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The Pacifist's Conundrum
DUMMERSTON - I was watching a "M*A*S*H" rerun on television the other night when the oddest thing came on: a commercial for the Army. "Be Army strong" a hearty male voice boomed as images of soldiers doing soldierly things filled the screen.
Fans of the show, which went off the air in 1983 as one of the most successful television sitcoms of all time, know that it's an anti-Vietnam War program set in a mobile medical unit in Korea during the Korean War.
As the generals on both sides, puffed up by their machismo, argue about the size and shape of the peace negotiations table (or was that in Vietnam?), doctors and nurses close to the front perform "meatball" surgery in an improvised operating room and struggle to keep an endless stream of wounded young soldiers alive.
"M*A*S*H," which now serves as a perfect metaphor for the war in Iraq as well as Vietnam, is the last place you would expect to see an advertisement for the military. But as we know, the military is desperate.
We're recycling our soldiers so that they are doing two, three and sometimes four tours of duty in Iraq. We have raised the recruiting age to 42 and reduced the educational requirement. We are putting criminals in uniform. We have raided the National Guard in every state. After the recent Kansas tornados, the governor went on the air to accuse the current administration of depleting the Kansas National Guard so badly that its first-response ability was hampered by a lack or manpower and equipment.
And still, we are so short of soldiers that we are paying an army of more than 100,000 mercenaries to fight alongside our soldiers in Iraq.
This week, well after the president's 30,000-troop "surge," the Pentagon called up 35,000 more soldiers to support its failed policy in Iraq.
I know what these men and women will face there, and it breaks my heart.
They say generals always fight the last war, but the last big American war, Vietnam, was a guerilla war very similar to the one in Iraq. And the generals don't seem to have learned a thing.
America is an incredibly rich nation with a huge military budget. It spends more on its military than all the other nations in the world combined, and that includes China's space program. We have a huge Air Force and Navy with planes and ships that can do amazing things. We have bombs - including nuclear ones - by the ton. We're building weapons that can shoot down from outer space missiles which only exist in the heads of our paranoid leaders and the Congressional representatives of the states that build them.
But occupying and fighting a guerilla action on the ground in a country that doesn't want to be occupied has stretched us to our very limits. Thanks to the Bush administration, the whole world can see that short of mounting a nuclear attack, the United States is a muscle-bound, helpless giant writhing on the ground in chains.
It's a pacifist's conundrum. I hate the waste of war. I hate the killing. I hate the pain. I believe, as John Kenneth Galbraith said, "War remains the decisive human failure."
But I'm not naive. I don't believe that everyone in the world will beat their swords into plowshares and that we'll all live as brothers and sisters in peace and harmony.
Speak softly and carry a big stick, said President Teddy Roosevelt. I agree. America needs a strong military - a reality-based, well-equipped, well-paid and well-trained military.
We need one even though we're not in imminent threat of attack. For example, if China wanted to take us down, it has only to convert its huge dollar holdings into Euros, stand back and watch our economy collapse. Russia may be a threat again in the future, but it is not a real threat now. And I doubt very much if al-Qaida operatives are planning to cross the ocean in little gun boats to attack our shores.
Our guns and missiles won't protect us now that other countries have figured out ways to defeat us with box cutters and car bombs.
Iraq has bankrupted us in every way - morally, spiritually, economically and manpower. We have built the largest military in the world and we are helpless. What are we afraid of? Peace?
How do we pull ourselves back? How do we undo a century of empire-building, of greed, arrogance and lust? How do we undo decades of addiction to military spending that seems to pay for everything except for the boots on the ground?
We need a fundamental shift between protecting our nation and projecting an empire. Since we took Cuba and the Philippines in the Spanish-American War, we've been pursuing the course of empire. Now, at the end game of that misguided policy, we are depleting our wealth and our human resources to maintain it.
We need a military and we don't have one anymore. It's broken and it will take decades to rebuild. We might not have the time.
Joyce Marcel is a journalist and columnist based in Vermont. A collection of her columns, "A Thousand Words or Less," is available through joycemarcel.com. And write her at joycemarcel@yahoo.com.
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25 Comments so far
Show AllI have yet to see any real leadership from the major Presidential candidates. I'm not particularly surprised that the Republicans appear to want to move us back into the century before last. But the Democrats seem to have been gutless ever since Bush the First called Michael Dukakis a "liberal" who is "a card-carrying member of the ACLU." To avoid such a terrible label as "liberal", they propose spending even MORE money for the military during their terms. Conversely, when Howard Dean suggested several years ago that the United States would not necessarily always be so predominant militarily, the pundits nearly had a stroke. Nevermind that we're so busy bombing Iraq that we can't adequately protect our own citizens from hurricanes, tornadoes, unemployment, malnutrition and starvation.
Aren't you tired of these political clones pretending to be leaders while they follow what they presume to be either the prevailing political winds, or worse, the status quo? How will our nation shift from the oppressive direction it has taken without some real courage? Finally, if those in charge won't show leadership, are the rest of us going to sacrifice what is left of our democracy, or are we going to sound off and show this nation the power of "We, the People?!"
www.raycarlson.com
America seems determined to bring itself down and what with our current
militaristic-corporate culture, i can't say it will be that much of a loss
to the world, we lost our vision after WWII and i suspect it was due to the bombing of innocent people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not to mention the untold damage we've done around the world in the name of American empire
what goes up must come down and while we should defend the last scraps of our decency, humanity, and feeble democracy, we also shouldn't be too surprised if we collapse into lock-down corpo-christo-fascism, which is what's happening under our very noses
the only thing that might possibly turn us around is if we suddenly woke up en masse, to what we've become and dramatically reversed course, but this is as likely as Dennis Kucinich becoming President, more's the pity
In saving ourselves from violence with violence, we have brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation many time. Does this save us from box cutters?
America is the ememy they claim Iraq to be, it is harboring WMD. It is a state sponsor of terror, and has been convicted of it by the ICJ. It has used chemical weapons against civilians in the form of white phosphorus upon Fallujans. It has used nuclear weapon on Iraq in the form of DU.
Should America be invaded? A first strike nuclear war against America is justified by its own standards.
America claims that Iraq imposed the threat of violence upon us and that made our actions self-defense. But in reality, our massive military industrial complex, which has no equal in the world or history, imposes many time more than that which Iraq ever did.
"America needs a strong military - a reality-based, well-equipped, well-paid and well-trained military."
You are not reality-based, and I am shocked that commondreams allowed this garbage to be published. You are not a pacifist, so please spare Orwell some grave rolling.
America is an incredibly rich nation?!@#%^&**()@#$
CIA Report Reveals U.S. 'True Standing in the World!
Recently, a shocking CIA report was released our hands. It ranked nations based on their current account balance. You know...what's coming in versus what's going out...aka the balance sheet or cash flow. There's not enough room to rank every country, but here are a few of the surprising tallies:
•No. 1 is Japan - $165 billion-plus
•No. 2 is China - $164 billion-plus
•No. 3 is Germany - $115 billion-plus
•Hong Kong - $20 billion-plus
•Algeria - $18 billion-plus
•Burkina Faso - $438 million (deficit)
•New Zealand - $10 billion
•No. 3 from the bottom is the U.K. - $57 billion
•No. 2 from the bottom is Spain
•DEAD LAST - the U.S. - $829 billion in the hole.
Add up all the current deficits of the entire world and you don't even get to half of the U.S. total. Is this the new definition of the "richest country in the world"? America is a nation of minimum monthly payers, not savers. We actually run a negative savings rate...meaning we spend more than we earn. We don't have the money to fund our government's junkie debt habit.
Conjunctively, Consolidated Federal Debt of $8-9 Trillion….Public and Private Debt of $53-58 Trillion …..and remember no Money Supply figures now get published by the Federal Reserve (estimated to be 11.9% per annum….)
So REAL inflation NOT nominal inflation is not the advertised 3.75% but 7-9%
SO if AMERICAS ATM CARD namely CHINA and JAPAN become net sellers of US Long Term Bond …..US interest rates go UP; House prices go down; Stock market goes down; equals RECESSION…..Or Worse the D word.....
PS the rest of the article has validity
How about providing a link to this "shocking CIA report" so we can validate these amazing claims?
I'm not saying that the data you provide is not accurate -- but sound bites like "public and private debt of $53-58 Trillion" really does call for some substantiation. It also needs to be said that the U.S. debt figures need to be evaluated against a backdrop of "the balance sheet" to use your words, and compare assets to liabilities to derive net worth. I daresay that comparison would substantially weaken the drama of the current-account deficits.
Again, the data you provide may be perfectly accurate, but it immediately raises questions of "completeness and context", to use the phrase, in the mind of the reader.
"a reality-based, well-equipped, well-paid and well-trained military..."
Whatever that is when wars are won with "box cutters and car bombs" or Empires are destroyed economically.
Good points in this essay but it is not completely thought-out.
I'm a fan of Ms. Marcel's, to be sure, But if I may be so bold, she states:
...Since we took Cuba and the Philippines in the Spanish-American War, we've been pursuing the course of empire...
Why is it that so many people who certainly ought to know better completely over-look the FIRST hundred years of American imperialism. Just how do you think the Good Ole US of A spread "from sea to shining sea," anyway? Think all those Indians GAVE us their land because they were desperate to join up with us? Think we got about half of Mexico because it was just lying around and nobody was using it?
I think we need to face up to the fact that the "American Dream" has always been a nightmare for somebody else. Computer-geeks all know the adage "garbage in, garbage out." By what alchemy do we think we can start out with genocide and slavery and somehow end up with "liberty and justice for all?"
SJ
www.spartacusjones.com
OuterBeltway May 10th, 2007 1:37 pm
I'm sorry my MBA economics is a bit rusty even though it was my specialization along with Corporation and International Law.....
Just for starters there are too many sources to substantiate these statements....but try a very light and entertaining read........
"EMPIRE OF DEBT: THE RISE OF AN EPIC FINANCIAL CRISIS" by Bill Bonner & Addisson Wiggin.......
If your're just a dilettante this will do, however if you yearn for a more of an erudite experience let me know and I will direct you to other references......
Pacifists aren't in a conundrum, Joyce Marcel is in a conundrum. She hates killing but she wants a large military so that we can continue killing. That's what the military is for, killing people. It does a very good job of it.
And, America is not "an incredibly rich nation," but rather the greatest debtor nation in all of history. It doesn't show quite yet because it's all charged to our children.
Imagine if we used the military budget, half of our GNP, to spread love, peace and justice instead of hate, war and injustice.
I can't believe people still believe, terrorists have to win in Iraq before they come to the U.S.
Our troops are scattered all over the world while we sit here waiting. Think Katrina! Think Tortilla Curtin! Oregon Coast! The DC sniper! Rat Poison! If people mean us harm I'm sure, where there is a will there is a way!
The Chinese I ching explains that no war fought directly is EVER won.... that to take up the means of evil to supposedly fulfill a just course entangles the perpetrator in the same methods it rails against. How far has the war on drugs gone? War on poverty? How about illiteracy? ONLY investing in new courses, alternative expressions are any "demons" quelled. The US squandered its fortune on the Bush war of empire, built a false case, how apt that the military falls on its own sword, symbolically. For if this war was primarily for profit/oil, the very fact that nature is everywhere burning, the great symbol that we must do OTHER for energy, nor is there any money left in our collective (treasury) pot... the waste is almost too obscene to look directly at, like being blinded by the sun.
I find the tendency of the following statement in
Ms. Marcel's article unclear, in which she speaks of the need for the US to have a strong, well-equipped military:
"We need one even though we're not in imminent threat of attack. For example, if China wanted to take us down, it has only to convert its huge dollar holdings into Euros, stand back and watch our economy collapse." In other words, we need our military to intimidate or even attack another country because they threaten us with economic disruption. This is the logic of every right-wing government, including the current US government, that has ever held power. Is this related, by any stretch, to pacifism?
Ms Marcel refers to a pacifist but I hope is not self-identifying as such. This piece has nothing whatever to do with pacifism. Very misleading title.
We need a military and we don't have one anymore.
Dear Joyce : Have you enlisted or plan to enlist ? No ? Then do so and appreciate that real pacifists are not in a conundrum but in fact are laughing at you for talking chauvinisticly and jingoisticly like Hammity , Beck or Limbaugh . If you did enlist they would sympethize with you
for your gullibility. It's your conundrum not their's
Founding Fathers and Dwight D. Eisenhauer thought America didn't need a standing army in peace time .
Has anyone studied the "Milblogs" phenomenon? I surveyed some of the milblogs recently and got the impression that some of the soldiers serving in Iraq are "really into it", as they say. They seem to love the thrill of the War. It's very dangerous, but not so dangerous as to turn them off (like a Stalingrad). They don't seem to question what they're doing either morally or practically. They seem to be ensconced in their base camps drinking beer and eating pork (lots of it) and go on search and destroy missions outside their bases. Not much interaction with the Iraqi people except through violence. They don't seem to notice that what they're doing doesn't even make sense under the US Army's Counterinsurgency Manual. I mean to say, that the war, as they wage it, is not even the strategy outlined in the Manual for winning a counterinsurgency. They seem to resemble testosterone-inflamed high school kids chasing their tales and loving every minute of it.
Personally, I wouldn't trust that the Milblogs are genuine. I'm sure there are some people who are into it... but of the military people I've known who have seen combat, few would talk about it - let alone blog happily.
Another point, military culture isn't conducive to questioning what you are doing and why. Add that to the lack of critical thinking skills taught in schools and you may just be asking for something that isn't possible. That's one of the reasons that the military is to be 'guided' by civilian leadership (as compared to corporate leadership) and why war is to be declared by the House of Representatives to make sure that the people are heard.
One would hope that some of the milblogs aren't genuine, lest some soldiers give away tactical/strategic data.
As for their being guided civilian leadership, that's a good thing. If the military were in charge of itself (as with Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, etc.) we'd basically have martial law. Perhaps a run amok military, or else a civilian leadership that is -- itself -- controlled by the military or military industrial complex. Oops, we already have that.
Joyce attempts to simplify it with lofty imagery: "Iraq has bankrupted us in every way - morally, spiritually, economically and manpower."
Say what?! I have some houses in Ashburn, VA I want to show you, new decks, massive 7000 square footage with pool upgrade on the way. Iraq is still a windfall for folks. Have some computer skills? Make 5+ what you would make in the states if you go to Camp Victory.
Guns and missles aren't made and never were, to "protect us", they protect wealth. By doing so, missles and guns are far more destructive to people within the USA. Now that's war! The subtle, brutal type that we don't get to understand in shoddy submissions (like this one from Joyce)
Great article....Yes, America barely has a military anymore, our National Guard has been without the equipment it needs and we have NO-National Guard (or skelton crew at best) but
don't kid yourselves! bush has a PRIVATIZED MILITARY! ....that we have already paid more than
$300 Million to with our tax dollars....As soon as he efffectively kills off whats left of our country (I include our middle class) as well as our military ....WE'RE SITTING DUCKS FOLKS!
1. No middle-class
2. No National Guard
3. Under staffed-over worked- under equipped military with poor health care
4. The dollar is in the toilet
5. The Euro is on the rise,
6. Our debt is bigger than enormous!
7. Bush has a PRIVATIZED MILITARY! (made up largely of Pinochet and Marcus murderers) the worse human rights violaters ever!
8....9....and 10...
.............................go figure!
ArbeitMachtFrei: Didn't I read that post on another article? Pasting between blogs...tush!
With complete transparency, I admit my thoughts in another post are reflected here, but I don't paste...
The US military has not, in the 40 years since Vietnam, come up with a virile response to guerilla warfare. Heck, the American revolution was a guerilla war and it defeated the British army -- the British army in 1776!!! That's like taking on the Empire and Darth Vader and dispatching all of them with the Millenium Falcon. What are we to make of this? It's simple: there is no response to guerilla war, it is undefeatable. This may sound disturbing, but it is not. What it means is this: any nation is ultimately secure because if it does not immolate itself, like Nazi Germany did, it will resort eventually to fighting tooth and nail to evict an invader. The sham we have all swallowed is that we need a massive military to protect the "homeland", to secure the border. Nonsense! Massive militaries are for one purpose and one purpose alone: invasion, plunder, empire.
I don't think the author meant you need a military to threaten China (though you do) but to protect the homeland from armed invasion (which you don't, see Sweden for example. Or Iraq, in terms of occupation).
This sums it up perfectly:
"What are we afraid of? Peace?"
Yep.
Government thrives as a protection racket (see "mafia") and as such needs a big bad bogeyman.
Without a never-ending war of some sort, drugs, terrorism, whatever, you cannot "justify" the spending, which means politicians won't have barrells of pork to dish out.
So don't expect any great change by asking nicely.
By the way, why aren't you lot back Ron Paul?
S.
Joyce, You are everything that is wrong with the US. We need a strong military in case China should want to collect on it's debt? So we need a strong military to bully the rest of the world? Maybe it's time for us to go the way of Nineveh and Tyre.
Better just not to be than continue with this bloodletting, consuming, empire building, insanity. God knows the world won't miss us, or if it does it will be as if some horrible disease is gone.
"We need a military and we don't have one anymore. It's broken and it will take decades to rebuild. We might not have the time."
The Pacifist's Conundrum is certainly an ironic title.
The duality of nation and empire seems a misshapen argument for there is only an empire wrapped in the flag of a nation.
The entire military is a mercenary force. Poor people hired to fight other poor people.
The delusions of Bush and the American public have shone us once again that not only do the people of the conquered nation starve, but also the people of the conquering nation do as well.
To be sure, if Bush's America had "won" the war against the people of Iraq, the deaths of over a half million civilian Iraqis would be as natural as the exterminations of native Americans in North America.
Joyce,
You must be out of your mind. War with Russia or China would be disastrous to every person on the planet. The US already has in its arsenal enough stuff to blow the planet up(man times) and so does Russia and we seem to be forcing China to do the same. More countries to join the race to the end....
You have not connected the lines of having such a large military and the reason we are in this war today. Did you read this article by the current set of neo-cons? http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf
These were the words of President Eisenhower and Commander of the Allied Forces during World War II, "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex... Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
Joyce, you also must not believe in your bible when you said that you "don't believe that everyone in the world will beat their swords into plowshares and that we'll all live as brothers and sisters in peace and harmony." This must be a neo-christian doctrine that war is inevitable so why work for peace...
Give it up Joyce...stop beating the drums of War!!!