General George Casey, outgoing commander of "Coalition of the Willing" forces in Iraq today surprised some by going on record as disagreeing with the Commander-in-Chief's troop escalation gambit. The President has repeatedly stated the need for 21,500 more troops to be deployed as soon as possible. Casey, who has been nominated for the post of Army Chief of Staff, told the Senate Armed Forces committee that only half that number were needed.

After watching this Administration try and fail to wage a war on the cheap - by ignoring former Army Chief of Staff General Shinseki's recommendations of an occupation force of "several hundred thousand" troops for success in Iraq - John McCain (R-AZ) very nearly got out of his seat and bitch slapped General Casey. Well, not really. But he did say this:

"I'm not certain five additional brigades in Baghdad and one more in Anbar province are sufficient to do the job," said McCain. "I am certain, however, that the job cannot be done with just two additional brigades, as you, General Casey, had advocated." ~ via

Currently there is no word of whether the now mythological Civilian Reserve Corps will be ready to support the 21,500 troops the President wants to send into Baghdad and Anbar province in the coming weeks, and according to the Congressional Budget Office, an additional 28,000 troops will be necessary to support the expanded mission. That means 49,500 service members - not 21,500 - will join those already deployed without a timetable for disengagement, and without a plan for victory.

Details. Details. Details.

Labels: Civilian Reserve Corps, Gen. Shinseki, General George Casey, Surge

During the 1961 SOTU address, President John F. Kennedy renewed his call for the establishment of a National Peace Corps, "enlisting the services of all those with the desire and capacity to help foreign lands meet their urgent needs for trained personnel." Officially, the Peace Corps mission today has three goals:

1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

A product of its hippie-feel good time, the Peace Corps embodies the nobility of our democratic experiment while advancing the interests of our nation. Fast forward to 2007.

On Tuesday, President Bush capped the romp through Bizarro world that was his SOTU address with a call for the formation of a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Such a corps, he declared "would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them." This little gem was dropped into the speech between his call to expand America's standing Army and Marine Corps by 92,000 troops, and the expected Iran-is-gonna-go-nuclear! posturing; the proposal was not further defined. Some admittedly amateur research on the proponents of the Civilian Reserve Corps yielded two major advocates and their ideas of what the Corps should look like.

First is 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, four-star General Wesley Clark. The General's 2004 platform envisioned a volunteer force of specially skilled Americans to be called at the pleasure of the President to serve both domestic and international functions ranging from fighting forest fires to nation building. Think "Global Frequency," but run by the President and only for Americans.

The second Civilian Reserve Corps cheerleader is Refugees International. In their 2006 testimony to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs, the policy organization stressed the need to fund a Civilian Reserve Corps under the direction of the State Department Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization. More on their views can be found here.

There are still a ton of questions to be answered, but the primary goals seem to be:

1. Decrease or eliminate the fabulous amounts of U.S. tax payer dollars paid to private contractors (Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, etc) for their rolls in certain areas of operational support.
2. Take pressure off the Pentagon which is struggling with the nigh-impossible challenges of recruiting, training, and retaining individuals who are both able and willing to perform highly specialized occupations (i.e translators!) for a fraction of what they could earn in the private sector.

Whether the Civilian Reserve Corps will be a de facto National War Corps comprised of mercenaries and opportunistic malcontents or a real life GI-Joe(listen to the words, people) remains to be seen. Either way, it will change the way American foreign policy, and the business of war is conducted for generations to come.

The biggest WTF? Why aren't more people talking about this?

Labels: Blackwater, Civilian Reserve Corps, General Wesley Clark, Global Frequency, Halliburton, John F Kennedy, KBR, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., SOTU Address