A Mercenary Society -- By ROBERT JENSEN [View All]

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The failed war in Iraq -- and its effect on the U.S. military -- has the potential to spark the U.S. public to fundamentally rethink the role of force in U.S. foreign policy, and one of the central questions for the future of the United States is whether this questioning can mature and deepen.

Can we in the so-called "lone superpower" face that we are now a nation of mercenaries?

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Part of the barrier to a clear understanding of this is the belief that the United States, by definition, always acts benevolently in the world. But also standing in the way of an honest analysis is the reality that the brutal imperialist U.S. policies, while devised by elites, are being carried out by ordinary Americans. Can we in the United States come to terms with the fact that we are the "good Germans" of our era, routinely allowing pseudo-patriotic loyalties to override moral decision-making? Can we look at ourselves honestly in the mirror when so many of us are implicated in the imperialist system?

From the people who make the weapons to the military personnel who use them -- and all the other people whose livelihoods or networks of friends and family connect them to the armed forces -- most of the U.S. public has some relationship to the military. Any talk of closing a military base sparks almost automatic resistance from neighboring communities that have become dependent on the base economically. Large segments of the corporate sector rely on military or military-related contracts, and executives and employees alike understand what that means for profits and wages.

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