Marines as doers of good works

[Carl Remick <carlremick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

[One of the all-time most awesomely brain-damaged NY Times op-eds, premised
on the idea that killing people and saving lives are complementary, even
synergistic, efforts.  Particularly poignant is the depiction of Lt. Gen.
James "It's fun to shoot some people" Mattis as a gung-ho guy: "whatever he
does -- saving lives, taking them -- is done to the nth degree."]

A Force for Good

By ROBERT D. KAPLAN

Aboard U.S.S. Benfold, in the North Pacific -- AS the aircraft carrier
Abraham Lincoln returned home to San Diego this week from its relief mission
in Indonesia, the main lesson of the United States military's remarkable
tsunami relief effort has yet to be acknowledged: that the global war on
terrorism, rather than distracting the military from performing humanitarian
deeds, has made it far more effective at them. ...

What holds true for the Navy also applies to the Marines, our seaborne
land-fighting force. When the tsunami hit in December, the Third Marine
Expeditionary Force, based on Okinawa, had just finished providing disaster
assistance in the typhoon-wracked Philippines. Nonetheless, these marines
quickly set off for Indonesia, bringing food, forklifts and desalinization
equipment ashore with the same spirited aggressiveness that their fellow
grunts have been demonstrating with assault rifles in Iraq.

There is no contradiction in this. Indeed, dealing with typhoons, tsunamis
and guerrilla insurgencies all at the same time has brought the marines back
to their roots as unconventional warriors. The "Small Wars Manual," the
sacred text of the corps, is the product of the lessons learned in
amphibious landings in the Caribbean, Central America and the Far East in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its focus is describing all the ways
you can dominate the enemy with - but preferably without - firing a shot.
...

Not surprisingly, our troops put great store in being Good Samaritans. ...

Liberal democratic societies have commonly been defended by conservative
military establishments, whose members often lack the sensitivities and
social graces of the elites whom they protect. As much as the military wants
to help the downtrodden, it is not the Peace Corps. To wit, I have spent
many months embedded with marines in Iraq, the Horn of Africa and West
Africa, watching them fight, rebuild schools, operate medical clinics and
mentor soldiers of fledgling democracies. I've learned that marines swear
all the time out of habit, and love to be in on a fight, or otherwise they
would not have joined the Marine Corps.

Yet those same swearing marines are capable of a self-discipline and
humanitarian compassion - drawn, often, from an absolute belief in the
Almighty - that would stun the average civilian. In Iraq, there was nothing
more natural for marines (and soldiers, too) than to go from close-quarters
urban combat to providing food and medicine, and back again.

A prime example of this outlook is Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, who was
reprimanded last month for saying at a conference in San Diego that he finds
it "fun" to kill people like the Taliban. Yet I stood next to General Mattis
at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq - several weeks before the abuse scandal broke
- as he spoke in the same roughhewn manner, this time warning Marine grunts
against even the appearance of mistreating prisoners. I have also seen him
at Camp Pendleton in California pleading at length with his troops to try to
bond with the Iraqi people - to always look them in the eye - as a way of
winning their respect.

Of course, this does not excuse his remarks on killing. But it does
demonstrate why General Mattis has for a long time been particularly revered
by young grunts: whatever he does - saving lives, taking them - is done to
the nth degree.

America has not had a true citizen army for decades. Instead, it has an
expeditionary military of professional warriors, drawn mainly from the
working classes, who enjoy the soldiering life for its own sake. For them,
combat and humanitarian relief are easily interchangeable, and efforts to
reshape the military for the war on terrorism are vital to both functions.
The troops are comfortable with their dual role; it is our job to supply
them with what they need to do it best.

***

Robert D. Kaplan, a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, is the author of
the forthcoming "Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground."

<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/03/opinion/03kaplan.html>

Carl