the peril of idolizing our military

[xchrom]

http://www.nationofchange.org/peril-idolizing-our-military-1328451169

Do you be­lieve with Pres­i­dent Obama that our mil­i­tary today con­sti­tutes a "gen­er­a­tion of he­roes" and that their team­work and courage in bat­tle show us the proper path for­ward in civil­ian life? Do you be­lieve that the deadly ef­fec­tive­ness of the Navy SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden should in­spire us to put aside dif­fer­ences in pol­i­tics and to work to­gether as a peo­ple?

As a re­tired vet­eran, such pro-mil­i­tary rhetoric in the pres­i­dent's state of the union ad­dress res­onates with me, but as a stu­dent of his­tory it makes me more than un­com­fort­able. In de­mo­c­ra­tic so­ci­eties, armed forces are funded and fielded to pre­serve lib­er­ties, not to pro­vide tem­plates for per­sonal and so­ci­etal be­hav­ior.

When civil as­pi­ra­tions are guided by and de­fined within mil­i­tary ma­tri­ces, one gets the Iraq war of yes­ter­day, the Afghan war of today, and the Iran (or Syria or in­sert-new-ter­ror­ist-na­tion here) war of to­mor­row. For­ever war is in­deed the price for a na­tion that glo­ri­fies its mil­i­tary as the very best of its peo­ple and their ideals.

The ki­netic (killing) com­pe­tency of our mil­i­tary is cer­tainly im­pres­sive, yet it's a com­pe­tency that we must use ju­di­ciously and with re­straint. When we el­e­vate it as an ex­am­ple of "I've got your back" team­work that all should be em­u­lat­ing, we tend to de­value diplo­macy and the level of pa­tience and per­spec­tive our coun­try needs to dis­play in an in­creas­ingly tur­bu­lent world.

[limpyhobbler]

1. The military contains roughly the same ratio of assholes to normal people as the general population.

[marmar]

2. Somebody needs to say it.

k/r

[sad sally]

3. In America, we've learned how to pick fights and claim the existence

of threats in a way that needlessly encourages damage to us, so we in turn can attack, or threaten attack by arming the enemies of our friends of the day. Time and time again, these American-armed friends become our enemies.

In the late 70's and early 80's, we armed our friends - the Afghanistan militants - the mujahideen, who would rebel the Russians out of Afghanistan. Later they become the Taliban, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood...

The continued fostering of American military exceptionalism, and the disdain for non-Americans and their values, means we readily accept war, or at the very least the threat of it, with any other country or whoever is currently occupying it (even if they're just passing thru) anytime, anywhere.

[YOHABLO]

4. And Who Has Been Increasing This Turbulence?

Hmm I wonder if the U.S. has anything to do with it.

[cbrer]

5. Better get ready...

The "people" (corporations) who are pulling strings in Washington, and the DOD, are not going to go away, and their quest for greater profits and influence isn't either. We have been a warring culture for over 100 years now. We as a society, (plenty of indiviual exceptions), go along with this attitude in many ways. Especially economically.

The members of our armed forces are to be praised and pitied. The efficiency and competency with which they execute their duties IS to be commended. Not idolized. Perhaps a semantic difference, but I can clearly label them such.

War forever changes many people in many different ways. Not just soldiers either.