Would we tell us these lies, if we all would be drafted?
Seven of my soldiers are dead. Two committed suicide. Bombs got the others in Iraq and Afghanistan. One young man lost three limbs. Another is paralyzed. I entered West Point a couple of months before 9/11. Eight of my classmates died “over there.”
Military service, war, sacrifice—when I was 17, I felt sure this would bring me meaning, adulation, even glory. It went another way. Sixteen years later, my generation of soldiers is still ensnared in an indecisive, unfulfilling series of losing wars: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Niger—who even keeps count anymore? Sometimes, I allow myself to wonder what it’s all been for.
I find it hard to believe I’m the only one who sees it. Nonetheless, you hear few dissenting voices among the veterans of the “global war on terror.” See, soldiers are all “professionals” now, at least since Richard Nixon ditched the draft in 1973. Mostly the troops—especially the officers—uphold an unwritten code, speak in esoteric vernacular and hide behind a veil of reticence. It’s a camouflage wall as thick as the “blue line” of police silence. Maybe it’s necessary to keep the machine running. I used to believe that. Sometimes, though, we tell you lies. Don’t take it personally: We tell them to each other and ourselves as well.
Read on, this is a well sourced and clear article. What bothered me most in this essay are these following hightlighted sentences:
The half-truths, comfortable fictions and outright lies are more than a little dangerous. They are affecting the next generation of young Americans. For instance, a full decade and two wars after I graduated, I taught history at West Point. Best job I ever had. My first crop of freshman cadets will graduate in May. They’re impressive young men and women. They’re mostly believers (for that, I envy them), ready to kick ass and wipe the floor with Islamic State—or Islamic State 2.0—or whomever. No one really tells them of the quagmires and disappointments that lie ahead. A few of us try, but we’re the outliers. Most cadets are unreachable. It has always been this way.
Truthfully, I surmise, it wouldn’t matter anyway. A surprising number of the cadets want to end up like me and so many others: disenchanted, lost and broken. There’s a romance to it. I felt the tug once, too. Some of my students will excel, and 10 years from now, they’ll come back to West Point and mentor cadets en route to the same ugly places, the same never-ending wars. Those kids, mind you, will have been born a decade after 9/11. Thinking on this near certainty, I want to throw up. But make no mistake: It will be so.
A system of this sort—one that produces and exalts generations of hopeless soldiers—requires millions of individual lies and necessitates discarding inconvenient truths. Only maybe, just maybe, it’s all rather simple. Perhaps we’re just pawns, duped in a very old game. Maybe soldiers’ sacrifices offer nothing of any real value. Nothing, that is, besides a painful warning: Trust not your own policymakers, your leaders or even the public. They’ll let you down every time.
There is a romance in it? Really?
I wonder what would happen to the romance if every American citizen had to serve. I guess lies and glory would be a bit faster debunked as quite "unromantic". What do you think?
Comments
Well, the romance I think he's referring to...
Is the romance of trying to help others learn from their mistakes and prevent the next generation from becoming what one IS.
There are those kids who think that they'll go through things, and come out as one of the wise, who knows the real "Truth" that combat vets do.
Sadly there is no truth, just the realization that you've been fighting for lies. Pretty lies, but lies all the same.
Forgive my bitterness. I wanted to be where that author is, when I was in the service. I wanted to get my commission, and be a wise mentor that prevents war by simply teaching the next batch of soldiers what it means to truly serve and why sometimes disobeying orders is the only honorable choice...
Looking back, I think myself hopelessly naive. Not for the goal, but for the thought that I would be secure enough morally to disobey orders at the cost of said defiance.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Who am I to judge (and forgive) your bitterness?
I know you are a war veteran. I never was in that situation. I have no clue what you went through. I am a mom of a war veteran like you are, just as bitter as you are, seeing what it did to my son. We were all very naive, very asleep at the wheel and had no clue how to get out that situation, when it was too late.
I agree that disobeying orders, when you are already in the service, is exactly something the PTB know will not happen in 99.9 percent of the cases. I also remember my son telling me over the phone, when the enlisted realized they were "trained" for the upcoming invasion to Iraq and Afghanistan services, that they started binge watching war movies in their free time. I could never understand why. May be they tried to find the "honorable" thing in them that they were believing in. I have no clue. It was a puzzle to me.
In that sense I would hope that a mandatory service would help those, who enlist as "believers", to not believe and not trust, being advised by their own loved ones, who had been broken and know not to trust out of experiences they had through their own service in previous wars.
I remember that in the fifties and sixties in Germany there was this general feeling among young students and teenagers, that military service is "out of the question" to engage in. It seemed to be more honorable to be a conscientious objector and deny participating in the mandatory military service years Germany had at that time, than participating and serving. Actually many of us thought serving in the military and not to object it, was outright stupid. (which is also not quite fair) I think this attitude developed as they all had "betrayed, broken" loved ones in their families, who went through wwII.
I think a mandatory military service for all is preferable, as long as it is legal and an option to object to that service out of conscientious moral reasons. It would be interesting to see how many in today's US youth would object, if the US had a mandatory military service years instituted.
It's all so sad. I remember that my grandfather on the mothers side, who was a combat Veteran from wwI was despaired about not convincing his son to not be a "believer" in the Nazi's lies. It's really not easy to help someone to not get manipulated.
Any effort by writers and educators to fight against the manipulative efforts of the MIC and PTB I therefore respect, though I realize in most cases it doesn't help. I get angry at times. What does it help to write a book? Or an article? Or make a video?
I didn't know what to answer to that, because as Big AL said above, it doesn't seem to change anything and doesn't really help. But then what else can one do to prevent naively believing in something that many think makes them "honorably helping others" and "more wise" from making the same mistakes their ancestors did?
Are you as tired as I am? I have no answers. Hugs is all I can give, I am so sorry for what you went through.
Yes I am very tired.
And the only "Good" stories that came out of my service were the small ones.
I still want to tell a very realistic war story as a comedy. I've had this one floating around in my head since the war called "The Week The War Forgot Us", and doing it as a very black comedy about a group of soldiers that has been overlooked in paperwork, and for 2 weeks have absolutely NOTHING to do.
The comedy of course would come from the realization exactly how stupid the war is, through unfiltered recognition of exactly what they are doing. It's a hopeful story, but one that I haven't written yet because I just haven't been in the right mental space.
I think the solution is just to keep telling our stories. It's the eternal state of the experienced to be ignored by the naive. However, without the Naive nothing would ever get done. It's the duty, IMHO, of the experienced to try to stop the known disasters and instead let the naive create new ones. At least then we'll be learning new lessons instead of the same stupid ones, over and over again.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
A variation on Smedley Butler's War is a Racket and on
and on. I remember reading a lot of stuff like this after the Vietnam war, the futility of it all, the lies. War is a lie, say it again.
A draft could change things. Problem is the only way it will happen is if a major war with Russia and/or China has already started, I don't see it happening without such a trigger. Unless we forced the end of imperialism and went to a continental defense only setup.
Nothing is going to change unless we can figure out a way to remove those in power and change this political and economic system.
My biggest fear is that the rest of the world
will have to somehow stop us. BRICS maybe. God forbid outright bombing by another country, but I suppose it could come to that. Maybe that's the final wake up call, Big Al? Anything that happens to stop it will have to come from outside I think. I guess that's why it's far easier and somehow satisfying to get into debating parties, corruption and minutia. I don't think it can be stopped from within. I don't think enough of the country will help us stop it.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Well, if we can't even muster protests about a pending
nuclear war after what's happened the last 16 years, it doesn't look good for an outside movement. But you never know, a lot of pent up frustration out there and maybe all it needs is a spark.
I'm more convinced than ever that people have to get out of the futile system of electing politicians and allowing everything to be defined by the two major political parties and form an independent movement to challenge the power structure and this system of government.
I know there are a lot of people out there that want to do that but it seems like no one can organize it. I was thinking just today about that and a possible essay about what has happened since 1999/2003 since the WTO and Iraq war protests and why there is literally nothing happening now. I'm thinking a big part of the problem is the professionalization via the internet and 21st century communication technology combined with global capitalism, of political activism. I.e, the Jimmy Dore show and things like that are actually part of the problem in that it's turned it into a professional entertainment system much like big media requiring constant feeding to maintain their gigs, they become dependent, we become dependent and there is no unified, organized effort toward a goal. It requires bouncing from day to day like the corporate media does with the general public on the issues generated and it never stops because there's always new news the next day.
Just some thots I might try to flesh out.
I think you are on to something and feel similarly
We read the articles, watch the shows, nod our heads in agreement ... and then nothing is changed and we resign frustrated into our bed pillows and fall asleep with the words "shit".
There is the fear to have a constitutional amendment as people fear the amended constitution (electoral system especially, if I understand it correctly) could be worse than what you have now.
Somehow I believe all of it will crash, because no technology and no professionalism can prevent some itsy bitty small errors unforeseen. And then of course I fear that crash as much as anything else.
So, I am going into gardening and fishing and let the internet be what it is, best addictive mind boggling and entertainning drug and ego boosting device ever.
PS: I agree with trying to change to a system that goes toward allowing a war only for the reason of a continental defense of the US. And only if the attack on the US would be a "real war", not a single terror attack like 9/11 was.
In general, BRICS gives me hope . . .
They seem to be focusing on positive change. However, the notion that they could attack us. That's creepy. Hopefully we get our shit together soon.
And yes . . . the draft would change the paradigm.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
@mhagle
Reinstating the draft sure would change the paradigm! How else are they going to get enough boots on the ground to invade the rest of the countries on the hit list all at once, should they band together for defense? And now, as desired by several Generals, American women can be cannon-fodder, too, which doubles the numbers. Anyone deemed able-bodied for combat is needed. There are several Generals pressing for this and a lot of attacks against still-independent countries and their people being threatened, with more to come.
America needs
to commit more military muggingsmore war-crimes- quick, while the public purse still enables the borrowing of even more trillions of debt drained out of the American public in a starved and dying ground-level economy and with collapsing infrastructure, and before the average Joe/sophine is too industrially malnourished and poisoned to hold a weapon.Jobs, jobs, jobs - too bad there's no money for vets mangled in the process of slaughtering civilians to steal their countries and stuff for further corporate/billionaire gain, but - jobs, jobs, jobs!
After all, the US military are already in... how many countries...? And engaged in actively threatening... how many countries...? And have lists of... how many more countries to attack...? And they have to leave troops in to occupy... how many geopolitically/fossil fuel/mineral resource rich countries they aren't welcome in but which are important to American corporate/billionaire interests?
The math is beyond me, apart from making it evident that every warm American body may be needed (so they don't have to worry about keeping 'resources' 'out of harms way', a concern in an article I haven't yet found again but believe I posted here previously?) to take over the rest of the world, with the handy result of usefully controlling/getting rid of/maiming (while, as is typically desired, pretty much as far as possible abandoning the latter, when no longer useful) much of the youngest and fittest within the population who are also most likely to actively object to the asset-stripping of society and the environment to the industrially polluted bone.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/01/27/draft-execu...
Global conquest; it's what's for breakfast instead of food for the hungry.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
That's all so horrible
OMG Horrible
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
@mhagle
Hoping I'm wrong - but there are worse scenarios which are equally possible. On the other hand, there are apparently so many factions involved, each jockeying for top positioning of their own priorities with somewhat varying goals and so much BS/confusion strategy...
Obviously, all I do know for certain is that Total Dominance over everything is desired by various psychopathic groups with no respect for reality in control of the US government, agencies and the US military with factions intent on Total Global Domination in each of various desired areas, and of the US media, being charged with control of the desired 'message', and that they're sucking the life out of America and the world to achieve their goals.
And we know something of what's already been done by such pathologically greedy self-interests/groups and what deliberate horrors and 'incidental' destruction they're capable of creating. So I extrapolate what seems likely/probable from that base.
But conditionally assuming that whatever they appear to be doing is what they actually intend doing must also be assumed to potentially be built on misleading information, or merely on lunatic ideas partially prepared for because they not only are not paying for the preparations, but are doubtless profiting from them.
It's also possible that much of this is simply to drive MIC stock prices up and to provide lucrative contracts to various corporations;
to terrorize the US population into accepting McCarthyism and censorship, along with increasing 'disappearing' of political dissidents;
to dispose of socialist or other youth most likely to object to the imposition of increasingly overt fascism and obviously faked selections by bringing them under military control by forcing enlistment (the suggested 2 years of enforced service between 18 and 25 giving plenty of time for brainwashing);
to impose martial law on the US population to facilitate repression;
any and all of the above and more.
Personally, I find that my assessed probability levels of various scenarios shift with incoming information which I have no way of verifying, or which may involve implementation of something which may be stymied - but I suspect that there's probably more than one strategy in play at any time, depending on which group of billionaires/corporations gains ascendancy at any given time, as well as many other uncertain factors.
TLDR: it's hard to make sense out of anything essentially based on lunacy. But, outside of humour, sane humans like things to make sense, so we try to put indications and information together to determine what direction/outcome seems likely/see what theories seem to cover the known facts and make sense. And all of the facts and indications I can access regarding this situation make for horrific outcomes, if the root problems are not rectified.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
@Ellen North
thank you for this long and passionate comment. I am not sure, if you think a draft would increase the oppression of the US population into accepting McCarthyism and censorship by bringing them under military control through enforced enlistment or if the opposite might occur.
I thought a more massive opposition by the US population would result to said military and police control, if military service is mandatory.
It's obviously easier to get younger, jobless folks to bribe and brainwash into a volunteer service, (while the rest of the population thinks in the back of their minds' back how 'lucky they are, because others do the dirty work for them) than convince everybody by forcing them into military service.
The brainwashing happens before folks enlist and is challenged and questioned the moment when when the enlistees end up in combat overseas realizing they kill innocent civilians for morally clearly unacceptable reasons.
That's when the inner conflicts arise and is the cause and base for later anger management problems and PTSD symptoms with severe depressions. At least I believe so.
I am not sure I understand what you think. Which is more likely to happen if the mandatory service is instituted. More oppression of the American people or more critical opposition by the American people?
@mimi
Under the scenarios which seem most likely to me, it seems unlikely that any citizen opposition would be tolerated.
And there's no longer any pretense of ('legally' eliminated) Constitutional rights for US citizens, who can now be not only killed by police with impunity but 'disappeared' - kidnapped and held incognito for the rest of their lives on or offshore without charges ever having been laid, never mind proven.
Not only does blatant and bizarre propaganda flood the country, but rapidly accelerating censorship is being imposed, while accusing dissenters and those wishing to have democracy and public-protective law of being 'foreign agents' of a country being presented as 'the enemy' who has purportedly 'declared war' by such claimed actions as using Twitter, buying FB ads and being concerned about police murders of citizens based on skin colour to supposedly influence an election against a corrupt and cheating candidate whose very supporters admonished everyone to hold their noses to vote for.
Why do you suppose that particular claim is being presented, if not to 'normalize' the idea of citizens demanding the upholding of Constitutional rights and standard... well, standards, and of politicians and the media observing respect for reality as not just being 'criminal' but 'traitorous'?
Especially if the US PTB admit to 'being at war' in attacks on any or all of multiple countries currently listed and threatened with, variously, massing troops and/or flying fighter planes, on their very borders/in their airspace, bringing armed submarines into their national waters and with nuclear missiles set up and ready to go - that being why a draft doubled in size would be required - and initiate martial law to go with the censorship, propaganda and routine police brutality toward those protesting government policies against the public interest.
(Wonder why they're a mite touchy over there, in North Korea? Especially already having been bombed flat in the past by the US? And threatened with obliteration now?)
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-nuclear-submarine-north-korea-duter...
(There's a video at the above source about South Korea's two years of mandatory military service for all males; in the US proposed for everybody fit for combat, male and female.)
http://www.businessinsider.com/kim-jong-nam-coup-us-agent-malaysia-north...
The US has no need to defend itself against the prospect of any invasion and TPTB need to stop making defensive attacks from multiple long-threatened countries more likely and immediate than ever before.
Instead, the country and people are further drained for further trillions for weaponry only needed for purposes of world conquest and the expansion of a military already far larger than any sane country requires. Why do they require more combat troops, among many others?
It's not 'just' a matter of sending and leaving more troops in already-invaded countries and upping the numbers in countries where the US PTB wish to take control:
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/11/17/hundreds-more-us-troops-no...
https://www.dodbuzz.com/2017/11/17/troop-surge-afghanistan-completed-140...
There is a very long list of countries to be attacked, which even includes India.
In this scenario, expecting a draft to be helpful toward peace seems overly optimistic.
We are dealing with psychopathic lunatics intent on global domination, and they've planned carefully since Nazis were brought out of internment camps into US industry and government by sympathizers after the failure of the previous fascist effort, thereby further affecting the now long-pathological US corporate and political cultures.
But it was thought that Hitler was unstoppable and this wasn't the case.
Where there is life, there is hope.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Speaking of psychopathic lunatics
Some people thought the Evil Queen was unstoppable but we got a different psychopathic lunatic instead. Lose-lose scenario. The latest attack unfreedom of speech is the FCC allowing more media consolidation. In such a way, we will have Big Brother giving us our two minute hate every hour on the hour, along with more consumerist-directed messages.
@Alligator Ed
That game was rigged for no-choice from before the beginning of that election cycle. And it wasn't a legitimate election at all.
You are not getting legitimate law from legitimate government, as you know. I don't even know what to say, except that thanks to outside corporate interests/billionaires we're well down the same path, intended to be global by the 'trade deal' hook of crooks. And that this is something that has to be fought globally, by the people of the world, especially regarding boycotts, wherever possible and searches for alternatives to feeding the monster by buying from criminal corporations.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
oh boy, I have to read this five times, but
the first sentence is basically the answer. Thank You. How not to be scared and furious at the same time?
I am sorry to not be able to say anything more. Lately I am overwhelmed with the discussions taking place here. What it amounts to is like the movie title in German "Dick and Doof" (that is apparently in English Laurel and Hardy. It just came to my mind as a word play to express my feelings about what I read lately a lot about here: "Dick(s) and Doof(s) (Stupids).
All of what you say is so serious. At the moment I can take it in only by reading it as if it were just as ridiculous as "Dicks and Stupids".
The link to the New Yorker Magazine's articles (Big Al pointed to them) by Jon Rappoport After Harvey Weinstein; is Trump next to go down? and What comes after the widespread exposure of sexual abuse? made me so dizzy I just can't follow anything anymore and give up. I hope you somehow can accept my "not wanting to deal ywith either Dicks nor Stupids" and give me some slack to read all of it slowly and several times.
I will try again in a little bit. Thank you much.
@mimi
If it helps any, I think all more-aware people are now scared and furious. The only good thing about the state things now seem so obviously to be in is that the global tipping point may have been reached where enough people in enough countries are sufficiently scared and furious to find constructive and pacific ways of ridding ourselves of this pathology while there's still anything to save.
It is ridiculous. Ridiculous that we - the 99% - have allowed things to reach this stage essentially because of a small fraction of 1% of the population sucking the life out of a world. And it is too much to cope with, although somehow we must, if we are to overcome it to survive.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
I have not much hope for
enough people in enough countries being sufficiently scared and furious to find constructive and peaceful of ridding themselves of a pathology while there's still anything to save.
The problems are too complex to solve constructively, at least from my view point from Europe. It is difficult over here too, but it doesn't feel like a pathology of an elite, more like nobody knowing how to find solutions that don't hurt the majority of the population in their respective countries and being frustrated about political parties and politicians who are in competition and in fear to lose their face for all the compromises they have to make to be "constructive". It is just beyond belief that neither in the US, nor in Europe people seem to understand each others problems and conditions they are causing each other.
Beyond belief that no one understands the problem?
Due to bread-circuses and overwhelming burdens to make subsistence, the average Joe or Josephine has barely enough time to consider with any clarity what is fucking them over.
A distant cousin
got himself removed from the slaughter of the Crimean War.
War is very unpleasant.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
Would. And "they" know it.
"They" being the MIC, the gov't., Deep State...
That's why we'll never see such a thing. They learned their lesson in Vietnam. Returning GI Joes swapped their G.I. Joe fatigues for dirty hippie blue jeans and protested the war they just returned from. That dirty hippie Walter Cronkite said that the war may not be lost, but it will never be won. Right there on the teevee!
They learned their lesson in 'nam. No more whiny pants draftees, we'll get "volunteers" to fight our wars. And, no more Press anywhere near the war zone. No more Cronkites telling the enemy how weak we are.
So, yes! A draft would cure what ails "our" wars. Bigly.
And, becuz of that, there won't be one.
"They" want perpetual war. And have it. Dubya's War on Terra may eventually come to a halt, but by then there will be another one. Somewhere on here someone mentioned that the Army wants to bulk up to 1 Million troops. Currently the same 100,000 soldiers (give or take) fight our "wars." The same guys! Year after year. Recycled in and out of the battle field. 9 mos. in, 9 mos. out. give or take. The same guys. Until they finally discharge out. The Army now feels they need 1 million troops. Got another war to fight.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.