‹ Overnight, the Population of Pachyderms Tripled •
As I have written about over and over and over again, the purpose of the military should be to defend the country. That’s it. One would think that the Secretary of Defense would know that. Yet, in a recent speech before the Association of the United States Army, Robert Gates articulated the following role for the U.S. military:
“Army soldiers can expect to be tasked with reviving public services, rebuilding infrastructure and promoting good governance. All these so-called nontraditional capabilities have moved into the mainstream of military thinking, planning, and strategy—where they must stay.”
That is, anything but do what the military should do.
Golly, what ‘Grinder’ Gates is saying sounds like martial law. What Gates is saying sounds like the end of American democracy. Wait a minute, American democracy IS dead. Oh well, never mind.
Here’s a thought. I won’t speculate as to the depth and origins of Cindy Sheehan’s motivations. I don’t know her. From what I read, it seems that she rides on the coat tails of her son’s sacrifice. It disheartened me to read her declaration that her son “really did die for nothing”. How good of her to decide what her son died for years after the event. Despite the fact that he was a young man who decided to serve his country and live, for a short time, in service to his country and accept the missions he was tasked with. And trust me…that is what he did. He decided. It wasn’t a mischievous dog in a corner people can all point the finger at. I doubt Cindy told him “there will be no food on the table for you unless you join the military, young man”. When it all comes down to it, in the last moments of his life, those last few moments should belong to him. Not to his mother. I think it says negative volumes about her character, however, that she would take that and try and make it her own. As a military member I reject the kind of support you all seem to offer. Let us win thats what I ask. Let us achieve stability and security. Let us guide a young democracy in it’s first steps. Yes, we need to rebuild a whole country’s infrastructure. Yes, that will probably involve putting focus on oil. But what else would be appropriate to focus on in that country? Tourism? I know many Iraqis, do any of you? I have learned the arabic language to a High School level of proficiency in order to communicate better with the people that I encounter over there. Does waiving a “Hate Bush” sign equal in measure to that? I have participated in many successful efforts to rebuild the country of Iraq. I rebuilt athletic facilities and schools, delivered food to needy Iraqis for Ramadan, and paid city laborers their weekly wages. Have any of you? It is not all war and violence, gaining terrain or attacking objectives, though there have been those times they have been minimal in my extensive time spent there. I have met Islamic Extremists inside Iraq that need to be stopped, some with the showing of our good will and others with bullets. Make no mistake, many of these people have bullets ready to go for any non-muslim Infidel whether you opposed the war in Iraq or not. Don’t believe me? Walk up to a Shi’ite and make fun of a martyr named Ali and see what happens. Go try and have a gay rights parade in Iran or Syria. Make sure you take a bodyguard. Most of the anti-war movement in my opinion seems to come from old hippies who long for the 60s and 70s or from young people who encountered the hippie virus from parents or an influential guidance counselor. It’s misguided and spastic. The spoilled child to watch. If you all seriously think this kind of behavior gives me as a military member “support” please wake up. You all remind me of the guy who went to the South American Rain Forest to live in a tree for a year to save it from deforestation. Think of all the trees he could have been planting in that year.
There’s no reason for us to be there and the war was pitched on lies. We have a 9.1 Trillion dollar debt and a good amount of it China holds. These so called al-qaeda extremists that you speak of that are in Iraq weren’t there before. They are coming almost exclusively from Saudia Arabia which we suport financially. Please stop supporing wars based on lies and become a true American. Thanks.
“When it all comes down to it, in the last moments of his life, those last few moments should belong to him. Not to his mother.”
Sounds like you are claiming them. According to his mother, Casey Sheehan was disillusioned with the Iraq “mission” and didn’t consider himself to be “serving his country” in any useful sense, having long seen through the lies you cling to, Mr Hamza.
hamza,
How is the weather it Gitmo?
Hamza,
It is nice that you got involved in rebuilding Iraq. It would have been far better for Iraq had your salary gone to a dozen Iraqis to do the job themselves. But that would work against our real purpose for attacking Iraq, which was to destroy the country totally and emasculate it. We did this out of revenge for 9/11, racist hatred of Arabs (picked up from our Zionist friends), and a selfish desire to control their oil.
And don’t fool yourself about origin of anti-war types such as myself. I was not a “hippie” back during Viet-Nam, I was a hawk thinking that we were valiantly defending South Viet-Nam. My Lai woke me up to the evil we were doing. This Iraq War has been just one big My Lai.
Ha, ha Ha ha ha! Hamza, I don’t know you but you have nice Muslim name.Is that your real one or one that you have used to convince the world that you are really concerned about democracy in Iraq.
George Kurian is my real name and I am from India. I know Iraqis through my connection with them in other countries in the Middle East to which they have fled. One of them, a doctor, had this to say. “I myself hated Saddam but I prefer Saddam to the occupying American forces and their phony democracy”.I never expected an Iraqi to prefer Saddam over any one else.
Your stated knowledge of Arabic is not enough of an argument to prove to me or any of my countrymen - neutral observers, if any - that the USA is in Iraq because of WMDs or Al Qaida (both lies died out long ago for lack of oxygen!) or for democracy! Democracy , my left foot. If you are so keen on Democracy why don’t you take those fledgling steps to help democracy in Arabia, which by the way has become the family property of the Sauds!! We all know that you are in Iraq for the oil. Even your big economist Alan Greenspan said so, albeit inadvertently. So, as you Americans say it - “Go tell that to the marines”.
As regards gay pride parades, let the damn people in those countries decide whether they want them or not. Don’t push your values on them. It’s their country , see>
Yes, its “their country” and they are free to torture and kill gay people and stone women to death for sexual crimes and give people lashes for insulting their peaceful Islamic religion. And we just should sit back and accept that like the good little moral relativists that we are.
We should mind our own business. Nobody appointed the United States the Charles Bronson of the world. Are YOU PERSONALLY PREPARED TO RISK GETTING KILLED to effect change or are you just another loudmouth chickenhawk who wants someone else to pay the price in blood so you can feel good about yourself?
Tim, please don’t get your history lessons from your outdated textbooks and Fox News. Please come and see these “uncivilised” peoples for yourself. When Europe was persecuting its Jews and gouging out their eyes, the Jews fled to the safety of the Caliphate in Istanbul. Look at Christian Germany sending Jews to the gas chambers. Look at Christian America hanging Blacks because they made small trespasses like choosing the wrong tree to stand under. Look at Christian South Africa’s praxtice of apartheid and the response of the “uncivilsed” blacks. Example the TRuth comission. White Christian superiority will have much to answer for when its so called civilised mask is pulled off.
Further more gay folk have probably committed suicide in America than were killed in the streets of Baghdad or Tehran. 20,000 Jews live in Iran and they refuse to to go to Israel despite inducements. Why?
Brother, go see the real situation in these countries instead of naking imaginary insinuations.
Pictures and text regarding the “uncivilized” people skiing and celebrating Christmas in Iran.
Also check out the other pictures in that series.
The one and only way for people like Tim to portray them as evil and uncivilized is to ignore the real people and concentrate on isolated instances of repression and governments gone mad. As has been demonstrated repeatedly, the same can be done for America with far more and worse cases, but true blue nationalist hypocrites refuse to see both sides of any issue.
Why is it that people who run to the defense of Islamo-Fascist regimes like Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia etc, all do so from the comfort of some other country, almost always the United States or some other Western nation that follows the English Common Laws and has a basic respect for human liberty?
I am waiting to hear from someone this list, ANYONE, who is currently living in one of these God forsaken countries, to come and defend them. It is so easy to defend these countries from the safety of the United States or Canada or some Western nation. But if you really think that the United States and the West is “just as bad” why do you live here? You think Sudan or Iran are just as civilized as Great Britain or France? So why do you live in Western nations? Why not go forth and live with the barbarians whom you defend to no end? I will keep asking that question until I get a satisfactory answer. So far no one has been able to provide one.
This is the part that screams for comment:
“Yes, we need to rebuild a whole country’s infrastructure. Yes, that will probably involve putting focus on oil. But what else would be appropriate to focus on in that country?”
Ask yourself the question, why do we need to rebuild a whole country’s infrastructure? Answer: Because the current administration choose to dismantle it. Why whould this involve putting a focus on oil? Answer: Because certain U.S. interests need to be satisfied for their investment in the current administration. What else would be appropriate to focus on in that country? Answer: Education and humanitarian aid to those who suffer because of U.S. military aggression, as well as bringing to justice those U.S. war criminals who initiated the aggression.
Hamza,
Good for you! You are a good man. God bless you!
Pardon me for reprimanding you, but Cindy Sheehan’s “motivation” was the pointless, senseless death of her young son in an illegal, unjust and unneccesarry war.
Are you out of your f#$@% mind? How dare you attack a real patriot like Cindy Sheehan who has suffered real losses.
Your country passed the barrier to Fascism about 5 years ago and you are now living in a police state that allows torture, attacks unarmed countries,kills millions of people in the name of spreading democracy and freedom,breaks the Geneva Conventions,and is rapidly creating a regime unlike any that I could have imagined growing up in the 60’s.
What we need is a return of the government to the people , for the people and by the people. Good luck.
vernon o’neill speaks the god awful truth. Love you Cindy. So sorry for your loss of Casey. Yes, good luck to the rest of us, to what’s left of the USA.
I was in the Military in the ’60s,I was taught the spirit
of the bayonet,and reminded to keep a ribbon of steel in front of me.The US Army went into Iraq in violation of Article VI of the US Constitution,they have been there longer than WWII.If you want to know what an Army is all about you should read Gen.Patton’s speech to his men on the day before D-day.In that conflict we bombed Germany into the stone ages,and we helped rebuild it.It was done by an ex-military man Gen.Marshall and the US State Dept.I’m glad you are going to school to learn language, but one thing you should have learned about American culture is when a mother looses a son, you give her comfort.If you don’t like what she says;look at your shoes troop.
As a veteran I gotta tell you the US military doesn’t need people like you. You took an oath that you should obviously reread! That oath IS anti-war. No soldier who ISN’T anti-war is worth a damn, never has been and never will be. And your incompetent ideas about the people who make up the anti-war movement is totally ridiculous. Thank God that there are real soldiers, marines, sailors and airman out there who DO understand the US Constitution and the proper use of warfare. The Iraq occupation is totally illegal by US law and is nothing more then the use of US armed forces as mercenaries for private corporations. Anyone who isn’t against it isn’t much of an American. And that’s why 70+% of the American people ARE anti-war in the current situation, because they love their country. You speak of Iraqis who don’t like their culture ridiculed, did it ever occur to you that Americans are the same? You’ve ridiculed the Constitution and the writers of that Constitution in your comments and I don’t like it! Please uphold your oath and defend the Constitution instead of the deadbeat bush and the corporations that he’s a pawn of.
As a 60 year old citizen of the U.S. who lived through the multiple wars of my lifetime, while refusing to participate, it is apparent that you have no ability to utilize the rational part of your brain. First, by attacking Iraq without justification we are involved in a criminal war. Second, criticizing Cindy Sheehan is just plain MEAN. She lost a son who was involved in the criminal enterprise, and it must be extremely depressing to comprehend how he was used. Third, you speak of the right wing extremist Islamists in Iran. Please understand that it is the U.S. which overthrew the secular regime in Iraq and installed these extremists. It is no different than our prior support of the Taliban and bin Laden in Afghanistan. We align ourselves with whatever criminal may be convenient to our global economic interests without any consideration of morality or principles. If your child is in the military and involved in Iraq or Afghanistan he is a criminal accomplice of the sociopathic and Zionist manipulated Bush administration. This is neither more nor less than factual. Ignorance is no excuse. My country, right or wrong? Support the troops, no matter what criminal actions may be involved? Stupid. Immoral. Criminal. Senseless. In the long term, this country has sustained what may be irreversible damage.
Maybe she should have told him: “Do what your concience tells you to do regardless of what the brainless might say. Nationalism is probably one of the scourges of mankind. Look at what your government and country stands for now. American armed forces are committing atrocities in Iraq and other parts of the world. Do you want to be part of it? The military has a code of honor, it is true, but this government has twisted it all.”
“Let us win thats what I ask”
Hadn’t we already “won” once already?
How will YOU know that you/we have “won” again? How we WE back at home know when this is truly achieved - and who can WE trust to tell us the truth?
How long do you propose that we allow what President Dwight Eisenhower wisely- and rightfully called the “Military-Industrial Complex” to achieve what you call a “win”?
And finally, what do you consider the maximum acceptable cost for the “win” of which you speak? If- and when that point is reached, and the “win” is still out of our grasp, will you be willing to admit it?
Never minding the facts that :
1. Illegal war based on forged documents and intelligence
2. No WMD’s they claimed they knew where they were
3. American Soldiers ordered to torture prisoners at Guantanamo and other bases ( against the Geneva Conventions Laws to which we are a member ).
4. Illegal/ secret prisons ( against Geneva Conventions and other international treaties we are members of )
5. Spying on Americans
6. Suspending Habeas Corpus-right that an accused person detained, have the right to a quick and speedy trial/ legality of detention ( Guantanamo etc. )
7. Jobs going overseas
8. Unsecured boarders, six years after 9/11….they are still unsecured
9. Billions of tax payers dollars a month being spent on TWO loosing battles, Afghanistan and Iraq….WITH NO END IN SIGHT AND NO PLANS !
10. Afghanistan has the largest Opium crop ever, since we have taken over the failing Democracy.
11. The top 1% of millionaires earned record profits again this quarter, while the middle class is disappearing !
12. Failure to adequately respond to national emergencies domestically, Katrina.
13. Outing CIA agents and protecting the guilty Scooter Libby from going to prison.
14. Over 3,000 of my fellow soldiers HONORABLY have died….based on dishonorable lies to get us into the war.
15. SIX YEARS LATER AND…….WHERE THE H3LL IS OSAMA ! OH…..DUBYA SAID HE DOESN’T REALLY CARE WHERE HE IS !!!!!!!
Now the skin head recruiters and other radicals can refer to these FACTS however they choose but the bottom line is….PEOPLE HAVE TO DO THEIR OWN RESEARCH ! RUSH, HANNITY AND ANY OTHER TALKING LIAR CAN’T AND SHOULDN’T BE ABLE TO TELL YOU WHAT TO THINK!
STOP BEING LAZY, DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH AND DEVELOP FACTS THAT PROTECT AMERICA NOT YOUR POLITICAL PARTY !
FOR ALL WHITE MEN THAT FEEL, OR HAVE BEEN TOLD THERE IS REVERSE RACISM, AGAINST YOU….THESE ARE THE FACTS AND BEING BIASED AGAINST PEOPLE DIFFERENT THAN YOU IS NOT THE ANSWER.
AS AMERICANS LET’S ALL PLACE WHAT’S BEST FOR OUR COUNTRY FIRST !
EDUCATION IS GOING TO BE THE KEY TO GET US OUT OF THIS MESS !
I think you missed the point wide and across
The title is what is the role of the military
In short is to defend
What you are saying isn’t persuasive from an Iraqi perspective
with your help and many like you if you understood your role and duty to you country is to defend it
In the Iraqi case you invaded destroyed killed and created a quagmire of killing.
NOw you are talking about rebuilding and helping.
You need to read General Smedley Butler’s Book: “War is A Racket” Poor misguided, brainwashed to the max person, you need to wake up and smell the coffee. It’s not about defending Democracy and all that crap. It’s just propaganda. It’s about The War Profiteers (the banks, corporations) who are the only ones who benefit from all these Imperial Wars of Aggression. War is the only enterprise where profits are measured in dollars and losses are measured in blood. Your blood and all others like you who live in denial and ignorance of American History and Foreign Policy. Try reading “Addicted to War” also. Maybe, just maybe, you might wake up, and stop criticizing those who struggle for a better world, a world without war. You’re just an expendable item to the elites who start and benefit from these wars. Of course no one wants to admit that they have been used, and hence that is the source of you’re denial
The rantings of an ass braying the nationalistic line of the good German. Cindy suffered the loss and for pointing out the reasons his death meant nothing (read the 1997 PNAC statement its 75 pages so don’t just read the title page) then come back here and amend your post, for only then will you see the Hegemony they want to lord over the people of those countries. Like the crusades of old kings do these things not presidents of free republics. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3249.htm article here
sir, you don’t get points for helping out the little old lady that your friend just beat up unless you do something about your friend. The bad stuff can’t just be ignored. This is a cognitive error called mental filtering.
The purpose of the US military is defense of the borders. All the other tasks you would like the military to take on are fine in theory, even admirable, but in practice they get very, very messy, very bloody, and very soon balloon beyond anyone’s comprehension or expectation. If you want to do good in the world, do it on your own good time, not as a representative of the nation in a military theatre thousands of miles beyond our shores. My definition of what is good and noble will undoubtedly be different than yours, and I don’t want to have to pay for your “nobility” out of my own labor, nor do I wish to donate the life of my son for your sterling vision. Just defend the borders, OK? That turns out to be more than enough of a job for any military person in any country in any era of history!
“Reviving public services, rebuilding infrastructure, and promoting good governance” is exactly what an empire’s military does.
The United States has been an empire since its inception as a “spin off” of the British Empire. Certainly no one can argue that the US has been an international empire since 1892.
Looks like the empire is “coming home” to the “homeland”. Rome redux.
The British Empire, for all its mistakes and flaws, did great things for this world. The world is a better place for it! Any nation that follows the principles of the English Common Laws is a nation you know is not totalitarian and you can live freely. Similary, the United States, despite all of our mistakes and flaws, has done great things for this world.
Like making the trains run on time?
A very few individuals benefited from the British Empire. The majority in Britain and the great majority of subjects did not benefit. That’s why, Ireland, for example, revolted repeatedly.
Zhu Bajie
Yes, that is why America broke off from the BE very early.
Listen. We do not want you “civilising” us, ok. You guys need civilizing. You cannot tolerate pluralism (No one is allowed to wera a veil or a turban to school), your press is embedded (read Naom Chomsky) and worst of all you think your values are the best in the world and need to be imposed on everyone else.
Let me give you a list of what the British did. No, it is too long.
Suffice to say that they drew borders and caused eternal wars to occur. North and South Ireland and India nad Pakistan are examples. The State of Israel was created in a country which was not theirs and Churchill, that fat, bloated, florid racist, was behind it Even as late as 1942 the British created an artificial famine in Bengal in which millions of people died.
Ok George, and where you don’t have the British or the Americans “civilizing people” What do you get? You get Sudan a few weeks ago where they wanted to kill a woman, or at least give her lashes and jail for naming a teddy bear, Mohammed. You get Saudi Arabi and 200 lashes for a rape VICTIM.
Thank God for the British and the civility that they brought to the world.
What do you get?
A better outcome than generally results from such “civilizing” efforts as inflicting horrific famine on the general population (the British Raj), sectarian violence (America’s regime in Iraq), and sponsoring savage death squads (Reagan’s policy in South America).
Oh yeah, and for the record, Khartoum is considered an “ally” in the “war on terror”. Funny how the “civilized” countries have a habit of supporting the most murderous regimes. Funny also how they don’t do likewise with genuinely democratic movements in other countries (the RAWA in Afghanistan; the EPLF in Eritrea). Rather, what we have is a spread of decivilization, with barbarisms previously unknown to non-European peoples becoming commonplace with the irruption of Western power.
Hey kids: Want to see how Britain “civilized” its colonies? Think those damn darkies are just too much of a nuisance, what with their tacky demands for self-determination and a right to manage their own internal affairs without being repeatedly gang-raped by the familiar American/IMF/World Bank triad? Check out democracy in action under Britain:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1807649,00.html
Sure, it may have had its iniquities, but better to have autocratic stewardship under the auspices of the Master Race than democratic governance by the natives.
Any nation that follows the principles of the English Common Laws is a nation you know is not totalitarian and you can live freely.
And what nation would that be? Certainly not the United States, which has for the last six and a half years been in the process of shredding the very document upon which that “common law” is given life.
If the British Empire is so wonderful why did Americans fight a war to be rid of it? If it brought so many wonderful benefits to it’s coerced subjects why isn’t it still around? As for America it’s intervention in WW1 was the greatest disaster in modern history. It led to Bolshevism in Russia, Lenin and Stalin, the NKVD, collectivization and the gulag. It led to Versailles, Hitler, WW2 and the holocaust. America’s foreign interventions are universally an unmitigated disaster.
Sounds like colonialism is OK
I wonder why US revolted against the Britihs.
Pernicious Pavlovian appears to be correct. How can the remarks of Gates be distinguished from those who oversee the military in a military dictatorship? I would bet the same remarks were made by the military leaders in Thailand recently. The other spooky thing about the military leaders is their use of “good” (here Gates says “good governance”) and their use of “bad” (see how the Iraq press releases often just say that the US military found some “bad guys” today). This is their fantasy Rambo vs Lex Luthor world. There can be nothing in between “bad” and “good” and as one of their big boosters said, “You are either with us or against us.”
So we can safely say that you are definitely “against us”(”us” as in the Elite Class that holds power in the US) then?
We are living in an Orwellian Nightmare.
First, the people in charge of war were called “The War Department.” Then, they were changed to the “Department of Defense”, even though they haven’t defended anyone since 1945.
Let’s carry it to its logical conclusion: We’ll call it the “Department of Peace.”
We have defended the corrupt governments of South Korea South Viet Nam and the Saudis. And some would argue that this latest misadventure is a defense of Isreal and trans-national corporations. So we have defended plenty of people just not the US.
So true it hurts and I am Canadian>
The Army should take over the Post Office and deliver my mail. Only then will their mission be complete.
As a citizen, I demand that Army provide me with a platoon of soldiers to be my assistants in the carrying out of my civic duties. Because routine household chores cut down on my time in the political and civic arena, the soldiers will be put to profitable use in hauling away garbage and other refuse, oiling my firearms, cleaning my toilets, repairing my out-buildings, painting my house, mowing the grass, digging irrigation ditches, milking the cows, feeding the pigs and harvesting the wheat. The delivery of my mail can be carried out by discharged soldiers. ;)
Gates could not elaborate what the military should be doing as a department of defence it seems far fatched when you add your semi-elaborated list of the defender of a state.
In reality the DoD first duty is to smash the country infrastructure. Iraq Afghanistan Vietnam are few examples.
The Gates comments comes in rebuilding “democracy” helping the needy “the victims of shock n Awe”
Well the purpose of the military is simply a show of power and budget miss control. To protect ourselves would be the ideal reason behind it, but in today’s world, we really have no reason to have to do so, other than when we decide to go into someone else’s nation and mess up their stuff, no matter if we have a good reasoning or not. The best thing to do would be cut military budget in half, and get some of these kids educated so that they don’t have to join the military to make money for college and end up getting killed before they can. It’s
100%just bull that they say they’d do it for nothing, no one ever does anything for nothing.I joined the Air Force to not have to fight in a war, and I’m not, I was educated enough to know that, I’m lazy and I’m not a patriot enough to incite violence onto someone else, I’ll protect the country as an all-well and good, but I’m not about to go and fight someone else first.
Laurence Vance offers no clue as to whether Gates meant this ‘new role’ to be a foreign vs. domestic one. Why not? Seems like a pretty important starting point for any serious discussion.
Justifying his screen name, “Pavlovian” shrieks something about martial law, and heads start bobbing.
Sigh.
A silly question, this. Even John Hagee and Avigdor - or is it Joe - Lieberman know that the purpose of the military is to achieve “lebensraum”.
John Lowell
Just take over the whole planet and maybe then we can have some Peace.
Do you mean this question normatively or descriptively?
Defense is correct.
No Muli Mariani in the meantime?
Short-sighted.
Getting rid of most of the Air Force, except tactical, and what is necessary for a second strike might win a few justly entered wars in self-defense, who knows?
The Air Force is losing them now, not that any of them are justly entered at all.
I do agree about the Army Engineers–domestically they have been an unmitigated disaster for fifty years.
The purpose of militaries is to keep all the territories that did not want to enter, or are having second thoughts about entering, the union, federation or confederation from seceding from it.
Love your secession website, Carol Moore. Thanks. We are ready.
Come on now. The purpose of the military is to control the civilians. Where are you guys getting this stuff about war, peace, defense?
Boy, apprantly the military’s role has changed since I was in. My job years ago (I.E. USMC, infantry) was to eliminate enemy personnel, period. That was my entire task and all of the training I received revolved around that single objective. Now, it seems that the military’s role over all, both domestically and internationally is to be another Government sponsored social/welfare provider. What Gates described is the same sort of ideals that Socialists hold.
Just curious Joe, but when you were in the military how did you figure out who the real “enemy” was? Excuse me, but judging from your comments, you still don’t have a clue who the real enemy is.
There used to be a mock recruiting poster: “Join the Army! Go to far-off countries, meet interesting, exotic, people, and kill them!”
Zhu Bajie
Gates didn’t say that, did he? Oh my gawd!
The purpose of the military is not only to defend this country (we have not been invaded since the War of 1812) but also to provide employment to those who may not be considered to be employable in the civilian economy. War also invigorated communities which formerly had no economic advantages by turning deserts in airfiels, army bases and the side-benefits to the local communities from such activities. If this opinion sounds harsh then all anyone needs to do is to read the outrage and clamor whenever an attempt is made to close such facilities. Even protests in Germany where we have had a sizable military presence ever since 1945. Steve, uSN,WW2
Laurence and others,
This seems to me to be a somewhat simplistic view of the US military. First, while I recognize that the military does lots of bad things, why can’t proper oversight fit the Army and other branches to the tasks Gates listed? Second, though the National Guard is certainly not above reproach either, its history in the United States has been generally positive. Finally, and I know plenty of people here will disagree with this, but doesn’t the military have some role to play in humanitarian crises? You don’t seem to be a pacifist, since you apparently believe self-defense against aggression would be justified–but aren’t there sometimes genuine international emergencies that could best be solved through military intervention? (Rwanda? Darfur?)
You don’t seem to be a pacifist, since you apparently believe self-defense against aggression would be justified–but aren’t there sometimes genuine international emergencies that could best be solved through military intervention?
The problem with the “humanitarian” trope is that, as a highly emotive term, it occludes a serious historical examination of the situation at hand and reduces it to a one-dimensional “crisis” in need of a (martial) solution. “Humanitarian crises” are typically no more than civil wars capitalized upon for propaganda purposes by the West. There is no evidence that a genocide is happening in Darfur; it is little more than a conflict between warring factions, not a concerted attempt at ethnic extirpation. Moreover, the application of imperialist power to these situations invariably makes them worse, not better, since the interests of all those concerned rarely coincide (the typifying example being Yugoslavia). It’s nice to speak of “humanitarianism” in such an etic fashion, but being devoid of practical content it is a political chimera with no relevance to the real world. Foreign intervention is never conducted for moral or ideological reasons (whatever justificatory function these may serve), so all talk of “humanitarianism”, which is necessarily predicated on such premises, becomes moot. For these reasons, we should aim to circumscribe the scope and influence of the military whenever possible.
Postscript: This is also why we, or at least I, am opposed to intervention by foreign powers, unless serious extenuating circumstances exist.
That’s fair, though I disagree, probably because I think those extenuating circumstances exist more often than you do. But my first two points about oversight and the National Guard seem to be more in line with what Gates was suggesting–the use of the military for domestic projects… Seems like the Army would be ideally suited to state projects requiring lots of highly-coordinated labor. Just because they’re trained to use weapons and kill people doesn’t mean they aren’t trained to do other things, too.
By “extenuating circumstances”, I mean an existential threat to the people as well as the regime conducting the intervention. Nazi Germany’s military operations warranted support for imperialist power, if only because the alternative was so much worse. It’s true that there are many atrocities afoot in the world, but I must reiterate my initial point that the United States will simply use them to further its own ends, with disastrous results for the local population- witness Iraq.