Showing posts with label military adventurism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label military adventurism. Show all posts

Saturday, July 17, 2021

Journalism, Judges, and Justice: a Neglected American Alliance

The United States, after losing propaganda wars against Russia and China post-Trump, appears to be doubling down on anti-democratic allegations while elevating Asian-Americans into visible positions of power. This hybrid strategy is too little, too late, and will do nothing to alter China's rise to superpower status. 

By now, American politicians and CEOs know their country's institutions are no longer export-ready without substantial advertising and trillions of dollars of government stimulus. To add ballast to the strategies above, they are consolidating media and using government lawyers to prosecute perceived enemies of the state. Such maneuvering, which attempts to combine a Soviet hammer with American marketing and banking expertise, will fail because it brings nothing new. 

No government, irrespective of the political party in power, is really interested in freedom of the press. All democratic governments are keen to control the media by using undemocratic means. -- Preetika Dwivedi

Six corporations already control most of what Americans see, but social media, streaming services, satellite radio, and podcasts represent challenges to crafting a united narrative. As media further consolidates, it can distract you on firmer financial footing, sidelining critical voices by drowning you in options. For example, the American journalist most resembling Edward R. Murrow or Dan Rather is British-born Mehdi Hasan, whom most Americans have never heard of; meanwhile, any American wishing to read America's most honest political commentary would need to turn to the opening letter of Larry Flynt's Hustler magazine. When a semi-mainstream pornographer is a country's most incisive native-born journalist, it is unclear how further media consolidation will assist the role of journalist as the legislature's unofficial fact-finder.

"[I]mperative is the need to preserve inviolate the constitutional rights of free speech, free press and free assembly in order to maintain the opportunity for free political discussion, to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes, if desired, may be obtained by peaceful means. Therein lies the security of the Republic, the very foundation of constitutional government." -- Chief Justice Hughes, 299 U.S. 353, 365 (1937)

Regarding "lawfare," the current Democratic Party majority has failed to secure significant jail time against even one alleged bad actor. Republican Steve Bannon's indictment was dismissed. Republicans Paul Manafort and Roger Stone were pardoned. Army lieutenant general Michael Flynn pled guilty to lying to the FBI but was pardoned. The list of pardoned and/or convicted military personnel is long and, the occupation of Afghanistan having lasted 20 years, includes members under both Democratic and Republican administrations. 

History may not be kind to Clint Allen Lorance, Robert Bales, Jeremy Morlock, Edward Gallagher, or Mathew Golsteyn, but they can always claim they were victims of a corrupt military hierarchy, thus casting doubt on America's justice system. Such doubt means the law, designed to punish the guilty and free the innocent, cannot be wholly trusted, which in turn means American lawyers and judges cannot be trusted or believed. Doubt and legal maneuvering are not new phenomena, but when they have appeared together, the first casualty has been the credibility of the legal branch. In a ternary system where the judiciary supervises the executive and the legislature, it is not difficult to predict rot from one branch spreading everywhere. This, again, is nothing new. The 1995 O.J. Simpson trial foreshadowed issues not only within the criminal justice system, but the entire legal branch, including police departments, just as the Rodney King beating foreshadowed George Floyd's manslaughter. (The result of the upcoming Theranos trial, where a blond-haired, blue-eyed CEO is claiming she was the victim of a brown-skinned svengali, will determine whether California's justice system is capable of reform or irrevocably corrupt.)

Rot is particularly apt to spread where students lack proper civics and history instruction, and Americans who study the My Lai massacre are not taught the following facts: 1) twenty-six soldiers were charged with criminal offenses, but only Lieutenant William Calley Jr., a platoon leader, was convicted; 2) the "day after the verdict, Nixon ordered Calley released from the post stockade and placed under house arrest in the Fort Benning bachelor officer quarters. Appeals would eventually reduce his punishment to time served." 

Why didn't President Nixon pardon Calley outright? The public--including a majority of whom voted--wouldn't have tolerated it, and their political engagement allowed Congress to use impeachment to drive Nixon out of the political arena. In contrast, when a divided Congress impeached Trump, few Americans cared because Trump was already out of office. (Politics may be a show, but it must contain some substance to maintain viewership.) 

Understanding events between Nixon and Biden requires remembering what happened between the American War of Aggression against Vietnam and twenty years of Afghan occupation: the Iraq War and Guantanamo Bay. There, too, justice and judges were feckless. Iraq War criminal Charles Graner served six and a half years of his ten year sentence. Lynndie England, Graner's co-conspirator, served only eighteen months of her three year sentence. As of July 2021, Guantanamo Bay is still open, despite former President Obama's pledge to close it. After the Mahmudiyah rape and killings, justice prevailed against Steven Dale Green, James P. Barker, Paul E. Cortez, Jesse V. Spielman, Bryan L. Howard, and Anthony W. Yribe, which made it all the more disheartening to see political and judicial integrity retreat again during the Afghan occupation. In stable countries, the scales of justice ought not to wobble so much. 

Now would be a good time for Americans to re-evaluate why political parties exist. It is not only to elevate intellectuals onto public platforms so they can compete with others under transparent rules that advance the nation. Ideally, politics is played by people who first and foremost prevent corruption within government itself, thereby gaining credibility to regulate the private sector, including criminals. Without such credibility, China's one-party system will succeed against the more complex, more variegated American system of checks and balances for obvious reasons: more variety is inferior when it allows more rather than less corruption, and when it renders corruption harder to root out. 

When the United States lacked global political competition, its political negligence was understandable. Today, America's political negligence is perplexing as well as unforgivable. After all, every empire eventually expires, but whether systemic corruption is part of its history is entirely up to its people and its politicians. Perhaps, in the end, not all empires are doomed to fail--just ones that make a mockery of their judges and journalists. 

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat, active member of International Federation of Journalists as of date of publication (July 2021)

Bonus: The war crimes mentioned above are by no means an  exhaustive list. According to CNN, 

"In testimony at an Article 32 hearing -- the military's version of a grand jury or preliminary hearing -- [Colonel] West said the [Iraqi] policeman... was not cooperating with interrogators, so he watched four of his soldiers from the 220th Field Artillery Battalion beat the detainee on the head and body. West said he also threatened to kill [the policeman]. 

Military prosecutors say West followed up on that threat by taking the suspect outside, put him on the ground near a weapons clearing barrel and fired his 9 mm pistol into the barrel. Apparently not knowing where West's gun was aimed, [the Iraqi policeman] cracked and gave information..." 

However, the policeman, Yehiya Kadoori Hamoodi, "said in an interview that he did not [provide any valuable information], because he knew nothing." According to the NYT, "Hamoodi said that he was not sure what he told the Americans, but that it was meaningless information induced by fear and pain." 

"At least one man named by Mr. Hamoodi was taken into custody... and his home was searched. No plans for attacks on Americans or weapons were found. Colonel West testified that he did not know whether 'any corroboration' of a plot was ever found, adding: 'At the time I had to base my decision on the intelligence I received. It's possible that I was wrong about Mr. Hamoodi.'" (Source: NY Times, THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ: INTERROGATIONS; How Colonel Risked His Career By Menacing Detainee and Lost, May 27, 2004, by Deborah Sontag) 

95 members of Congress signed a letter to the secretary of the Army supporting the colonel. West was fined 5,000 dollars. He became a Florida Representative and is now Chair of the Texas Republican Party.

"There was a looming sense of doom in America, a perception that established politics had failed. Many pundits had said that--after being motivated and defined for 30 years by the Communist threat--Americans seriously needed to find a new enemy." -- Mark Lawson, The Battle for Room Service (1993) 

After candidate Ross Perot's popularity, the "unnerving burden on President [Bill] Clinton was to restore democratic equilibrium--and confidence in the conventional ballot box--or America might yet be the territory for a populist, anti-political, sinister Mr. Fixit." -- 
Mark Lawson, The Battle for Room Service (1993)

Saturday, February 13, 2021

Jocko Willink and the Fog of War

I've copied a Twitter thread below. With so many technological standards, a simple copy-and-paste across different platforms is no longer possible, but I've done my best to clean up the content. 

Original interview is here: https://tim.blog/2018/06/04/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-jocko-willink-on-discipline-leadership-and-overcoming-doubt/ 

________________

One day, when Americans are paying war crime reparations to Iraq, I want you to remember this 2018 @tferriss interview with John Gretton Willink aka @jockowillink, former @USNavy officer. 

[The photo below appears to be from Iraq and USA's 173rd Airborne Brigade, NOT #JockoWillink.]
ImageThe issue of mentioning prisons in the interview will soon become obvious... ImageWillink continues defending the military industrial complex. Does he realize General Eisenhower popularized the term as a warning? ImageYou don't have true freedom if your country and its citizens require debt to survive. From @nntaleb: "To the ancients, someone in debt was not free, he was in bondage." ImageAlso, re: freedom in USA, "As of July 2019, the United States had the highest number of incarcerated individuals worldwide, with about 2.12 million people in prison." ImageWars are often fought not only to capture another country's resources or to prevent a rival's territorial conquests, but to place the defeated country in debt. The debt is usually demarcated in the victor's own currency, thus strengthening liquidity of victor's currency and victor's ability to impose economic as well as legal terms. Image"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?" -- Mahatma Gandhi ImageCal Fussman: "I turned to the editorial page of a British newspaper. A cartoon depicted a giant Statue of Liberty wearing sunglasses & clutching a bayoneted machine gun towering over tiny Iraqis, who were throwing back stones. There were a lot of ways to feel about that cartoon." Harold Pinter: "The crimes of USA have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good." Almost forgot about Afghanistan: There was "'a reasonable basis to believe' that members of the Afghan National Security Forces, the US armed forces and the CIA had committed 'war crimes,' including torture and rape." I’ll end with a cautionary quote from Vietnam War veteran Paul Coates: “When you’re in the military, the only thing coming at you is military information. It’s just like being in America: You are totally brainwashed. Everything around me supported the war in Vietnam, so I bought into it.” And so it goes.

Monday, February 20, 2017

Adventures from America's Job Market: Factions, Factions Everywhere

I recently applied for a job and was asked if I was disabled or a military veteran. Such questions intend to comply with government data gathering and are required to grant access to certain gov projects. The idea is that the gov, through its massive spending power, can influence corporations for the better. For example, one reason air bags are now standard in cars is because the gov, for its own fleets, issued a RFP where it required them to be installed. And just like that, air bags are now standard for everyone without legislative fiat.

In the case of disabled applicants, the rationale is also straightforward--disabled adults can contribute but are prevented from doing so by various structural barriers, including discrimination. The gov is helping remove such barriers to give them equal access to job opportunities and to keep them off welfare rolls.

The case of giving military veterans preferences is less straightforward. The argument for discrimination doesn't apply in an age where the military and intelligence agencies spend hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing--not just on TV commercials, but on more subtle placements such as pre-sporting game and halftime ceremonies.  Mainstream movies now have fewer Full Metal Jackets and Born on the Fourth of Julys while continuing to make many pre-Vietnam war movies, reflecting not only an erasure of America's prior opposition to proxy wars but a sustained effort to link the current military with an era of defensive wars. (Perhaps I'm the only one who thinks it's odd to reach that far back in history but not introduce new movies about the Kent State student shot by the Ohio National Guard or Abraham Ribicoff.)

Additionally, if a military veteran attended college before joining the military, most likely he or she is already at a level equivalent to the average civilian applicant and doesn't need any barriers removed. If the veteran joined straight out of high school, then the government and taxpayers provided the person with vocational opportunities not generally available or trained the enlistee using taxpayer dollars.  In other words, not only has the civilian taxpayer paid upfront to train the military--many of whom would otherwise lack options or who are ineligible to enroll in a competitive college--but now must compete with ex-military personnel despite not being given similar options in the civilian sector (no GI Bill, no free vocational training, etc.).

You may argue such incentives are necessary in order to have a voluntary draft, but with the advent of drones, we need fewer enlistees, not more. You may argue the enlistee is under contract once signed and sacrifices measures of freedom, but "following orders" in an age of repeatedly unnecessary wars contains no honor--and certainly not a choice that should be encouraged through debt to foreign governments.  Indeed, the only reasons such a system is possible is because America directs 49% of its discretionary spending--about $500 billion annually--to act as the world's cop, a role at which it is clearly failing post-Iraq, post-Syria, post-Libya, post-ISIS, and post-Crimea. According to the U.N., a "total 65.3 million people were displaced at the end of 2015, compared to 59.5 million just 12 months earlier."

To summarize, America's military and civilian leaders have lost every war since Vietnam except for skirmishes in Panama and Grenada, and such wars have cost American taxpayers $14 trillion. It is time for voters and corporate leaders to say, "Enough. President Eisenhower was right about the military-industrial complex.  I shall do nothing to assist America in falling off the cliff it currently teeters upon."

Bonus: Military Times reported in November 2016 that veterans now comprise roughly one-third of the U.S. federal workforce—or more than 600,000 positions.  

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Modern Capitalism, or How to Guarantee a Military-Industrial Complex

My uncle once told me, "In the future, there will be five companies, and they'll own everything."  We needn't go into the future to see such a reality--in most important ways, the aforementioned scenario is already here if you add two zeros to the end of the number above.

Where does innovation come from after a company achieves multinational status, starts paying a dividend, but still has to grow by x% annually to please Wall Street? Some people may know that such growth comes from buy-outs and mergers. Indeed, after a certain size, large companies succeed based on how adept they are at incorporating a newly bought company's products and remaining employees into their own pre-configured business and legal systems. In short, scalability, supply chain management, and risk controls drive value in a major corporation if it survives long enough. What about innovation?

Under the current merger-and-acquisition system, major companies will "buy" innovation and pay premiums--sometimes obscene ones--to avoid having large and unpredictable R&D budgets. In such a dynamic, large companies can pay a small percentage of their revenue to attract a smaller company, but without taking the risk of having larger or recurring R&D costs on the books that don't produce consistent ROI. Smart, right?

Yet, it is precisely the large companies, with their established products and revenue streams, that are best able to take the risks necessary to produce great ideas. If only smaller companies are taking bank loans or SBA loans to try new ideas, then the banks become the primary risk-takers and consequently demand greater influence and political power to take on such risk. If the big banks' investment banking, consulting, and M&A groups are the major players backing smaller companies or venture capital firms, then most innovation not linked to academia is supported by the banking sector.

Guess who supports the banking sector? The FDIC and your deposits.  In other words, under America's current capitalist system, taxpayers are back-stopping the risks of innovation under "too big to fail" because many larger corporations aren't investing enough in R&D, which is seen as an unpredictable cost by Wall Street. Today, only Tesla (TSLA) appears to be choosing innovation over steadily increasing share price. Other companies like General Electric have large R&D budgets, but as a percentage of gross revenue, they're actually minuscule--usually no more than 7%.

Seen this way, of course America's banking and insurance sectors will have the most influence in Congress--they're the ones driving innovation by funding R&D that larger companies should be funding but won't. Not only will large banks and insurance companies demand favorable tax policy for their risk-taking (witness Warren Buffett asking for and receiving a "terrorism" exemption post-9/11), they get their funding directly from the Federal Reserve or indirectly by convincing the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. What are you, the taxpayer, getting in exchange for stricter personal deductions than businesses; receiving low interest rates on your deposits; and being the insurer of last resort?

You probably won't guess the correct answer: a military with a budget not subject to audits that does the R&D for you, but with the higher risk of pursuing war as a testing ground for new weapons and strategies, and with debt that could sink or split the entire country if mismanaged. If the larger companies have external checks and balances that mitigate R&D risk-taking, and the banks are being back-stopped by the government (and therefore taxpayers) when they make loans that support R&D, big banks and the military become the two groups not subject to checks and balances but necessary for innovation. Under such incentives, it's only a matter of time before the military and banking sectors dominate the entire country and become powerful enough to ignore President Eisenhower rolling in his grave.

And so it goes.

Matthew Rafat (copyright 2017) 

Bonus: "In the past 30 years, America has had 13 wars at a cost of $14.2 trillion...what if they [had] spent part of the money on building up infrastructure?" -- Alibaba CEO Jack Ma

Bonus: below are the numbers supporting the arguments above:

People don't understand the difference between budgetary outlays and discretionary spending, or appropriations/expenditures, which is responsible for the inability to see eye-to-eye on fiscal responsibility debates.

Mandatory spending is federal spending based on existing laws. This budgetary spending is mainly entitlement programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, whose spending criteria are determined by who is eligible to apply for benefits and not by Congress, and includes items supposed to be relatively predictable. Discretionary spending, on the other hand, is the portion of the budget that the president requests and Congress appropriates every year through legislation. In the past, such spending was supposed to be for one-off, unusual and unpredictable items but has now become a slush fund for military adventurism, as we'll see.

Furthermore, when discussing military spending, it's debatable whether to include VA spending as part of the national defense budget, which creates further confusion. Let's try to clear up these issues.

Spending on national defense is estimated to be about 15% of all outlays in 2017. This is less than average when compared to budgets from other years. (Average proportion = 22%). That 15% is about $516 billion, not including VA funding.

The President’s 2017 budget includes $182.3 billion for the VA in 2017. This includes $78.7 billion in discretionary resources and $103.6 billion in mandatory funding (for veteran's disability benefits). Including national defense and VA budgetary amounts together, we have a total of $698 billion spent on military-related budget items. Technically, that's less than what we spend on Health and Human Services (e.g., Medicare) and Social Security (almost a trillion projected in 2017). However, the above figures do not include discretionary spending, which causes annual deficits funded partly by issuing debt to foreign countries. Let's look at those numbers.

For 2017, 49% of total discretionary spending is projected to go towards national defense, or about $500 billion. That means we spend about $1.2 trillion every year on the military and military-related items. Thus, the largest spending items in America in 2017 are the military and the VA; Social Security; and Medicare. Why is that a problem?

In 2017, the government is estimated to have a total debt of $17.7 trillion. At 104.4% of GDP, this percentage is extremely high when compared to other years (avg. 59.0%). Spending on SS is fine--that debt is owed to Americans. Spending money borrowed from future generations on unnecessary or inflated medical expenses like pharmaceuticals and on unnecessary wars or wars of choice is unconscionable. It guarantees fewer opportunities for younger generations. It means our intelligence agencies work overtime trying to justify illegal military invasions or are tempted to engage in false flag or psychological operations to justify security spending. It means millennials are called lazy or immature when they're anything but. In short, when you're going in debt for unnecessary items, and you need the jobs related to that unnecessary spending to get votes and stay in political office, you have to resort to fear and outliers to maintain the status quo. Such an approach is inadvisable in any era, but especially so in an era of increasing competition worldwide and against countries to which you owe money.

Bonus: The local level creates no reason for optimism, either.  In most major American cities, 50% to 70% of all local tax revenue is spent on "public safety" aka cops and firefighters. Many of these taxes go to pension obligations, i.e., paying gov employees who no longer work and who haven't paid into the retirement fund in sufficient amounts to sustain it without higher taxes or cutting other local programs.  Consequently, America's military budget is not subject to any real audits due to the federal gov's ability to borrow almost unlimited debt, while even local entities are forced to divert their taxes into strengthening a police state because by law, pension interests are vested and therefore untouchable. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, this is the kind of activity required in such a regime: http://www.post-gazette.com/news/nation/2015/11/06/Department-of-Defense-paid-53-million-to-pro-sports-for-military-tributes-report-says/stories/201511060140

Basically, the gov spends taxpayer monies to normalize the abnormal, then demands the entities continue its show at their own cost or be called unpatriotic.

Both parties are complicit, and both parties are locked into unsustainable programs that require more debt because neither party wants to impose any fiscal discipline. Why should they, when they can rely on more debt to maintain the status quo and their jobs? In the case of California Democrats, their allegiance is to an unsustainable K-12 system, teachers' unions, and the teachers' pension plan, which guarantees a return of 7.5%--even though the economy is growing about 2% to 3% a year.

Rather than take a common sense approach and reduce benefits for existing retirees--who negotiated an 8% ROI under much different economic conditions--it appears govs will reduce benefits for incoming, younger employees and wait a generation to try to balance their books without relying so much on debt.  It remains to be seen whether any system that depends on achieving consistent 7.5% ROI can be sustained in the "new normal." 

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Debate: What is Military Adventurism?

THE BOONDOCKS © Aaron McGruder. 
Dist. By ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION. 
Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.

November 11, 2010 was Veterans' Day. Some random thoughts and opinions:

1. Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President: "A Nation that forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten."

2.
I do not consider someone's unquestioning willingness to die for a cause or country to be worthy of respect in and of itself. To be worthy of praise, I need that willingness to die to be tied to self-defense. Otherwise, I'm not sure we are helping our soldiers, our safety, or our worldwide reputation.

I understand that a soldier's willingness to die is a necessary component of self-defense. However, I view such an attitude--the willingness to murder your fellow man--as a necessary evil, and I do not see much sense in praising a necessary evil. Therefore, I neither condemn nor praise necessary evils.

War is sometimes necessary. We need soldiers, and we need to make sure we give them the tools they need to succeed. Today, the U.S. does not have a mandatory draft, so everyone voluntarily chooses military service. 
 
 
3. If you are in charge of American military personnel, you failed us on 9/11; you failed us again after 9/11 by invading the wrong country; and you are failing us now because your agency is designed for wars against countries rather than smaller, more fluid organizations.

Onward to the Facebook debate on military adventurism and the scope of a thinking person's patriotism:

Lawyer: At work in the private sector so the military gets the taxes it needs to exist. Our modern-day military creates no net revenue and causes our country to lose billions of dollars each year. Without the private sector, there would be no military. Thank someone who owns a small business or is working in a non-government job today.

Also, if you fought in WWII or any war prior to Vietnam, thank you. Once we reach the Vietnam era, however, it's unclear whether any war has created safety for Americans on American soil.

Write your government and demand that we bring our soldiers back from Iraq as soon as possible. Why are we leaving so many young Americans in harm's way when it's unclear whether they are increasing our safety?

(I am still undecided about wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As far as I know, none of the 9/11 hijackers lived in either country or received training there that helped them attack America. The terrorists came mostly from Germany. It's also unclear why Pakistan and Afghanistan are America's problem rather than India’s and Iran’s. At the same time, whenever I see pictures of what the Taliban has done to innocent Afghani civilians, especially young girls, my trigger-finger gets itchy.)

Hilarious Buddy: Danger, Will Robinson. Danger.

Judah: Government workers pay taxes too. But since you wrote this on Veteran’s Day to be controversial, I don't suppose that will matter.

Lawyer: @Judah: if I give you 100 bucks and you give me back 30 bucks, I'm still out 70 bucks, right? You've basically taken 70 dollars from me, and all you've done is refund me back my own money. So gov workers don't really pay taxes--they refund money paid to them by the private sector. If they're not creating something, gov workers are causing financial losses and taking money out of the private sector whenever the federal gov provides loans to states and/or fails to maintain a balanced budget without increasing taxes.

And by the way, I said military personnel create no revenue. I didn't say they failed to pay taxes. In any case, whether we spend 5 trillion dollars or 1 dollar on the military, it's all irrelevant unless the military keeps us safe here at home. If our commanders fail to keep us safe at home, we are paying money for nothing while losing some of our best and brightest young people.

Judah: Government workers get paid by the government, the government gets its money from taxes on the private sector and some other sources that we can agree to leave out, those taxes come out of your pay, you are paid by your clients, your clients earn money from their businesses, and so on, and it's non-trivial to determine where the money actually comes from. But if your argument is that the military should be thankful to you because you pay taxes, then you need to admit that taxes are taken out of everyone's pay, and no one has any say about how they're spent. It may be government money to start with in some cases, but from the point of view of the person getting the paycheck, it's identical. You haven't done anything extra that a mailman, or a federal judge, or a park ranger hasn't done. From your pay, you contribute to the running of the government, which includes the military.

Lawyer: @Judah: you could not be more wrong. I created a business. In order for my business to survive, I have to create something either new or more effective than existing services or products. The same philosophy applies to almost every private company, especially here in Silicon Valley--either they innovate or die. In contrast, all the government has to do is exist.

Throw in the toxin of government unionization, and we have a financial miasma that is made worse whenever anyone praises non-creative government workers. With respect to the military, I fail to understand how any war since Vietnam has helped Americans on American soil. It seems like we've lost a lot of American lives and killed a lot of civilians for nothing. If you want to praise that as equivalent to creating new services and introducing more efficient products into the marketplace, go right ahead.

Judah: It sounds like you're suggesting that your business *must* contribute something, or it would cease to exist. Why wouldn't that be true of the military?

Lawyer: B/c government workers and entities receive much of their revenue from the act of printing money, which requires no creation or innovation. Again, it's nonsensical to compare someone in the private sector--which has to actively attract money from voluntary exchanges--with government workers, who do not have to actively attract money using intelligence or innovation. In contrast to someone like me, all a gov worker has to do to get paid is a) unionize; and/or b) vote in their preferred politician. Obviously, I can't do that, and neither can most non-banking businesses. It appears both major political parties will continue printing money to give to the military. Thus, we are left with a military that doesn't seem to keep us safe on our own soil while simultaneously costing us trillions of dollars.

The difference between the private sector and the public sector is that non-banking businesses need to create something or provide something more efficiently to get paid. From this creative destruction comes almost all progress, including Google, eBay, or any small business. In the case of gov entities, because politicians are in charge of a massive amount of money, and the fed gov can print money when it runs a deficit, the normal requirement to be useful does not apply. They just need to vote once a year to keep their jobs. And that's exactly what they have done in California.

But don't listen to me--read David Walker's book, Comeback America. He has an entire chapter on the military that is a must-read.

TX Buddy: Geez, way to ruin Veteran's Day :-P

Lawyer: @TX Buddy, hope you're doing well now that Texas has In N’ Out :-) I'm just trying to introduce a different viewpoint. I despise conformity, and holidays tend to bring out the worst cases of unthinking herd mentality on Facebook.

It's always sad to see people base their opinions on propaganda instead of logic and facts. Logically, if we're anti-war and view the military as a necessary evil (not heroic), our soldiers get to stay safer and live longer. All this changes if there is a direct threat to Americans on American soil, and almost all such threats come from domestic residents, not foreigners who are poor, who cannot speak English, or who cannot blend into American society.

Judah: I don't understand your assertion that the military has failed to keep us safe on our own soil, but I never intended to challenge your assertion that the benefit of military action in recent years is difficult to quantify at best.

Today is Veteran’s Day, and what we're honoring today isn't the military, it is the men and women who have served in it. You don't think the military has provided us much benefit in recent years, and you don't think that the individual members of the military have contributed much. They aren't attracting money, they aren't growing the economy, and whatever they're doing on a day to day basis is done in service of a mission you find questionable.

You say that it's nonsensical to compare private sector employees to government workers. In the case of the military, you're spot on. A soldier, airman, sailor, or marine may not be creating wealth, and your taxes pay at least part of their salary, but they also fight and die in their jobs, when they are ordered to.

You and I, and all the creative private sector employees you champion, we don't have to do that. And we don't get a federal holiday, but we're celebrated every day of the year. Your assertion that what matters is creating money-- growing the economy, generating the revenue that pays the salary of the military--is a celebration of the private sector.

No one should have to thank you.

Lawyer: @Judah: if keeping us safe on American soil involved only killing people and dying when ordered to do so, then your statement would be correct. But safety is multifaceted, and it usually includes a thriving economy. For example, the more men who are unemployed, esp young men, the higher the risk of domestic crime. Long story short, without a thriving private sector, we risk higher domestic crime and unrest, which sometimes leads to coups and pogroms. Thus, when someone in the private sector goes to work, s/he is helping keep us safe at home. It's unclear why we shouldn't thank people who maintain our way of life and who keep us safe here at home.

Moreover, it is unclear whether military operations abroad protect us from collapse from within. Indeed, history tells us that pro-military countries tend to collapse. If true, when we praise any part of the military that is not directly useful to domestic security, or when we view military members as always heroic (and therefore unworthy of any criticism, especially towards higher level military leaders), we plant the seeds of our own downfall.

You focus on death, and you view a soldier's willingness to die as deserving of thanks, but a country can die, too, and death can come in many different forms. For instance, one way to destroy a country is to destroy its economy by providing too much money or printing too much money to give to non-useful government workers. Another way is to implement poor fiscal policies, such as excessive or non-useful military spending. It is unclear why anyone who is part of an inefficient machinery of military adventurism deserves thanks, unless--like private sector workers--they are keeping Americans safe here at home. I do not believe our military is focused on keeping us safe here at home, because I believe that our biggest threats come from English-speakers who can blend into society, not foreigners. Richard Reid, Vincent Padilla, the NY car bomber, and almost all recent terrorism attempts against America support my belief.

Americans ought to consider Veteran's Day as a period of sadness or stoicism rather than a time to praise or thank our soldiers for their military adventurism. When that attitude shift happens--as it has in countries such as modern-day Germany--we will have a safer country as well as safer soldiers and young men and women.

Judah: And you focus only on the economy. When I focus on fighting and dying in the context of the military, I am focusing on the job that they are asked to do. When you focus on the economy, you are focusing on a job that is someone else’s to do and decrying the military's failure to do it. If you think the military is overfunded, the blame for that lies with the organization that sets the funding. If you think the military mission diverts attention and resources from economic problems, the blame lies in the hands of the politicians that set the agenda (I will concede here that at the top levels, the military has some power in setting its agenda).

The military is not the entire government, and if the economy becomes the death of the country, there will be others far more responsible for it than veterans.

Lawyer: @Judah: you may be correct, but unlike you, I do not consider the willingness to die in an era of military adventurism as heroic or deserving of praise.

Pointing to corrupt politicians--who also deserve blame--is a diversion. Can’t one condemn corrupt politicians while refusing to plant the cultural seeds for further military adventurism? I believe that when you praise the military or any part of it during a time of wars that do not help keep Americans safe on American soil, you do not help soldiers, civilians, the economy, or the cause of peace. In fact, it is more reasonable to argue that your praise helps maintain America’s cultural ease towards war.

You end your comment with statements that are true, but hyperbolic. Of course the "military is not the entire government." However, when the military is between 20% to 30% (when including black ops, foreign military assistance, and the CIA) of our federal budget, it should not be immune from criticism or responsibility for our current economic woes. It is also not a valid argument to say that b/c "X" is not the primary factor of a problem, we must focus on other contributing factors.

At the end of the day, our country is safer now because of our private sector workers’ diligence and dedication to improving the economy, not because of our military commanders. Today, I praise all of the private sector workers who have not rioted or acted violently against others and who have diligently continued looking for work, paying their bills, and taking care of their families. Thank you. Keep your chin high. You are the people who are holding up this country, and if we lose you, we will collapse from within.

Eric: The military is expensive and, it can be argued successfully, I think, that we have too many military obligations overseas. You would be surprised how many countries we have some form of military involvement in. The other day, I heard it was over 100 different countries. Is that really necessary? Well, that's arguable. One might suggest that, if it weren't for us, the world we be a much less stable place. Much less stable for trade, so that small and large businesses in the United States and elsewhere would not be able to do business.

Certainly, the military kept us safe during the cold war. If we had been week and had no military, would not the Soviets have taken us over? Since the fall of the USSR, one can argue that it was not as necessary to keep a strong military. Or is it?

Was Iraq necessary? No. It was expensive and achieved nothing. Afghanistan? I suppose it did send potential terrorists (who do have money to commit acts of terror internationally) running for cover, so that war is arguable.

But having a military in general protects us and stabilizes us. It doesn't seem like we need the military when we sit in our safe offices and homes and grouse about taxes. Nobody is breaking down our doors with guns and tanks. But that's because the world knows that if someone did try to come at us, we would utterly destroy them. Knowing that everyone knows we would utterly destroy them if they came at us is a comforting thought, because it allows us to have our businesses and our homes and know they won't go away. We can even type on Facebook about how we dislike government and wish that taxes could be lower (which in some countries would get you thrown in a gulag). We are free and stable, because of the military. Is it expensive? Yes. Is it worth the expense? Absolutely!

Lawyer: we do not need to thank our modern military for being a deterrent, b/c it is not clear that they are in fact deterring anything right now. In fact, the military may be causing Americans on American soil to be less safe by their actions.

Also, plenty of countries don't spend trillions on war and manage to do business and not get invaded. Consider Switzerland or modern-day Germany.

Now, take a look at countries that go to war or engage in war, and there is usually one very clear commonality: inflation, high unemployment, or a lack of a strong private sector economy. Look at wars/invasions in Africa; Bosnia/Serbia; Cambodia; old Germany; Iraq; perhaps even Ecuador now, etc. All of them had a weak or nonexistent private sector economy. A strong military wouldn't have protected the average citizen from war. It would have only caused a military coup and a probable military dictatorship.

P.S. the Cold War is over. You might want to get that memo over to the Pentagon and the Dept of Defense, who are still spending our money on weapons more suited to the Cold War instead of domestic threats and smaller, fluid groups of terrorists.

Eric: I agree that war is a bad thing and that having a military can lead to a military dictatorship without a strong civilian government and a private sector. For whatever reason, our country has been spared a military dictatorship and wars on our own soil (for the last 135 years anyway). I think that our brand of military, strong, but loyal to the civilian government, is owed a lot of the credit.

I'm not saying that military incursions and having a very strong military is always a good thing everywhere. I'm just saying it worked here. I don't think you can compare the United States to Africa, the Balkans, Cambodia, etc., Iraq, and other countries you mentioned. The United States went down a different path. I don't know why. I cannot explain it. Perhaps it was the sheer vastness of the country. It's resources. None of the countries/continents you mention are stable in any sense of the word. Not militarily. Not economically. Not legally.

Besides, I'm not talking about going to war. I'm talking about having a military that is so big and so powerful that anyone would be stupid to invade us. With our Navy, we can have huge warships anywhere in the world in just a few days, etc.

Does it deter people from being stupid? I think it does. I suppose that is debatable. But I'm not willing to take the deterrent away for any period of time to test your theory.

Lawyer: in an age of nuclear weapons, it's unclear whether we need to spend trillions of dollars on military adventurism to create a deterrent. In any case, you miss my point. I am not against a well-funded or strong military. I am against praising the military or its members during times of military adventurism, which helps support a pro-war culture.

Eric: So strong military good. Military adventurism and excessive military spending bad. I'm okay with that. We could spend a little less on the military right now. Perhaps a lot less. I'm not sure I an in sync with your definition of military adventurism. I might put the Iraq war in that definition, but I'm not sure we do that a lot. Other than Iraq, what else is included in the definition of military adventurism?

Lawyer: @Erik: see Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. (Are we fighting wars in other countries?) Unless you can directly link our military’s activities in those three countries with more safety here at home, we are engaging in military adventurism.

Also, have you noticed the kind of people who have been attacking us here at home? (NY car bomb, Padilla, Reid, 9/11 terrorists, etc.) They are almost always domestic or European residents who speak English, not foreigners who live in the Middle East. It's unclear whether blowing up two foreign terrorists and three civilians (I'm estimating a high civilian death count as a result of our military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan) makes us safer. A foreigner who cannot integrate at least superficially into Western culture cannot effectively deliver a bomb close to American soil. I do not believe the people we are blowing up in the Middle East can effectively deliver a bomb on American soil without being easily detected. Therefore, I call our wars there military adventurism because they do not seem to support a viable self-defense strategy.

Sean: I am all for pulling out of Germany, Japan, the Middle East etc...but at the same time I thank those who are willing to risk their lives for me. Note that I did not include those that decide what those men and women in uniform will risk their lives for, but those who actually are willing to risk their lives...I do not expect soldiers to be policy makers, I oppose the policies, including military policies, of the policy makers, while being thankful for the soldiers.

Without a strong military someone else will want to set you policies for you...

Lawyer:
@Sean: thank you for your comment. You've made the only comment so far that may cause me to shift my position. At the same time, I do not believe that praising a person's willingness to die for his country is a positive action during times of military adventurism. Condemning or praising a military member is different from taking a neutral position towards him/her.

Also, I never said we shouldn't have a strong military. Being against military adventurism and excessive military spending are not inconsistent with supporting a strong military.


If we want to be the world's policeman, that's fine. I just don't know how we're going to pay for it. With the money we save on reducing military obligations, we can support a stronger dollar and our position as the world's reserve currency. I'd rather exert power through trade and tariffs than hard military power. Since we're a consumer-based economy and other countries rely on us to buy their exports, it's unclear why we can't maintain our influence by using trade incentives and disincentives.

I will let Matthew Hoh have the last word. See here.

© Matthew Rafat (2010)

[The comic strip above is from Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks (1996-2006); single strip copied under fair use doctrine for educational purposes.] 

Bonus: from Slawek: "thank god for the new wars we still got going for us, otherwise we would run out of veterans pretty soon. and how silly would we feel come veteran’s day then? pretty f*cking silly."