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Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009
Today's list of military complaints is long: Many fighting men and women are upset over how the war in Iraq has been conducted (i.e. trying to prosecute the war "on the cheap"); feel that forces are being stretched too thinly; think that Pentagon civilian planners are not listening to generals; worry that part-time National Guard and reservists are being asked to carry too much of a burden; and find the administration's rationale for the war slippery. They also seem to have a visceral dislike for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who's seen as having a vendetta against the Army, and think the Bush White House seems eager to send troops off to war yet reluctant to help Congress pass more comprehensive health benefits for disabled veterans.
During a 1999 campaign speech at the Citadel military school in South Carolina, Bush complained that under President Clinton, military "resources are over-stretched. Frustration is up, as families are separated and strained. Morale is down. This administration wants things both ways: To command great forces, without supporting them. To launch today's new causes, with little thought of tomorrow's consequences."
Today, those critiques strangely mirror the precise complaints being leveled against the Bush White House by some within the military. Veterans groups, for instance, are furious that the White House is blocking legislation that would help ease the burden of medical bills for 670,000 disabled vets. The Pentagon says it cannot afford the $5 billion-a-year budget buster and has recommended a presidential veto.
Vets fume when they contrast that belt-tightening talk against Bush's request to Congress for $87 billion to secure and rebuild Iraq, a number that's sure to escalate in the coming years. The former G.I.'s have even launched an online campaign, dubbed "Out the Door in 2004," targeting politicians who stand in the way of the bill's passage. Chief among those politicians is Bush.
The veterans bill remains bottled up in Republican committees -- and in a strange role reversal, it's the Democrats wearing the white hats in this Capitol Hill showdown over the military. Democrats are collecting congressional signatures for a "discharge petition" in an effort to the get the benefits bill to the floor for a vote where it would certainly pass in an up-or-down roll call. The Republican leadership, though, has forbidden its members from signing the petition despite the fact more than 100 of them cosponsored the bill.
Drawing even more ire today is the stretched-too-thinly troop rotation schedule for Iraq, exacerbated by the administration's inability to get additional allies to send soldiers to ease the burden on the U.S. That failure has placed extraordinary strains on young families in America, especially for National Guard members and reservists, some of whom, instead of being called up for five days of local flood duties, are being lifted out of their communities and jobs for more than a year at a time to serve in Iraq.
Adding to the drip-drip frustration was a trial balloon floated this summer by the Pentagon to cut hazardous pay for soldiers in Iraq. Also, some G.I.'s recovering from battle wounds were getting billed for their hospital meals.
"An opportunity has been created to talk to this group. We'll see if Democrats take advantage of it," said Steven Nider, director of foreign and security studies at the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank in Washington. It will be tough. In part, because Democrats will have to thread the needle in criticizing the Iraq war effort without being seen as criticizing the troops.
More importantly, the military, once seen as so apolitical that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's party affiliation remained a mystery right up until he entered the 1952 presidential campaign, has become an increasingly Republican voting bloc.
During the post-Vietnam 1970s, Democrats were perceived as being anti-military. In the 1980s, President Reagan broke ranks with traditional fiscal conservatives and ushered in massive defense spending increases. And during the 1990s, President Clinton forever alienated the military with his gays-in-the-military initiative.
A 1999 survey directed by Feaver and historian Richard H. Kohn, conducted for the Triangle Institute for Security Studies, found that 64 percent of officers identify themselves as Republicans, while only 8 percent call themselves Democrats. Indeed, Clark himself recently admitted that as an officer he routinely voted for Republican White House candidates. (It's true the Army's enlisted ranks are made up increasingly of minorities and women, but studies show those soldiers vote for a more conservative ticket than their counterparts in the general population, who lean strongly Democratic.)
Merle Black, professor of government at Emory University in Atlanta and an expert on politics in the modern South, thinks that for now the military is with Bush. But a change in fortune would be disastrous for the White House: "If Bush loses the military vote, he loses the election," says Black. While the number of votes that come out of the military community, including family members and retired veterans, is relatively small in comparison to all the ballots counted on Election Day, Florida's disputed recount proved just how critical a voting bloc it is. (As a political entity, there are roughly 2 million active-duty soldiers and reservists currently serving, not to mention their extended families. There are an additional 10 million veterans, with the largest percentage made of up of aging World War II fighters.)
