Proof the “Baker Commission” are amateurs

After a coupla days working instead of blogging, I picked up the Wall Street Journal this morning and read about how the “Baker” commission report was mysteriously “leaked” yesterday – a week before its presentation to the people who actually commissioned the study. So while I was reading through the WSJ article (requires subscription), I nearly choked on my cup of Cafe Duran Puro;

Currently, the U.S. has about 3,500 advisers posted there, divided into 10-man teams and embedded with Iraqi Army and police units. As late as Nov. 24, the panel was soliciting advice from military experts on how to ensure that the Army and Marine Corps select their best and brightest officers for advisory duty. In recent months, that task has fallen to less-experienced National Guard and reserve officers. The final report will likely recommend that the advisory program be increased by “several thousand officers,” said one person involved in the debate.

So what does the Commission think? That all we have to do is snap our fingers and “several thousand officers” will suddenly appear with the proper training and qualifications? That’s just absurd. And as far as calling National Guard and Army Reserve Officers “less-experienced” well, that’s just plain ignorant. I used to train prospective officers at ROTC Advanced Camp every summer at Fort Bragg as a platoon TAC NCO. Officers are all trained the same; we don’t discriminate between reserve, Guard or Regular Army cadets.

When they become commissioned officers, they all attend the same officer basic courses, irrespective of their commissioning source – they’re all held to the same standard. Many who are part-time Guard or Reserve Component are police officers in their own communities and so they bring MORE expertise to the job than some active duty officers might.

Many active duty officers who the commission are calling more experienced spend much of their career in staff jobs. Their time with line soldiers is minimal – which is why NCOs are called the “Backbone of the Army”. Most NCOs spend their whole careers with line troops while officers spend a year on the line, then become the Battalion Motor Officer or Mess Officer for a year. Some lieutenants who excel might get two line platoons in a row if the get a “special platoon” (Recon or mortar) after their initial platoon leader job.  

That’s not much more experience than a Reserve or Guard Officer might get.

Next I encountered this nugget in the story;

The study group’s hope is that the larger U.S. military presence within Iraqi units would help them to improve more quickly and allow U.S. forces to pull back to larger, more secure bases away from Iraqi cities. The U.S. advisers would have the ability to quickly call on American forces if their units were being challenged or overrun.

Now, where’d they get that idea? Right out of the Mobile Training Teams of Vietnam. Remember the John Wayne movie “Green Berets” when the camp was getting over run with Viet Cong and the Americans in the base had to call for a “Mike Force” to rescue them and turn back the Communists? That’s where the commission got the idea. From the same old failed policies of the Vietnam era.

The politicians and media are trying to direct activity on the ground reminiscent of those photos of LBJ pouring over maps of North Vietnam picking bombing targets for the Navy and Air Force. Is this what we get when we get Democrats? More of the same fouled stuff?

Just like the Clinton Administration and mission creep in Somalia while second-guessing commanders and refusing to give them the armor they needed and our troops died waiting for Pakistani armor to rescue them. Just like in Kosovo and Serbia, politicians determining flight altitude and limited action so that more civilians died than if direct action had been applied instead.

I guess with Democrats we get deja vu all over again. No new ideas, just repackaged failures. To quote Jon Podhoretz in his article in the NY Post; Please stop laughing at the doddering old fools now. It’s disrespectful.

Category: Foreign Policy, Politics, Terror War