Don't Believe the Desertions Story
New Army statistics showing that desertions have risen 80 percent since 2003, and that desertions are at their highest rate since Vietnam, have been swept up into the debate about the Iraq war.
But a look at the numbers shows that this story is not as clear -- nor, necessarily, as significant -- as it would seem. The only clear trend is the increasing willingness of both the pro-military and anti-war factions to appropriate any statistic in their effort to make their case and, in the process, divide our society.
The Associated Press suggested that this seemingly dramatic 80 percent increase is connected to the fact that "the Army continues to bear the brunt of the war demands with many soldiers serving repeated, lengthy tours in Iraq and Afghanistan." CBS News picked up the AP story and added that "nearly 64 percent of last year's desertions were reported from April to December... which would suggest the pace is picking up."
The media found illustration of the deserter story in Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey, two U.S. Army deserters who sought refugee status in Canada on the grounds of their opposition to the Iraq war. Canada's Supreme Court last week refused to hear their appeal. Meanwhile, the New York Times featured a piece about a soldier who, after returning from his second tour in Iraq with various psychological problems, abandoned his post at Fort Drum and was arrested for his desertion last week.
Those stories may compel sympathy. And they mesh well with the presumptions of anti-war activists.
The facts, unfortunately, do not fit the trend. The Army desertion rate is about the same as it was before the Iraq invasion. Yes, there were 4,698 deserters in 2007, compared to 3,301 in 2006. That's a 42 percent increase in one year. But there were 4,483 deserters in 2002, and 4,597 in 2001. The decline in 2003, 2004 and 2005, according to the Army, had more to do with changes in personnel policies -- and efforts to identify soldiers likely to desert from basic training -- than the war.
And the uptick since 2005? Have recruitment standards dropped so much that new soldiers find themselves unable to cope with military life? Is the pace of this war too much for more seasoned soldiers? Are more people deserting because they are politically opposed to the war? The Army says it doesn't know which is the greatest factor, given that the numbers are so small.
Nonetheless, according to the Army, the number of deserters post-combat has remained fairly steady. The increase has been among soldiers deserting early in their enlistments, because of looming combat duty.
The desertion story mixes with other statistically challenged stories about our armed forces: that suicides and domestic violence are up; that post traumatic stress disorder and other mental health problems are ballooning; that the California wildfires raged because National Guard soldiers were on duty in Iraq; that a quarter of all homeless are vets (and that those vets are somehow Iraq war vets); that we don't have enough Arabic translators because they are being drummed out of the military for being gay.
Each of these stories, like the desertion story, has some basis in fact. But the numbers are very tricky. And when both sides of the debate use these stories to make the case for either ending the war or strengthening the military, they use those in uniform as political cannon fodder.
By William M. Arkin |
November 19, 2007; 10:04 AM ET
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Posted by: Danyael | December 9, 2007 9:11 PM
I am an Iraq war veteran. There is NO desertion problem. However, a significant number of us in the Army are either resigning our commissions (officers) or not re-enlisting (NCOs).
Posted by: Back from Iraq | November 25, 2007 8:16 AM
At last...someone who understands that statistics must always be scrutinized with extreme suspicion.
As Disraeli said, "There are lies, damn lies and statistics.
Or as my mother used to say, "Figures don't lie, but liars can figure."
It's hard enough to do stats well (I know from bitter experience)but the real devil is in the interpretation, and that depends on what your agenda is.
Posted by: Karen R | November 22, 2007 11:47 AM
Rev,
You write:
"...too many Americans on the so-called Right, have deserted/abandoned the troops by leaving them in Iraq for all of these years."
After serving nearly 30 years in the military (including 5 deployments since 1983 to Southwest Asia), I assure you that your armed forces members, in the aggregate, don't feel abandoned.
I take it you don't have any first hand recent experience in the military. So am at a loss as to why would you invent such fiction and label it the "sad truth"? I can't help but wonder if perhaps you are unconsciously using the men and women in uniform for (as Arkins so aptly puts it) "political cannon fodder". In which case, you do them a discredit.
I read your comments faithfully. And though I don't often agree, I find them helpful in that they express a point of view foreign to my experience.
That said, I would like to suggest you be more careful in choosing your words. Often you write "fast and loose" and full of hyperbole, which, in my humble opinion, detracts from the argument you're trying to make.
Posted by: Frank | November 20, 2007 10:57 PM
The individual stories of deserters would seem to be of more value than playing with numbers from a government that seems to have no interest in an informed population. I recently read the book Road from Ar Ramadi, The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia that I think reveals much more about this war and the thinking of our soldiers than can be garnered from the statistics released by the DOD. The Stop-Loss Policy combined with the immorality of this war would seem to have combined to produce justifiable desertion among our soldiers from any reasonable and moral perspective. There seems to be an active campaign in DOD to suppress information concerning coordination of these patriotic actions of conscience. The real story is the control of information concerning the patriots forced to fight in this immoral occupation and the consequences for their lives and the lives of their loved ones. The phony statistics of a failed administration are a veneer to draw attention from the humanity of our own soldiers.
Posted by: Truth | November 20, 2007 3:47 PM
Arkin: Right on target, for once. Leave the military alone and let the troops do their job. They are winning the war in Iraq, Al Qaeda in Iraq is destroyed, most of the AQ leadership is dead or captured, just like CHE GUEVARA. America is bringing peace, prosperity, and democracy to Iraq, whether you like it or not.
Posted by: che | November 20, 2007 7:11 AM
Does suicide count as desertion, and is suicide included in the desertion figures?
It would appear that relative to desertion statistics, most are skewed in favor of which ever side the proponents or his or her opponents happen to be taking.
Besides, who tells the truth in war times anyway!
The sad truth about all of this is that the Admininistration in Washington DC, the Republicans in both houses of Congress and too many Americans on the so-called Right, have deserted/abandoned the troops by leaving them in Iraq for all of these years.
Who really abandoned who is my point. I suppose it depends on the point that one is trying to make that will determine in the end 'whose ox got gored'.
All of the fighters overseas need to be brought home for the Holidays so that they can be with their families just as many of us will be doing!
Posted by: The Rev | November 19, 2007 4:32 PM
screw u
Posted by: | November 19, 2007 2:14 PM
I used this example not knowing the numbers; If ten out of a million people deserted before the Iraq war and eighteen out of a million deserted after the Iraq war started it is an eighty percent increase. Spin, spin, spin.
Posted by: SamEllison | November 19, 2007 1:20 PM
BREAKING NEWS!!!
For uncensored news please bookmark:
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www.onlinejournal.com
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www.globalresearch.ca
The empire's operatives exposed: The Krongards, 9/11, and Blackwater/Iraq
By Larry Chin
Online Journal Associate Editor
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2652.shtml
Nov 19, 2007, 01:18
New bombshell testimony before Congress has revealed that Alvin B. "Buzzy" Krongard, the former CIA executive director connected to 9/11 insider trading, is a consultant and advisory board member of Blackwater USA, the New World Order's leading intelligence-related corporate mercenary death squad now under investigation for war crimes, murder, arms smuggling, and fraud in Iraq.
"Buzzy" Krongard's Blackwater role was confirmed by "Buzzy"'s brother, Howard "Cookie" Krongard, who (not ironically) is the Bush/Cheney administration's State Department's inspector general, and the official under fire for stonewalling and quashing attempted probes of Blackwater's operations.
It was during the last Wednesday's hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Henry Waxman (D-CA), that "Cookie" Krongard denied, then confirmed later in the same testimony, the fact that his own brother was a Blackwater advisory board member throughout the period in which "Cookie" engaged in the cover-up of Blackwater. It is not known if "Cookie" Krongard lied, or was lied to, but he has now recused himself from "all matters having to do with Blackwater."
As thoroughly documented by Michael C. Ruppert in Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil, until 1997, A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard was the vice chairman of investment bank A.B.Brown (Alex. Brown). A.B. Brown and its previous incarnations have been involved with Bush family business ventures for generations, including deals with the Carlyle Group. It was also one of many major investment houses implicated for money laundering in congressional probes.
Brothers in illegal arms
Krongard joined the CIA in 1998 as the counsel to CIA Director George Tenet, and was named CIA executive director (the CIA's #3 position) by George W. Bush in March 2001. The Deutsche Bank/Alex.Brown private banking operation headed by Krongard through 1998, and taken over by Krongard's colleague Mayo Shattuck III, was one of the major hubs of 9/11 insider trading, where put options were purchased on United Airlines and other 9/11-related stocks. As written by Ruppert, "the trades could only have been made by people high enough in the US, Israeli and European intelligence community (including Russia) to know about the attacks and -- more importantly -- which of the many planned attacks were going to be successful."
It is no surprise that Howard "Cookie" Krongard has, along with brother "Buzzy," enjoyed high official Bush/Cheney positions, and profits, from the "war on terrorism" -- apparently continuously from 9/11 all the way to the present Iraq occupation and quagmire.
These and other damning facts add to the multitude of direct lines leading from 9/11 to Iraq and beyond, and have been exposed piecemeal in recent years and months (in media reports that are largely ignored and misunderstood by the masses). They confirm and underscore years of exhaustive existing evidence about the true nature of the "war on terrorism," its imperial architects from across the international political spectrum, and its multinational universe of "soldiers" (exemplified by the Krongards), and intelligence proprietaries, cut-outs, and political and media fronts.
The New World Order's "above the law" criminals -- from the Krongards and the entire Blackwater apparatus, to Bush, Cheney, Blair, and the entire membership of the Bilderberg Group -- have committed unprecedented atrocities out in the open, and have more than earned the kind of "interrogations" that they and their armed-to-the-teeth functionaries continue to inflict on political adversaries and innocent patsies in CIA prisons all over the world.
Tragically, particularly in the present milieu, it is more than likely that the Krongards will not be touched, any more than Bush, Cheney, et al will receive the punishment they deserve.
Not only have no "heads rolled" since 9/11, but virtually all of the 9/11/ "war on terrorism" criminals continue to hold the highest offices of power, brazenly committing new crimes in the open, while holding the people of world in contempt. The criminals, and their crimes, are on television, every hour on the hour. Witness the fact that Rudolf Guiliani, who was thoroughly exposed as a hands-on participant in the 9/11 operation in Mike Ruppert's Crossing the Rubicon, is a leading 2008 presidential candidate. Senator Joe Biden, one of many members of Congress who enjoyed breakfast on 9/11 with Pakistani ISI chief and 9/11 "money man" Mahmoud Ahmad, is also running for president.
Given the bipartisan complicity of the US Congress, it is likely that the Blackwater probes, like all congressional "investigations" in modern history, are simply more limited hangouts, designed to strengthen, not expose, what remains a massive ongoing cover-up of imperial crimes.
In a time of open and unprecedented political lawlessness and corruption, and mass public ignorance and acquiescence, true investigation remains the bitter and tragic duty of a minority of courageous individuals willing to seek the facts. They are contained on the pages of this publication, and the following list of sources on the Krongards:
Michael C. Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil, Chapter 14: 9/11 Insider Trading, or "You Didn't Really See That, Even Though We Saw It"
Suppressed Details of Criminal Insider Trading Lead Directly Into CIA's Highest Ranks
(Mike Ruppert, From the Wilderness, October 15, 2001
Profits of Death: Insider Trading and 9/11 (Tom Flocco, From the Wilderness, December 27, 2001)
Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater:The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
Posted by: che | November 19, 2007 12:16 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
It seems to me that Islamic extremist terrorism was around long before the GWB Administration. But the response has been pretty much amature hour.