Involuntary Mobilization Ahead for 5,600 Reservists

With sovereignty handed over in Iraq, and with the Taliban long gone from Afghanistan, a White House that had planned properly would be bringing troops home from a successful imperial adventure. The Bush administration, though, is going to call up 5,600 more troops from the Individual Ready Reserves. Some of them won't be coming home although they have already served.

A Reuters report quoted an unnamed Army official as saying, "We're not calling up units, we're just using all the existing assets in theater and we're augmenting those assets with these individuals -- various occupational specialties, various different types of officers running the whole gamut." Yes, well, calling up a unit mobilizes the press and others. Calling up individuals spread out across the country makes it a quieter event.

But those 5,600 have already served. Another official said, "Sometimes there's a misperception by some of the individuals ... that 'I've done my obligation, I've been in the Army, thank you very much, and I'm done.' But you're not done." A great many WWII vets got to visit the Korean peninsula that way. But the current war is different. Iraq was a war of choice that made troops unavailable to finish the job in Afghanistan. And now there is a sovereign Iraqi regime -- why aren't Iraqis doing the security work? Because they can't, their forces don't exist, don't have equipment -- pick an excuse.

Were the call-up of those in the IRR the only effort to expand the resource base of the military, it might be acceptable. However, there have already been the "stop-loss" orders that keep folks in uniform beyond their discharge date. The military is spread too thin, and the White House is plastering over cracks. The Congress has voted to increase the size of the military to help deal with this, and the administration complained about it.

It is the job of soldiers, sailors and airmen to kill and be killed in defense of their country. It is the job of politicians to make quite sure that those deaths are kept to a minimum and that they occur only when all other options have failed. By this measure, this administration certainly does not support the troops.


© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.


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