Fish or Cut Bait
President Obama's speech on Afghanistan was everything we have a right to expect from one of his speeches. It was vapid, dishonest, puerile, and--most of all--confused. Speaking grandly of an exit strategy he never defined, he did not once address the more serious question of an entrance strategy. What possible reason did we ever have for going in to that awful place, except to kill people we don't like? I'll give Obama this: The man never disappoints; he always lives down to my lowest expectations.
So do the Republicans. While many peacenik Democrats were at best luke-warm or even critical, Lindsey Graham. John McCain, and even Karl Rove all jumped on Obama's war wagon, thumping their little tin drums for more blood. Their only complaint is that it has taken so long to fall 10,000 soldiers short of General McChrystal's request. To a man, the GOP'a leadership appears to think that General Petraeus should be left to run the war--and the world, if necessary.
Rumor and perhaps more than rumor has it that McChrystal actually wanted far more than 40,000 but agreed on that figure as a compromise. It is not enough, far from it, to insure victory (whatever that means.) If he does not have a clue as to why we went in, how can he possibly devise an exit strategy? So the pointless killing goes on.
Obama took weeks to do what we all knew he would do even before he began holding his never-ending sequence of meetings: Come up a day late and some thousands of soldiers short. Like every other bureaucrat and neighborhood organizer today, Obama thinks that talking and posturing actually accomplish something. He probably still believes in Headstart, Cap and Trade to reduce Global Warming, and the Tooth Fairy. At least the Tooth Fairy--or one of her reps--actually pays off, though, because of uncontrolled government spending, she has to increase her rates evry few years.
The meetings were entirely useless. What, exactly, does a man of his low caliber and lack of experience have to contribute to a discussion of any defense policy? He never served a day in the military, cannot apparently read a balance sheet, and has a knowledge of history that is only matched by his command of the English language. (Even his Chicago accent sounds more like a Dan Akroyd rip-off.) We need a constitutional amendment requiring military service of anyone in the federal chain of command, and combat duty, if it were possible, of any presidential candidate. Yes, that means my wife shall have to give up her dream of redecorating the White House to eliminate all the residual bad taste of the Kennedys and Clintons and Obamas, but we are prepared to make any sacrifice, pay any price, tell any lie if it will advance the cause of freedom and democracy.
Does President Obama have any desire to protect this country? His Department of Homeland Security is again proposing to amnesty millions of aliens who have illegally invaded our country, and his Secret Service cannot even keep a Pakistani gate-crasher out of the White House. Perhaps Tareq Salahi just wanted to discuss the theology of Jihad with a former student of the religion of peace.
Even the Left has lost patience with the Prince of Peace Prizes. Like LBJ, he ran on a peace platform against the War Party, only to deliver more carnage. What did we expect? Obama isn't the President, not really. He is like the actor (played by Richard Dreyfus) hired to stand in for the dictator in Moon Over Parador, except the ham actor did a better job of playing the part. The day he named Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff, he had sold his pacifist soul to the Zionist devil.
The problem with Obama and his administration is not that they are either pacifists or militarists but that they are as clueless as Robert McNamara or Jimmy Carter. My entire adult life I have watched American foreign policy and defense gurus lead us into debacle after debacle. Whether in Southeast Asia, Central America, or the Middle East, these people, time after time, rush headlong into a conflict without pausing to consider what their objectives are or what victory requires. Inevitably they think they can win on the cheap. The result is always the same: massive slaughter, a rise in anti-Americanism, and failure.
I am not now nor have ever been an isolationist. America is the greatest power in the world today, and any American government must play its cards, as world power, in the interest of the American people--as opposed to the interest of arms manufacturers or the Israel Lobby. Although the elaboration of any policy would require great knowledge and experience and considerable prudence, there are only two possible winning strategies: We can either mind our own business or build a great empire.
If, as it appears, our Yankee Puritan heritage prevents us from following the wise policy of benign neutrality advocated by George Washington, then let the megalomaniacs pursue their dreams of empire. But if they do, let them freely acknowledge what they are doing, without taking refuge in such cowardly evasions as wars to end wars, spreading democracy, or building an "imperium." They want an empire because it feels good to make everyone else cower and because there is so much money to be made. For most American politicians, greed and libido dominandi are about the noblest motives of which they are capable. Some just want access to Congressional pages and the chance to go on TV.
If they are Hell-bent on creating an empire, fine, let them do it or at least try to do it, but they shall need to raise taxes, reinstitute the draft, and be prepared for the terrible bloodshed that might slake their lust for blood. Some people don't actually want to be ruled by the United States and some of them even understand that all this talk about peace and democracy and human rights are simply code words for American imperialism. And some of them even are crazy enough to fight back, when they are attacked. If someone else is doing the aggression, we call the resisters, "freedom fighters," but when it is America stomping on them, they are terrorists.
If we are going to pretend to be Romans, let us act like Romans the Romans who were lenient in victory and offered the benefit of a better legal system and higher culture to most of their conquered peoples. But, if a Gallic chieftain raised a little rebellion, Julius Caesar and his successors were absolutely merciless in slaughtering and enslaving the rebels. It took several generations for the Gauls to calm down and give up their language and their bloodthirsty gods, but in the end they were probably better off--until the Germans invaded and Rome was too weak to repel the invaders. Empires bring in rewards, but the cost is high. If our own imperialists want to carve out an American province that stretches from Israel to Iraq to Afghanistan, let them do it, but not on the cheap. Imperial conquest requires much money and many lives.
The question is, therefore, whether to fish or cut Bait. I have been saying this same thing for 40 years. The insight flashed in my mind when I received a personal reply to a letter I'd sent my congressman, complaining about the extension of the Vietnam War to Cambodia. My congressman, L. Mendel Rivers, something of a friend of my father, was chairman of the House Armed Forces Committee and the biggest warhawk in the Congress. His reply shocked me at the time. He said, in essence, "I agree with you. If we are not determined to win this war, then we should not be fighting it." I disagreed with Mendel's militarism, but for all his many weaknesses he was a real American statesman. It was a dying breed then and an extinct species today. That is only one of many reasons why we cannot entrust even a brushfire war--much less a grand imperial strategy--to the American political class today. They will never learn how to fish, but they are too afraid of knives to cut bait.
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An excellent analysis of a dreadful policy and its absurd architect.
While I agree with much in this piece by Dr. Fleming, I was a bit surprised to read:
"We need a constitutional amendment requiring military service of anyone in the federal chain of command, and combat duty, if it were possible, of any presidential candidate."
That is stark and shows that it is indeed time to fish or cut bait. While no doubt republicans would denounce this idea (note the lowercase r), it has been decades since we have been a republic. We can argue whether it was Lincoln or Wilson or FDR who pulled the trigger; the fact remains that we are an empire and not a republic.
We have solid presidents who have had military backgrounds and we have also had awful presidents who have had military backgrounds (that proud grad of the Naval Academy Jimmy Carter comes to mind).
And woe to our Puritan heritage-woe to those who followed it. Let us name names. Woe to Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, Clay and Calhoun and Lowndes and Langdon Cheeves and Richard M. Johnson and Felix Grundy and the War Hawks, Wilson and McAdoo and Daniels, woe to Cordell Hull and LBJ and Rusk and....oh wait...maybe not every son of the South listened to the sagacious words of John Randolph. From Quantico to Norfolk to Camp Lejune to Ft. Bragg to Ft. Jackson to Paris Island to King's Bay to Mayport to Pensacola to Maxwell Air Force to Fort Gordon to Fort Hood to Fort McPherson to Fort McClellan to Fort Polk, the South takes its stand. The South takes its stand-for empire.
The question I am addressing is not how to get a good President, which is like searching for an honest politician, but what should be a minimal requirement for a commander-in-chief. The rest of the comment is irrelevant and ridiculous. No more of this foolishness, please.
My apologies for a lengthy aside on a minor comment that Dr. Fleming made. I had spent lunch reading Dr. Fleming's essay on the late Prof. Bradford in the book edited by Dr. Wilson and was struck by how Dr. Fleming thought that Prof. Bradford had given too much credit to some of the Yankee Federalists. I apologize again and appreciate the patience.
Dr. Fleming makes a strong point. It is time to fish or cut bait. Yet, like Dr. Fleming, I can not imagine that a decision will be made. As Dr. Fleming noted, that decision was not made 40 years ago. That decision will not be made now. We will not make the sacrifices needed to truly hold the Middle East in our imperial grasp yet we will not let go of our empire.
It is I who should apologize for snapping. I am eager to avoid the Reb v. Yankee argument, though I unthinkingly poured fuel on the fire. I do not mean, by the way, that Yankee Puritans were war-mongers--some were, some weren't--but that this habit of dividing the world into demons and angels has caused a good deal of violence. It is not a question of geography. Lincoln was a Southern cracker, but he had absorbed something of the Puritan world-view or at least spoke as if he had. With someone like honest Abe, one must beware of taking him too seriously, much less at his word.
Thank you for the gracious response. You are a gentleman as well as a scholar.
I enjoyed this rant, though I won't sign on to all of it.
Your thought experiment--what if we were openly imperialist? -- illustrates what folly it is to kill and be killed in the Afghanistans of the world.
If we did own up to being an empire, why in the world would we want Afghanistan? The Pashtuns have their own Pushtunwalla rules, don't take kindly to outsiders and have the combat skills to make that distaste stick. The place is as far from us as can be, has unfavorable supply routes, and few resources or products we can use.
If we were open empire-builders, wouldn't we want to rule the Anglosphere first? The people look like most of us, are more productive, either close to us on land or accessible by sea, there are some valuable resources, and if we weren't too heavy-handed might not chafe so much under our rule.
Then there's Eastern Siberia, underpopulated, resource-rich and not so far from Alaska. Might not the Russians rather share it with us than the Chinese? Think how many big-ticket contracts could be let building interstates in Kamchatka.
Afghanistan? Jake, it's Chinatown.
Rob was surprised to hear Dr. Fleming endorse an amendment to make the presidency eligible only for persons who had served previously as armed agents of the state. At first I was shocked, but now I'm not sure what to think. How much of this is satire and hyperbole? I don't know many isolationists that would take issue with following "the wise policy of benign neutrality advocated by George Washington", but then again I don't know any isolationists or any Washingtonian neutralists who wouldn't be horrified at the idea of an amendment ceding the presidency to the military. And how could one acquiesce to letting "the megalomaniacs pursue their dreams of empire" if "we cannot entrust even a brushfire war–much less a grand imperial strategy–to the American political class today"?
I don't understand, I suppose, what is being said here. Are we to abandon principle merely because we are convinced we will lose, or have lost? Or has the purpose of the piece gone entirely over my head?
I apologize if I am being obtuse.
The correct quote is "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."
TJF: "If, as it appears, our Yankee Puritan heritage prevents us from following the wise policy of benign neutrality advocated by George Washington...." "If we are going to pretend to be Romans, let us act like Romans...."
Regarding George Washington's contemporaries, I've always considered it noteworthy that Tacitus was one of their favorite authors. I, for one, only have to peruse the pages of Tacitus or Petronius to realize I do not want an empire, as both authors demonstrate the demoralizing and deracinating nature of empire. I know it's now the fashion to cast the empire in a more favorable light, but Tacitus and Petronius at least illustrate that the ancient mores maiorum cannot withstand the pressures of empire. With empire, comes a moral revolution.
A few of my favorite Tacitus quotes on the nature of empire:
"So corrupted indeed and debased was that age by sycophancy that not only the foremost citizens who were forced to save their grandeur by servility, but every ex-consul, most of the ex-praetors, and a host of inferior senators would rise in eager rivalry to propose shameful and preposterous motions. Tradition says that Tiberius as often as he left Senate-House used to exclaim in Greek, "How ready these men are to be slaves!"" -- Annals, 3.65
"[In writing these Annals] I have to present in succession the merciless biddings of a tyrant, incessant prosecutions, faithless friendships, the ruin of innocence, the same causes issuing the same results, and I am everywhere confronted by a wearisome monotony in my subject matter." -- Annals, 4.33
"Neither rank nor age nor previous high promotion hindered any one from practicing the [art of an actor] and even stooping to gestures and songs unfit for a man. Noble ladies too actually played disgusting parts and in the grove, with which Augustus had surrounded the lake for the naval fight, there were erected places for meeting and refreshment and every incentive to excess was offered for sale. Money too was distributed, which the respectable to spend under sheer compulsion and which the profligate gloried in squandering. Hence a rank growth of abominations and of all infamy. Never did a more filthy rabble add a worse licentiousness to our long corrupted morals." -- (On Nero's lute performance), Annals, 14.15
"As it was, the morality of their fathers, which had by degrees been forgotten, was utterly subverted by the introduction of a lax tone, so that all which could suffer or produce corruption was to be seen at Rome, and a degeneracy bred by foreign tastes was infecting the youth...." -- Annals, 14.20
Thanks for a rollicking good read, Dr. Fleming.
Re: "(Even his Chicago accent sounds more like a Dan Akroyd rip-off.)"
Since BHO first began making his unwelcome incursions into my consciousness a few years ago, I've fitfully attempted to identify what I heard in his accent. I've arrived at the conclusion that what I'm hearing is an unstable hybrid I've dubbed Transnational Educated Black English Strangulated Upper Midwestern Twang.
Can't you just hear (and see) those clamp-jawed prairie farmer ancestors trying to squelch the Jeremiah Wright-isms, themselves continually being subverted by the Angela Davis style of Black English he picked up on the left coast, all wafted along on little Sydney Poitieresque eddies of foreign airs?
But whatever it is, it ain't Chicagoese.
Whether you're a Chicagoan who calls our sweet home Chicaga or Chicawgo, none of us mistakes him for one of us.
It is disappointing to see Dr. Fleming take himself out of the running for president. With Republican candidates rapidly falling by the wayside- Jeb Bush because of his regrettable surname; Mike Huckabee due to his fetish of commuting the sentences of violent criminals-, the field of Republican contenders seems to have narrowed to a half-ignorant narcissist mother who abandoned her home for long stretches to the detriment of her family and a slick chameleon who speaks out of all nine sides of his mouth. Such is the state of the Party of Family Values that its premier candidates are a woman who put her job ahead of her family and a man who will say anything at anytime to gain an edge of political expediency even if it means outbidding the odious Ted Kennedy in his support for "gay" rights and abortion rights. There is a vacuum in modern politics for Dr. Fleming to fill, even if forced to run as a Republican.
Thanks for all the good comments. Mr. Jacobi is absolutely right. Obama's Chicago-speech is like Bush I's attemnpt to sound folksy by dropping the final -g in participles and gerunds. That's why I think he is doing an Akroyd imitation. As for limiting the presidency to those who have served, my point--at least half in jest--is not to surrender power to the military but to prevent draft-avoiders from sending men into battle. In a normal world, this would be unnecessary but for a ruler of a military empire never to have served even in peace-time is potentially disastrous.
Thanks to MAR for the Tacitus. Empires are worse for the ruling nation than for the ruled. Middle-Eastern Hellenized Syrians and Phoenicians did very well under the Empire. It was the old Roman stock that declined, as Juvenal points out so memorably in his complaint that the Orontes had flowed into the Tiber. Tacitus and Juvenal, though, are a bit extreme. Indeed, power in the Empire passed out of the hands of Roman Romans to Italian Romans and ultimately to Spain and the Balkans, but it was successful in recruiting vigorous soldiers and administrators. A civilization that can produce Tacitus and Juvenal-and the two Plinys, the Senecas, Martial and Lucan, and Marcus Aurelius--is not exactly the bottom. For us, Rome in the first two centuries of the Empire is a height we could never dream of aspiring to. My point, as you all understand, is not to praise empire per se--far from it--but to put on the table what an empire requires, and we as a nation do not have such stuff, whether it is the right stuff or the wrong stuff.
I certainly wouldn't presume to speak for Dr. Fleming but I'm guessing he was trying to make an emphatic point about the foolishness of having political leaders whose knowledge of military affairs is limited to MASH reruns. As a former Army officer I have always cringed at the eagerness of people who have never served -and would never serve or send their offspring to serve - in our armed forces but who can't wait to burnish their keyboard commando combat medals by sending our troops everywhere to fight. These people mistake actual military operations with computer shoot 'em up games.
I'm guessing everyone on this site knows we haven't the stomach for true empire building for a multiplicity of reasons, the unwillingness to make everyday personal sacrifices prominent among them. Leaving aside any hypocrisy involved, at least Churchill and FDR tried to inspire the citizenry with a sense of sacrifice in times of crisis, while our president in the wake of 9-11 urged us to hit the malls.
A great analysis of the speech! Those of us who couldn't stomach watching the entire charade and turned it off owe Dr. Fleming for his endurance as well.
For those who would enjoy an excellent imaginative and intellectual contrast between sentimentality and reality as understood by say, St Augustine,or any other Christian thinker with the word, Saint, before his name, one could do no better today than to get hold of a copy of Victor Hanson's recent talk delivered at Hillsdale College and contrast it to this little essay by Tom Fleming. We have become a sentimental people much more dishonest in our denial than say the Romans who sought it and enjoyed it earnestly in the real blood of gladiators spewing and spurting before their very eyes, whereas we stimulate ourselves with the idiotic cant of classicist such as David Hanson,the melodramatic presentation of political speeches based on lies, and a sappy understanding of what our grandparents were really like. No, Tom Fleming is probably not a saint, but he has a better chance at it than most who refuse to even begin to act like men. No wonder he was once described by David Frum as a "jumpy wrathful man." Of course he is, what serious man wouldn't be, given the times.
Though he used different words, Edward Luttwak once said(and he may say it often, I dont know)that 'democratic' societies aren't capable of empire for many reasons, thus America is not capable of empire. One of the main reasons he gave was that 'democratic' societies are not willing to make the sacrifices required.
So what would he, with his strategic mindset, recommend? Stay home and mind our own business. I believe he said that, when you take petroleum out of the picture, the entire Middle East, from Morocco to Pakistan, has a GDP less than that of Spain.
We really do need to find other sources for oil and substitutes for it, and let the Middle East rot just as it would have done all along had there been no demand for it's oil.
I guess it did go over my head. Sorry, Dr. Fleming.
@ Harry Colin. I often wonder about how many of these "keyboard commandoes" and "chairborne rangers" were the guys who quit boot camp because they thought it was too hard.Years later, they can't accept the fact that they quit boot camp not due to it being too hard, but that they were immature,and lazy . When the decision came up before them ,these guys decided to act like boys and not grown men and walk away from their oaths of enlistment and now it's haunting them. I am in no way criticizing the service of those who attempted to join but couldn't complete their basic training due to medical reasons or a tragic family situation. I'm also not questioning the patriotism of those who never served. I'm a proud Marine veteran, but I'm not a militarist.
I’m not sure limiting the Presidency to ex-military would necessarily help. Not everyone emerges from service with the insight of a Smedley Butler. Although I do think in some cases that military service makes people less likely to be cavalier about sending in the troops to solve every problem. Colin Powell for example. But for every Colin Powell there is a Ralph Peters. (One thing that is consistent is that ex-military and military brass will concern themselves more than the politicians with “force protection” which always means more troops. Rumsfeld wanted a “small footprint.” The generals wanted 300,000 troops.)
When I was in the military my feeling was that the majority of my colleagues felt like Iraq, Afghanistan, and the GWOT were necessary and proper. The military breeds a certain “company man” mindset. I also think people have an emotional need to feel like they are contributing to something important. No one wants to feel like they are enduring hardship and facing danger for no good reason.
I would, however, wholeheartedly support a constitutional amendment limiting think tank foreign policy pontification to those who have previously served. Then military “experts” like Mr. and Mrs. Kagan would have to find productive employment.
Mr Phillips@18 "I would, however, wholeheartedly support a constitutional amendment limiting think tank foreign policy pontification to those who have previously served."
OH, Happy Chance!!!! When I was in the Marine Corps(many years ago) I read Kagan's book, "The Mask of Command," where he actually outlined why he believed computer nerds and bean counters should become the future leaders and directors of the modern military. I was too naive at the time to realize that think tanks like PNAC and Committees for Public Safety was really what he had in mind.
It is for the marines to do or die and for Bill Kristol to tell them why.
Apparently isolationism among Americans is now at its highest level in 40 years:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1203/p02s16-usfp.html
MAR, thanks for the link. This is good news. I'm not overly optimistic about the fate of our Republic, but on this issue things are trending our way. See my comment #10 on the "Hamlet as War President" thread.
Brilliant!
Mr. Leaberry,
Excellent news. Thank you for posting the link.
Mr. Fleming is not an isolationist, so he says, but anyone who still opposes bases in Europe (opposes violating the principles of the Monroe Doctrine) and/or believes in limiting U.S. sphere of influence to our hemisphere, is bound to be called an isolationist, (whether or not he advocates building an Empire therein).
This is because of the nature of the ruling class writ large; such an Empire would not benefit Israel.
As it happens, I've been re-reading Voegelin's _New Science of Politics_. So Dr Fleming's remark that "Obama thinks that talking and posturing actually accomplish something" reminded me of what Voegelin says in his last chapter about the gnostic identification of dream and reality, and about the consequent failure to properly cultivate the fundamental moral virtue of prudentia:
"In the Gnostic dream world, on the other hand, nonrecognition of reality is the first principle. As a consequence, types of action which in the real world would be considered as morally insane because of the real effects which they have will be considered moral because they intended an entirely different effect. The gap between intended and real effect will be imputed not to the Gnostic immorality of ignoring the structure of reality but to the immorality of some other person or society that does not behave as it should according to the dream conception of cause and effect."
A bit further on, Voegelin continues:
"Gnostic societies and their leaders will recognize dangers to their existence when they develop, but such dangers will not be met by appropriate actions in the world of reality. They will rather be met by magic operations in the dream world, such as disapproval, moral condemnation, declarations of intention, resolutions, appeals to the opinion of mankind, branding of enemies as aggressors, outlawing of war, propaganda for world peace and world government, etc."
To which list may now be added going through the motions that simulate consultation and careful deliberation, as if mere attention to such form validates the eventual decision.
CorkyAgain @ 26
I just re-read Voegelin's Modernity without Restrain, Volume 5, of his collected works. There, he repeats the theme which you have outlined. I also just finished a Mars Hill Audio discussion of the late Philip Rieff's Triumph of the Therapeutic (the anti-culture), with a theme similar to that of Voegelin if in another key. Dr. Fleming's piece lays bare the same issues in clear and concise fashion based on his analysis of Obama's speech, both of its content and context.
I'm an isolationist. No apologies.
What possible reason did we ever have for going in to that awful place?
To protect the precious opium crop of course. You know it's close to the truth when senior sergeants tell privates that this is the case.
Whether or not to reinstate the draft is one of those Catch-22 problems that has intrigued me almost from the day the draft shut down. It didn't take a Sun Tzu to realize some of the perils of shifting to a military not drawn from the general population, but over the decades, some points have emerged as more salient than others.
If you take in people who don't want to be there, you risk having a poorly motivated force. If you never take in anyone who doesn't want to be there, you deprive your forces of the reality check of contact with the wider population, and vice-versa. The people lose their understanding of war, and their ability to appreciate the military's sacrifices; the military loses its understanding of the complexities civil life, and its sympathy for civilians' love of comfort.
I think it no coincidence that the abolition of the draft happened at roughly the same time as the abolishment of prohibitions on abortion. By rejecting any duty of military service, the people liberated themselves from the need to engage in any morally serious way in decisions of war and peace, just as they were liberating themselves from any need to take seriously the consequences of sexual intercourse.
Politicians fear, or say they fear, the wrath of the voters should they propose reinstating the draft. But of course, by absolving the people from service in the armed forces, they deprive the people of much of their political influence and most of their moral suasion regarding questions of war and peace. Which, it seems, suits everyone just fine.
Dr. Fleming @13: "For us, Rome in the first two centuries of the Empire is a height we could never dream of aspiring to."
Maybe so, but the Romans didn't have iPods.
Seriously, the Empire is bankrupt. Unemployment is above 20% (the real number, as Shadowstats reports). And it's just going to get worse. The Bush Depression is digging in and will last at least another half decade. Bushflation is running rampant, devaluing the dollar to worthlessness. Even children of 10 will spend their whole lives paying off the debt run up by Bush's socialism and Bush's wars.
The Bush regime is one that will always live in infamy.
Obama is no different than most business leaders today. Few, if any, know their business from the bottom up and while most can read a balance sheet they do not have the practical experience to place the pieces together.
I can hardly think of a single leader at any high level that has actually skint their knuckles working. The distance from physical labor is sure enough proof that a person is lacking in virtue since a man physically tired hasn't much time to plot or plan trouble much less cause it.
Old time North Carolina Protestant values, they are nearly as dead as all the old mills round those parts.
As for empires, it'll all come down with a whimper.
McCallum
worry not. within the decade, as mr seiler predicts, america (and europe) will be so broke that each becomes, as dr willson wishes, isolationist. if a bankrupt america truly withdraws from global meddling, in the middle east and elsewhere, it will be no more hated than the swiss who mind their business(es). with no real foreign threats born of american meddling, and no phony foreign threats to be concocted into plausibility by the orwellian state, you chaps can enter the soul-searching process and perhaps help america rediscover its lost values. problem solved.
In disclaiming "isolationism" I obviously intended to disclaim the caricature invented by imperialists. Additionally, I dislike all isms and ologys. There is no other policy possible but a pragmatic one and for moral people it must be a principled pragmatism. If we are attacked, we must fight back even if we deserved to be attacked. If we make an alliance we must either fulfill the terms of the alliance or break it off. The Romans did many foolish and bad things, but the principles on which they operated are the basis of just war theory. I do not say they never violated their principles but when they did, they pretended or even believed they were behaving justly. The most patriotic Roman of the First Century BV was the younger Cato, and he proposed turning Caesar over to the Germans because he had unjustifiably attacked a Roman ally. I do not know who was right in that instance--we really only have Caesar's tendentious account--but if Cato was right on the facts, then he was right to apply a good Roman principle. We, by contrast, act on the principles of opportunism, bad faith, and the reliance on superior technology that almost resembles cowardice.
One hundred years ago the greatest power of the world was the British Empire. It ruled the waves with hundreds of warships, ran much of Asia and Africa, and London was the banking center of the world. Two world wars and a mountain of debt destroyed that empire within half the lifespan of the British Empire's greatest proponent, Winston Churchill.
Heavily indebted America, with troops stationed throughout the world and entering expensive wars of choice, will have to adopt a foreign policy that reflects its actual fiscal status. Putting more strain on the hyperactive and aggressive foreign policies of the neo-conservatives are unfunded liabilities like Social Security and Medicare. Neo-conservatives are so self-delusional that they don't believe in fiscal limits and condemn those who recognize fiscal limits as "isolationists". But of course they are both dishonest and foolish.
I probably lack analytical depth, but in the pre-cyber past in the print Chronicles, I read scores of pages of
Mr. Fleming's cogent, detailed critique of corrupt American socio-political culture which I, without much effort, could easily synchronize with a perspective resembling that of Fleming's now rejected "Lew Rockwellite" implied 'DON'T FIGHT BACK' position.
Just to cite one hypothetical example, a patriotic military volunteer could certainly, from a MORAL perspective, not only have refused to serve in Iraq (which did not attack us but was attacked under false premises) but even in Afghanistan, if that soldier, for example, adhered to Ron Paul's blowback argument. Tom might hold that individual application is different than group, but even so, it seems to me his above commment would have excluded his participation in a "immoral" theoretical "libertarian/isolationist' revolution commencing circa 9/12/2001.
We need to reinstate the Draft. Limit the deferments to exceptional circumstances, to avoid a re-run of the Vietnam era. A truly fair and impartial draft would infuse the military with bright, talented people of all ages and walks of life.
Today's Army is burdened by low recruiting standards, and the so-called "volunteers" are really little more than mercenaries, or victims of economic circumstance. I belong to an elite, well known unit, and still this is the case.
Some (our Generals and politicians) argue that a Draft Army would be poorly disciplined and manned by unwilling, sullen soldiers. I disagree. By limiting time in service to 2 years (with no back-end Reserve obligation) and selecting well grounded individuals who are not only physically but MENTALLY healthy I believe that the Army would emerge with a proud, well disciplined cadre. Most men, at some point in their lives, feel drawn to military service. I imagine that most would not object to serving 2 years, only one of which would potentially be spent overseas.
Reinstate discipline, and let the Non-Commissioned Officers discipline their soldiers. Today's Army too much resembles a day-care service for society's rejects rather than a committed, disciplined machine in which the participants understand that suffering, deprivation and sacrifice are part of the deal. Do not allow women to serve in any capacity overseas. Discharge pregnant soldiers immediately and without penalty. Banish political correctness and the tenets of "Equal opportunity." These innane policies, modeled after our sick and broken civilian system, only serve to demoralize thinkers. They create a system in which leaders cannot act decisively for fear of reprisal. The Army, of all entities, need not, indeed cannot be politically correct, and still function effectively.
Finally, the volunteer Army breeds complacence, careerism and a stultifying indolence and mediocrity that has been lampooned by much more polished writers than myself. Officers and NCO's make decisions based upon their next OER, rather than what is right for their units and soldiers. A draft army would be filled with free-thinking, outspoken, and creative soldiers. Men who would not be afraid to speak out when others act stupidly.
These men would also have the courage to speak out against destructive policies. COL David Hackworth, perhaps America's most legendary combat soldier, realized the futility of the War in Vietnam. In 1971, he spoke out against the war and was subsequently cashiered.
We need more soldiers like Dave Hackworth. Life in the Army should model "From Here to Eternity" (the 1953 version) rather than a sordid reality TV show.
As I read the above, I realized that I might be guilty of hypocrisy and moral cowardice by blasting the Service from an anonymous perch.
However, as I am an active duty Officer with a few years left in the machine, discretion in my case truly is the better part of valor.
I always enjoy the discussions here!
To Mr. Hoop, the question is not what this or that person has ever thought or said but what is true or at least consistent with a tradition. If I have ever written as a pacifist--which I do not believe I have--I apologize for the sloppiness and imprecision of my writing. In opposing every war of my adult life, from Vietnam to Iraq, I have never denied either the necessity of war or the obligations of citizens. As a boy, I was impressed by Thoreau's arguments for civil disobedience, but reading what Plato's Socrates had to say on civil disobedience, I soon wised up. The reason I do not respect the opinions of libertarian PR agents is not that I do not necessarily agree with this or that view on policy but because their basic philosophy is unsound and inconsistent both with Christianity and with any wholesome traditional folk wisdom but also because I do not regard them as honest men.
More on conscription, and whether its resumption would be a net gain:
Some advantages which might arise from requiring all able bodied men to undergo military service, or at least be subject to it, could include a lessening of several tendencies: to war-mongering on the part of politicians (as in the example of Eisenhower); to naivete and malleability on the part of electorates regarding war; and to the mutual alienation, mistrust, misunderstanding and disrespect that grows between a population with no military experience and its professional military. The expectation would be that the whole electorate, having its own children at stake, would therefore more closely scrutinize whatever is put before it as a casus belli, and would also experience an increase in its influence over the decision to go to war. One could hope it would be harder for officials to put one over on such people.
Prior military service is no guarantee of probity, though. Truman showed weakness in the 1949 Berlin Crisis, when we still had a monopoly on nuclear power, and through this and diplomatic bungling left the door open for the Communists to attack Korea, according to general Lucius Clay and others. Jimmy Carter likewise under-reacted to the Iranians.
Then there's war-hero JFK, after backing down where he should have stepped up, in Cuber and Berlin, bamboozling a war-wise population heavily salted with WW 2 and Korea vets into Viet Nam. Perhaps we can chalk his case up to the balmy, unprecedented optimism of the time in the first place, his inordinate charm in the second, and then to the possibility that getting run over by a heavy cruiser and becoming dependent on pain-killers, bottled and two-legged, could impair one's judgement at critical junctures.
Our two most disastrous (in terms of unintended consequences) previous wars, the War Against Southern Secession and the First World War, were manufactured, marketed and sold by presidents who had not been in combat, although Lincoln was supposedly deeply affected by some after-battle cleanup work performed during his service in the Blackhawk War. Apparently not deeply enough. Admittedly, even if the populations of 1860 or 1917 had been universally exposed to previous military service, few then could have imagined the abattoir into which they were about to wade, but might not such experience have meant it would have taken more provocation than it did to push them into the war-frenzy they reached? The truth, obviously, is that no one factor in a man's background can predict with what virtue he will settle questions of war and peace; and a people's response to a crisis is shaped by an even larger constellation of influences.
Then, too, as Dr. Fleming noted, one way a draft-expanded military could be used is to go all out to secure an old fashioned Roman style empire. A government that includes a secretary of state - a female and a Democrat, no less! - capable of saying "what's the use of having this great military if you don't use it?" is already pretty comfortable with this policy; it just lacks those famous "boots on the ground", and the honesty to admit it. No doubt there'd be no shortage of young men who'd compete for the honor of fighting under the personal banner of the eponymous legion of the Ice Xenia. Preees ENT harPOONS!!
Remember this: the first conquest an Empire makes is of its own people.
@40Anonymous:
Can't see anything cowardly or hypocritical in your post. I'll have a comment tomorrow.
@43 Mark Schaeber:
A good point, but the wonder of it, that I was perhaps clumsily reaching for, is that we seem already to have suffered conquest by our government, while receiving none or only a few of the benefits of empire.
@ 45 Gilbert Jacobi:
That would depend on who the alleged "beneficiaries" are. When I referred to the first conquest, I was referring to the rise of what John Lukacs called "the provider State". That is to say, the various "entitlement" programs, particularly Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security. Just as in any other Ponzi scheme, the first few generations of beneficiaries (in this case, those born before 1960) are able to rake off far more than they paid in. Milton Friedman ran an article in the Wall Street Journal describing this a few years back.
In addition, "beneficiaries" can, in this area, also include the large corporations that would be paid billions under this bill, as well as the parasite-classes that would get directly expanded benefits. SocSec and Medicare recipients especially have benefited from this domestic Empire, and would be loath to see those benefits stop. The average commoner/taxpayer, on the other hand, would only get the bill.
The reason why I bring this up in this context is that we know that Our Peerless Leader/The Coryphaeus of the Peoples/His Most Sincere Eloquency is making short shrift of the regime's Afghan adventure, but it is just as important to know why. I think that his speech was intended to partially deflect attention from this failed war, attention that would otherwise distract him from his efforts to the expansion of the central government via health-care "reform". Keep Afghanistan from blowing up (and blowing its way onto the front pages) just long enough for him and his cronies to get health-chare "reform" passed and begin the process of letting the various big interest groups invested in it. If that happens, he will have permanently entrenched the State as the dominant, if not overwhelming, force in the economy, and Imperialization---or perhaps "Communization" would be a better term---of the USA would be complete. The political and economic elites currently running (infesting ?) the Throne City, including Mr. Obama and his government/large-business allies, would, I submit, like nothing better than to have that happen.
Mr. Obama's speech was a magician's trick; he was trying to distract his audience while he tries to stash a rabbit in his hat for pulling out later.
Best not to fall for it. Too much is at stake in that particular game.
Back to the draft.
I took Dr. Fleming's reference to conscription like his reference to requiring military service to be elected president. That is, as irony; that he was suggesting he believes the odds rather long that we in the US will reinstitute a draft, but that, far more likely, we'll muddle along, trying to do empire on the cheap, refusing to admit it, and in the end not retreating from it with a bang but with a whimper.
So I wonder if he would agree with the prediction of Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld that, for the foreseeable future, there will not be another draft in Western nation-states --this for a number of reasons: the end, thanks in large part to nuclear weapons, of the era of total war; the waning of nationalism, the decline of the state.
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"Finally, the most obvious sign of people's feelings toward the state has been their declining willingness to fight on its behalf, with the result that in one country after another conscription has been brought to an end...
"Once governments had abolished the draft they found, often to their chagrin, that it could not be restored...."
Creveld, The Rise and Decline of the State. (Elsewhere he argues that one of the reasons young people decline to fight for the state is the simple fact that the state has proven less and less able to protect the people; e.g. why fight for the state in Iraq when your sister is in danger just going for a carton of milk back in your hometown?)
This is the Martin van Creveld who once threatened the West that if EU countries continued to oppose Israeli interests, Israel would not hesitate to launch a nuclear strike against a European capital, such as Rome. Note the selection of the target, please, because Italy is not among the more strident critics of Italy. Like most big-picture theoreticians, he gets most things wrong most of the time. The reason we ended the draft in the US was to stop the protests. EU countries do not need conscription because 1) there is no national enemy that threatens them and 2) they have us to do their fighting for them.
No one in his right mind has ever fought for "the state," that is for a government apparatus whose members exercise power on their own behalf. Van Creveld once wrote a rotten book on the origin of the state, and the bad effects of his thinking turn up here. He is basically an Israeli nationalist, not a patriot, that is he is a proponent of an ever-expanding Israeli Empire. Zionism may not be Nazism, as is often alleged, but Nazism and Zionism are both radical forms of expansive nationalism.
Ockham's razor cuts clean, but sometimes too clean. For example, is it ALWAYS true that empires first conquer their own people? This is doubtful in the case of Rome and the opposite is true in the case of the Athenian Empire, whose construction was coterminous with Pericles' program of giving ordinary and poor Athenians vastly more power than they had ever had in the past. Now, of course, one can say that Pericles was dishing the hoplites and the knights, but then the discussion becomes purely a semantic quibble. What is empire? What is liberty?
To build a nationalist empire, the masters--whether they know it or not--would require a draft and an ambitious program to rebuild the commitment of citizens or subjects to the state. The volunteers are a selection of decent patriotic kids and scum that cannot get a decent job except by working for the government. You would get a much better class of cannon-fodder, if all the kids going to college had to do two years of military service and were available for imperial expeditions for 20 years. Unfortunately, most of the masters are deeply infected with one or another variety of sentimental liberalism, which undermines all their projects. Give Rumsfeld and Cheney this much: They knew what they wanted and were ruthless enough to go after it by any means. Neither, however, was especially competent. Rumsfeld, in particular, had an obsession with applying business models to the military, which, if implemented, would have a disastrous effect on morale. His famous quip that we were fighting the Iraq War "out of stock"--and it would thus cost us nothing--should go down in history as the real equivalent of the joke, "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"
I always have this fantasy that the GOP will be so bereft of candidates that they will turn to a peace candidate in face of an enmired LBJ-esque candidate (read now: Obama). Could Congressman Walter Jones from North Carolina, an ex-Democrat from a long line of Democrats, bet the guy? He will be 69-years old in 2012: http://jcrao.freeshell.org/Americanism With Huckabee in Willie Horton land and Sarah Palin in bookland, my racing sheet says "scratch" to both. Who else?
Oops: Here's Jones' bio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_B._Jones