Dick Cheney truly understood Iraq. Seriously.

People have called Dick Cheney a lot of things, but he is not a stupid man. In fact, he has shown more true insight into the U.S. military involvement with Iraq than any other member of the Bush administration. I'm serious. Unfortunately, it was during the other Bush administration.

On the invading of Iraq:

"Should we, perhaps, have gone in to Baghdad? Should we have gotten involved to a greater extent then we did? Did we leave the job in some respects unfinished? I think the answer is a resounding "no." One of the reasons we were successful from a military perspective was because we had very clear-cut military objectives. The President gave us an assignment that could be achieved by the application of military force. He said, "Liberate Kuwait." He said, "Destroy Saddam Hussein's offensive capability," his capacity to threaten his neighbors -- both definable military objectives. You give me that kind of an assignment, I can go put together, as the Chiefs, General Powell, and General Schwarzkopf masterfully did, a battle plan to do exactly that. And as soon as we had achieved those objectives, we stopped hostilities, on the grounds that we had in fact fulfilled our objective.

I think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is also fallacious. I think if we were going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have had to go all the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot of force because I do not believe he would wait in the Presidential Palace for us to arrive. I think we'd have had to hunt him down. And once we'd done that and we'd gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we'd have had to put another government in its place.

What kind of government? Should it be a Sunni government or Shi'i government or a Kurdish government or Ba'athist regime? Or maybe we want to bring in some of the Islamic fundamentalists? How long would we have had to stay in Baghdad to keep that government in place? What would happen to the government once U.S. forces withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in that effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable?

I think it is vitally important for a President to know when to use military force. I think it is also very important for him to know when not to commit U.S. military force. And it's my view that the President got it right both times, that it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq."

Man, those were the days, weren't they? Back when Dick Cheney recognized that the military could handle military missions, i.e. breaking stuff, and not much else. That was back when Dick Cheney understood that Iraq was "inherently unstable" and that the strongman would have to be replaced by one of the factions and we would have to be that "weakman's" muscle to make him strong enough to hold power. That was back when he understood that we would have to take casualties to keep the puppet regime in power and that that regime wouldn't be secure after we left. That was before he ran Halliburton and later decided to tell America that "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."

He even addressed the nuts and bolts of invading Iraq:

"I am personally persuaded that there are thousands of Americans home with their families today, and more on the way home who would not be coming home at all, if it hadn't been for the President's decision to double the force when he did last November to make certain that we could prevail in the shortest possible time and at the lowest possible cost.

One of the lessons that comes out of all of this is we should not ask our military personnel to engage "a little bit" in a war. If you are going to go to war, let's send the whole group; let's make certain that we've got a force of sufficient size, as we did when we went into Kuwait, so that we do not suffer any more casualties than are absolutely necessary."

Here, Cheney is showing that Donald Rumsfeld was woefully incapable of filling his shoes as Secretary of Defense. Cheney in 1990 knew that an overwhelming force was worth building up because it would insure success while minimizing losses. Rumsfeld wasn't as astute, with his "Surely 125,000 would suffice."

Dick Cheney's 1991 assessment of our military operations against Iraq appear especially ironic when looked at after our 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 operations against Iraq, which he himself sold to the country as a war that would last "weeks rather than months."

In light of the disastrous war and occupation that he helped sell the country, in light of the breakdown of recruiting and retention that the military is suffering, Cheney's closing remarks are especially telling:

"I think the friends of the United States, not only in the Middle East but around the world, can look to the United States with renewed confidence that we have not only the capacity to protect our friends and observe our commitments, but we have the will to protect our friends and keep our commitments. And that, too, is a very significant development."

Exploring the Oath of Enlistment

"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

There are three parts to the Oath. In the first, you swear to defend the Constitution. In the second, you swear allegiance to it. In the third you swear to participate in the military according to regulations and the UCMJ. Looking at these three parts from back to front, the obedience part is irrelevant. UCMJ applies where it applies and doesn't where it doesn't. The military has its own mechanisms for enforcing its laws and regulations- you don't have to take an oath to be bound by and under the control of those mechanisms. Placing that part in the Oath is more a strong way of showing recruits an important part of the commitment they are making. Seriously- is a soldier under arrest and facing a court-martial honorably fulfilling his Oath by submitting to that? Can he get out of it by simply renouncing his Oath? It makes no sense. As to discharged veterans and, in most circumstances, Reserve Component members, UCMJ doesn't even apply to them (see Article 2). If allowing it to continue not applying to them counts as constantly fulfilling their Oath, then good for them.

The second part, swearing allegiance to the Constitution, is slightly less dumb. Citizens simply owe allegiance to their country, and the United States, as a nation, is an artificial construction. It was created by the Declaration of Independence and is defined by the Constitution. Allegiance to the U.S. is allegiance to the Constitution, plain and simple. Civilians who have never taken this oath can be convicted of treason because of that allegiance. For citizens joining the military, this part is again just a reminder of what they're doing. For non-citizens who enlist, it is a critical requirement to bring them to the same level of obligation to the Constitution that citizens have.

The first part of the Oath is the most important, the only one that isn't already taken care of by other means (at least for citizens). It's important enough to look at again:

"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic..."

The rest of the Oath is simply restating the obvious, but this is its heart- to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies. This part of the Oath is the crux of the argument about serving or betraying the country.

IVAW members in general are regularly accused of treason because of differing opinions of just what it means to "support and defend the Constitution." Apparently, lots of people seem to think it involves everyone blindly adhering to the directives of the Bush administration, a group of people who only violate the Constitution on days that end in "y." That just doesn't make any sense to me. Look at the main problem, at least when calling IVAW members traitors: Iraq. Does opposing the invasion and occupation of Iraq signal a refusal to defend the Constitution? Not at all. Iraq was never a threat to us, but invading and occupying Iraq has made us weaker for no good reason. Again, for no good reason. If there were a good reason, then this whole mess would have legitimacy and opposition to it would be crippled. Without a good reason, it's bad for the country. To defend the country, we have to oppose the war.

I love this plate.

Reflecting at Winter Soldier

Winter Soldier was a painful week for me. Now, I've never been ashamed of anything that I did in Iraq. I wasn't happy with some of it, but I wasn't ashamed of it; I did the best that I could in the situations that I got dropped into. There are times that I still feel dirty about, but occupying a country is a dirty job and a lot of times there's no good way to do it. I spent a lot of time thinking about those things when I was in Iraq, but generally it was kind of an AAR because those kooky Iraqis came up with some really odd ways of behaving. You couldn't predict much.

An AAR is a very focused way of looking back and it's great for helping you prepare to deal with similar situations in the future. But it's not reflecting. I never actually looked at what I had done through anything but the narrow lens of a soldier in an occupied land and an NCO with a mission to perform and soldiers' lives at stake. Then I went to Winter Soldier.

Three years after I got home and settled back into civilian life, I finally looked at my time in Iraq from a perspective that didn't have to get out there tomorrow to do it all over again. I was sitting in the hearing room watching other veterans tell their stories of pain, for the first time feeling my own. I don't regret anything I did, but that doesn't mean that it was good.

I was an emotional wreck while I was at Winter Soldier and for a couple of days afterward. I drank way too much and cried a lot. Sure it hurt, but it was a good hurt and it was something that I didn't even know that I needed to do. I just wonder if it would have been easier if I had gone through it a few years ago.

It's a great system the military's got for mental health- nobody needs to sit down and talk with somebody about what they've seen and done unless they check off "I'm going to kill myself and/or my wife" on a questionnaire as part of redeployment. Of course, from what I read they aren't going to actually get any treatment even if they do check it off. But everyone supports the troops, right?

IVAW- easy to hate, hard to join.

Iraq Veterans Against the War generates a lot of hatred. Why is that? For people who think the war is just dandy, it's an easy group to hate. Even for Iraq veterans who are against the war, it's a hard group to join.

I've been against the war since the summer of '02, when the media, in its best "wag the dog" form, started screaming about the need for a war with Iraq. I had also been in the Army since the other Bush administration- the one where Dick Cheney was a smart man who saw Iraq as "inherently unstable" and knew that an American occupation would "get bogged down in the quagmire." Like any good soldier, I could focus on a mission and give it everything I had. Like any good NCO, I could see my unit's performance of its mission as being more important than the actual utility of the mission. I had spent a lot of time operating in Cortinia, and even some time in Midland. Doing stupid crap in Iraq didn't take much of a mental leap. My unit was together and the stupid things we were doing were at least for real.

I didn't hear about IVAW when it was founded because I was busy in Iraq. The day after I got home for good, though, I found their website. Yes, on my down day after our "welcome home" and before our outprocessing from active duty, I spent time looking for a group of vets that was against the war; that's how important it was to me. I quickly came across ivaw.org and it was like Christmas. I'm an Iraq vet and I'm against the war. What more could you want? It turns out, a lot. First, I wasn't behind all three "points of unity." Then I spent time reading through their members' profiles and they drove me away. Second, I disagree with conscientious objectors. I don't dislike or disrespect them, I just disagree with the premise. Third, I disagree with deserters, but not as much. Fourth, I don't have sympathy for people who feel their recruiters weren't completely forthright.

I was badly disappointed. In a country of such cultural and political diversity, I was only able to find VFP and IVAW. I wasn't looking for VFP, I was looking for vets that were specifically against what we had done and were doing in Iraq. That left me with IVAW, a bunch of freaks with unreasonable demands. So I did nothing. I couldn't agree with or bring myself to associate with IVAW, so I just got on with my life. My ETS hit later that year and I voted with my feet. That was the only thing that I did to "oppose" the war.

Almost a year after I got out, I met an IVAW member. I was excited to see that there was such a group (I was so disappointed from the first time I found them that I had put it completely out of my memory), but was surprised when his first question to me was "why are you against the war?" I wasn't expecting to be challenged or anything. He told me about the problems that IVAW had had with a guy named MacBeth. They now required a 214 to join, so I couldn't join on the spot. I took a membership application and filled it out, then that night I dug out a copy of my 214 and was all set to mail it on Monday. Then I went online to learn more about them and said "oh, it's those guys." My memory of them from a year and a half earlier came back- so I put my 214 back in the files and tossed the application in with the recycling.

Another year later I ran into a group of them. I introduced myself and explained my issues with IVAW. They set me straight. These weren't the freaks I remembered seeing online, these were real soldiers and marines that I could relate to and respect. They were smart, dedicated troops who saw the problems with what we were doing and wanted to stop it. I was home. I wasn't fully in agreement with all 3 points of unity, but I was on board enough that I could become a member.

So what's this about 3 points of unity? There are so many reasons to be against what's going on in Iraq that it doesn't make sense to list them- it would be an incomplete list. Look at any antiwar rally- circuses seem to have tighter messages, and that's the problem with trying to keep IVAW on track: focus. To avoid being dragged into every debate on every topic that people don't like about the government, they came up with 3 points of unity:
* Immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces in Iraq.
* Reparations for the human and structural damages Iraq has suffered, and stopping the corporate pillaging of Iraq so that their people can control their own lives and future.
* Full benefits, adequate healthcare (including mental health), and other supports for returning servicemen and women.

Those are what IVAW is aiming for. They're not out for impeachment, they're not looking for changes in Congress, they're not trying to legalize hemp or ban genetic research. They want us out of Iraq and for us to take care of our broken veterans and help the Iraqis. Those are issues today's soldiers and veterans can get behind, no matter what their political beliefs.

Let's look at the 3 points in reverse order. Who isn't in favor of veterans' healthcare? There isn't much that's more despicable than maiming kids in combat and then refusing them the best treatment possible. I'm for it. Reparations are also great. Remember the "Pottery Barn rule?" That's a great idea. The point that I took issue with was the first- immediate, total withdrawal. No, I'm not one of those idiots who calls it surrender, I just see it as covered by the Pottery Barn rule. We destroyed Iraq, and we have a moral obligation to rebuild it. Pulling out would be to abandon our responsibility there. After a lot of thought, I ended up agreeing with that point shortly after I joined IVAW (and no, I wasn't coached, I just spent a lot of time thinking about it). In short, we're the invaders. We're the occupiers. Foreign forces are probably the best solution to Iraq's immediate security concerns, but Americans aren't- we're the ones who caused this whole mess. We still have the obligation to Iraq, but the simple fact of the American flag on our soldiers' sleeves disqualifies our soldiers from being able to fix it. If Iraq's security problem were a tactical one, we'd have solved it a long time ago. It's not a tactical problem, though- it's a social problem and American rifles and armored vehicles can't solve that.

So now I'm an IVAW member. I joined because I love my country, I love the Army and I'm dead set against the war. It's bad for the country and destroying the military- but it took two and a half years after I got home from Iraq before I was able to bring myself to join. When I was over there my chain of command knew exactly what I thought about what was going on. I wasn't shy about it and certainly wasn't quiet. So why did it take me so long to join IVAW even though it was obvious that it was where I belonged? On some levels, it felt wrong. I didn't feel like I was betraying the military, and I've never believed that protesters make the troops feel bad, but it still felt wrong. IVAW's leadership had thought things through and arrived at a conclusion that I hadn't yet gotten to myself; that we just plain have to get out of Iraq. Take that, add all the hype that we've been getting fed for almost six years now and standing with IVAW can be a little hard to stomach.

For military types who aren't against the war, IVAW's call for withdrawal is even more uncomfortable. With the kind of focus that the military requires, it's hard to have conflicting conclusions thrown at you and it's easy to simply redouble your focus and drive on even harder. It's easy to ignore civilian protesters, but when it comes from the troops themselves it can't be ignored. It makes sense to take all of your anger and frustration at what's going on and aim it at the group that's pointing out the problems and contradictions, but the problem with that is that IVAW didn't create the problems of the war. Iraq won't go smoothly if IVAW simply goes away. Iraq won't go smoothly if the U.S. simply goes away, either, but Iraq won't have a chance to start down that path until the U.S. is out of the mix. Name calling isn't going to change that. I understand, though. I started out painfully close to IVAW's position and wanted to join, but for the longest time I couldn't. If you're farther away from IVAW than I was, hatred is the response that makes sense.