards to the so-called EU-3 (French, British, and German)
package of incentives offered to the Iranians if Iran should forfeit its
legal rightwhich is guaranteed under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and
international lawto produce nuclear fuel. Secondly, the large scale war
games being held throughout Iran and adjacent to U.S., American-led
Coalition, and NATO forces are unfolding under a very well planned and
strategic timetable as were the large scale military exercises held by
Iran in April 20062. Thirdly the Israeli siege of
Lebanonwhich seems to have entered a new phase of low spectrum warfare
under the veil of the United Nations Security Council resolution which was
catered to Israeli requirementsseem to have simmered down, but with the
likely projection of being protracted, continued, and tied to other
regional trials, players, and events, including Syria. Fourthly, the
United Nations Security Council deadline set for Iran to halt its uranium
enrichment is drawing to an end, with only days till August 31, 2006.
These events and manoeuvres appear to all be the ingredients of a conflict
that is and has been fermenting and building; for all its dramatics and
repartee the Middle East is a powder keg waiting to be disturbedeven
further.
The Role of Mercenraries in Iraq
There has been a steady U.S. troop build up in occupied
Iraq that has been going on for months now, without even studying the
unofficial numbers and concealed figures of mercenaries and private
security contractors. In mid-August most the members of an approximately
380 member U.S. Army brigade from Alaska, 172nd Stryker Brigade, who were
sent home from a military tour of duty that was already extended by the
Pentagon in war dilapidated and fatigued Anglo-American occupied Iraq were
ordered and forced to return to their posts in the Baghdad area after just
returning to the United States.3 U.S. troops have also slowly been
marshalled into Iraq from neighbouring Kuwait and other places where they
are not urgently vital or needed. The citizens of Iraq were also expecting
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Malaki to establish a timetable for the
departure of American, British, and Coalition troops from Iraqi territory
during his visit to Washington D.C., but have instead saw the Prime
Minister fully agree with the American programme for Iraq and
non-commitment to a troop withdrawal timetable for Iraq; instead the Iraqi
Prime Minister accepted and committed himself publicly for an increase of
American forces in and around the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, in the
thousands, along with Iraqi forces as security and auxiliary. Prior even
to the arrival of the Iraqi Prime Minister in Washington D.C., the U.S.
Secretary of Defence, Donald H. Rumsfeld, stated that the number of troops
in the Baghdad area had increased from approximately a force of 40,000 to
55,000 troops.
In contingent with the U.S. troop build up, mercenaries,
which reportedly make the second largest group after American troops in
Iraq, have also been proliferating into Anglo-American occupied Iraq and
NATO garrisoned Afghanistan, but what is more noteworthy is the overflow
of these groups into places of close geographic proximity in the region.
Many young men from within the United States and around the world seeking
American citizenship or green cards have also been loured into the
circuits of the U.S. military and mercenary groups. After the U.S.
launched the War on Terror, the Bush Jr. Administration made it easier
for foreign-born residents living in the United States who joined the
military to gain full American citizenship as a way to boost the
militaries demographics. A whole set of obstructions to American
citizenship were instantly removed to make enrolment and recruitment in
the U.S. military more desirable and appealing. The Asia Times has
reported that of the 15,000 new US citizens who were naturalized in the
week of July 4, hundreds were from the military. Foreign legal residents
make up 2% to 3% of the US military, but they are becoming citizens in
record numbers. The largest number of foreigners in the US forces is from
the Philippines (25 %). According to the Migration Policy Institute, 410
Indians were actively serving the US military in the year 2004.4
For example, Blackwater, a private security firm founded
by a former U.S. Navy SEAL and specialized in military, law enforcement,
peacekeeping, and stability operations challenges5 is an American firm of mercenaries that
has been contracted by the Pentagon to work and guard American
officials and facilities in both Iraq and Afghanistan, but has also been
contracted to work in Irans northwester neighbour, the Republic of
Azarbaijan under the raison d'être of supporting the special naval
commando forces of the Caucasian state. This is something that is
imaginably something neither the Russian Federation nor Iran are delighted
with because of the Republic of Azarbaijans westward political
orientation towards the United States and NATO.
Troop Build-Up in Baghdad and the Green Zone
Baghdad is being reinforced with more and more U.S.
troops as is pivotally important Green Zone (also called the International
Zone). The Green Zone is the worlds largest gated community in central
Baghdad and is the heavily guarded diplomatic and governmental area of
closed-off streets in central Baghdad that accommodates the multitudes of
Americans and British officials, including Zalmay Khalilzad, the powerful
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, U.S. and Coalition military commanders, and the
executives and representatives of major foreign corporations contracted or
operating in Iraq. The U.S. Embassy alone has been reported to employ at
least 5, 500 individuals being by far the largest American diplomatic
mission in the world. The currant new embassy complex being built is also
the largest American embassy complex in the world; the compound will be
comprised of 21 buildings across 104 acres. In the event of the
outbreak of a war or any possible violent conflict between the United
States and Iran, the Green Zone in Baghdad will certainly be a priority to
defend for the United States and separately a possible target attacked by
order of probability by ballistic missiles, Iranian air power, the Iraqi
groupings allied with Iran, and finally Iranian troops.
The Mystery of Coalition Casualty Figures, the Inverse
Relationship(s) between Civilian Deaths and Coalition Deaths, Sectarian
Violence, and Balkanization
There also seems to be a apprehensive and guarded inverse
relationship in the official numbers of casualties and fatalities of
U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians, which could mean a numerous amount of
arguments on the hypothetical and practical levels; there is growing
sectarian violence in Iraq, the sectarian violence is causing the
insurgents to fight each other rather than the occupation forces (e.g.,
U.S. troops), figures are being doctored/falsified/hidden, and/or the
United States hastactically speakingprogressed in its operations in
Iraq, but there is more to this picture. Emerging from Iraq are formal and
informal reports and voices saying other than what the White House and
Pentagon are claiming. There are diffidently, without question, hidden
figures and numbers on the mercenariestermed as security contractors for
public relations reasonsbeing brought into Iraq from Latin America6 and all over the worlda by-product of
the role of globalization in modern warfarewhose deaths do not get
counted as American casualties and thus help marginalize the real human
costs of the war for the United States and non-Iraqi denizens. The fact
that there are scores of unaccounted deadbesides the phenomenally large
amount of Iraqisis verified by Robert Frisk one of the worlds most
highly decorated foreign correspondents and the corresponding journalist
on the Middle East for the British newspaper, The Independent, has written
with Patrick Cockburn that At least 18 000 mercenaries, many of them
tasked to protect U.S. troops and personnel, are now believed to be in
Iraq, some of them earning $1,000 (U.S.) a day. But their companies rarely
acknowledge their losses unlesslike the four American murdered and
mutilated in Fallujah three weeks agotheir deaths are already public
knowledge. (
) many of the heavily armed Western security men are working
for the U.S. Department of Defenceand most of them are former Special
Forces soldiers - they are not listed as serving military personnel. Their
[the mercenaries] losses can therefore be hidden from public view.7
Robert Fisk has also written in regards to the Iraqi
sectarian violence that it seems like a deliberate approach through
American subsidized terrorism to provoke an Iraqi civil war so that Sunni
Muslim [Arabs] insurgents spend their energies killing their Shia [Arab]
co-religionists [fellow Muslims] rather than soldiers of the Western
occupation forces through staged terrorism.8 One can not be blamed for thinking that
there is considerations on dividing the nation-state of Iraq like a
planned demolition. The President has repeatedly ruled it out, but
politicians have been none to say one thing and to move in another direct.
After all the balkanization and the subsequent finlandization9 of states has proven a sturdy tool in the
past Yugoslavia. US stated objective to help and promote Yugoslav unity
but divided it. One can merely look at the benefits of divide and conquer
historically in the colonial era in Africawhich is still suffering from
the artificial drawn and manipulated boundaries in more ways than oneand
India and at the Balkans and the former Soviet Union in the post-Cold War
era
Deceiving the Public on the Military Agenda from
Woodrow Wilson to Bush Jr.
U.S. Congressmen Ron Paul (Republican Party) of Texas
wrote in an article titles The Crime of Conscription, in November 26,
2003, that Woodrow Wilson orchestrated our entry into World War I by
first promising during the election of 1916 to keep us out of the European
conflict [World War I], then a few months later pressuring and manoeuvring
Congress into declaring war against Germany. Whether it was the Spanish
American War before that or all the wars since, U.S. presidents have
deceived the people to gain popular support for ill-conceived military
ventures. Wilson wanted the war and immediately demanded conscription to
fight it. He didnt have the guts even to name the program a military
draft; instead in a speech before Congress calling for war he advised the
army should be chosen upon the principle of universal liability to
service. Most Americans at the time of the declaration didnt believe
actual combat troops would be sent. What a dramatic change from this early
perception, when the people endorsed the war, to the carnage that followed
(
) Many of our [American] reservists and National Guardsmen cannot wait
to get out [of Iraq or Afghanistan] and have no plans to re-enlist. The
odds are that our [the U.S.] policy of foreign intervention, which has
been with us for many decades, is not likely to soon change. (
) To get
more troops, the draft will likely be reinstated. The implicit prohibition
of involuntary servitude under the 13th Amendment to the Constitution
has already been ignored many times so few will challenge the
constitutionality of the coming draft.
The Authority to involuntarily conscript individuals
in the Ongoing War: What does that mean?
The cloaked draft(s) or back-door draft(s) seem to be
new, but it reality are actually in keeping with a long line of practices
the United States government has been using since the Anglo-American
occupation of Iraq started in 2003. These practices include systematically
barring U.S. troops in the Marine Corps and U.S. Army from leaving the
proximity or near proximities of Iraq or Afghanistan, called stop loss
orders and/or prolonging military tours of duty beyond what was
established/understood/promised to or with American servicemen and/or
assigning multiple/consecutive military tours of duty and/or
obstructing/delaying the retirement of American servicemen. These
compulsory orders for involuntary duty are not a new norm, but rather a
reoccurring norm.
Marine Colonel Guy Stratton, the officer in charge of the
Marine Corps section responsible for man-power, has indicated that the
service [Marine Corps] is short some 1,200 volunteers over the next 18
months to fill roles in the War on Terrorism.10 It should be noted that the fighting in
Iraq is referred to in military terminology and jargon as the War on
Terror/Terrorism; this gives some insight on the objectives of the
ongoing military engagements and their mandates in the Iraq and
Afghanistansimply put the theatre of military operation(s) is flexible
and can be expanded.
The presidential authorization of the involuntary recalls
is hypothetically also applicable to any war(s) with Syria or Iran or
Sudan if such action is cited or justified as an expansion or rather
continuation of the stated mission of waging a War on Terror. The War on
Terror is a war destined to proliferate beyond Afghanistan and Iraq, it
was destined to be a global war that the public has constantly been told
to expect to last past their lifetimesit is an open ended concept that
gives flexibility to equally valuable maneuvering room to those fighting
it.
Colonel Stratton is quoted as saying that, the authority
[to power to involuntarily conscript individuals] is until G.W.O.T. [the
Global War on Terror] is over with and until were told to do otherwise
[stop], well use it [the power to involuntarily conscript individuals]
force.11 While the length of each activated
servicemens tour of duty is theoretically restrict, this is not a
tangible principle; there are military service men that have done three
separate tours of military duty in Iraq. There is also no finite limit set
on the authorization of the Marine Corps to involuntarily recall or
conscript Marines for jobs in the ongoing War on Terror.
A presidential order from the commander-in-chief has
sanctioned the Marine Corps to issue involuntary recall orders to members
of the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR), part of the non-active force of
ex-military personal. Marines serve for four years on active military duty
and after under the guidelines of service generally serve another four
years in the Primary Reserve where they have the option of volunteer to
return to active duty to fill vacant stations and posts. Unlike the
servicemen in the Primary Reserves who keep active by continuing their
training and drills those ex-military personnel who are listed under IRR
must be ready to serve the United States if they are all called up in case
of a national emergency or an attack on the United States. There are
currently 59,000 former Marines serving in the Individual Ready Reserve.12 The servicemen who decide to leave
active duty or retire automatically become members of the IRR which is
generically a standardized system used by military organizations in their
defensive procedures around the world. The presidential authorization
allows the IRRs activation to be open-ended, which means thousands of
former and retired Marines, with a demographic number of 35,000, will be
called back to active service in both Anglo-American occupied Iraq and
Afghanistan.
All Signs lead to more Militarization and possibility
for Conflict in the Middle East
Even the term being used by some mainstream media,
G.W.O.T seems to be the innovation of the public relations firms that the
Pentagon and White House have so heavily replied on in selling or hiding
their wars from the American public and a great deal of the world. This is
how negative perception is controlled and being managed so that there is
no significant surge in domestic anger. With careful public relations
campaigning, propaganda, and rhetoric such as terminology that is warped
or replaced to disassociate or de-link meanings the Pentagon has been
covering its tracks on the domestic front in the United States and
treading inch by inch towards a developing back-door draft; one that
will be definitely be needed if there is to be ensuing conflict with Iran
and Syria in a yet another Middle Eastern war. The White House and other
organelles of government have been continuously saying one thing in
regards to the fighting in Iraq and the continued promises or hopes of
troop pullouts/disengagement from Iraq, but actually doing the opposite.
The statements of troop pullouts and diplomacy are merely posturing to
keep the public at bay, while their seems to be no real desire for any
long term U.S. military disengagement and departure from the Middle East.
The Pentagon has authorized the building of permanent super-bases in Iraq,
while working on the domestic campaign in the United States with the White
House to systematically desensitize the American population and let them
gradual without perception accept the long-term interests of the U.S.
military agenda in the Middle East and Central Asia. At the same time more
U.S. troops and contracted mercenaries are slowly being sent into Iraq,
Afghanistan, and the in areas adjacent to Iran. There is a manifesting
build up of U.S. manpower in Iraq while in Afghanistan the forces of NATO
are freeing up American forces and resources to head to Iraq and
facilitating the American concentration of troops. Even in other NATO
countries, such as Canada, there is silent mobilization of troops and
reserve forces.
