Despite protesters, panel discusses future of military

“How many babies have you killed?” shouted an angry protester.

“What country will you… “How many babies have you killed?” shouted an angry protester.

“What country will you invade next?” yelled another.

Threats and accusations directed at a panel of military officers filled the room where about 50 people were gathered in the William Pitt Union yesterday to participate in a discussion about the future of U.S. military policy.

The small group of about 10 anti-war demonstrators had come to protest the military’s policies regarding gay people and the continued occupation of Iraq.

The protests sparked angry responses from other members of the audience. The Pitt police were called to remove the protesters, but the group left before the police arrived.

The panel of military officers from the U.S. Army War College gathered for a discussion about the role of U.S. military in the future. The discussion, titled “National Security for a New Era,” was part of the Eisenhower College Series sponsored by the Graduate School for Public and International Affairs and the Ridgway Center for Security Studies and included representatives from the Army, Air Force and Marine Corps.

Despite the contentious start to the evening, the delegation did address a wide array of issues ranging from the war in Iraq and the threat of nuclear proliferation to energy independence and U.S. foreign policy.

The officers spoke under the policy of non-attribution, which meant that their answers were candid and personal and did not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Defense.

Once the discussion finally began, the questions immediately focused on the continued occupation of Iraq.

When asked about the Democratic presidential candidates’ promises to leave Iraq within a year, Lt. Col. Mike Sweeney of the Marine Corps responded by saying that such a feat would be “highly improbable” simply because of the problem of logistics.

“Who do you send out first?” he asked the audience.

Despite large-scale opposition to the war, Col. John Cho, an Army surgeon, said he was grateful for the “segregation of policy and support for the troops.”

“Everyone is affected by the war in different ways,” he said.

Col. Thomas Evans of the Army detailed how the military is changing its way of fighting the war on terror. The military has begun to use “full-spectrum training” as a way to train soldiers in effective ways of fighting in constantly changing environments and with different missions.

He said that the “Petraeus doctrine” for fighting insurgency has yielded results in Iraq.

Evans also explained some of the differing challenges facing the military in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said that while Iraq could finance its reconstruction using oil, Afghanistan turned to opium production.

“Afghanistan is a very austere country,” Evans said. “It is very difficult to track the war lords, drug lords and the Taliban. We’ve got to establish security