Do you believe with President Obama that our military today constitutes a "generation of heroes" and that their teamwork and courage in battle show us the proper path forward in civilian life? Do you believe that the deadly effectiveness of the Navy SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden should inspire us to put aside differences in politics and to work together as a people?
As a retired veteran, such pro-military rhetoric in the president's state of the union address resonates with me, but as a student of history it makes me more than uncomfortable. In democratic societies, armed forces are funded and fielded to preserve liberties, not to provide templates for personal and societal behavior.
When civil aspirations are guided by and defined within military matrices, one gets the Iraq war of yesterday, the Afghan war of today, and the Iran (or Syria or insert-new-terrorist-nation here) war of tomorrow. Forever war is indeed the price for a nation that glorifies its military as the very best of its people and their ideals.
The kinetic (killing) competency of our military is certainly impressive, yet it's a competency that we must use judiciously and with restraint. When we elevate it as an example of "I've got your back" teamwork that all should be emulating, we tend to devalue diplomacy and the level of patience and perspective our country needs to display in an increasingly turbulent world.
Our dedicated military and its matchless strength should afford us the luxury of being patient and of keeping threats in perspective. But our unbridled extolment of the military -- our deeply personal investment in its power and methods as pointing the way forward in all walks of life -- encourages us instead to deploy our armed forces time and time again. We act impatiently, injudiciously, against threats we often exaggerate.
Iran is the latest such threat that has the drums of war beating. Iran is supposedly an incipient nuclear terrorist; defined as such, the preferred solution for our nation of military enthusiasts is decapitation by kinetic action.
But is the solution really that simple? Past events suggest otherwise. Military enthusiasts like George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld believed they could torture and kill their way out of the war on terror. They embarked on a deadly game of "Whac-A-Mole" with results as frustrating as that game. After criticizing them for this, the Obama Administration joined them. Like Michael Corleone in the Godfather saga, we keep whacking our enemies, yet a state of war and terror drags on, insidiously warping our nation's core beliefs and freedoms.
If we continue to focus on whacking terrorists (or terroristic nations), we suppress any chance of charting a less violent, less terrifying, course. Like Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part III, just when we think we're out of the war on terror, they'll pull us back in.
What we won't recognize is that the "they" doing the pulling will be us. We won't recognize it because we've invested so much of our national hopes and dreams into the killing abilities of our armed forces.
Yet however much we admire their competence in war, we must not allow that competence to inform our attitudes and aspirations for civil society. For when warriors become the civil elite, the role models par excellence, democracy is imperiled.
Professor Astore writes regularly for TomDispatch.com and can be reached at wjastore@gmail.com.
executive directives and regulations, essential rights and freedoms, that were once guaranteed to all individuals, have been substantially degraded. America has sold it's soul in the name of "Security".
What has been lost?
1st AMENDMENT FREEDOM OF SPEECH
1st AMENDMENT FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION
1st AMENDMENT RIGHT TO ACCESS GOVERNMENT INFORMATION
4th AMENDMENT FREEDOM FROM UNREASONABLE SEARCHES &SEIZURES
5th AMENDMENT RIGHT TO DUE PROCESS & FREEDOM FROM BEING HELD WITHOUT CHARGE
6th AMENDMENT RIGHT TO LEGAL REPRESENTATION
6th AMENDMENT RIGHT TO A SPEEDY AND PUBLIC TRIAL
8th AMENDMENT FREEDOM FROM CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENTS
http://www.nyclu.org/pdfs/eroding_liberty.pdf
Whatever happened to the popular saying 'make love, not war? Are most of the young American men chemically castrated from video games, hormones in meat, estrogen in drinking water, sedentary lifestyles and prescription drugs? Are we a nation of one-tentacled men that live vicariously through the exploits f athletic soldiers and pilots on the tv news?
Surf's up, Dick Cheney. Surf's up, John Bolton. As for you, Wolf Blitzer, maybe you could lead a news hour that does its utmost to contribute to a peaceful solution to the crises, after all you certainly had no taste for war during your college years when everyone else that couldn't afford college (or a life of surfing) was forced to line up and taste the chow at the Hotel Parris Island or the Fort Benning Lakeside Resort.
As a second generation career military person, I certainly would advise you to not lose any sleep over the accolades that Obama and the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party feel compelled to laud upon the US military. This is, of course, only guerrilla theater, designed to politically neutralize the GOPs historic political advantage they have gotten by siding with the overwhelming majority of Americans who support the military.
Let not your heart be troubled. In realityt, Obama and all of the Left still believe - to the bottom of the souls they don't personally believe they have - that the military is still the same bunch of warmongers and babykillers they were back in Vietnam, when the Left was cheering on the Viet Cong.
The truly amazing thing, if you ever go to visit Vietnam and talk to any of the officials who were on the Viet Cong's side during that war, even the ex-Viet Cong have far more REAL respect for their former military adversaries than the American Left ever has or will have.
President Obama took a political hit by allowing that tax cut to be renewed. He made sure the paychecks kept going out.
I really wish members of the military, past and present, would look at the actual voting records of Republicans and Democrats before they start claiming to know what a party is thinking.
There is NOTHING the matter with praising the competence, spirit, fellowship, and bravery of our men and women in uniform. It is also as American as apple pie to question how our politicians wield the power of the military. Separating our opinion of the politicians who use force as an instrument of diplomacy, who use force to replace diplomacy, from our opinion of the men and women at the tip of the spear is not only appropriate, but necessary.
I can see where you confuse this after this article, the professor follows an outdated and false view of war, (Joministic).
"War is the continuation of policy by other means" -Carl von Clausewitz
That is why "politicians" may use force, it is no different than diplomacy or economic sanctions really. A military is merely an instrument of power. True, in a Republic they are highly regarded (and as a 6 tour Vet - think they should be, ha), but a tool nontheless and will engage in War from the civilian leadership whether people like or dislikes military members.
Infact many people look down on someone who would agree to take part in such things.
Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.
But I think you are right - some people are meat eaters and others like you play the skin flute and eat nuts and twigs. It's normal to fear those higher on the food chain though.
No country except United States has ever used nuclear weapons in war, and that was possible only because of a temporary nuclear monopoly. Iran knows very well that a nuclear attack on Israel is suicide; it will result in complete annihilation of 5000 years of Persian civilization. Which politician would want that as a legacy? Iranian politicians love their power, life, booze, drugs and prostitutes as much as American politicians do.
The North Korean regime is customarily perceived as irrational or downright crazy and they've had nuclear weapons for some time. Threats about drowning South Korea in a sea of nuclear fire are frequent...but have they done anything? No.
"They believe they're an exceptional nation and should be the pre-eminent power in their region."
Well, why should the USA be the only nation allowed to believe this sort of thing? "Iranian exceptionalism". Nothing wrong with that on general principles.
And ever since Hiroshima the world has been worrying about the USA's nuclear weapons - of course! The USA has actually used them in war. Iran never has; nor has any other country. All the present Republican candidates would use them in war without a second thought (or even a first thought, bearing in mind the toxic garbage they talk).
Go figure.
Sending our young men and women off to wage needless wars in small countries on the other side of the globe has nothing whatsoever to do with maintaining our freedom.
I think our family has sufficiently "signed up" enough to voice an opinion.
but it should be
MINC - Military Industrial News Complex