New Strategy?

[Seascamp]

Highlight the web address in the top address box, right click 'copy', then right click 'paste' on the post. Dat should be dat'

Scamp

[Gimpy]

Point of view!


###START###


From the Los Angeles Times


For Troops' Families, War Debate Not a Major Morale Issue

By Maura Reynolds and Faye Fiore


December 10, 2005


WASHINGTON ? Jacqui Coffman lives literally in the shadow of Ft. Stewart, Ga., headquarters of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division. She can see the gates from the windows of her house.


Her husband, Maj. Ross Coffman, is gone these days, serving his third tour of duty in Iraq. Every month she gathers with other military wives to talk about what's on their minds: kids, money, their husbands' safety overseas.


Not once, she said, has a wife expressed concern that public support for the troops was flagging. Not when Cindy Sheehan staged her protest near President Bush's ranch in Texas over the death of her son. Not when Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) called for a swift withdrawal of troops, setting off a firestorm on Capitol Hill last month.


With public support for the war on the wane and anxiety in Washington on the rise, lawmakers and policymakers have opened a cautious debate over one of the touchiest subjects in America: when and how to end the U.S. operation in Iraq.


In Washington, as elsewhere, the consensus seems to be that debating the war is appropriate. President Bush and members of Congress ? Republicans and Democrats ? add that the discussion should be careful not to undermine troop morale.


Where agreement ends is on how to do both at the same time ? debate the war and support the troops.


For some people, especially those with painful memories of the Vietnam era, keeping the two separate can be hard.


"In case people have forgotten, this is the same thing that happened in Vietnam," Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas), a Vietnam veteran, said during the heated House debate on Iraq last month. "Peaceniks and people in Congress and America started saying bad things about what was going on in Vietnam, and it did a terrible thing to troop morale. I just pray that our troops and their families can block this noise out."


But Coffman said she considered words tossed around in Washington far less important than the support she feels daily for herself and her three young daughters from the community around Ft. Stewart.


That support has been so evident and unwavering that Coffman said she considered the growing debate over the war a healthy exercise in democracy.


"Everywhere you go, people thank you for your service to this country, and I think that the debate itself has not changed that support for the soldiers," said Coffman, 37. "I think that's the difference. When you go back to Vietnam, you were looking at the American public actually disliking the American soldier. That isn't true anymore."


Recent interviews with service members, their families and those who work with them suggest Coffman's view is common.


Although opinions vary, the people most concerned with the welfare and morale of troops overseas ? their families ? don't seem to mind if lawmakers in Washington question the war, as long as they continue to support the men and women in uniform materially and morally.


"It's the yellow ribbons on the cars; it's your child's teacher and what they say about the war; it's the discounts at local restaurants for military families," said Joyce Wessel Raezer, an official with the National Military Family Assn. "You need communities to wrap their arms around these families."


As for the soldiers themselves, they say they focus on their unit and their mission.


To suggest that soldiers are demoralized by public discourse is to misunderstand their training, said Army Capt. Jeremy Broussard, 28, who helped provide fire support to Marines and special operations troops in Iraq.


Soldiers are responsible for tactical goals ? securing a location or controlling a district. The broader strategic goals are the responsibility of the White House and the Pentagon ? and those, Broussard said, are what critics question.


"The soldiers and Marines are still accomplishing their tactical goals. If there is a problem with the strategic goals, that's not the fault of the soldiers, and they know that," Broussard said.


He added: "Soldiers are not distracted or losing their lives because of what's in the opinion polls."


Still, dissonance between a soldier's personal experience and the national discussion can affect morale on the margins, retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Randall L. Rigby said.


"We have a group of soldiers now who are event-oriented. They get the school built and 400 kids have a place to go ? well, that's all they see," Rigby said. "They don't look at the fact that [bombings by insurgents] are up fivefold.


"They come back saying the press never reports what's good; it chips away at a feeling of accomplishment."


But Rigby said he believed such effects were usually minimal and were usually outweighed by the importance of a national discourse on Iraq.


Former Army Staff Sgt. Marissa Sousa, 27, who served two tours in Iraq, said debate at home was hardly a pressing concern in the field.


"For soldiers on the ground ? their main objective, regardless of what the Pentagon or Bush says, is to take care of themselves and their friends," she said. "They want that ticket home."


Sousa said the debate over Iraq was essential.


"Questioning the war isn't unpatriotic ? not questioning it is unpatriotic," she said.


Raezer said that military families, especially spouses, were more likely than troops to be affected by war dissent that they hear, but that spouses "are not looking at the news; they are just trying to get themselves and their kids through the day."


By contrast, parents of service members tend to be more engaged in public debate, Raezer said, in part because they are older, more established in their communities and less dependent on the military for their well-being.


"There's a reason why you have parents like Cindy Sheehan out leading antiwar marches but the spouses stay in the background," Raezer said.


Patty Saunders leads a spouse support group at Ft. Polk, La. Her husband, Army Sgt. Charles Saunders, has been in Iraq almost a year with a transportation unit.


She said the spouses had expressed no concern about debate undermining morale either at home or in the field.


"Talk is cheap. They can talk all day, and they do talk all day," she said, referring to Congress. "As long as they never say our soldiers are doing wrong ? that they are causing more bad than good ? then it's just another debate. It's like the budget. You don't pay much attention."


One of the trickiest questions in public debate is whether calling for withdrawal risks sending a message that the sacrifices already made ? including the deaths of more than 2,000 troops ? have been in vain.


Saunders said talk of withdrawal earned spouses' attention, but not for that reason.


"When they talk about withdrawal, my little ears perk up because that means he might be coming home," she said. "And when they talk about sending more troops, they perk up because that means he might have to go again."

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When I hear neo-cons and the 'new' Republican Christo-Hypocites ranting & raving about 'supporting the troops'..........I need go no further back in time to dismiss their ridiculous nonsense than November 2005............a little more than TWO (2) SHORT MONTHS AGO!


On Veterans? Day 2005, the President spoke a lot about the reasons for the war in Iraq, but very little about how he plans to take care of the people fighting that war, and what the future holds for them. No surprise there, that's been his 'tactics' ever since he was (se)elected in 2000.


Those who fought in Iraq deserve to know why the President and the Republicans in power felt it so necessary to send them into harms way, and yet NOT find it necessary to provide for their health care and well being afterwards?. On the one day of ALL days (Veterans Day) there should have been consensus on the need to rise above partisan bickering over who said what in Washington, and begin real job of providing the NECESSARY federal funds for the VA to fullfill their mission.


It?s unfortunate and downright culpably negligent that the President nor the Republicans in Congress do not believe they owe that to the people who have been unwavering in their bravery while carrying out his/their plans. These facts cannot be denied!


Any arguements or debate that DOES NOT include THESE FACTS in the 'discussion' is just so much more 'effing' bull$hit!

[Advisor]

I'm effing tired of both 'sides'of this argument..it is no discussion...no one's listening to the other side...every one has their own friggin' agenda. We have the neo-con idiots blathering on about any questioning being treason and we have the left wing dingbats screaming how Bush is evil, blah blah blah.
Hey , how bout this. If you have nothing CONSTRUCTIVE to say, zip it! We got ourselves in a mess in Iraq..we should not be there. But, having said that, we are there and that is the reality we have to deal with. Cut and run is not an option (sorry, Murtha)..bad message to send to the world..paper tiger and all that. Personally I don't have a good solution, nor do I believe any of the critics or defenders. Myself, I don't want to say or do anything that would encourage terrorist thugs to murder our troops. Vietnam wasn't that long ago & even if I'm an old fart I can still remember what it was like back then.

[Advisor]

Oh yeah, and as for the government crapping on veterans..this is a new thing?
And since when is it strictly an American problem?

[BLUEHAWK]

The conversation has gone way past the points being repetitively raise... fish, cut bait, ride the boat, cook, get a suntan, go below, puke over the side or... get outa the way.

[SuperScout]

"Questioning the war isn't unpatriotic ? not questioning it is unpatriotic." As allegedly cited by an allegedly former service person and allegedly an Iraqi war veteran, this has to be one of the most specious statements to come out of the war. It has about as much validity and depth of character as a bumper sticker I saw recently which read "Peace is Patriotic." By this logic, since there was peace in the death camps at Auschwitz, you remember, the places that Turban Durbin (D-IL) compared to our warriors, there must have been a bunch of patriotic people there as well.

And then citing the Los Angeles Times as an authoritative source is about as valid as citing Dan Rather as an honest journalist.

My solution, Advisor: follow through on the game-plan as enunciated by this administration, i.e., continue to train-up the Iraqi forces until they can police/defend themselves. In the meantime, kill as many terrorists as possible. That's called the end-state, and because it is an amorphous date, can't be chisled into the granite wall of "Dates to be Remembered."

[Advisor]

S_Scout.. yeah, can't see any other way either. Esp like the idea of killing as many of the thugs as possible...save doing it here later.


I SUPPORT THE RIGHT OF TERRORISTS TO DIE.