privatization and its discontents
Sep. 18th, 2003 08:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sisyphusshruggedBut McArmy is failing the test. Rumsfeld's downsized force of 140,000 troops -- including some 40,000 mostly Hispanic green-carders -- are stretched too thin to protect themselves, let alone prevent looting, sabotage and attacks on Iraqis who cooperate with Americans. They lack the language skills and cultural preparation necessary for effective peacekeeping. They were trained and equipped to deliver "shock and awe" and little else. They were prepared only for cookie-cutter roles, for the short horizon, not for the more complex constabulary role that would be required of them.
McArmy might have been adequate for the first phase of the war, George Ritzer told Salon. "In terms of fighting the war, the McArmy idea apparently worked well. It's with winning the peace that it doesn't work well. You can't just go in and level town after town and still win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis."
While it is true, he says, that those whom McArmy is fighting or occupying are its consumers -- "reluctant consumers," he adds -- Americans back home are consumers at another level, and they are seeking a predictable experience. "The message in fighting the war both times in Iraq was: We can do this pretty easily and without much cost to us," he says. "And then we're kind of ill-prepared for what we now face." The expectation of a predictable experience has created, in Ritzer's view, "a crisis of expectations."
Privatization itself -- apart from McDonaldization -- has led to other problems. Many of the logistical components such as modular barracks, field kitchens, and mail delivery were outsourced to private contractors. The result? Months into the war, GIs were still camped out, still eating the loathed MREs, and are still without adequate water. Mail is backlogged for weeks.
"We thought we could depend on industry to perform these kinds of functions," Lt. Gen. Charles S. Mahan, the Army's logistical chief, told journalist David Wood in an interview for Newhouse Publications last summer. But, as Linda K. Theis, who oversees some civilian logistics contracts, reminded Wood: "You cannot order civilians into a war zone." Replacing 1,100 Marine cooks with civilians seemed like a bright idea to someone two years ago. But during the bloody Battle of the Bulge in 1944, Army cooks doubled as riflemen; in McArmy, civilian cooks can walk off the job.
Similarly stalled is the task of rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure -- outsourced to Halliburton, Bechtel, and other big contributors to the Bush campaign. Baghdad stays paralyzed, without reliable electricity. Even in Basra, where the Shiite clerics were most oppressed by Saddam Hussein, anger is growing against the occupiers. The desert is hot, the stench of sewage ubiquitous, potable water scarce.
Assessing all this, one has to ask of the Pentagon's new planners: What were they thinking? The answer, perhaps, is that they were not thinking. The privatization zealots running the Pentagon and the White House are paid handsomely not to outthink their corporate sponsors. Which highlights the glaring flaw in the neocon mythology: The profit motive does not always serve the public good...
McArmy might have been adequate for the first phase of the war, George Ritzer told Salon. "In terms of fighting the war, the McArmy idea apparently worked well. It's with winning the peace that it doesn't work well. You can't just go in and level town after town and still win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis."
While it is true, he says, that those whom McArmy is fighting or occupying are its consumers -- "reluctant consumers," he adds -- Americans back home are consumers at another level, and they are seeking a predictable experience. "The message in fighting the war both times in Iraq was: We can do this pretty easily and without much cost to us," he says. "And then we're kind of ill-prepared for what we now face." The expectation of a predictable experience has created, in Ritzer's view, "a crisis of expectations."
Privatization itself -- apart from McDonaldization -- has led to other problems. Many of the logistical components such as modular barracks, field kitchens, and mail delivery were outsourced to private contractors. The result? Months into the war, GIs were still camped out, still eating the loathed MREs, and are still without adequate water. Mail is backlogged for weeks.
"We thought we could depend on industry to perform these kinds of functions," Lt. Gen. Charles S. Mahan, the Army's logistical chief, told journalist David Wood in an interview for Newhouse Publications last summer. But, as Linda K. Theis, who oversees some civilian logistics contracts, reminded Wood: "You cannot order civilians into a war zone." Replacing 1,100 Marine cooks with civilians seemed like a bright idea to someone two years ago. But during the bloody Battle of the Bulge in 1944, Army cooks doubled as riflemen; in McArmy, civilian cooks can walk off the job.
Similarly stalled is the task of rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure -- outsourced to Halliburton, Bechtel, and other big contributors to the Bush campaign. Baghdad stays paralyzed, without reliable electricity. Even in Basra, where the Shiite clerics were most oppressed by Saddam Hussein, anger is growing against the occupiers. The desert is hot, the stench of sewage ubiquitous, potable water scarce.
Assessing all this, one has to ask of the Pentagon's new planners: What were they thinking? The answer, perhaps, is that they were not thinking. The privatization zealots running the Pentagon and the White House are paid handsomely not to outthink their corporate sponsors. Which highlights the glaring flaw in the neocon mythology: The profit motive does not always serve the public good...
