Are We Still A Democracy?

Today Comcast - the nation's largest cable company - announced they would broadcast ImpeachPAC's TV ad criticizing Joe Lieberman in advance of Tuesday's primary in Connecticut.

The ads will appear first on New England Cable News (NECN), the largest regional news network in the country, which serves more than 3.5 million homes in more than 1,021 communities throughout New England. ImpeachPAC is waiting to hear from Comcast Cable, who had refused to air a previous ad by ImpeachPAC because they thought it was too inflammatory.

The ad features lies by Bush, Cheney, and Lieberman. Each lie is separated by a photo of an Iraqi child who has died because of these lies. It then quotes John Kerry as he declares, "Our policy is not 'cut and run.' Their policy is 'lie and die.'"

Answers:

Dan W:
It never was - It is a representative free Republic

sscam2001:
Our nation (the USA) was created as a Constitutionally Limited Representative Republic. Today it is much more of a Democracy.

In a Republic the rights of the minority are protected from the whims of the majority. In a Democracy it is mob rule.

john_stolworthy:
In theory, yes. We elect officials to represent us in Washington. The question is, when they get there, do they represent us, or are they representing other interests (lobbyists, their party, etc.)?

Have you ever tried to talk to your representative? I have. The closest I got was his office clerk, even though he was in his office.

edit:The United States is a republic. Our form of government is called a representative democracy. Did any of you go to high school civics class? Magic Gatherer
gives a pretty good history lesson for those who missed that class. But the question is about the government, not the country.

In a "true democracy", every issue is voted on by every citizen. In a representative democracy, the representative elect people to vote on issues, cutting out the "common people" from matters of state.

By Robert Parry
June 7, 2006

At dinner a few weeks ago, a well-placed Republican political operative was oozing confidence about GOP prospects in the November elections, not because the voters were enamored of George W. Bush but because the Democrats and liberals had done so little to improve their ability to reach the public with their message.

By contrast, he described to me a highly sophisticated Republican system for pouncing on Democratic “bad votes” and verbal gaffes and distributing the information instantaneously to a network of pro-Republican media outlets that now operates down to the state, district and local levels.

This huge conservative media advantage has now contributed to dooming Democratic hopes for snaring the vulnerable suburban San Diego seat of imprisoned Republican congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham.

In the June 6 special election, Republicans reported a last-minute surge of support after conservative media outlets trumpeted a verbal blunder by Democrat Francine Busby, propelling Republican lobbyist Brian Bilbray to victory by about four percentage points.

Near the end of a lackluster campaign in which Busby followed the advice of national Democratic consultants to avoid controversial positions, the candidate blurted out to a mostly Latino audience that “you don’t need papers for voting” before she clarified her meaning to say “you don’t need to be a registered voter to help.”

But conservative radio and TV talk show hosts across southern California seized on Busby’s verbal slip and began accusing her of urging illegal immigrants to vote. Busby then spent the last several days of the campaign apologizing and backtracking. [Washington Post, June 7, 2006]

In explaining Busby’s defeat in this bellwether special election, national Democratic consultants will likely point to failures of Busby as a candidate or the fact that the Republican Congressional Committee pumped more than $4.5 million into the district.

But the one point the Democratic consultants almost never mention is the giant media advantage that Republicans have created from years of investing in media outlets – from newspapers, magazines and books to cable television, talk radio and the Internet.

Yet, it is this conservative messaging capability – in coordination with the Republican national political operation – that has proved decisive in election after election, even in disputed contests such as Florida in Election 2000 when the conservative media quickly portrayed Bush as the legitimate winner even though Al Gore got more votes.

Funneling Money

One of the reasons that the Democratic consultant class neglects this glaring problem is that the consultants don’t profit from building media infrastructure or from other nitty-gritty aspects of prevailing in the national “war of ideas.” Even in losing, there is money from consulting contracts and ad buys.

Obviously, during election cycles, Democratic consultants encourage wealthy liberals and progressives to funnel money into campaigns or into allied groups where Democratic insiders also get a cut of the ad buys. Then, in off years, the Democratic “consultariat” directs the money into “think tanks” where other friends and insiders hold down high-paying jobs but don’t really do very much.

Then, when elections roll around, the Democratic consultants are there to help pick the candidates and counsel them in expressing safe “themes” that have been tested before focus groups arranged by other consultants. Next, the tightly managed candidates are guided through campaigns designed less to inspire than not to offend.

Inevitably, however, the over-coached, tongue-tied candidate blurts out some stupid remark – even a polished candidate like John Kerry made a clunky ill-timed comment about Dick Cheney’s gay daughter – and the Republicans immediately go for the throat.

The Busby defeat was a kind of microcosm for this pattern of Democratic failure.

Given the conservatives’ huge media advantage at both national and local levels, the Republicans demonstrated how easily they can still set the defining issues of a race, despite the country’s general dismay over Bush’s presidency.

In the Busby-Bilbray race, the Republicans made immigration the hot-button issue and Busby’s clumsy remark soon was reverberating through the giant echo chamber of right-wing talk shows, right-wing blogs and right-wing columnists.

Lacking the media artillery to fire back and having had her fighting spirit leeched out of her by the consultants, Busby chose not to go on the offensive and accuse the Republicans of using their old tactics of division, racism and smear. Instead, she followed another favorite piece of Democratic consultant advice: apologize and retreat.

“This is a classic case of how the Democratic consultariat class loses an election,” said Brent Budowsky, a political analyst and a former aide to Democratic Sen. Lloyd Bentsen and Rep. Bill Alexander.

Budowsky said the Busby race again revealed the national Democrats’ failure to match up with the Republicans across the board, from their campaign spending to “their aggressive commitment to every aspect of the election machinery and a convincing message necessary to win.”

“I hope this creates an uprising of Democrats all over the country demanding a party that will take a courageous case to the country and will fight the fight worthy of the crisis that America faces,” Budowsky said. [For more on Budowsky’s thinking, see “Vote 2006: For Whom the Bell Tolls.”]

Question Why

Sometimes, when I talk to or e-mail with Americans around the country, they are perplexed as to why Democratic candidates always seem to turn to the same national consultants who lead the party to defeat time and again.

The answer, I think, is that it makes the candidates, especially novices, feel less susceptible to ridicule when they put themselves in the hands of a big-name Democratic consultant. The thinking seems to be that these guys must know best and at least the chance of a total fiasco will be minimized.

In other words, the Democratic candidates end up competing less to win than to avoid being embarrassed.

But after the Democrats have done all their careful polling and tested how to “frame” issues with focus groups, the overall impression left behind by their consultant-managed candidates is that these people don’t really believe in much of anything and inevitably they still get beaten up. By election day, the Democratic base is usually demoralized and the Republicans are energized.

A similar pattern applies to the dwindling number of Democrats who manage to win and go to Washington. Given the clout and cruelty of the conservative news media – and the me-too conformity of the mainstream press – many Democratic officeholders feel that to be “taken seriously,” they must hedge or “triangulate” their views even between elections. That’s how they get onto the Sunday talk shows and are treated with “respect.”

On the other hand, Republicans harbor no similar fears and indeed seem to relish taking the fight to even mildly skeptical mainstream talk show hosts, who, in turn, must fear for their careers if they are targeted as “liberal” by angry and well-organized conservatives.

Yet, as the Busby defeat has again demonstrated, the national Democrats don’t seem to have any clue how to break this cycle.

The conservatives keep building up their media infrastructure; the Republicans exploit this advantage with an instantaneous message machine that keeps them plugged into their backers and the broader electorate; the GOP then puts into play a powerful wedge issue in the weeks before the election; the missteps of the Democrats – no matter how minor – are blared out to voters.

Conversely, the liberals/progressives continue to shun any major funding for media content and outlets; the Democratic consultants spend the bulk of available money on devising strategies to finesse the conservative dominance, mostly by filtering campaign “themes” through focus groups; Democrats then deploy ads that leave even their core supporters uninspired; and the candidates usually stumble to defeat.

Breaking the Cycle

Another question I’m often asked is how can Americans, who are alarmed by the drift of their country, change this dynamic. Not surprisingly, my answer is usually about the need to build an honest media infrastructure that will engage the American people with well-reported information on issues that are vital to the country.

But given the current media imbalance to the Right, there is also a desperate need to level the playing field by having more media outlets that present views more from the Left side of the political spectrum.

Liberals and progressives simply cannot count on the mainstream news media to act as a counterweight to conservative news outlets. That is not in the job description of mainstream journalists, who understand that their careers will be better served if they tilt Right and avoid getting stuck with the “liberal” label.

Since 2004, the Left has benefited somewhat from the creation of Air America Radio and the emergence of progressive talk stations around the country. But those cash-strapped start-ups never had the strong backing of wealthy liberals and thus have been forced to skimp on advertising and production of original news content.

In the book, The Road to Air America, Sheldon Drobny, one of the liberal radio network’s founders, described the resistance he encountered from “limousine liberals” in California and elsewhere while trying to raise money for the project. “It was too risky an investment for most people’s taste,” Drobny wrote.

Another problem was that wealthy liberals were listening to the same Democratic consultant class that had led the party to lose control of the entire U.S. government – from the White House to Congress to the courts. Like political candidates, wealthy liberals felt safer giving money to operations run by “credentialed” Democratic operatives.

This “consultariat” mostly disparaged investments in media and directed money instead to “think tanks” where the consultants and many of their friends were kept in high-paying jobs. They apparently are awaiting a Republican crackup like the one in 1992 when Ross Perot siphoned enough votes away from George H.W. Bush for Bill Clinton to slip into the White House.

So, instead of investing in promising Internet sites or improving the “progressive” content on radio and TV, liberal money flowed overwhelmingly into the hands of the same ol’ Democratic consultant class.

Perhaps, the Busby defeat finally will serve as a wake-up call to the Democratic Party to throw off the consultariat’s cold hand of failure and turn to candidates who are not afraid to address the pressing issues of war and democracy now confronting the United States.

Perhaps, money will be redirected to groups and institutions that are leading these fights – and away from the “think tanks” and consulting firms that have a vested interest in maintaining the Democratic Party as little more than a junior partner in a Republican one-party state.

Perhaps it is still not too late for Election 2006 to be a meaningful referendum on where George W. Bush’s authoritarian form of government is leading America.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

Cheney says that Russia is 'unfairly and improperly' restricting rights and freedoms.
By Tom Regan
With the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg only three months away, the United States has warned Russia that the summit could turn into a fiasco unless Russia demonstrates a solid commitment to democracy in the coming weeks. The Washington Post reports that this position was reinforced by Vice President Dick Cheney during a democracy conference Thursday.

At a European democracy conference in Lithuania yesterday, Vice President Cheney accused Russia of "unfairly and improperly" restricting the rights of its people and using oil and gas as "tools of intimidation or blackmail" against neighboring countries. "Russia has a choice to make," Cheney said. "And there is no question that a return to democratic reform in Russia will generate further success for its people and greater respect among fellow nations."

The Post goes on the report that the White House is concerned that President Bush, whose promotion of democracy around the world has been one of the central themes of his presidency, will be attending a meeting of the world's leading democracies in a country that has seemed to turn in the other direction. But Mr. Bush has been loathe to push Russian President Vladimir Putin, even as Mr. Putin has overseen the dismantling of a free press, and the use of oil rights to threaten other countries in the region.

The UK's Daily Telegraph reports, however, that Mr. Cheney's tough remarks show how far the relationship between Bush and Putin has deteriorated since they embraced like old friends during their first meeting in 2001.

Even by the standards of one of President Bush's foremost hawks, the comments were astonishing in their bluntness. One western diplomat described it as the most abrasive speech directed at Russia since Ronald Reagan visited the Brandenburg Gate in 1987 and called on his Soviet counterpart, Mikhail Gorbachev, to "tear down this wall".
Mr. Cheney has spearheaded a review of US policy towards the Kremlin in recent months as the White House has become increasingly concerned about Russia's direction under Mr. Putin.

The Russian news website Kommersant reports that the Cheney speech was similar to one given by Winston Churchill 60 years ago, known as the Fulton speech, where he made the famous comment about a "cold war" between the then-Soviet Union and the West.

The theme of the Cold War ran throughout Cheney's speech. That phrase, first spoken exactly 60 years ago by Winston Churchill at Fulton, was used by Cheney three times. He named the heroes of the Cold War who, in his opinion, made the greatest contributions to democracy: Andrey Sakharov, Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel, Pope John Paul II, Natan Sharansky and Ronald Reagan. He mixed interspersed that list with the names of the "heroes of our time": Mikhail Saakashvili, Viktor Yushchenko and Alexander Milinkevich, the Belarusian opposition leader who is now jailed in Minsk. Cheney's words practically point to a renewal of the Cold War, only now the "front line" has changed. "The spread of democracy is irreversible. It is to the benefit of al and poses a threat to no one. The system that has provided hope on the shores of the Baltic Sea can bring hope to the shores of the Black Sea and even farther," Cheney said. "That which is applicable to Vilnius is applicable to Tbilisi and to Kiev, and it is applicable to Minsk and Moscow as well."

The site reports that the Cheney speech basically seemed to say that either Russia should fix its democracy problem, or risk becoming an enemy again.
source

www.latimes.com

ROBERT SCHEER

Mortgaged to the House of Saud
Robert Scheer

August 9, 2005

THE ONLY EVIDENCE you need that President Bush is losing the "war on terror" is this: On Sunday, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia said that relations with the United States "couldn't be better."

Tell that to the parents of those who have died in two wars defending this corrupt spawning ground of violent extremism. Never mind the ugly facts: We are deeply entwined with Saudi Arabia even though it shares none of our values and supports our enemies.

Yet on Friday, Bush's father and Vice President Dick Cheney made another in a long line of obsequious American pilgrimages to Riyadh to assure the Saudis that we continue to be grateful for the punishment they dish out.

"The relationship has tremendously improved with the United States," Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal told a news conference in Riyadh. "With the government, of course, it is very harmonious, as it ever was. Whether it has returned to the same level as it was before in terms of public opinion [in both countries], that is debatable."

Well, score one for public opinion. It makes sense to distrust the mercenary and distasteful alliance between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. We protect the repressive kingdom that spawned Osama bin Laden, and most of the 9/11 hijackers, in exchange for the Saudis keeping our fecklessly oil-addicted country lubricated.

Yes, it has stuck deep in the craw of many of us Americans that after 9/11, Washington squandered global goodwill and a huge percentage of our resources invading a country that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, while continuing to pander to this dysfunctional dynasty. After all, Saudi Arabia is believed to have paid Bin Laden's murderous gang millions in protection money in the years before 9/11, and it lavishly funds extremist religious schools throughout the region that preach and teach anti-Western jihad.

"Al Qaeda found fertile fundraising ground in the kingdom," noted the 9/11 commission report in one of its many careful understatements. The fact is, without Saudi Arabia, there would be no Al Qaeda today.

Our president loves to use the word "evil" in his speeches, yet throughout his life he and his family have had deep personal, political and financial ties with a country that represents everything the American Revolution stood against: tyranny, religious intolerance, corrupt royalty and popular ignorance. This is a country where women aren't allowed to drive and those who show "too much skin" can be beaten in the street by officially sanctioned mobs of fanatics. A medieval land where newspapers routinely publish the most outlandish anti-Semitic rants. A place where executions are held in public, torture is the norm in prison and the most extreme and expansionist version of Islam is the state religion.

It's hard to see how Saddam Hussein's brutal and secular Iraq was worse than the brutal theocracy run by the House of Saud. Yet one nation we raze and the other we fete. Is it any wonder that much of the world sees the United States as the planet's biggest hypocrite?

As insider books by former White House terrorism advisor Richard Clarke, journalist Bob Woodward and others have recounted, punishing Saudi Arabia in any way for its long ideological and financial support of terrorism was not even on the table in the days after 9/11. Instead, within hours of the planes hitting the towers, the powerful neoconservatives in the White House rushed to use the tragedy as an excuse for a long-dreamed invasion of Iraq.

Meanwhile, after two wars to make the Middle East safe for the Saudis, wars that cost hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars and thousands of American lives, the price of oil is soaring — up 42% from just a year ago. Good thing we just passed a pork-laden energy bill that will do little to nothing to ease our crushing — and rising — dependence on imported oil. Federal officials project that by 2025, the U.S. will have to import 68% of its oil to meet demand, up from 58% today.

There are those who argue that the best rationale for invading Iraq was to ease our dependence on Saudi Arabia's massive oil fields, which might allow for a more rational or moral relationship. Yet the dark irony is that with Iraq in chaos and its oil flow limited by insurgent attacks and a bungled reconstruction, Saudi Arabia is now more important to the United States than ever.

It's scary, but these gaping contradictions don't seem to trouble our president a whit.

As the drumbeat of devastating terrorist attacks in Baghdad, London and elsewhere continue, Bush prattles on — five times in a speech last Wednesday — about his pyrrhic victories in the "war on terror." This is a sorry rhetorical device that disguises the fact that the forces of Islamic fanaticism in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the world are stronger than ever.

www.latimes.com

Karl Rove's Diary
John Kenney
John Kenney's work has appeared in the New York Times and the New Yorker. He just completed his first novel.

August 7, 2005

Why a mezzanine? What does that even mean? Why not just "second floor?"

Who is the man in the mirror? Where did the little boy go? Who is the fish-belly-white man with the protruding stomach and hairless calves, naked as the day he was born? I'll tell you who he is; he's the most powerful man in the world. I'm chuckling. I'm chuckling and watching my belly move.

McCain said something against Arabs. He didn't, of course, but I can make it seem like he did. Yes. I can see it. Something about "towel heads" or "carpet riders." Bedouins. Bedouins. How fun. He'll have to squirm. He'll lose his temper. That little vein on the side of his head will throb. Why do I take such joy in this? Why am I almost instantly brought back to torturing frogs as a youth? Thank God we are not evolved from amphibians and that we simply appeared, fully formed, on the third day (or was it the fourth?)

What is power? Machiavelli suggested that power corrupts. To quote GWB, "Duh!" And yet, in those moments before the three glasses of chardonnay take hold and the nightmares come, I am comforted by the belief that I have helped as many people as I have hurt. OK, maybe it's closer to 30-70.

The dream again. Water (sex?). A bridge. Rickety, dilapidated. I must cross it. Fear. I drop to my hands and knees, cross slowly, looking down into black, roiling water far below. Only, in my hand, the CIA NOC list of the real names of every covert agent in the field. A man appears suddenly. "Give me the list," he says, "or don't if you don't want to. No big." What can I do? I want to put up a struggle. But instead I say, "Sure thing." Then I say, "Also, if you want, I can provide hard copies in a nice binder. Just let me know." Awoke in a sweat, breathing heavily. Clipping my toenails was the only thing that could comfort me (as usual. Did mother clip my toenails? Ask).

Karl Rove. Stove, mauve, tov. A Jewish word. Interesting. Am I Jewish? Maybe. But maybe not. Tequila is my friend. I have no pants on. I stand atop the prow on a great metaphorical ship, arms spread, a breeze through the tiny colorless hairs of my armpits, and shout the words "I love you Captain Kangaroo!" It's very late. Why do I cry suddenly? Bring me lamb chops. "Fava beans and a nice Chianti … Hello Clarice." Why did everyone think Lecter was so crazy?

I only stand behind the president if you look at the photos left to right.

Oh, David Gray, you moody British musician! What happened to you?! Are you the Morrissey of your generation? "Please forgive me if I aaaaaaact a little strange, for I know not what I do ... " Your music touches me.

Sometimes I am a senior in high school and I am the quarterback, and it is Saturday night and I am in a convertible with my arm around my date, Maureen Dowd. We make out. She's totally into me. People say, "Hey Karl, she's a tomata." What great fun. We wink and nod and I am tall. The crowd roars as I hurl the ball down the field, into the waiting arms of a speedy colored boy.

Does Canada need to be its own country? I think not.

Fifteen hours is a tremendous barrier. It is the obstacle preventing one village from attaining the assistance of another and surviving a drought. It is the reason a trip to the hospital, or receiving an education, aren’t realistic options. Fifteen hours is what stands in the way of commerce between two provinces. It prevents communication between neighbors only 80 kilometers apart. Fifteen hours is the reason for isolation. Before Task Force Pacemaker began work, the drive between Kandahar and Tarin-Kowt took fifteen hours. Upon completion of the road it will take only three. The end of geographical isolation will be a new beginning for hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan.

An international effort, the road connecting Tarin-kowt and Kandahar, or theTK road, is a project involving the support of the United Nations, Indian contractors, and United States Army troop labor. Construction of the road has spanned fourteen months, 117 kilometers, two adjustments to election dates, and two different Army Engineer rotations. Road construction began during Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) 5 with the 528th Engineer Battalion, out of Louisiana. They competed 46.5 kilometers of road between July of 2004 and February of 2005. When TF Pacemaker took over construction during OEF 6, they were told that the estimated completion date for the TK road was early spring of 2006. Since assuming the mission in April of 2005, Task Force Pacemaker has demonstrated a need for speed and focus on the objective.

Road construction in theater involves route planning, surveying, job site security, sustaining the flow of material and water, and continual maintenance of heavy engineer equipment. It is best described as an endurance sport; not for the faint of heart or the easily distracted. Traditionally progress is made a few hundred meters at a time, using the same methods and techniques every day. Efficient use of equipment crew rotations, establishing and working from Forward Operating Bases (FOBs), using material along the route, and relying on soldiers to adopt roles outside of their military occupational specialties are some of the techniques which TF Pacemaker has used to streamline the process. The soldiers don’t view this road as just another project, and perhaps that’s why they’ve been able to sustain such a furious pace. TF Commander, LTC Paul Paolozzi explains that the attitude of his troops stems from partially from their understanding of the mission’s importance. “It’s inspiring to be a part of the long-term success of this nation… I can’t think of a more permanent and significant impact than making a road to connect people.” No matter the source of their motivation, by mid-September, TF Pacemaker will have completed a remarkable 70 kilometers of road work directly through some of the toughest terrain Afghanistan has to offer.

To finalize the exact path, surveyors and a security team are sent ahead of construction to determine which parts of the terrain best accommodate the road. The climate and terrain of Afghanistan (thick dust, deep waddis, and harsh weather) have presented many challenges. Often, designs which looked good on paper, involve moving mountains on the ground. It is critical to establish the projected route prior to entering any towns. Soldiers must be able to articulate their intentions to the surrounding locals, in particular the village elder, before barging through. There are often different factions within a town and the path of the road has been adjusted by mere feet to accommodate the wishes of local farmers. 1LT Brian Meister, the earth moving platoon leader of C/864th lists civilians on the job site as the single biggest security challenge in the south. “They are everywhere and impossible to keep entirely off. The enemy is not easily identified, so anyone driving a pickup through the job site could pose a potential risk.” 1LT Patrick Sullivan, the earth moving platoon leader in A/864th has experienced the same type of concerns on the northern effort.

While we were standing on the hill, looking down at the proposed route, an audience began to form. The children came out first, and then the men of the village... as the crowd grew larger… I began to get just a little nervous. I told the captain who has been in the country for about a year; he quickly turned around and began shaking hands with the crowd, so I followed… It was an event that I will never forget. There are some bad people in the area, but for the most part, the population is tired of the last twenty years of war and corruption. They were just happy to see the guys who were building them a road.

Road work is divided into three basic teams of heavy equipment operators. The first team clears and grubs the area with dozers, taking off the top layers of soil and pushing through hills or small plants. The dozers are followed by a grader, which levels off the area. The next team raises the sub-base with material harvested from the borrow pit, an area determined to have the best material for use on the road. Dump trucks and scrapers are used to put between 8 and 12 inches of material on top of the cleared path. Graders then go over the path again to even out the road and start putting on the crown, a slope off the center of the road for drainage. Finally comes the finishing team. A water truck is used to wet the soil so that the rollers can compact the material in a series of lifts. Once complete, the soil dries and hardens into a road. In order to reach their deadlines each day, all of these teams must work together at a steady rate. As A/864th commander, CPT Chad Suitonu puts it, “It’s not a question of if we will meet our goals; it’s a matter of how.”

It is a continuous challenge to keep up the flow of water and material for compaction. TF Pacemaker has relied on what they could harvest along the way, setting up borrow pits as they move down the route and asking local towns to share their wells. The standard for road construction is twelve inches of the best available fill material on the existing grade of the road. Attaining 95% compaction of that material is what makes a road a road. Finding the right material is so critical to achieving compaction that earthmovers have hauled over five kilometers in order to continue use of particularly good fill. Earthmoving platoon leaders are primarily responsible for scouting out these potential dig sites. 1LT Sullivan compares finding the best material to digging for gold. It is either buried somewhere, or covered with something, and you can never be sure what you’ll find until you dig. The soldiers do their best to identify areas with shale along the hillside. After they’ve identified a potential site, they send a dig team to check it out. “The stuff we’ve found so far that has worked best is a red shale, it’s also been black…it’s a good material, “said 1LT Sullivan, of the material being used in the north,” It compacts very well, breaks up nicely; there’s not big chucks after you roll it. It gives you a real nice, compacted, firm sub-base.”

1LT Brian Meister, the earthmoving platoon leader in C/864th faces the same challenge from the south. “Finding good material involves identifying what soils provide optimal properties for constructing a road that is both durable and smooth, “he says. Once the crews find a material they think they can use, they send it out to be tested, which takes about three days. Testing is done by Lewis Berger Group, an Indian contracting company that has become one of TF Pacemaker’s greatest allies. “Working with LBG has been great,” says CPT Stan Wiechnik, the commander of C/926th,”They have built roads in third world countries with similar geography and technical restrictions. They have been a great asset to me to determine the best method of construction and the best materials to use.” LBG weighs the mass of material and compares it to material compacted to 100%. Once they gain approval, the earth movers can scrape off the topsoil in that location and open up a new pit; ideally close to the construction site. Finding resources along the route just ahead of where the road crews are currently working takes both luck and timing. TF Pacemaker’s ability to consistently plan ahead and find that balance contributes to their steady speed towards completion.

The leadership at Pacemaker is all about efficiency. With a few key pieces of equipment driving the construction effort, maintenance is critical; conducting regular checks and services on the vehicles are an essential part of the work cycle. The Animals have supplemented their earthmoving platoon with soldiers from headquarters and the vertical platoons in order to have enough manpower to support two crew rotations. The first team shows up at 0015 Zulu to begin preventative maintenance checks and services (PMCS) of the equipment. They receive a safety brief at 0040z and roll out the gate by 0100z to begin work on the road. They operate for five and a half hours, from 0130z to 0700z. From 0700z-0715z the operators of both teams conduct a fifteen minute shift change; discussing any problems with the equipment and what remains to be completed that day. When the first team returns, they eat lunch and do another half hour of maintenance. Team two’s work day starts at 0500z, when they pull maintenance on any downed equipment. They receive their safety brief at 0630z, eat lunch, and head to the job site to conduct a shift change with team one. Team two works until 1430z. This rotation schedule allows the Animals to get thirteen hours of work on the road each day, and pull the necessary maintenance, without driving the equipment operators into the ground. As CPT Suitonu tells me, “A soldier can’t sit on a dozer twelve hours a day; seven hours is okay though.”

TF Pacemaker began work on both ends of the road with A/864th and C/926th in the North, C/864th in the south, and the support of HSC/864th in both areas. It soon became apparent that to maximize time spent working on the road, they would have to minimize travel time to the job site. The Task Force would need to work from another start point; FOB Pacemaker. 1LT Sara Cullen, executive officer of the Animals, explains that,” The mission here is to provide a forward operating base between FOB Tiger and FOB Ripley so that we can work from the middle towards completion of the road… right now each location is commuting over an hour…” Prior to occupation of Pacemaker, soldiers were spending 90 minutes each way just getting to the job site, leaving precious few hours of actual work on the road. Since the unit’s jump to the FOB, their production rate has nearly doubled. The same increase in efficiency is soon expected from the engineers at FOB Kodiak, a new forward operating base to be occupied by C/864th.

The Alpha Company Animals built FOB Pacemaker from the moon dust up. A big part of their mission included accounting for force protection in an area new to US Military forces. The First Sergeant of A/864, 1SG Martin Pullman, describes their first few days saying, “We didn’t know if there was enemy in the area, so we had to assume that there was. We had to balance between setting up force protection and pulling security … using over watch positions allowed us to put the maximum amount of effort on building the FOB itself.” In less than two weeks, they were fully operational. Recently, FOB Pacemaker has served another function; supporting combat arms operations in the area. A small but steady flow of Special Forces and Infantrymen have benefited from Pacemaker hospitality, enjoying a meal, shower, or place to rest between missions. Though they don’t have much, Animal soldiers don’t mind sharing and generally agree that it’s nice to have our comrades in arms in the area.

In addition to security on the FOBs, soldiers must maintain security on the job site. This is challenging for a road project because construction requires troops to go directly against many of the fundamentals of defense. They work in the same spot, headed in the same direction, using the same equipment rotations day after day. There is nothing covert about the Scraper, a 33,000 lb piece of equipment. Since they can be seen from kilometers away, the Pacemakers adopt a fierce posture. Engineer soldiers man the vehicle mounted crew served weapons at both ends of the construction site. They halt vehicle traffic and search the personnel before allowing passage around the construction site. A roving security vehicle is used to patrol the surrounding areas, and observe the area from different positions. An interpreter and a female soldier are always included in the security detail, available to assist with communication or searching local national females. These measures have resulted in 100% success rate; not a single Pacemaker soldier has been attacked while working on the road.

Continued development is essential to peace building in Afghanistan. The road between Tarin-Kowt and Kandahar will provide developmental access to rural areas which never existed before. As 1LT Sullivan puts it, “This road is not just an engineering feat; it is a show of political force.” The five month reduction in project duration by Task Force Pacemaker becomes five months gained by the new government towards progress. The fifteen hours of travel cut down to three are hours gained by Afghan citizens towards opportunity. Every cut of the TK road is another blow to the primary weapons of the Taliban, isolation and hardship. When Pacemaker soldiers watch the ribbon cutting on September 15th, every soldier can exhale with relief, joy, and pride in a job well done.

About The Author

1LT Laura Walker was an Army Engineer officer currently serving in Kandahar, Afghanistan. She graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in May of 2003, with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science. In February of 2004, 1LT Walker deployed to Iraq with the 555th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade. In March of 2005, she deployed to Afghanistan with B/864th Combat Engineer Battalion (Heavy), where she completed her fifteen months as a platoon leader.

September 2005 Updated Information:

U.S. Army 1st Lt. Laura Walker, Task Force Pacemaker, was killed in action on 18 August 2005 in Delak, Aghanistan. She proudly wore the 4th Infantry Division combat patch on her right shoulder, a distinction she shared with both of her grandfathers from their service with the Division in both World War II and Vietnam. Her awards and decorations include: the Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart, Army Commendation Medal (1OLC), Army Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Combat Action Badge, and Air Assault Badge

Please visit: http://www.west-point.org/users/usma2003/60262/ for a Memorial site that honors Laura M. Walker.