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> One thing that sending in ground troops would do is hopefully reignite the debate as to whether we should be in that country at all. Agree, but you're only p
by poof131 11y ago
> One thing that sending in ground troops would do is hopefully reignite the debate as to whether we should be in that country at all.
Agree, but you're only part way. We really need to bring back the draft. On the ground in Iraq in 2008, watching ‘drone’ feeds of SF soldiers on missions on one screen and the stock market crashing on the other screen, all I could think about was “Don’t people care? There are soldiers risking their lives in foreign countries, doing things in America’s name, and all the TV talks about is houses and stock prices.”
The number of contractors in country was probably 3 to 1 or more compared to military - Kenyans providing internal security, Filipinos working in the commissary, Pakistanis working in the chow hall, and Americans driving F-350s all over doing maintenance or whatever. The SF guys hated their contractor counterparts who took none of the risk they did and made a $1,000 a day just to provide a little training for the Iraqis. Being a pilot on a ground job, I hated the contract pilots making $20k a month for a job I easily could have done.
Until we’re all in it together, we won’t see change. As long as Americans can get upset, then turn off the TV and forget about it, nothing will happen, the military and civilian worlds will continue to drift apart. And a private, separate military is not good for this country.
- AngrySkillzz 11y agoYup. No one cares until its their kid or the neighbor's kid getting shipped off to some far away warzone. While I disagree with the draft on moral terms, I think pragmatically it is the only way to properly align the incentives of the populace against wars that don't matter. Otherwise, the government can wage whatever wars they want and no one will be that bothered (as we've seen).
- meatysnapper 11y agoThis cannot be stressed enough. A robotic military allows the government to wage wars with impunity because the average voter just doesn't care. If you have skin in the game, it would be different. Perhaps a remedy for this would be to force the ranking members of congress to function as consuls, and make them live in Afghanistan for the duration of the conflict?
- moskie 11y agoMy problem with this perspective is that you're suggesting we go out of our way to put more people (US soldiers) in danger. If we (the US, or the military, or what have you) determine that a certain military act is justified, I think the approach should be to do it in a way to minimizes the danger as much as possible. I can't imagine going to a soldier (who might be your son) and saying, "Hey, so, we could do this with a drone, but we'd prefer instead to put your life on the line."
- TeMPOraL 11y agoIt's a form of checks and balances. Right now we can see that the more we can outsource the wars, the less public cares about them. Which incidentally also means the other side has to figure out a more drastic way to make us stop. Drones are terrorist-breeding machines.
- anigbrowl 11y agoThat's true, but look how poorly we behave when we go in with troops instead, qua Iraq. The upsides (such as they are) of drone war are that it's very limited in scope and stimulates a conversation about objectives and interests, such as we are having now. As soon as you send troops in somewhere, a large swathe of the public stops even pretending to think about those issues and goes straight into 'support our troops, crush the enemy' mode, completely detached from any kind of strategic, fiscal, or ethical considerations.