{"id":52309,"date":"2025-03-27T12:57:48","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T20:57:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=52309"},"modified":"2025-03-27T12:57:48","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T20:57:48","slug":"we-are-the-only-ones-who-can-do-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/27\/we-are-the-only-ones-who-can-do-this\/","title":{"rendered":"‘We Are the Only Ones… Who Can Do This’"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The so-called SignalGate scandal centered on the bombing of Yemen is highly revelatory. First, some resources. CNN has a useful annotated account<\/a> of the chats exchanged at the highest levels of the Trump administration. At their respective Substacks, Lenny Broytman<\/a> and Caitlin Johnstone<\/a> have telling dissections of these chats as well. At Jacobin, Branko Marcetic<\/a> has an important article that reminds us of the illegality of the attacks. As the article\u2019s subheading puts it: The press [mainstream media] is mostly framing the Yemen group chat scandal as a story of incompetence. There\u2019s little attention being paid to the deadliness, illegality, and ineffectiveness of the strikes themselves.<\/em><\/p>\n

To me, among the most telling \u201cchats\u201d came from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. It highlights the \u201cexceptional\u201d nature of America:<\/p>\n

Pete Hegseth to Vice President JD Vance: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It\u2019s PATHETIC.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But Mike [Waltz, the National Security Adviser] is correct, we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this. Nobody else even close. Question is timing\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is precisely the problem for America since the Vietnam War, if not before then. We\u2019ve created a monster military, a \u201cglobal strike<\/a>\u201d force, that is capable of destroying any target anywhere around the globe. \u201cNobody else even close,\u201d SecDef Hegseth correctly says. And because we can do it, because we are exceptional in military force, our leaders believe we should do it, even if it\u2019s only to send a \u201cmessage\u201d to the world how tough we are, how committed we are to killing others.<\/p>\n

Other countries \u2013 like those \u201cfree-loading\u201d European ones \u2013 are PATHETIC because they don\u2019t have America\u2019s military might. Only we can smite evildoers around the globe, only we can do so while also arming Israel to the teeth and covering its flanks while it continues its annihilation of Gaza, and this is something we are immensely proud of.<\/p>\n

My fellow Americans, this is not something to be proud of. Consider if America\u2019s military in the 1960s had lacked the ability to deploy over half a million troops to Vietnam while also facing down the Warsaw Pact in Europe. Consider if America\u2019s military had lacked the ability to invade Iraq in 2003 while also waging war in Afghanistan and garrisoning the globe with roughly 800 military bases. Consider how much blood would not have been spilled, and treasure wasted, if the U.S. military was smaller, focused on defense, and led by people who didn\u2019t put muscle and flame emojis in their chats to celebrate U.S. military prowess at killing people in Yemen.<\/p>\n

That U.S. military forces are the only ones who can kill globally with such comparative ease, that \u201cnobody else even close,\u201d is exactly what is wrong with our government. We place far too much faith and pride in military prowess, so much so that the Pentagon becomes the Pentagod<\/a>, something we worship, something we make immense sacrifices to, as in budgets that approach $1 trillion yearly.<\/p>\n

Not for nothing did President Dwight D. Eisenhower say in 1953 that this is no way of life at all \u2013 that we are crucifying ourselves on a cross of iron. Tell me again, who are the pathetic ones?<\/p>\n

We must end our intoxication with military power before it ends us.<\/p>\n

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Available on Kindle at Amazon<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), professor of history, and a senior fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN), an organization of critical veteran military and national security professionals. His personal substack is Bracing Views<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author\u2019s permission. The so-called SignalGate scandal centered on the bombing of Yemen is highly revelatory. First, some resources. CNN has a useful annotated account of the chats exchanged at the highest levels of the Trump administration. At their respective Substacks, Lenny Broytman and Caitlin Johnstone have telling dissections of […]<\/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":[758],"class_list":["post-52309","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":"American exceptionalism in action in Yemen"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52309","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=52309"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52315,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52309\/revisions\/52315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52309"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=52309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}