A good friend of mine is an army trainer in a Reserve Airborne unit. He was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan recently, and to Panama and other South American destinations previously, in order to train local troops to fight in our stead. Brian's biggest problem with the current administration is that they have unrealistic expectations of the people he has to train, and that the administration's opinion colors that of the populace at large.
The locals in these countries require a lot more effort than our own populace. Many of the people in the middle east are, for example, illiterate. How do they read orders, write reports, and communicate if they cannot read or write to begin with? There are many levels of military readiness, and even after they show a spiritual one, there is much left for our trainers and advisors to do.
Military trainers must build soldiers from the ground up. They educate them, get them physically fit, teach them leadership, customs and courtesies, and then and only then do they get to learn how to fight. Much of our arsenel is far beyond their technological savvy. Even though those countries have some of the amenities of the west, it is far more likely that our poor have access to TVs and Internet than it is for some of their middle class and rich. Explain the internet to a beduin.
Beyond the logistics of training an army that has perhaps no training at all beyond an agrarian level, there are cultural and local considerations as well. Many of these climes are foreign to our trainers, and many of the customs are not part of American military training. We don't usually interrupt our activities for religious or other cultural observance. Other nations, including Great Britain, do.
After all of that effort, the people who are trained take casualties. A great majority of the forces we train are green and inexperienced. When we went into Fallujah in Iraq, Iraqi forces took enormous casualties because they were not used to the guerilla tactics employed by insurgents.
Rebuilding a nation that far away geographically and culturally takes more time than anyone planned. People claim the Bush Administration didn't have an exit strategy or that the effort is wasted. I think it's more a problem of the fact that free people require a concerted education in order to constructively use their new freedom. Even when the USA was a fledgling nation, we had the same problem. That we survived the War of 1812 is little short of a standing miracle, and let's remember that the revolution itself lasted from 1776 to 1789, a span of 13 years. We're good at freedom, but we're not perfect.
The locals in these countries require a lot more effort than our own populace. Many of the people in the middle east are, for example, illiterate. How do they read orders, write reports, and communicate if they cannot read or write to begin with? There are many levels of military readiness, and even after they show a spiritual one, there is much left for our trainers and advisors to do.
Military trainers must build soldiers from the ground up. They educate them, get them physically fit, teach them leadership, customs and courtesies, and then and only then do they get to learn how to fight. Much of our arsenel is far beyond their technological savvy. Even though those countries have some of the amenities of the west, it is far more likely that our poor have access to TVs and Internet than it is for some of their middle class and rich. Explain the internet to a beduin.
Beyond the logistics of training an army that has perhaps no training at all beyond an agrarian level, there are cultural and local considerations as well. Many of these climes are foreign to our trainers, and many of the customs are not part of American military training. We don't usually interrupt our activities for religious or other cultural observance. Other nations, including Great Britain, do.
After all of that effort, the people who are trained take casualties. A great majority of the forces we train are green and inexperienced. When we went into Fallujah in Iraq, Iraqi forces took enormous casualties because they were not used to the guerilla tactics employed by insurgents.
Rebuilding a nation that far away geographically and culturally takes more time than anyone planned. People claim the Bush Administration didn't have an exit strategy or that the effort is wasted. I think it's more a problem of the fact that free people require a concerted education in order to constructively use their new freedom. Even when the USA was a fledgling nation, we had the same problem. That we survived the War of 1812 is little short of a standing miracle, and let's remember that the revolution itself lasted from 1776 to 1789, a span of 13 years. We're good at freedom, but we're not perfect.
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