Defending our Freedom

As an avid sports fan, I listen to sports talk on radio almost daily. And at this time of year - Veterans Day - one certainly gets one's fill of paeans to our men and women in uniform. It has been true since long before 9/11 that, during times of war, our major organized sports - college and professional - have wanted to demonstrate their patriotic bonafides. Some sports, like football, are especially eager to promote the connection between themselves and the symbols of militarism.

But over the past few years, there have been more determined efforts from entities like the NFL, Major League Baseball and ESPN to pay homage to our armed forces. Whether it's ESPN's Sports Center going on location in Kuwait, Mike and Mike broadcasting from the newly commissioned battleship, the USS New York (whose hull was built from the wreckage of the twin towers), fighter-jet flyovers at Super Bowls and other major sporting events, the pro-militaristic bent of American sports seems as great as ever (and, conversely, the vilification of those few athletes who, in some public way, dissent from these displays- such as Carlos Delgado and Toni Smith).

There's nothing surprising about this, but there is one aspect of it in particular that I find especially disturbing - the way in which all of these celebrations of the military perpetuate the worst propaganda about why we're fighting the wars we're currently engaged in. It's embedded in a variant of a simple statement that I have heard countless times from sports casters, athletes and other sports official since 2003 - that we should "thank" the men and women in uniform for "preserving our freedom," for sacrificing their lives so that we may continue to enjoy the unthinking privilege that is the right of every American. Even when it's not explicitly stated, the implication is that we are free to live the lives we do because of the soldiers currently fighting overseas, whether it's Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere.

Even stalwart proponents of the war would have a hard time squaring the circle between our presence in Iraq and the protection of our freedoms at home. The idea that had the counter-factual prevailed - that we had never toppled Saddam Hussein - we would be, somehow, unfree today is absurd on its face. Whatever justifications one can think for our 2003 invasion of Iraq, protecting our freedoms cannot possibly be one of them (whether we did it for oil, as Alan Greenspan says was obviously true, and therefore to preserve our "way of life" more broadly is a somewhat separate question).

And whatever justification we had for toppling the Taliban eight years ago, it cannot reasonably be asserted that a decision to withdraw from there now would pose an imminent threat to our freedoms. Al Qaeda's global viability, many experts on the subject agree, is not dependent on the Taliban re-taking control of Afghanistan.

And all of this grants a premise - that fighting wars, in general, preserves freedom. But hasn't our war-fighting often meant the opposite - a crackdown on civil liberties and an expansion of government surveillance and other abuses of power? To take recent history, haven't Americans, in the past eight years, lost individual freedom to an increasingly secretive and expansive government-surveillance apparatus? And how has our war-fighting mitigated those developments?

So, there's no misunderstanding here, this is not a post about Americans in uniform. As members of the armed forces, they go where their told and do what they're commanded to do. Quite a number of them have developed serious doubts about the purpose of our recent wars. What's striking, though, is the degree to which the sports world, with rare exception, has adopted the most unthinking, uncritical and extreme neo-conservative rationale for "supporting our troops" - that Americans' own freedom would be imperiled were we not at constant war overseas.

Isn't there a way to express support for troops that doesn't require proffering such propaganda?

Update: Not long after I wrote this, I learned that at today's UNC home football game against Miami, there would be an F-18 flyover.

Jonathan Weiler's second book, Authoritarianism and Polarization in Contemporary American Politics, co-authored with Marc Hetherington, is just out from Cambridge University Press. He blogs about politics and sports at www.jonathanweiler.com

 

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Comments

[yeomalt]

"The Troops are fighting to protect our Rights and Freedoms"

Many Americans are OK with this fraudulent understanding of US foreign policy.

Most popular/bogus justification for US foreign policy: Freedom

Military service is honorable- in some cases, it provides for our physical security.

That physical security is as good as it gets. Even while enjoying ongoing security- our freedoms are up for grabs.

We have 3 branches of government to watch over or manipulate our freedoms.

In terms of rights and freedoms- the Department of Defense has no more say than the Department of Agriculture.

Alex
USMC '79-'99

[kaelas06]

I served for 5 years in the USMC from 2000-2005. A lot of the people I have served with (myself included) get so turned off by this new age of nationalism that we try to shy away from telling people that we served. So much of it feels forced and phony, that it's on the verge of being insulting.

Unfortunately it has been the politically correct thing to do since 2001. Do us a favor and stop smothering us with your phony thanks just so you can tell your friend/spo­use/whomev­er that you did your job and thanked a Soldier, Marine, Airmen, etc. today.

[TheBMChief]

I am a Navy veteran, and I had the privilege of watching the San Francisco Giants play at Candlestick. Oakland A's in Oakland. Now, military got in Candlestick for FREE with a military ID. Half price in the Oakland Coliseum. Now, if sports wants to honor the military, let active duty/veterans in for free for EVERY sporting event.

[Tulka2]

The Orwellian language i most resent is all the fluffer-duffle connected to "support the troops". My feelings have nothing to do with the honor of the young troops.... they have honor in spades. My problem is with our Nation pretending this is a citizen army and that the sacrifice is shared. This nation loves to pretend this army is the same as the citizen army fighting in Nam or WW II.

What rot because a citizen army has to be convinced a war is worth someone you love dying for. The citizenry has to be convinced of a draft.

A professional army is a mercenary army made up of under-capitalized young people without any other way to get an education and/or health care.

There is no way to be a moral person and be "for" this war unless you have a loved one in it. Skin in the game. Everyone else who is "for it" is a war-profiteer by definition.

[jhamm1]

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Clearly, this new age of nationalism has gotten so extreme that, even in the age of Obama, those who acknowledge the current conflicts in which our military is engaged as counterproductive feel intimidated into silence by those who won't tolerate anything less than outright groveling before "our men and women in uniform" who are actively "keeping us safe".

We seem to have overcompensated for previous wrongdoings of spitting on soldiers committed to an unjust conflict through no fault of their own by capitulating to the opposite extremity, that of pronouncing anyone and everyone associated with the military as perpetual deities, unrelenting in our own delusions that f being placed in futile wars which are only undermining both our security and that of the rest of the world is somehow symptomatic of "keeping us safe".

[TheBMChief]

Enemies hate America and the military has to go to war to counter that hatred. omg

[kaelas06]

I served for 5 years in the USMC from 2000-2005. A lot of the people I have served with (myself included) get so turned off by this new age of nationalism that we try to shy away from the fact that we served. So much of it comes off phony and forced to the point it's almost insulting.

Unfortunately it has been the politically correct thing to do since 9/11. Do us a favor and stop smothering us with your phony thanks just so you can tell your friend/spo­use/whomev­er that you did your job and thanked a Soldier, Marine, Airmen, etc. today.