Opposition to War at Home is Materializing on the Battlefield

Here is an interesting story in the British Sunday Times about the level of stress endured by British soldiers. Obviously, a battlezone is very stressful, but the reasons for the these increases, which apparently rivals the stress levels of soldiers in WWII, was really telling:

SENIOR army doctors have warned that troops in Iraq are suffering levels of battle stress not experienced since the second world war because of fears that if they shoot an insurgent, they will end up in court. The two senior Royal Army Medical Corps officers, one of whom is a psychologist, have recently returned from Basra, where they said they counselled young soldiers who feared a military police investigation as much as they did the insurgents.

...One corporal said that troops arriving in Basra were confronted by warnings from the Royal Military Police. “They make it clear that any and every incident will be investigated. It is also made clear that if you shoot someone, you will face an inquiry that could take up to a year.

“The faces of the young lads straight out of training drop as the fear of being investigated strikes home and many ask whose side the RMP are on.”

Although the levels of fighting in Iraq are nowhere near those of some of the bloodiest battles of the second world war, such as the battle of the bulge or Kohima, the much more complex situation that the British troops face is pushing up stress levels just as far.

The combination of knowing that death might come at any time from a roadside bomb and that shooting back at Iraqis who attack them might result in their being court-martialled is putting immense pressure on young soldiers.

The doctors described morale in some units as very low with soldiers cynically suggesting they needed a solicitor with them before they shot back at any Iraqi who attacked them.

Many frontline infantry soldiers were in survival mode and had the impression that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is not supporting them and nobody in the UK cares about what is happening in Iraq, the officers said.

This weekend senior MoD officials sought to counter the damage done to morale after the collapse of the court martial by revealing that John Reid, the defence secretary, had ordered an urgent review of whether the MoD is fulfilling its duty of care to soldiers facing legal action.

There are signs that it is already too late, with more than 5,370 infantry soldiers buying themselves out of the army in the past three years rather than be posted back to Iraq or Afghanistan.

This story is even more amazing given the fact that the area of operations that these British troops are responsible for, while not completely quiet, have still faced some of the least resistent of the entire war. Imagine the effectiveness of these troops if the British had been given control of Mosul or Najaf. The ability of these troops to do their job has been entirely affected by the political landscape at home.

The root of this problem, is the view that the bad guys in Iraq, according a large contingent of British society, and a smaller, but sizable number in the U.S., is us. Each incident of mistaken or intentional perfidity, regardless of their overall size and impact, is shot through a megaphone and demonstrated as proof that we are the ones who are the offenders. All the while, insurgents are beheading, murdering and killing entire families of Iraqis who have betrayed their loyalty (as if they even had it in the first place).

I'm not saying that acts of barbarity on our side should not go unpunished. Those responsible for Abu Ghraib and the deliberated killing of civilians should be locked away for a long time. But, the battle that occurred at the beginning of this war--whether we should approach this as a law enforcement matter or as a war--is still raging today. While columnists, politicos and civilians can rehash this debate ad infinitum within the consequence-free safety of their own borders, it is almost impossible to handle, and full of consequences in a war zone. Life and death situations that rise up, where an enemy totally relies upon the element of surprise, demand that a soldier can rely on his ability to act on instinct to defend himself and his men. But political forces have tied the soldier's hands behind his back, and before he can engage, he must weigh the alternatives of whether he is in the clear or not. Needless to say, time is not something that he has, and he knows it. Mentally, these men have been duct-taped and forced to walk into a gauntlet.

The insurgents know this and they completely rely upon it. They know that these war opponets back home, useful idiots as Vladimir Lenin used to call them, will restrain us from fully committing to enforcing the rule law, which has now been authorized by a democratically elected and constitutionally backed government.

The anti-war folks, not neccessarily the ones that opposed the initial invasion, but those that continue to actively oppose any sort of push towards victory in Iraq, must be utterly and completely devoid of conscience. I wish I could say I'm surprised.