{"id":49024,"date":"2024-08-25T07:11:52","date_gmt":"2024-08-25T15:11:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=49024"},"modified":"2024-08-25T07:57:17","modified_gmt":"2024-08-25T15:57:17","slug":"cheerleaders-of-the-military-industrial-complex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2024\/08\/25\/cheerleaders-of-the-military-industrial-complex\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheerleaders of the Military-Industrial Complex"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views<\/a> with the author\u2019s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have something in common.\u00a0 They both embrace colossal Pentagon budgets and both celebrate the \u201clethality\u201d of the U.S. military, which, they agree, must be the strongest, bestest, in the world.\u00a0 They also agree on giving a blank check to Israel and its leaders to do whatever they want in Gaza to the Palestinians and will continue to provide whatever weapons Israel desires to kill massive numbers of Palestinians while flattening and destroying the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n

With respect to Iran, Harris appears to be even more hawkish than Trump, and indeed criticized him for not being aggressive enough with Iran\u2019s leaders.\u00a0 Harris is also a strong supporter of Ukraine, seeing war as its best option to defeat Russia, whereas Trump is more skeptical of war and more open to diplomacy with Putin and Russia.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t surprising.\u00a0 Mainstream Democrats in DC are basically warmongering neo-conservatives on foreign policy, so a vote for Harris\/Walz is a vote, as the \u201cliberal\u201d New York Times<\/em> reported, for \u201cmuscular patriotism\u201d (or, to paraphrase my wife, febrile and unapologetic nationalism).\u00a0 This is Washington Beltway conformity at its finest, as organs such as the National Interest<\/em> write unironic articles about cheerleading the wonders<\/a> of the military-industrial complex (MIC).<\/p>\n

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Ike got it all wrong. Embrace the MIC! Cheer for it!<\/i><\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

See, President Dwight D. Eisenhower got it all wrong<\/a>.\u00a0 We shouldn\u2019t be wary of the MIC; we shouldn\u2019t worry that its unchecked power threatens democracy and our very freedoms.\u00a0 No, we should embrace the MIC, celebrate it, enrich it with even more of our taxpayer dollars.<\/p>\n

At Responsible Statecraft<\/em>, Bill Hartung wrote a thoughtful response<\/a> to the recent National interest<\/em> piece.\u00a0 To me,\u00a0it all depends on what vision of America you want to advance.\u00a0 If you want to advance America as the world’s hegemon, the empire of global reach, power, and dominance, the empire of constant warfare, then, heck, three cheers for the MIC.<\/p>\n

But, if you want to advance America as a republic that leads “by the power of its example,” one that focuses on national\u00a0defense and defense alone, then “three cheers for the MIC” guarantees the death of that republic and the corruption of its moral authority as an exemplar of democracy.<\/p>\n

Of course, whether you choose to support Harris or Trump, we are witnessing exactly that latter fate.\u00a0 When you embrace the MIC, war, and empire, you set in motion the death of Democracy.<\/p>\n

Whether America\u2019s politicians put an \u201cR\u201d after their names or a \u201cD,\u201d it doesn\u2019t alter the fundamental reality that the power of America\u2019s example is very much driven and determined by examples of its military power.\u00a0 That is not about to change whether Harris or Trump prevails.<\/p>\n

William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools. He writes at Bracing Views<\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author\u2019s permission. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have something in common.\u00a0 They both embrace colossal Pentagon budgets and both celebrate the \u201clethality\u201d of the U.S. military, which, they agree, must be the strongest, bestest, in the world.\u00a0 They also agree on giving a blank check to Israel and its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-49024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":"Harris and Trump Have Something in Common"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49024"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49030,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49024\/revisions\/49030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49024"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=49024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}