The New American Militarism: how to abate it

Andrew J. Bacevich is a Professor of History and International Relations at Boston University. A graduate of West Point and a Vietnam Veteran, he has a doctorate in history from Princeton and was a Bush Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. He retired from the U.S. Army with the rank of colonel and is a member of the Council on foreign relations. He is the author of several books, including ‘The Limits of Power, the End of American Exceptionalism’.
He is not a liberal.
He is not a Democrat.

Having read Andrew J. Bacevich’s ‘The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War’, I would like to share his proposed means, which ‘rests on ten fundamental principles’ by which to abate ‘the present day militaristic tendencies’.

“First, heed the intentions of the Founders, thereby restoring the basic precepts that animated the creation of the United States and are specified in the Constitution that the Framers drafted in 1787 and presented for consideration to the several states. Although politicians make a pretense of revering that document, when it comes to military policy they have long since fallen into t e habit of treating it like a dead letter. This is unfortunate. Drafted by men who appreciated the need for military power while also maintaining a healthy respect for the dangers that it posed, the Constitution in our own day remains an essential point of reference.”

Whistle-Blowers: A Conversation with Ellsberg and Dean

FORA.tv - Whistle-Blowers: A Conversation with Ellsberg and Dean

Noam Chomsky - The Contours of World Order: Fifty Years of the United Nations

Bush’s 2008 RNC speech: (Reading Between the Lines)

Borrowing the technology of 'Being John Malcovic', the author is able to provide annotation for Bush's speech to the RNC as heard through the mind of the 'Decider'.

And now, Ladies and Germs, give a warm Republican welcome to the 'Decider', the Commando-in-Chief, the President of the United States of America (for at least another fiscal quarter), GEORGE W. BUSH!

(Cue ‘Applause’…)

I know what it takes to be president.

(Unfortunately, I don’t have what it takes to be a good one.)

In these past eight years, I’ve sat at the Resolute desk

(That’s the one next to the water-cooler outside Cheney’s office.)

and reviewed the daily intelligence briefings, the threat assessments and the reports from our commanders on the front lines.

(Well, I didn’t actually ‘review’ cuz, y’know, I just hate to read but Dick or that nice Addington fella told me the gist of it.)

I’ve stood in the ruins of buildings knocked down by killers

(the ones in Jew York City and the ones in Iraq, too.)

and promised the survivors I would never let them down.

(I just hope that don’t hold me to it cuz I’ve got more brush to clear down on the ranch and that thing in Afghani-whatever ain’t going so well, Condi says.)

I know the hard choices that fall solely to a president.

(And I’m batting pretty close to 1.000 on getting them all wrong but ‘Hey’ you gotta swing for the fences, right? Or why step up to the plate? (I love a good baseball metaphor, don’t you?))

John McCain’s life has prepared him to make those choices.

(For me, it was my close ties with the Saudi Royal family and my personal ‘hot line’ to Jesus.)

He is ready to lead this nation.

(Down the primrose path, for four more years of economic ruin for the middle- class and the poor (who ever they are, I forget…) and prob’ly a couple more cool, never-ending conflicts to show the world we’re still #1 at ‘standing tall’ and kickin’ ass!)

From the day of his commissioning,

(when he barely passed the flight training – something we have in common!)

John McCain was a respected naval officer

(whose father and grandfather were admirals, so those tars and avi-a-tors had damned well better respect him.)

who made decisions on which the lives of others depended.

(Mostly of course it was decisions like when to drop bombs on the Vietnamese peasants and the like; y’know - ‘Life and Death’.)

As an elected public servant,

(of the wonderfully generous lobbyists of Big Oil and my other buddies)

he earned the respect of colleagues in both parties

(who are also deep in the pockets of Big Oil and my other buddies)

as a man to follow when there’s a tough call to make.

(F’rinstance when he has to figure out which of his mansions he wants to spend the weekend at.)

John McCain’s life is a story of service above self.

(Or is that ‘the service of story to self’? Whatever… But the ‘official’ story of John’s life 40 years ago is the story we’re selling here so even if all the facts don’t fit, Karl says that’s no matter seeing as Americans’re such a stupid bunch.)

Forty years ago in an enemy prison camp,

(I’ll never understand why those folks took being bombed and slaughtered so personally…)

Lieutenant Commander McCain was offered release ahead of others who had been held longer.

(Cuz they thought he was some kinda royalty or something, I guess, his father being an Admiral an' all.)

His wounds were so severe that anyone would have understood if he had accepted.

(Let’s see, about that time, I was outside Houston in the Air National Guard - when I wasn’t AWOL! Heh-heh)

John refused.

(I guess that just goes to show you there IS a difference between the two of us.)

For that selfless decision, he suffered nearly five more years of beatings and isolation.

(Let’s see, yeah, I was on my way to Harvard Law School. They sure were surprised to see a ‘C’ student sitting in class! Just goes to show, ‘It ain’t what you know but WHO you know.’ So, there, Obama-jama.)

When he was released, his arms had been broken, but not his honor.

(Prob’ly best not to mention that his nickname was ‘the Songbird’; he was hurtin’, after all. Just wish some of those Al Qaeda boys in Gitmo would start singin’…)

Fellow citizens,

(Not all of you, just the rich, connected ones, okay?)

if the Hanoi Hilton

(Always flash on that crotch-shot of Paris when I say that…)

could not break John McCain’s resolve to do what is best for his country,

(Like, y’know, staying alive and that sort of stuff.)

you can be sure the ‘Angry Left’ never will.

(I’ll never understand why they’re so pissed. Why don’t they like me? I’m a pretty regular guy for a spoiled rich kid who’s led the country to ruin three different ways to Sunday. But that’s mostly Dick and Donnie’s doing, y’know. And that Addington guy and Paul and, and Condi.. and….)

http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/cin_mysticalmccain.htm

http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/McCAIN%20RADIO%20BROADCAST%20from%20Ha%20Noi%20060269.pdf

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2008/01/28/john-mccain-prisoner-of-war-a-first-person-account.html?PageNr=1

Nothing Personal, Senator McCain

This point has been raised before but it bears repeating.

The relentlessly chanted mantra of John McCain’s campaign has been his POW experience. Ignoring, for the sake of compassion, that McCain broke under torture and like many, many other tortured POWs, gave false testimony to his captors, let’s for a moment look at the reason of his serving in Vietnam.

As is well known, McCain was a Navy pilot. What is left unstated is that, as part of his duty, McCain bombed and strafed the people of Vietnam, their roads, their hospitals, their schools, their homes. The citizenry of Vietnam were no threat to the people of the United States. (Nor was their government.) The people of Vietnam were an impoverished, Third World nation emerging from the brutal and repressive colonization by France; a colonization that stripped the country of their natural resources and denied the people self-governance, democracy and freedom.

Where, in such a vile, despicable, murderous mission as was his, is the honor or the bravery?

Doing one’s patriotic duty of service to one’s nation most emphatically does not include service to tyranny.

http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/index.htm

Irony #2

In a video conference last week, President Bush told U.S. troops in Afghanistan that he was: “a little envious” of them. Bush said: “If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed.” Bush went on to say: “It must be exciting for you … in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You’re really making history, and thanks.”

Perhaps the President should step out of his neo-con fantasy and remember his own chance at personal involvement in ‘making history’.

It was 1968 and the war to defend Democracy against the communists in Vietnam was in full swing. It was the middle of the Tet Offensive. 16,511 US servicemen and women lost their lives ‘making history’ that year. Another 87,388 were wounded in 1968 in the effort to squelch nationalistic self-determination - otherwise known as stemming the tide of Communism in South-east Asia.

Dub-ya was just about to graduate from Yale like his daddy and granddaddy before him. (A legacy – meaning he didn’t have to earn it, just pay for it.) Knowing that he’d be eligible for the draft, did Georgie seek the ‘fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed”?

Not on your life!

He sought and found refuge in the shelter of his daddy’s political shadow, securing a safe, State-side billet with the Texas Air National Guard even though he tested in the 25^th percentile, the lowest possible passing grade.

It is widely known that Georgie was frequently AWOL from guard duty. By one account, he didn't report to his guard unit for 17 months and in order to help a family friend’s political campaign he tried to finagled a re-assignment to an Alabama Air National Guard unit which HAD NO PLANES. (Just as well for young Dubya as he had been grounded for failing to take his air fitness physical.)

In September of ’72, he was ordered to report to the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group in Montgomery, Alabama. Bushie says he did so, but his superiors say they never saw him. There's no documentation he ever showed up, and despite rewards offered to anyone who could come forth and testify that they actually saw Georgie on duty, not a single one of the nearly seven hundred soldiers then in the unit has stepped forward to corroborate Bush's story.

When Dub-ya decided to go to business school at Harvard in the fall of 1973, he requested and got an honorable discharge eight months before his service was scheduled to end.

Just goes to show: it’s not what you know but who you know.

Now, fast forward to the present and Bush as the Commander-in-Chief, who sends National Guardsmen to Iraq and Afghanistan for a “fantastic experience… on the front lines” has the effrontery, the brass-balled gall to state, “It must be exciting… in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger.”

Right.

Have you no shame, Mr President? Have you no sense of decency?

American servicemen and women deserve better than this.

The American people deserve better than this.

The world deserves better than this.

Impeach Bush and Cheney Now!

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/17/headlines

http://www.awolbush.com/

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030411.html

http://archive.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=166

p.s. Just for grins, check out Dub-ya’s Yale transcript (link below). We have a ‘D’ student for president! No wonder the country’s in the deep doo-doo.

http://2004.georgewbush.org/images/bios/transcript.jpg

Irony

A prince of the House of Windsor enlists in the Army as a matter of duty to his country. He then insists that he see combat with his unit in a foreign war. After much ado, he is surreptitiously assigned to a front-line unit in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban.

A prince of the House of Bush, on the other hand, finagles a commission as a pilot in a back-water Air National Guard unit to avoid combat duty in Vietnam. He then spends most of his time in the Guard AWOL from his post.

Even More Ironic

‘W’, as Commander-in-chief, commits National Guardsmen to extended tours of combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.