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______WAR______ These 127 essays, although organized under seven headings, have one underlying theme: opposition
to the warfare state that robs us of our liberty, our money, and in some cases our life. Conservatives who decry
the welfare state while supporting the warfare state are terribly inconsistent. The two are inseparable.
Libertarians who are opposed to war on principle, but support the state’s bogus “war on terrorism,” even as they
remain silent about the U.S. global empire, are likewise contradictory. In chapter 1, “War and Peace,” the evils of war and warmongers and the benefits of peace are examined. In chapter 2, “The Military,” the evils of standing armies and militarism are discussed, including a critical look at the U.S. military. In chapter 3, “The War in Iraq,” the wickedness of the Iraq War is exposed. In chapter 4, “World War II,” the “good war” is shown to be not so good after all. In chapter 5, “Other Wars,” the evils of war and the warfare state are chronicled in specific wars: the Crimean War (1854–1856), the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), World War I (1914–1918), the Persian Gulf War (1990–1991), and the war in Afghanistan (2001–). In chapter 6, “The U.S. Global Empire,” the beginnings, growth, extent, nature, and consequences of the U.S. empire of bases and troops are revealed and critiqued. In chapter 7, “U.S. Foreign Policy,” the belligerence, recklessness, and follies of U.S. foreign policy are laid bare. Chapter One - War and Peace ______[p1]
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WAR
Brutus on the Evils of Standing Armies
Recognizing his friend Brutus among his assassins, Julius Caesar (in the words of William Shakespeare) uttered the immortal phrase “Et tu, Brute?” This Latin sentence meaning “Even you, Brutus?” is the only Brutus that most Americans have ever heard of. But whether one has heard of Brutus from the study of Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar or from a World history course, there is a Brutus in American history that most Americans have never heard of. The Brutus of American history is one of the forgotten Anti-Federalists. It was their principled opposition to the Constitution that led to the adoption of the Bill of Rights. But because the Federalists prevailed, the writings of the Anti-Federalists have largely been forgotten. Every student of American government has studied the eighty-five essays written between October 1787 and August 1788 in favor of the adoption of the new Constitution. Known collectively as The Federalist, they were all signed Publius (after the ancient Roman statesman), but authored by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. Brutus was the name signed to sixteen essays written in opposition to the new Constitution replacing the Articles of Confederation. They were all published in the New York Journal from October 1787 to April 1788. None of the essays have titles, and most were addressed to the people or the citizens of the State of New York. The first essay of Brutus actually appeared nine days before the first essay of The Federalist. The essays signed Brutus are generally ascribed to Robert Yates (1738—1801), a New York judge who served on the committee that drafted the first constitution for New York State. Yates, along with John Lansing (1754—1829) and Alexander Hamilton, was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Yates and Lansing withdrew from the Convention early and opposed the adoption of the Constitution by the state of New York. One subject that Brutus speaks on at length is the evils of standing armies. In four of his sixteen essays (numbers 1, 8, 9, 10), he explains how the establishment and maintenance of standing armies breeds fear, is destructive to liberty, and should be viewed as a scourge to a country instead of a benefit. On the subject of war itself, Brutus believed that only a defensive war was justifiable. He recognized that the countries of Europe were plagued by destructive wars: The European governments are almost all of them framed, and administered with a view to arms, and war, as that in which their chief glory consists; they mistake the end of government — it was designed to save mens lives, not to destroy them. We ought to furnish the world with an example of a great people, who in their civil institutions hold chiefly in view, the attainment of virtue, and happiness among ourselves. Let the monarchs, in Europe, share among them the glory of depopulating countries, and butchering thousands of their innocent citizens, to revenge private quarrels, or to punish an insult offered to a wife, a mistress, or a favorite: I envy them not the honor, and I pray heaven this country may never be ambitious of it. The czar Peter the great, acquired great glory by his arms; but all this was nothing, compared with the true glory which he obtained, by civilizing his rude and barbarous subjects, diffusing among them knowledge, and establishing, and cultivating the arts of life: by the former he desolated countries, and drenched the earth with human blood: by the latter he softened the ferocious nature of his people, and pointed them to the means of human happiness. In his first essay, Brutus brings up the subject of standing armies in his discussion of the dangers of a consolidated central government over a large territorial republic: It might be here shown, that the power of the federal legislative, to raise and support armies at pleasure, as well in peace as in war, and their controul over the militia, tend, not only to a consolidation of the government, but the destruction of liberty. In despotic governments, as well as in all the monarchies of Europe, standing armies are kept up to execute the commands of the prince or the magistrate, and are employed for this purpose when occasion requires: But they have always proved the destruction of liberty, and [as] abhorrent to the spirit of a free republic. In England, where they depend upon the parliament for their annual support, they have always been complained of as oppressive and unconstitutional, and are seldom employed in executing of the laws; never except on extraordinary occasions, and then under the direction of a civil magistrate. A free republic will never keep a standing army to execute its laws. It must depend upon the support of its citizens. But when a government is to receive its support from the aid of the citizens, it must be so constructed as to have the confidence, respect, and affection of the people. Men who, upon the call of the magistrate, offer themselves to execute the laws, are influenced to do it either by affection to the government, or from fear; where a standing army is at hand to punish offenders, every man is actuated by the latter principle, and therefore, when the magistrate casts, will obey: but, where this is not the case, the government must rest for its support upon the confidence and respect which the people have for their government and laws. He concludes that if the people have “no confidence in their legislature, suspect them of ambitious views, be jealous of every measure they adopt, and will not support the laws they pass,” then the government will be “nerveless and inefficient, and no way will be left to render it otherwise, but by establishing an armed force to execute the laws at the point of the bayonet — a government of all others the most to be dreaded.” In his eighth essay, Brutus raises the subject of standing armies in his discussion of the new federal government being authorized to raise and support armies: Let us then enquire, whether standing armies in time of peace, would be ever beneficial to our country — or if in some extraordinary cases, they might be necessary; whether it is not true, that they have generally proved a scourge to a country, and destructive of their liberty. He then reprints the text of a speech against standing armies recently delivered in the British Parliament, because, as he says, it “is so full to the point, and so much better than any thing I can say”: “I have always been, and always shall be against a standing army of any kind; to me it is a terrible thing, whether under that of a parliamentary, or any other designation; a standing army is still a standing army by whatever name it is called; they are a body of men distinct from the body of the people; they are governed by different laws, and blind obedience, and an entire submission to the orders of their commanding officer, is their only principle; the nations around us, sir, are already enslaved, and have been enslaved by those very means; by means of their standing armies they have every one lost their liberties; it is indeed impossible that the liberties of the people in any country can be preserved where a numerous standing army is kept up. Shall we then take our measures from the example of our neighbours? No, sir, on the contrary, from their misfortunes we ought to learn to avoid those rocks upon which they have split.” “It signifies nothing to tell me that our army is commanded by such gentlemen as cannot be supposed to join in any measures for enslaving their country; it may be so; I have a very good opinion of many gentlemen now in the army; I believe they would not join in any such measures; but their lives are uncertain, nor can we be sure how long they will be kept in command, they may all be dismissed in a moment, and proper tools of power put in their room. Besides, sir, we know the passions of men, we know how dangerous it is to trust the best of men with too much power. Where was a braver army than that under Jul. Caesar? Where was there ever an army that had served their country more faithfully? That army was commanded generally by the best citizens of Rome, by men of great fortune and figure in their country, yet that army enslaved their country. The affections of the soldiers towards their country, the honor and integrity of the under officers, are not to be depended on. By the military law the administration of justice is so quick, and the punishment so severe, that neither the officer nor soldier dare dispute the orders of his supreme commander; he must not consult his own inclination. If an officer were commanded to pull his own father out of this house, he must do it; he dares not disobey; immediate death would be the sure consequence of the least grumbling: and if an officer were sent into the court of request, accompanied by a body of musketeers with screwed bayonets, and with orders to tell us what we ought to do, and how we were to vote: I know what would be the duty of this house; I know it would be our duty to order the officer to be hanged at the door of the lobby; but I doubt, sir, I doubt much, if such a spirit could be found in the house, or in any house of commons that will ever be in England.” “Sir, I talk not of imaginary things? I talk of what has happened to an English house of commons, from an English army; not only from an English army, but an army that was raised by that very house of commons, an army that was paid by them, and an army that was commanded by generals appointed by them; therefore do not let us vainly imagine, that an army, raised and maintained by authority of parliament, will always be so submissive to them. If an army be so numerous as to have it in their power to overawe the parliament, they will be submissive as long as the parliament does nothing to disoblige their favourite general; but when that case happens, I am afraid, that in place of the parliament’s dismissing the army, the army will dismiss the parliament.” Brutus concludes from this speech that “if this great man’s reasoning be just, it follows, that keeping up a standing army, would be in the highest degree dangerous to the liberty and happiness of the community — and if so, the general government ought not to have authority to do it; for no government should be empowered to do that which if done, would tend to destroy public liberty.” In his ninth essay, Brutus faults the proposed constitution for its lack of a bill of rights. He acknowledges that the framers of the new constitution believed in prohibiting or restricting the general government from exercising certain powers. Nevertheless, he wonders why, if there are sections in the proposed constitution that prohibit bills of attainder and restrict the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, that there is no prohibition or restriction against standing armies since they are likewise just as harmful: Let us apply these remarks to the case of standing armies in times of peace. If they generally prove the destruction of the happiness and libertys of the people, the legislature ought not to have power to keep them up, or if they had, this power should be so restricted, as to secure the people against the danger arising from the exercise of it. That standing armies are dangerous to the liberties of a people was proved in my last number — If it was necessary, the truth of the position might be confirmed by the history of almost every nation in the world. A cloud of the most illustrious patriots of every age and country, where freedom has been enjoyed, might be adduced as witnesses in support of the sentiment. But I presume it would be useless, to enter into a laboured argument, to prove to the people of America, a position, which has so long and so generally been received by them as a kind of axiom. Some of the advocates for this new system controvert this sentiment, as they do almost every other that has been maintained by the best writers on free government. — Others, though they will not expressly deny, that standing armies in times of peace are dangerous, yet join with these in maintaining, that it is proper the general government should be vested with the power to do it. I shall now proceed to examine the arguments they adduce in support of their opinions. A writer, in favor of this system, treats this objection as a ridiculous one. He supposes it would be as proper to provide against the introduction of Turkish janizaries, or against making the Alcoran a rule of faith. But, why is this provision so ridiculous? because, says this author, it is unnecessary. But, why is it unnecessary? [“]because, the principles and habits, as well as the power of the Americans are directly opposed to standing armies; and there is as little necessity to guard against them by positive constitutions, as to prohibit the establishment of the Mahometan religion.” It is admitted then, that a standing army in time of peace, is an evil. I ask then, why should this government be authorised to do evil? If the principles and habits of the people of this country are opposed to standing armies in time of peace, if they do not contribute to the public good, but would endanger the public liber[ty] and happiness, why should the government be [vested] with the power? No reason can be given, why [rulers] should be authorised to do, what, if done, would oppose the principles and habits of the people, and endanger the public safety, but there is every reason in the world, that they should be prohibited from the exercise of such a power. But this author supposes, that no danger is to be apprehended from the exercise of this power, because, if armies are kept up, it will be by the people themselves, and therefore, to provide against it, would be as absurd as for a man to “pass a law in his family, that no troops should be quartered in his family by his consent.” This reasoning supposes, that the general government is to be exercised by the people of America themselves — But such an idea is groundless and absurd. There is surely a distinction between the people and their rulers, even when the latter are representatives of the former. — They certainly are not identically the same, and it cannot be disputed, but it may and often does happen, that they do not possess the same sentiments or pursue the same interests. I think I have shewn, that as this government is constituted, there is little reason to expect, that the interest of the people and their rulers will be the same. The idea that there is no danger of the establishment of a standing army, under the new constitution, is without foundation. It is a well known fact, that a number of those who had an agency in producing this system, and many of those who it is probable will have a principal share in the administration of the government under it, if it is adopted, are avowedly in favour of standing armies. It is a language common among them, “That no people can be kept in order, unless the government have an army to awe them into obedience; it is necessary to support the dignity of government, to have a military establishment.” And there will not be wanting a variety of plausible reason to justify the raising one, drawn from the danger we are in from the Indians on our frontiers, or from the European provinces in our neighbourhood. If to this we add, that an army will afford a decent support, and agreeable employment to the young men of many families, who are too indolent to follow occupations that will require care and industry, and too poor to live without doing any business we can have little reason to doubt, but that we shall have a large standing army, as soon as this government can find money to pay them, and perhaps sooner. Brutus then directly engages Hamilton, who had written several essays in The Federalist trying to answer objections to standing armies: A writer, who is the boast of the advocates of this new constitution, has taken great pains to shew, that this power was proper and necessary to be vested in the general government. He first attempts to shew, that this objection is futile and disingenuous, because the power to keep up standing armies, in time of peace, is vested, under the present government, in the legislature of every state in the union, except two. Now this is so far from being true, that it is expressly declared, by the present articles of confederation, that no body of forces “shall be kept up by any state, in time of peace, except such number only, as in the judgment of the United States in Congress assembled, shall be deemed requisite to garrison the forts necessary for the defence of such state.” Now, was it candid and ingenuous to endeavour to persuade the public, that the general government had no other power than your own legislature have on this head; when the truth is, your legislature have no authority to raise and keep up any forces? He next tells us, that the power given by this constitution, on this head, is similar to that which Congress possess under the present confederation. As little ingenuity is manifested in this representation as in that of the former. I shall not undertake to enquire whether or not Congress are vested with a power to keep up a standing army in time of peace; it has been a subject warmly debated in Congress, more than once, since the peace; and one of the most respectable states in the union, were so fully convinced that they had no such power, that they expressly instructed their delegates to enter a solemn protest against it on the journals of Congress, should they attempt to exercise it. But should it be admitted that they have the power, there is such a striking dissimilarity between the restrictions under which the present Congress can exercise it, and that of the proposed government, that the comparison will serve rather to shew the impropriety of vesting the proposed government with the power, than of justifying it. It is acknowledged by this writer, that the powers of Congress, under the present confederation, amount to little more than that of recommending. If they determine to raise troops, they are obliged to effect it through the authority of the state legislatures. This will, in the first instance, be a most powerful restraint upon them, against ordering troops to be raised. But if they should vote an army, contrary to the opinion and wishes of the people, the legislatures of the respective states would not raise them. Besides, the present Congress hold their places at the will and pleasure of the legislatures of the states who send them, and no troops can be raised, but by the assent of nine states out of the thirteen. Compare the power proposed to be lodged in the legislature on this head, under this constitution, with that vested in the present Congress, and every person of the least discernment, whose understanding is not totally blinded by prejudice, will perceive, that they bear no analogy to each other. Under the present confederation, the representatives of nine states, out of thirteen, must assent to the raising of troops, or they cannot be levied: under the proposed constitution, a less number than the representatives of two states, in the house of representatives, and the representatives of three states and an half in the senate, with the assent of the president, may raise any number of troops they please. The present Congress are restrained from an undue exercise of this power, from this consideration, they know the state legislatures, through whose authority it must be carried into effect, would not comply with the requisition for the purpose, if it was evidently opposed to the public good: the proposed constitution authorizes the legislature to carry their determinations into execution, without the intervention of any other body between them and the people. In his tenth essay, which is devoted exclusively to the evils of standing armies, Brutus begins with a discussion of how a standing army can subvert the very government whose authority it is supposed to be under: The liberties of a people are in danger from a large standing army, not only because the rulers may employ them for the purposes of supporting themselves in any usurpations of power, which they may see proper to exercise, but there is great hazard, that an army will subvert the forms of the government, under whose authority, they are raised, and establish one, according to the pleasure of their leader. To prove his point, he then adduces the historical examples of Rome and Britain: We are informed, in the faithful pages of history, of such events frequently happening. — Two instances have been mentioned in a former paper. They are so remarkable, that they are worthy of the most careful attention of every lover of freedom. — They are taken from the history of the two most powerful nations that have ever existed in the world; and who are the most renowned, for the freedom they enjoyed, and the excellency of their constitutions: — I mean Rome and Britain. In the first, the liberties of the commonwealth was destroyed, and the constitution overturned, by an army, lead by Julius Cesar, who was appointed to the command, by the constitutional authority of that commonwealth. He changed it from a free republic, whose fame had sounded, and is still celebrated by all the world, into that of the most absolute despotism. A standing army effected this change, and a standing army supported it through a succession of ages, which are marked in the annals of history, with the most horrid cruelties, bloodshed, and carnage; — The most devilish, beastly, and unnatural vices, that ever punished or disgraced human nature. The same army, that in Britain, vindicated the liberties of that people from the encroachments and despotism of a tyrant king, assisted Cromwell, their General, in wresting from the people, that liberty they had so dearly earned. You may be told, these instances will not apply to our case. — But those who would persuade you to believe this, either mean to deceive you, or have not themselves considered the subject. Continuing his argument, Brutus contrasts Caesar and Cromwell with George Washington: I firmly believe, no country in the world had ever a more patriotic army, than the one which so ably served this country, in the late war. But had the General who commanded them, been possessed of the spirit of a Julius Cesar or a Cromwell, the liberties of this country, had in all probability, terminated with the war; or had they been maintained, might have cost more blood and treasure, than was expended in the conflict with Great-Britain. When an anonimous writer addressed the officers of the army at the close of the war, advising them not to part with their arms, until justice was done them — the effect it had is well known. It affected them like an electric shock. He wrote like Cesar; and had the commander in chief, and a few more officers of rank, countenanced the measure, the desperate resolution had been taken, to refuse to disband. What the consequences of such a determination would have been, heaven only knows. — The army were in the full vigor of health and spirits, in the habit of discipline, and possessed of all our military stores and apparatus. They would have acquired great accessions of strength from the country. — Those who were disgusted at our republican forms of government (for such there then were, of high rank among us) would have lent them all their aid. — We should in all probability have seen a constitution and laws, dictated to us, at the head of an army, and at the point of a bayonet, and the liberties for which we had so severely struggled, snatched from us in a moment. It remains a secret, yet to be revealed, whether this measure was not suggested, or at least countenanced, by some, who have had great influence in producing the present system. — Fortunately indeed for this country, it had at the head of the army, a patriot as well as a general; and many of our principal officers, had not abandoned the characters of citizens, by assuming that of soldiers, and therefore, the scheme proved abortive. But are we to expect, that this will always be the case? Are we so much better than the people of other ages and of other countries, that the same allurements of power and greatness, which led them aside from their duty, will have no influence upon men in our country? Such an idea, is wild and extravagant. — Had we indulged such a delusion, enough has appeared in a little time past, to convince the most credulous, that the passion for pomp, power and greatness, works as powerfully in the hearts of many of our better sort, as it ever did in any country under heaven. — Were the same opportunity again to offer, we should very probably be grossly disappointed, if we made dependence, that all who then rejected the overture, would do it again. Brutus concludes: From these remarks, it appears, that the evil to be feared from a large standing army in time of peace, does not arise solely from the apprehension, that the rulers may employ them for the purpose of promoting their own ambitious views, but that equal, and perhaps greater danger, is to be apprehended from their overturning the constitutional powers of the government, and assuming the power to dictate any form they please. Brutus again directly engages Hamilton, who had argued in The Federalist that we needed a standing army in peacetime to guard against Indians and to repel an invasion from abroad: The advocates for power, in support of this right in the proposed government, urge that a restraint upon the discretion of the legislatures, in respect to military establishments in time of peace, would be improper to be imposed, because they say, it will be necessary to maintain small garrisons on the frontiers, to guard against the depredations of the Indians, and to be prepared to repel any encroachments or invasions that may be made by Spain or Britain. The amount of this argument striped of the abundant verbages with which the author has dressed it, is this: It will probably be necessary to keep up a small body of troops to garrison a few posts, which it will be necessary to maintain, in order to guard against the sudden encroachments of the Indians, or of the Spaniards and British; and therefore, the general government ought to be invested with power to raise and keep up a standing army in time of peace, without restraint; at their discretion. I confess, I cannot perceive that the conclusion follows from the premises. Logicians say, it is not good reasoning to infer a general conclusion from particular premises: though I am not much of a Logician, it seems to me, this argument is very like that species of reasoning. When the patriots in the parliament in Great-Britain, contended with such force of argument, and all the powers of eloquence, against keeping up standing armies in time of peace, it is obvious, they never entertained an idea, that small garrisons on their frontiers, or in the neighbourhood of powers, from whom they were in danger of encroachments, or guards, to take care of public arsenals would thereby be prohibited. The advocates for this power farther urge that it is necessary, because it may, and probably will happen, that circumstances will render it requisite to raise an army to be prepared to repel attacks of an enemy, before a formal declaration of war, which in modern times has fallen into disuse. If the constitution prohibited the raising an army, until a war actually commenced, it would deprive the government of the power of providing for the defence of the country, until the enemy were within our territory. If the restriction is not to extend to the raising armies in cases of emergency, but only to the keeping them up, this would leave the matter to the discretion of the legislature; and they might, under the pretence that there was danger of an invasion, keep up the army as long as they judged proper — and hence it is inferred, that the legislature should have authority to raise and keep up an army without any restriction. But from these premises nothing more will follow than this, that the legislature should not be so restrained, as to put it out of their power to raise an army, when such exigencies as are instanced shall arise. But it does not thence follow, that the government should be empowered to raise and maintain standing armies at their discretion as well in peace as in war. If indeed, it is impossible to vest the general government with the power of raising troops to garrison the frontier posts, to guard arsenals, or to be prepared to repel an attack, when we saw a power preparing to make one, without giving them a general and indefinite authority, to raise and keep up armies, without any restriction or qualification, then this reasoning might have weight; but this has not been proved nor can it be. It is admitted that to prohibit the general government, from keeping up standing armies, while yet they were authorised to raise them in case of exigency, would be an insufficient guard against the danger. A discretion of such latitude would give room to elude the force of the provision. It is also admitted that an absolute prohibition against raising troops, except in cases of actual war, would be improper; because it will be requisite to raise and support a small number of troops to garrison the important frontier posts, and to guard arsenals; and it may happen, that the danger of an attack from a foreign power may be so imminent, as to render it highly proper we should raise an army, in order to be prepared to resist them. But to raise and keep up forces for such purposes and on such occasions, is not included in the idea, of keeping up standing armies in times of peace. Brutus then refutes yet another argument of Hamilton: The same writer who advances the arguments I have noticed, makes a number of other observations with a view to prove that the power to raise and keep up armies, ought to be discretionary in the general legislature; some of them are curious; he instances the raising of troops in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, to shew the necessity of keeping a standing army in time of peace; the least reflection must convince every candid mind that both these cases are totally foreign to his purpose — Massachusetts raised a body of troops for six months, at the expiration of which they were to disband of course; this looks very little like a standing army. But beside, was that commonwealth in a state of peace at that time? So far from it that they were in the most violent commotions and contents, and their legislature had formally declared that an unnatural rebellion existed within the state. The situation of Pennsylvania was similar; a number of armed men had levied war against the authority of the state, and openly avowed their intention of withdrawing their allegiance from it. To what purpose examples are brought, of states raising troops for short periods in times of war or insurrections, on a question concerning the propriety of keeping up standing armies in times of peace, the public must judge. Brutus also raises the subject of conscription in his discussion of the evils of standing armies. After informing his readers that the power to raise armies under the proposed constitution is “indefinite and unlimited, and authorizes the raising of forces, as well in peace as in war,” he wonders whether “the clause which impowers the Congress to pass all laws which are proper and necessary, to carry this into execution, will not authorise them to impress men for the army.” For “if the general legislature deem it for the general welfare to raise a body of troops, and they cannot be procured by voluntary enlistments, it seems evident, that it will be proper and necessary to effect it, that men be impressed from the militia to make up the deficiency.” The views of Brutus on the evils of standing armies were by no means novel. How quickly do Americans forget that one of the complaints of the Colonists against King George III in the Declaration of Independence was that “he has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.” It should also be pointed out that Brutus did not merely attack the idea of a free state having a standing army, he proposed a solution to the problem of how to entrust the government with sufficient authority to provide for the cases of an enemy attack, guard arsenals, and garrison the frontier posts, while at the same time providing “a reasonable and competent security against the evil of a standing army.” His solution was to add the following clause to the new constitution: As standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, and have often been the means of overturning the best constitutions of government, no standing army, or troops of any description whatsoever, shall be raised or kept up by the legislature, except so many as shall be necessary for guards to the arsenals of the United States, or for garrisons to such posts on the frontiers, as it shall be deemed absolutely necessary to hold, to secure the inhabitants, and facilitate the trade with the Indians: unless when the United States are threatened with an attack or invasion from some foreign power, in which case the legislature shall be authorised to raise an army to be prepared to repel the attack; provided that no troops whatsoever shall be raised in time of peace, without the assent of two thirds of the members, composing both houses of the legislature. Brutus believed that not only would a clause like this “afford sufficient latitude to the legislature to raise troops in all cases that were really necessary,” it would at the same time provide “competent security against the establishment of that dangerous engine of despotism a standing army.” The statements of Brutus on the evils of standing armies are also applicable to the current U.S. foreign policy of interventionism, for if a standing army is despotic in its own country, there is no telling how much more it may be when transplanted to a foreign country. [All quotations from the essays of Brutus are taken from Regnery edition of The Anti-Federalists: Selected Writings and Speeches, edited by Bruce Frohnen.]
The Problem with BRAC
The Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission has just given President Bush its military base realignment and closure recommendations. On the surface, closing obsolete military bases in the United States sounds like a good thing. The Bush administration has even estimated that 20 to 25 percent of military bases are surplus, and that their closure could result in savings of over $3 billion a year. So, given that saving the taxpayers money is the goal, what possible problem could there be with the BRAC Commission? There is one major problem with the BRAC Commission — a fatal flaw that calls the whole process into question. It is not that the military is being downsized. It is not that the United States might be rendered more vulnerable to a terrorist attack. It is not that no cost savings will ultimately be realized since the Defense Department budget will still increase no matter how many bases are closed. It is not that communities will suffer economically when a local base is shut down. It is not that local dignitaries have to shamelessly grovel before the BRAC Commission to keep their bases off the closure list. It is not that members of Congress have to suddenly come up with reasons why the base in their district is so strategically important. The problem, in a word, is empire: the U.S. empire of troops and bases that encircles the globe. The only concern of the BRAC Commission is bases in the United States and its territories. The fact that the United States now has troops in 150 countries or territories is of no concern to the Pentagon, the president, the Congress, or the BRAC Commission. Base closings in the United States began in the early 1960s. Back then the Department of Defense (DOD) was able to close obsolete bases without the involvement of Congress or any other government agency. Congress attempted to involve itself in the process in 1965, but President Johnson vetoed a bill that would have required the Pentagon to report any base closure programs to Congress. In 1977, Congress passed, and President Carter signed, a law (PL 95-82) that required the Defense Department to notify Congress of any proposed base closings or reductions. The 1983 Grace Commission recommended the creation of an independent commission to study the need for base realignments and closures. These two events laid the groundwork for the modern BRAC Commission. In 1988, the Commission on Base Realignment and Closure was created to recommend to Congress and the DOD military bases for realignment or closure. This first round of BRAC (as it is called) resulted in the closure, partial closure, or realignment of 145 military installations. The next three BRAC rounds, which took place in 1991, 1993, and 1995, were carried out differently, as well as the round currently in progress. Under the new guideless adopted in 1990, it is the job of the Defense Department to draw up an initial list of bases to be closed or realigned and submit it to the BRAC Commission. Although the original BRAC Commission had twelve members, the Commission currently consists of nine members, all appointed by the president and congressional leaders and confirmed by the Senate. Working from that list, but also with the authority to add additional bases not recommended by the DOD, the Commission then recommends to the president which bases should be closed or realigned. The president reviews the BRAC recommendations, but can only accept or reject the recommendations in their entirety. If its recommendations are rejected, the BRAC Commission can resubmit a revised list. Congress, however, can still block the implementation of the package of BRAC recommendations, even if approved by the president. There is no question that most of the bases recommended for closure by the BRAC Commission should be closed. If the Pentagon, the BRAC Commission, and the commander in chief all agree on the need for a particular base to be closed, and Congress acquiesces, it is hard to justify keeping it open. But before any bases in the United States are closed, a hard look needs to be made at the hundreds of U.S. military installations on foreign soil. If the purpose of the military is to defend the country, then why is the United States closing bases at home and expanding them abroad? Foreign military bases are for offense, empire, imperialism, intervention — not for defense. The conclusion is inescapable: the U.S. military does very little to actually defend the country. If it did then it would patrol our coasts and guard our borders instead of patrolling the Persian Gulf and guarding the borders of Iraq. According to the latest DOD “Base Structure Report” for fiscal year 2005, the U.S. military has 770 military installations in thirty-nine countries. Is there some rational explanation why we should close military bases in America and maintain 106 military sites in South Korea? Is there any reason why the United States needs 302 military sites in Germany and 111 sites in Japan sixty years after World War II has ended?
The Armed Forces Day of
Reckoning
The third Saturday in May has, since 1950, been designated Armed Forces Day. Harry Truman, who was the president at the time, remarked that the U.S. military was “vital to the security of the nation and to the establishment of a desirable peace.” On the occasion of the first Armed Forces Day while he was president, Dwight Eisenhower stated: “It is fitting and proper that we devote one day each year to paying special tribute to those whose constancy and courage constitute one of the bulwarks guarding the freedom of this nation and the peace of the free world.” Since today is Armed Forces Day, it is perhaps the best day to say — as unpopular as it may be — that rather than contributing to the peace of the world, the U.S. military has become the greatest force for evil in the world. Instead of being a force for peace, the U.S. military, through its numerous wars, interventions, and occupations, is a force for instability, death, and destruction. Yes, I know, I am a liberal, a communist, a Quaker, a pacifist, a peacenik, a traitor, a coward, an appeaser, an America-hater, and an anti-war weenie. Prior to the creation of Armed Forces Day after the unification of the various branches of the military into the Department of Defense, each branch of the military had its own special day. Army Day was April 6, Navy Day was October 27, Air Force Day was August 1, and Marine Corps Day was November 10. Only Marine Corps Day is still observed. Although the Coast Guard also participates in Armed Forces Day, it has its own day (August 4), and is actually part of the Department of Homeland Security. Like perhaps many Americans, I did not realize that May 20 was Armed Forces Day until I was sent a Patriot Petition via e-mail from The Patriot Post, advertised as “The Conservative E-Journal of Record.” The e-mail encouraged me to: Please join fellow Patriots and sign the Petition to pray for our Armed Forces and let them know you stand with them as One Nation Under God. Please forward this invitation to friends, family members and fellow American Patriots. Please sign this Petition to pray for our Armed Forces and forward this invitation to friends, family members and fellow American Patriots. We intend to collect as many petition signatures as possible so that brave Patriots in uniform know that we stand behind them, united in prayer. Let your voice be heard! Please join fellow Patriots in support of the Petition to pray for our Armed Forces. The petition is called “A Call to prayer for our Armed Forces,” and reads as follows: We, your fellow Americans, resolve and commit to pray for you, our uniformed Patriots standing in harm’s way around the world in defense of our liberty, every day. We further resolve and commit to pray for your families awaiting your safe return. We thank God for you, your courage, tenacity and vigilance. The words of George Washington’s First Inaugural Address are fitting: “The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.” We, the American people, then turn that trust to God, who in His sovereign wisdom gave us the freedom we enjoy. You Patriots — American Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coastguardsmen — have plowed the ground for liberty. We remain the proud and the free because you have stood bravely in harm’s way, and remain on post today. For this, we, the American People, offer our heartfelt thanks. We commit to continually pray for you and your families. I agree. We should pray for the men and women in the U.S. military. The Bible says that “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks” should “be made for all men” (1 Timothy 2:1). But how should we pray for them? Should we pray that God bless the troops while they drop their bombs, throw their grenades, launch their missiles, fire their mortars, and shoot their bullets? Should we pray that the troops are protected while they injure, torture, maim, and kill others? Should we pray that the troops are successful when they drive their tanks into a city and reduce it to rubble? Why not? What do you think has been happening in Iraq for the past three years? Yes, we should pray for the troops. We should pray that the troops come home. We should pray that the troops come home now. We should pray that the blood of not one more American soldier is shed on foreign soil. We should pray for the healing of the thousands of U.S. soldiers who have been injured in the senseless Iraq war. We should pray for an end to this unconstitutional, immoral, and unjust war. We should pray that Congress ends funding for this war. We should pray that Bush leaves office a disgraced commander in chief. We should pray that young, impressionable students are not ensnared by military recruiters. We should pray that pastors stop recommending military service to their young men (and women). We should pray that families stop supplying cannon fodder to the military. We should pray that the troops actually start defending this country instead of every other country. We should pray for a change in U.S. foreign policy that can make this all possible. But as long as the U.S. military is garrisoning the planet, there is another group of people that we should pray for: the people our armed forces are putting in harm’s way. Pray that they will not be at home when the bombs start dropping and the bullets start flying. The U.S. military is not “plowing the ground for liberty” or “standing in defense of our liberty.” The military, as the coercive arm of the U.S. government, is at once the world’s policeman, bully, and troublemaker. The United States has, for over a hundred years, intervened in the affairs of other countries in every corner of the globe. This has been documented by a number of individuals in a variety of places. Zoltan Grossman of Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, has compiled a partial list of over 100 U.S. military foreign interventions from 1890 to 2006. Global Security has a report of U.S. military operations broken down into five periods from the eighteenth century to the post cold war period. At the 2002 annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association in Savannah, Georgia, one of the papers documented 176 U.S. military operations since the Cold War. Although the Department of Defense admits to having 702 military installations in foreign countries, it has been documented by Chalmers Johnson that this number is far too low and perhaps actually numbers around 1,000. I have recently chronicled the presence of U.S. troops in 155 countries or territories. No wonder former U.S. Attorney General William Ramsey Clark has said that “the greatest crime since World War II has been US foreign policy.” I don’t often agree with Martin Luther King Jr., but he was right when he said during the Vietnam War that “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is my own government.” And Murray Rothbard, the twentieth century’s greatest proponent of liberty, was certainly correct when he claimed that “empirically, taking the twentieth century as a whole, the single most warlike, most interventionist, most imperialist government has been the United States.” Professor Grossman has astutely characterized U.S. military interventions:
How much wiser were the Founding Fathers than Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice! If more Americans heeded the
wisdom of the Founders, a militaristic United States would never have been tolerated. It was James Madison, the
“father of the Constitution,” who warned the country back in 1787: A standing military force, with an overgrown
Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger, have been
always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a
revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the
people. George Washington likewise warned against “those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of
government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican
liberty.” He believed that “the great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our
commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.” He counseled that our true
foreign policy should be “to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” Here is
Thomas Jefferson’s “Quaker” foreign policy: Peace has been our principle, peace is our interest, and peace has
saved to the world this only plant of free and rational government now existing in it. However, therefore, we may
have been reproached for pursuing our Quaker system, time will affix the stamp of wisdom on it, and the happiness
and prosperity of our citizens will attest its merit. And this, I believe, is the only legitimate object of
government, and the first duty of governors, and not the slaughter of men and devastation of the countries placed
under their care, in pursuit of a fantastic honor, unallied to virtue or happiness; or in gratification of the
angry passions, or the pride of administrators, excited by personal incidents, in which their citizens have no
concern. I am for free commerce with all nations, political connection with none, and little or no diplomatic
establishment. And I am not for linking ourselves by new treaties with the quarrels of Europe, entering that field
of slaughter to preserve their balance, or joining in the confederacy of Kings to war against the principles of
liberty. How well I remember the outrage in this country when the U.S. government shot, gassed, and burned men,
women, and children in 1993 at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. So why no outrage when the U.S.
military does the same thing in other countries? The only explanation is that many Americans, and especially many
conservative, evangelical, and fundamentalist Christians, are blindly in love with the U.S. military.
Who Is Responsible?
“I oppose the war far more than you do. The fault is not that of soldiers sent to war. Only an immature idiot like yourself would make that claim. Your comments on what soldiers are good for is an embarrassment. They are heroes, you are an ass.” ~ One of my critics Who is responsible for the death and destruction in Iraq? A critic of mine believes that the U.S. soldiers who kill people and break things are not responsible for their actions. I strongly disagree. No one questions whether the Russian soldiers who executed 21,000 Polish Army reservists in the Katyn Forest Massacre are responsible for their actions. No one questions whether the German soldiers who invaded Poland are responsible for their actions. No one questions whether the Turkish soldiers who massacred thousands of Armenians in 1915 are responsible for their actions. Why is it then that few Americans — even those opposed to the war — question whether U.S. soldiers are responsible for their actions? Not only are U.S. soldiers not viewed as responsible for the death and destruction that they bring, we continually see signs and yellow ribbons expressing support for the troops. We also frequently hear from church pulpits that we should pray for the troops. Sometimes this is expanded to praying for the safety of the troops while they are defending our freedoms, but it is usually just the nebulous refrain: “pray for the troops.” Although many defenders of the Iraq war have tried, usually under the umbrella of “just war” theory, it can’t be said that the actions of U.S. soldiers in this war are so different from the actions of Russians, Germans, and Turks that they should be commended instead of condemned. Labeling the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq a just war does not make it one. By no stretch of the imagination can the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq be called a just war. In fact, the war violates every “just war” principle ever invoked to justify a war. So why aren’t U.S. soldiers viewed as responsible for the death and destruction in Iraq — even by many of those who see this as an unjust war? Those who say the troops are not responsible are, consciously or unconsciously, saying one of four things (or perhaps even all four). Some say the troops are not responsible because they are just following the orders given them by their superiors. U.S. soldiers were told to invade and occupy Iraq. They were told to hunt down “terrorists.” They were told to load their planes and their weapons. They were told to drop their bombs and fire their bullets. Even some who oppose the war would agree. They maintain that although Bush the liar in chief and Rumsfeld the secretary of lies are war criminals, the individual soldier is not responsible because the chain of command goes all the way back to them. But I thought it was only God who should be obeyed 100 percent of the time without question? These people are hypocrites. No supporter of the war in Iraq who uses the “obeying orders” defense would allow a German officer at the Nuremberg Trials to get away with saying that he was just obeying Hitler’s orders. Do those who use the “obeying orders” defense actually believe that a soldier should never question the morality of his orders? Should a soldier shoot unarmed civilians because a Lt. Calley orders him to do so? Why not? He would just be obeying orders. Being told to clean or paint a piece of equipment is one thing; being told to bomb or shoot a person is another. Others say the troops are not responsible because, as citizens of the United States, soldiers, like everyone else, must do as the state dictates. Many evangelical Christians agree, and join in this chorus of statolatry with their “obey the powers that be” mantra. No soldier is responsible for the death and destruction he inflicts as long as it is state-sanctioned death and destruction. Those who consistently hold this opinion have made the state their god; those who don’t should not be taken seriously. Many say the troops are not responsible because they are American troops. Unlike the soldiers of any other country, U.S. soldiers are always liberators and peacekeepers, never invaders and occupiers. True, the United States has troops scattered all over the globe in 155 countries or territories, but America is a benevolent hegemon. Here too many evangelical Christians concur. They view the United States as the God-anointed protector of Israel that enjoys a special relationship with God. The war in Iraq is a modern-day crusade. The U.S. military is the Lord’s army that fights against the Muslim infidel. The inevitable conclusion to this aberrant nationalism can be seen in a statement from a critic of mine who considers me to be a “traitor”: “Every war that has ever been fought and ever will be fought by the United States has been just and has been for honor.” The government and the military could not ask for a more loyal piece of cannon fodder than this ultimate warmonger, although he himself won’t be the one going overseas — it will be the young men in his neighborhood who will be sacrificed for the state. And then there are those who say the troops are not responsible because we are at war. As Rush Limbaugh recently said: “When our nation is at war, your duty is to support it, not offer your precious little opinion.” War not only makes for strange bedfellows (like the United States and Soviet Russia in WWII), it can used to cover a multitude of sins. In fact, under the cloak of war, the vilest crimes can be covered up or excused. In the minds of many Americans, a soldier in a uniform is a sanctified individual. In his review of My Battle of Algiers in National Review, Christopher Levenick makes a chilling observation about military uniforms and those soldiers guilty of torturing their opponents: “Indeed, it is not uncommon to learn that such men are capable of living out the rest of their lives without any sense of guilt for their actions. It remains a basic truth of human nature that a uniform is all that many men need to dissociate themselves from the evil they commit.” Although the U.S. government and the general public don’t hold the troops responsible for their actions (unless they do something particularly evil that becomes an embarrassment), U.S. soldiers need to realize that it is they themselves who will ultimately be held responsible when they stand before God Almighty and give account of their deeds. U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq need to recognize some things that are true and some things that are not true:
Until U.S. soldiers concede that the war was a grave mistake, they will keep on fighting. Until U.S. soldiers
accept responsibility for their actions, they will keep on killing. Until U.S. soldiers understand that the state
is a lying, stealing, and killing machine they will continue their state-sanctioned death and destruction. Until
U.S. soldiers realize that they are but cannon fodder for the state, they will keep dying for a lie. And until
young men and women acknowledge that the U.S. military has become — through its wars, interventions, and
occupations — the greatest force for evil in the world, they will keep joining the military to get that enlistment bonus or that money for college. No one is holding a gun to the head of any
soldier and commanding him to fight. Yes, it is true that U.S. soldiers who refuse to continue to participate in
the state’s interventions, invasions, and occupations might be dishonorably discharged, court-martialed, sent to
prison, mistaken for a left-wing anti-war activist, called a coward, branded as anti-American, labeled a traitor,
shunned by family, termed a quitter, ridiculed by veterans, or ostracized by fellow soldiers. Perhaps all of the
above. But doing what’s right is oftentimes not an easy thing to do. There are frequently adverse consequences to
doing the right thing. But even if a gun was held to a soldier’s head and he was commanded to fight, does that mean
he should give in? Don’t the negative consequences of refusing to fight that I mentioned above pale in comparison
to losing one’s life? My answer is still the same: Do what’s right. If it’s not right to invade and occupy another
country, then don’t do it. If it’s not right to kill people and break things, then don’t do it. The consequences be
damned.
Supporting the Troops
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2006/10/laurence-m-vance/should-we-glorify-the-military/
No, You Can't Have My
Daughter
The military is getting desperate. Morale is at an all time low, enlistments are way down, casualties are way
up, more U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq than people were killed in the September 11th attacks, and there is
no end to the war in sight.
Sounds like an impressive package, but I afraid that I will have to say no, you can’t have my daughter. Call me
old-fashioned, call me traditional, call me chauvinistic, call me over-protective, call me misogynic, but the
National Guard is no place for a young woman. I will not waste my time saying that men and women are different and
that women have no business being in any branch of the military, but I will say this. I previously wrote about the
fifty-four female American soldiers who have been
killed in Iraq. Nine of them were in the National Guard. That number is now up to sixty, including a member of the
National Guard, Sgt. Denise A. Lannaman, 46, of Bayside, N.Y., who died on October 1 from a non-combat related
incident. Of all the places for a young American woman to die, a battlefield in Iraq certainly shouldn’t be one of
them. In my previous article I said: “What kind of military do we have that sends women to die overseas? What kind
of society do we have that would accept a woman with children flying a military helicopter in Iraq or anywhere
else?” I stand behind those two statements. Women now comprise about 16 percent of the enlisted ranks and 19
percent of the officer corps, and those numbers are getting higher. Another reason the National Guard can’t have my
daughter is that the Guard is being used as cannon fodder. The opening paragraphs of the letter from the Guard’s
chief recruiter say about the Guard: For nearly 370 years, America has relied on its National Guard to defend our
shores and serve our citizens in times of need. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, over 41,000 National Guard
members from 42 states across America rushed to storm-ravaged areas to save lives, maintain law and order and
support recovery efforts.
Deadly Oaths
I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God. ~ U.S. Military Enlistment Oath (U.S. Code, Title 10, Subtitle A, Part II, Chapter 31, 502). Okay (so I have been told), perhaps the war in Iraq is an unconstitutional, unjust, illegal, immoral, and unnecessary war of aggression. But what’s a soldier to do? He can’t just walk away. It’s too far to swim across the Atlantic. And besides, there is no draft. Every soldier joined the military of his own free will. He committed himself to serve for a certain number of years. He just can’t quit. He isn’t allowed to change his job. It doesn’t matter what his opinion of the war is now, he took an oath to obey the president and his officers. Shall we do evil [continue to fight this war] that good [keep an oath] may come (Romans 3:8)? Some Christians would say yes, and then try to justify their decision with Scripture: “If a man vow a vow unto the LORD, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth” (Numbers 30:2). But is vowing a vow to God the same as vowing a vow to obey the president? Is swearing an oath to the Lord the same as swearing an oath to obey U.S. military officers? Obviously not. The president is not God, except in the mind of some Christian warmongers. And neither is the U.S. military, except to these Christian warmongers. Taking an oath to obey one’s commander in chief and officers can result in the death of innocents. There are two examples of deadly oaths in the Bible. In the Old Testament, there is the case of Jephthah, who hastily sacrificed his daughter: And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the LORD delivered them into his hands. And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel. And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter. And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the LORD, and I cannot go back. And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the LORD, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the LORD hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon. And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows. And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains. And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel, That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year (Judges 10:30—40). In the New Testament, there is the case of Herod, who rashly had John the Baptist executed: But when Herod heard thereof, he said, It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead. For Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold upon John, and bound him in prison for Herodias’ sake, his brother Philip’s wife: for he had married her. For John had said unto Herod, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife. Therefore Herodias had a quarrel against him, and would have killed him; but she could not: For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and an holy, and observed him; and when he heard him, he did many things, and heard him gladly. And when a convenient day was come, that Herod on his birthday made a supper to his lords, high captains, and chief estates of Galilee; And when the daughter of the said Herodias came in, and danced, and pleased Herod and them that sat with him, the king said unto the damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it thee. And he sware unto her, Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me, I will give it thee, unto the half of my kingdom. And she went forth, and said unto her mother, What shall I ask? And she said, The head of John the Baptist. And she came in straightway with haste unto the king, and asked, saying, I will that thou give me by and by in a charger the head of John the Baptist. And the king was exceeding sorry; yet for his oath’s sake, and for their sakes which sat with him, he would not reject her. And immediately the king sent an executioner, and commanded his head to be brought: and he went and beheaded him in the prison, And brought his head in a charger, and gave it to the damsel: and the damsel gave it to her mother (Mark 6:16—28). So what should a soldier do once he realizes that the war in Iraq is an unconstitutional, unjust, illegal, immoral, and unnecessary war of aggression? Should he continue to fight and bleed and die for a lie because he swore to obey his commander in chief and officers? One option available to soldiers is to seek conscientious objector status. According to Department of Defense Directive 1300.6, a conscientious objector has “a firm, fixed and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or the bearing of arms, by reason of religious training and belief.” But this directive goes on to define “religious training and belief” as: Belief in an external power or being or deeply held moral or ethical belief, to which all else is subordinate or upon which all else is ultimately dependent, and which has the power or force to affect moral-well-being. The external power or being need not be of an orthodox deity, but may be a sincere and meaningful belief that occupies in the life of its possessor a place parallel to that filled by the God of another, or, in the case of deeply held moral or ethical beliefs, a belief held with the strength and devotion of traditional religious conviction. The term “religious training and belief” may include solely moral or ethical beliefs even though the applicant himself may not characterize these beliefs as “religious” in the traditional sense, or may expressly characterize them as not religious. The Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors has a guide to military discharges and GI rights. The Center on Conscience & War works to defend and extend the rights of conscientious objectors. Iraq Veterans Against the War supports all those resisting the war, including conscientious objectors and others facing prosecution for refusing to fight. Contact information for veterans who have firsthand experience with the conscientious objection process, and have volunteered to give advice and support to soldiers seeking conscientious objector status, can be seen here. Something akin to conscientious objector status was granted to Jews in the Old Testament. When it was time for the people of Israel to go out to battle against their enemies (Deuteronomy 20:1), exceptions were made for those who just “planted a vineyard” (Deuteronomy 20:6), those who just “betrothed a wife” (Deuteronomy 20:7), and those who were “fearful and fainthearted” (Deuteronomy 20:8). But there is another part of the U.S. military enlistment oath that is being overlooked — the part that reads: “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.” Months before the invasion of Iraq, Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) pointed out on the House floor the unconstitutional nature of the upcoming war. So what will it be Mr. Patriotic, Constitution-Loving American? Bush and Rumsfeld or the Constitution? Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971, recently wrote in Harper’s Magazine about his conflict of loyalties: In 1964 it never even occurred to me to break the many secrecy agreements I had signed, in the Marines, at the Rand Corporation, in the Pentagon. Although I already knew the Vietnam War was a mistake and based on lies, my loyalties then were to the secretary of defense and the president (and to my promises of secrecy, on which my own career as a president’s man depended). I’m not proud that it took me years of war to awaken to the higher loyalties owed by every government official to the rule of law, to our soldiers in harm’s way, to our fellow citizens, and, explicitly, to the Constitution, which every one of us had sworn an oath “to support and uphold.” It took me that long to recognize that the secrecy agreements we had signed frequently conflicted with our oath to uphold the Constitution. That conflict arose almost daily, unnoticed by me or other officials, whenever we were secretly aware that the president or other executive officers were lying to or misleading Congress. In giving priority, in effect, to my promise of secrecy — ignoring my constitutional obligation — I was no worse or better than any of my Vietnam-era colleagues, or those who later saw the Iraq war approaching and failed to warn anyone outside the executive branch. There are several groups of people that would be better off if fewer American soldiers sought to uphold their deadly oath. The latest report on the number of Iraqis killed since the U.S. invasion claims that the number of dead Iraqis is now around 655,000. Naturally, President Bush doesn’t believe the report to be credible. Well, then how about the very conservative estimate by the Iraq Body Count research group that puts the number of Iraqi civilian deaths between 44,661 and 49,610? And then there are the thousands of deaths in Afghanistan. It really doesn’t matter what the actual numbers are. To many Americans the dead Iraqis and Afghans are just terrorists and ragheads. More sophisticated defenders of the war will dismiss the dead Iraqis and Afghans as just collateral damage. And what about the toll of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on Americans?
How many more American soldiers must die for a lie before the insanity that is the Global War on Terrorism is ended?
Beware of Child Predators
There is a new breed of child predator on the loose. You won’t find him featured on America’s Most Wanted or appearing on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. Up until now parents who
were concerned about child predators could check their state’s Sex Offender Registries or the Child Predator Watch List. But now we can
thank Ladies Home Journal magazine for informing parents about this
dangerous new predator in an article that appears in the latest issue (February 2007) called “This Man Wants Your
Children.” I don’t normally read Ladies Home Journal. In fact, I don’t think I had ever read a single copy until I
happened recently to look through the latest issue. Unfortunately, Ladies Home Journal has enlisted in the service
of the state. The purpose of its thirteen-page child predator article was not to warn parents about predators at
all — it was to promote them. You see, “This Man Wants Your Children” was not about sex offenders — even though
some of them are sex offenders — it was about Army recruiters; specifically, Sergeant First Class Chad Christenson,
one of the top Army recruiters in the country. Indeed, Sgt. Christenson was the Army’s “Recruiter of the Year” in
2005. We learn a number of things in this article about recruiters and recruiting. The 2005 military recruiting
budget was about $4 billion. Since the recruiting numbers were way down in 2005, “the Army added 1,000 new
recruiters, doubled the maximum sign-in bonus from $20,000 to $40,000, relaxed standards and raised the maximum-age
limit.” Then there was the new $200 million ad campaign for 2006. We are also told that “in 2005 the Army
officially investigated 836 allegations of recruiter misconduct.” The Army now accepts lower entrance scores on
aptitude tests, grants more “moral waivers” to allow convicted criminals to enlist, and allows non-citizens to gain
their citizenship after only one year of active duty. The enlistment age has been raised from 35 to 40 to 42. Older
women who want to enlist will find that the physical fitness requirements are now less rigorous — they must now be
able to do three push-ups. Oh, and the Army now has a
MySpace profile. Thanks to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which mandates that “public high school
administrators are required to allow military recruiters access to students or risk losing federal funding,”
Christenson preys on high school students. He is stationed in Texas, “the state that contributed more 2005 and 2006
Army enlistees than any other.” He is paid about $64,000 to “show young Texans how the Army can enrich their
lives.” I know public high school teachers that make half of that and private high school teachers who make less
than half of that. Christenson says the Army changed his life — “It made me who I am.” But who he is? We read in
this article about some of the people Christenson persuades to join the Army. One recruit tells him that he wants
to serve in the infantry. His reason: “It’s a moral thing with me. After what happened on 9/11, I can’t live with
myself if I don’t go to war.” Does Christenson tell the young man that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with 9/11?
Why not? “We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th,” said Christenson’s commander in chief in
answer to a reporter’s question on September 17, 2003, after hundreds of U.S. soldiers had already died for a lie.
Another recruit is a forty-one-year-old mother of five. Does Christenson tell her that it would better if she
stayed home with her family? Does he tell her about the female U.S. soldiers who have been killed in Iraq? Why not?
I have posted their names and pictures here. What else
is Christenson not telling young men and women about the U.S. military? Is he telling them that the military does
very little to actually defend the country? Is he telling them that the military is not defending our freedoms? Is he telling them that the
military is protecting the shores, guarding the borders, and patrolling the coasts of other countries instead of
our own? Is he telling them that the military is garrisoning the planet with its military bases? Is he
telling them that the war in Iraq has lasted longer than the war against Nazi Germany? Is he telling them that the
military has troops in over 150 different regions of the
world? Why not? Sgt. Christenson is supposed to be an honest man. We are told in the Ladies Home Journal
article that he is “familiar with the dark side of recruiting, of course — the improprieties brought on by the
pressure to meet quotas,” but that “he scrupulously avoids the sorts of ethical lapses — such as misleading
potential recruits (or their parents) about the chances of going to Iraq — that have tripped up other recruiters.”
This means that he doesn’t tell students that the war in Iraq is over in order to get them to enlist — like some Army recruiters did. So
why doesn’t he tell young men and women the whole story?
The Anti-Federalists on Standing
Armies
“He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.” ~ Declaration of Independence The opponents of the Constitution, which history has mischaracterized as Anti-Federalists, had numerous reasons for rejecting the proposed Constitution. Although their central argument concerned the danger to liberty from a strong central government, they also wrote extensively against the Constitution’s provision for a standing army and federal control over the militia. In Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, it states that The Congress shall have Power To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and maintain a Navy; To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces; To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress; The Anti-Federalists Were Opposed to a Standing Army in Peacetime The Anti-Federalist who called himself “Centinel” wrote a series of letters that appeared in the Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer in late 1787 and early 1788. He referred to standing armies in his second letter as “that grand engine of oppression.” The “Federal Farmer” wrote a series of letters that were published in the Poughkeepsie Country Journal in late 1787 and early 1788. In his third letter, he lamented that under the new Constitution Congress “will have unlimited power to raise armies, and to engage officers and men for any number of years.” He then voiced his objection to standing armies: I see so many men in American fond of a standing army, and especially among those who probably will have a large share in administering the federal system; it is very evident to me, that we shall have a large standing army as soon as the monies to support them can be possibly found. An army is not a very agreeable place of employment for the young gentlemen of many families. He also stated in his thirteenth letter that “we all agree, that a large standing army has a strong tendency to depress and inslave the people.” Essays signed “Old Whig” also appeared in Philadelphia’s Independent Gazetteer the same time as the letters from the “Federal Farmer.” In his second essay, he remarked that “this generation in America have seen enough of war and its usual concomitants to prevent all of us from wishing to see any more of it; — all except those who make a trade of war.” In his fifth essay, in the course of explaining how rulers can violate the rights of conscience, “Old Whig” stated that “the unlimited power of taxation will give them the command of all the treasures of the continent; a standing army will be wholly at their devotion.” “Cato” wrote a series of letters that appeared in the New York Journal between September 1787 and January 1788. One of his complaints against the proposed new government was that “standing armies may be established, and appropriation of money made for their support, for two years.” Those in the Pennsylvania ratification convention who objected to the proposed Constitution published their views in the Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser on December 18, 1787, as The Address and Reasons of Dissent of the Minority of the Convention of Pennsylvania to Their Constituents. In their address, these Pennsylvania delegates remarked that one of the helps to Congress completing “the system of despotism” is “when a numerous standing army shall render opposition vain.” The delegates in the minority also stated that in case the new government “must be executed by force,” the framers of the Constitution “have therefore made a provision for this purpose in a permanent STANDING ARMY, and a MILITIA that may be subjected to as strict discipline and government.” They objected to a standing army because A standing army in the hands of a government placed so independent of the people, may be made a fatal instrument to overturn the public liberties; it may be employed to enforce the collection of the most oppressive taxes, and to carry into execution the most arbitrary measures. An ambitious man who may have the army at his devotion, may step up into the throne, and seize upon absolute power. The Anti-Federalist who signed his 1788 essays in the Baltimore Maryland Gazette “A Farmer” gave historical examples in his second essay to show that “both political and civil liberty have long since ceased to exist in almost all the countries that now employ standing troops, and that their slavery has in every instance been effected and maintained by the instrumentality and invariable obedience of these living machines to their chief.” He mentions not only that in England “a standing army is declared to be contrary to their constitution, and a militia the only natural and safe defense of a free people,” but also that in America “the constitutions of all the States positively forbid any standing troops at all, much less laws for them.” For example: Massachusetts: “And as in times of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the legislature.” Pennsylvania & North Carolina: “And as standing armies in the time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up.” Maryland & Delaware: “That standing armies are dangerous to liberty, and ought not to be raised or kept without consent of the legislature.” “A Farmer” also mused in this essay: “I was persuaded that the grave would have closed on my bones, before this question would be publicly proposed in America. — Are we then to look up to a standing army for the defence of this soil from foreign invasion?” In his sixth essay, he included as a “great and manifest” defect in the proposed government “the manifest danger to public liberty from a standing army, without limitation of number, in time of peace.” The Anti-Federalist who used the name of “John DeWitt” wrote extensively about the evils of standing armies in a series of essays published in the Boston American Herald in late 1787: They shall have also the power of raising, supporting and establishing a standing army in time of peace in your several towns, and I see not why in your several houses.” Where lies the security of the people? What assurances have they that either their taxes will not be exacted but in the greatest emergencies, and then sparingly, or that standing armies will be raised and supported for the very plausible purpose only of cantoning them upon their frontiers? There is but one answer to these questions. — They have none. The advocates at the present day, for a standing army in the New Congress pretend it is necessary for the respectability of government. I defy them to produce an instance in any country, in the Old or New World, where they have not finally done away the liberties of the people. — Every writer upon government, — Lock, Sidney, Hamden, and a list of other have uniformly asserted, that standing armies are a solecism in any government; that no nation ever supported them, that did not resort to, rely upon, and finally become a prey to them. It is universally agreed, that a militia and a standing body of troops never yet flourished in the same soil. Tyrants have uniformly depended upon the latter, at the expense of the former. Experience has taught them, that a standing body of regular forces, where ever they can be completely introduced, are always efficacious in enforcing their edicts, however arbitrary. There is no instance of any government being reduced to a confirmed tyranny without military oppression; and the first policy of tyrants has been to annihilate all other means of national activity and defence, and to rely solely upon standing troops. It is very true, that the celebrated Mr. Wilson, a member of the Convention, and who we may suppose breathes, in some measure, the spirit of that body, tells you, it [a standing army] is for the purpose of forming cantonments upon your frontiers, and for the dignity and safety of your country, as it respects foreign nations. No man that loves his country could object to their being raised for the first of these causes, but for the last it cannot be necessary. GOD has so separated us by an extensive ocean from the rest of mankind, he hath so liberally endowed us with privileges, and so abundantly taught us to esteem them precious, it would be impossible, while we retain our integrity and advert to first principles, for any nation whatever to subdue us. DeWitt also equated the “revenue, excise, impost and stamp officers” that would be introduced under the new Constitution with a standing army. Patrick Henry (1736—1799), in his June 5 speech in the Virginia ratifying convention against adopting the Constitution, likewise denigrated standing armies: “A standing army we shall have, also, to execute the execrable commands of tyranny; and how are you to punish them? Will you order them to be punished? Who shall obey these orders? Will your mace-bearer be a match for a disciplined regiment?” “Brutus” wrote more about the evils of standing armies than any other Anti-Federalist. Sixteen of his essays were published in the New York Journal from October 1787 to April 1788. In four of these essays (numbers 1, 8, 9, 10), he explains how the establishment and maintenance of standing armies breeds fear, is destructive to liberty, and should be viewed as a scourge to a country instead of a benefit. Since I have already explored at length the opinions of “Brutus” on this subject in a previous article (“Brutus on the Evils of Standing Armies“), I only present here something he said in his ninth essay on this subject: That standing armies are dangerous to the liberties of a people was proved in my last number — If it was necessary, the truth of the position might be confirmed by the history of almost every nation in the world. A cloud of the most illustrious patriots of every age and country, where freedom has been enjoyed, might be adduced as witnesses in support of the sentiment. But I presume it would be useless, to enter into a laboured argument, to prove to the people of America, a position, which has so long and so generally been received by them as a kind of axiom. The “Impartial Examiner” wrote essays for the Virginia Independent Chronicle in 1788. He twice refers to standing armies in his first essay: It has ever been held that standing armies in times of peace are dangerous to a free country; and no observation seems to contain more reason in it. Besides being useless, as having no object of employment, they are inconvenient and expensive. The soldiery, who are generally composed of the dregs of the people, when disbanded, or unfit for military service, being equally unfit for any other employment, become extremely burthensome. As they are a body of men exempt from the common occupations of social life, having an interest different from the rest of the community, they wanton in the lap of ease and indolence, without feeling the duties, which arise from the political connection, though drawing their subsistence from the bosom of the state. The severity of discipline necessary to be observed reduces them to a degree of slavery; the unconditional submission to the commands of their superiors, to which they are bound, renders them the fit instruments of tyranny and oppression. — Hence they have in all ages afforded striking examples of contributing, more or less, to enslave mankind; — and whoever will take the trouble to examine, will find that by far the greater part of the different nations, who have fallen from the glorious state of liberty, owe their ruin to standing armies. You will advert to the dangerous and oppressive consequences, that may ensue from the introduction of standing armies in times of peace; those baneful engines of ambition, against which free nations have always guarded with the greatest degree of caution. The Anti-Federalists Were Opposed to Federal Control over the Militia The “Impartial Examiner,” in his first essay, referenced above, explained his preference for a militia over a standing army: It has been urged that they are necessary to provide against sudden attacks. Would not a well regulated militia, duly trained to discipline, afford ample security? Such, I conceive, to be the best, the surest means of protection, which a free people can have when not actually engaged in war. This kind of defence is attended with two advantages superior to any others; first, when it is necessary to embody an army, they at once form a band of soldiers, whose interests are uniformly the same with those of the whole community, and in whose safety they see involved every thing that is dear to themselves: secondly, if one army is cut off, another may be immediately raised already trained for military service. By a policy, somewhat similar to this, the Roman empire rose to the highest pitch of grandeur and magnificence. What did the Anti-Federalists mean by a militia? In the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which was written by George Mason (1725—1792) and adopted by the Virginia Constitutional Convention in 1776, it states: That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power. The militia was always regarded as such until the Militia Act of 1903, which created the modern National Guard, and the rise of gun-control advocates, who try to keep guns out of the hands of the citizenry by redefining the Second Amendment as merely affirming the states’ right to form National Guard-like militias. But the militia, as it is still defined in Title 10 of the U.S. Code, “consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.” A well-regulated and well-armed militia under the control of the several states was viewed by the Anti-Federalists as being essential to secure the liberties of the people. They opposed not only a regular standing army, but also a federalized militia that would serve the same function. In his fifth essay, referred to above, the Anti-Federalist who called himself “Old Whig” stated that our future rulers can invade our rights of conscience because of the authority which is given them over the militia, by virtue of which they may, if they please, change all the officers of the militia on the continent in one day, and put in new officers whom they can better trust; by which they can subject all the militia to strict military laws, and punish the disobedient with death, or otherwise, as they shall think right: by which they can march the militia back and forward from one end of the continent to the other, at their discretion. But “Old Whig” had another problem with federal control over the militia: Let us instance one thing arising from this right of organizing and governing the militia. Suppose a man alledges that he is conscientiously scrupulous of bearing Arms. — By the bill of rights of Pennsylvania he is bound only to pay an equivalent for his personal service. — What is there in the new proposed constitution to prevent his being dragged like a Prussian soldier to the camp and there compelled to bear arms? The “Federal Farmer,” in his eighteenth and last letter, which was published in the Poughkeepsie Country Journal in January of 1788, argued that only state militias could protect the powers and liberties of the states against a federal government with a standing army. He believed that “the powers to form and arm the militia, to appoint their officers, and to command their services, are very important; nor ought they in a confederated republic to be lodged, solely, in any one member of the government.” To put a check on the federal government, “the militia of any state shall not remain in the service of the union, beyond a given period, without the express consent of the state legislature.” The Address of the minority in the Pennsylvania ratification convention was very strongly opposed to federal control over state militias: The absolute unqualified command that Congress have over the militia may be made instrumental to the destruction of all liberty, both public and private; whether of a personal, civil or religious nature. First, the personal liberty of every man, probably from sixteen to sixty years of age, may be destroyed by the power Congress have in organizing and governing of the militia. As militia they may be subjected to fines to any amount, levied in a military manner; they may be subjected to corporal punishments of the most disgraceful and humiliating kind; and to death itself, by the sentence of a court martial. To this our young men will be more immediately subjected, as a select militia, composed of them, will best answer the purposes of government. Secondly, the rights of conscience may be violated, as there is no exemption of those persons who are conscientiously scrupulous of hearing arms. These compose a respectable proportion of the community in the state. This is the more remarkable, because even when the distresses of the late war and the evident disaffection of many citizens of that description inflamed our passions, and when every person who was obliged to risk his own life must have been exasperated against such as on any account kept back from the common danger, yet even then, when outrage and violence might have been expected, the rights of conscience were held sacred. Thirdly, the absolute command of Congress over the militia may be destructive of public liberty; for under the guidance of an arbitrary government, they may be made the unwilling instruments of tyranny. The militia of Pennsylvania may be marched to New England or Virginia to quell an insurrection occasioned by the most galling oppression, and aided by the standing army, they will no doubt be successful in subduing their liberty and independency. But in so doing, although the magnanimity of their minds will be extinguished, yet the meaner passions of resentment and revenge will be increased, and these in turn will be the ready and obedient instruments of despotism to enslave the others; and that with an irritated vengeance. Thus may the militia be made the instruments of crushing the last efforts of expiring liberty, of riveting the chains of despotism on their fellow-citizens, and on one another. This power can be exercised not only without violating the Constitution, but in strict conformity with it; it is calculated for this express purpose, and will doubtless be executed accordingly. These Pennsylvania delegates closed their arguments against the Constitution by offering fourteen propositions to their state convention. The eleventh one concerns the subject at hand: That the power of organizing, arming and disciplining the militia (the manner of disciplining the militia to be prescribed by Congress) remain with the individual states, and that Congress shall not have authority to call or march any of the militia out of their own state, without the consent of such state, and for such length of time only as such state shall agree. The Anti-Federalists Were Not Alone It is not just the Anti-Federalists who were opposed to standing armies. James Madison, “The Father of the Constitution,” voiced his concern as well: A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people. Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. Thomas Jefferson not only included standing armies in the Declaration of Independence as a component of British tyranny, he likewise despairingly described them elsewhere: There are instruments so dangerous to the rights of the nation and which place them so totally at the mercy of their governors that those governors, whether legislative or executive, should be restrained from keeping such instruments on foot but in well-defined cases. Such an instrument is a standing army. Were armies to be raised whenever a speck of war is visible in our horizon, we never should have been without them. Our resources would have been exhausted on dangers which have never happened, instead of being reserved for what is really to take place. Nor is it conceived needful or safe that a standing army should be kept up in time of peace. Newspapers editorialized after the American Revolution against standing armies, referring to them as “that great support of tyrants” and as a “manifest danger to public liberty.” This is because, as Lew Rockwell has well said, “America was born in love of liberty and opposition to a standing army. The two go together.” The Evil of a Standing Army The contemporary historian of the American Revolution, Mercy Otis Warren, in her History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution (1805), described the true beginning of the American Revolution as when British troops arrived in Boston in 1768: “The troops arrived from Halifax. This was indeed a painful era. The American war may be dated from this hostile act; a day which marks with infamy the councils of Great Britain.” Yet, the Federalist President Washington federalized the militia to suppress the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion, substituting an American army for a British one, and the Union Army occupied the South after the so-called Civil War. Advocates of a large standing army generally consider the former to be an isolated incident and the latter to be justified. Some even point to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which limits the power of the national government to use the military for law enforcement purposes. True, but except when troops are used to quell domestic violence, except when troops are participating in the war on drugs, except when troops are engaged in homeland security activities, except when troops are used in major public emergencies, except when troops are utilized in the fight against illegal immigration, and except when troops are employed in fighting terrorism. Proponents of a standing army are forgetting that governments have used standing armies, not just at home, but abroad as well. Both are equally destructive to liberty, for foreign wars demand enormous expenditures of the taxpayers’ money, require the sacrifice of life or limb of thousands of the country’s young men, and result in the suppression of civil liberties at home. This is why labor leader Samuel Gompers, a member of the Anti-Imperialist League, formed in 1898 in the midst of the Spanish-American War, could say: I propose stating as succinctly as possible the grounds of our opposition to the so-called policy of imperialism and expansion. We cannot annex the Philippines without a large increase in our standing army. A large standing army is repugnant to republican institutions and a menace to the liberty of our own people. If we annex the Philippines, we shall have to conquer the Filipinos by force of arms, and thereby deny to them what we claim to ourselves — the right to self-government. Rather than America’s military heritage being one of how the military has defended the country from attack, it is instead one of invasion, destabilization, occupation, subjugation, oppression, death, and destruction. Instead of the U.S. military defending our freedoms, the military has been at once the world’s policeman, fireman, social worker, bully, and busybody. Rather than the presence of the U.S. military guaranteeing peace and stability throughout the world, the presence of the U.S. military more often than not is the cause of war and instability around the globe. Instead of existing to defend the country, U.S. troops exist to serve as the president’s personal attack force, ready to obey his latest command to deploy to any country for any reason. There are over 700 U.S. military bases on foreign soil. There are U.S. troops stationed in 159 different regions of the world in every corner of the globe. Foreign military bases and the stationing of troops abroad are for offensive military actions, not defensive ones. U.S. troops need to come home and then go home. But only a change in U.S. foreign policy can stop the evil that is America’s standing army. All quotations from the Anti-Federalists are taken from Regnery edition of The Anti-Federalists: Selected Writings and Speeches, edited by Bruce Frohnen.
DOD 101
Hence likewise they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown Military establishments, which under any form of Government are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty. ~ George Washington, Farewell Address The Department of Homeland Security was established by the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (PL 107-296). It became operational in January of 2003. It is the third largest cabinet department in the federal government, with 180,000 employees and a budget of $46 billion. The mission statement of the Homeland Security Department includes this statement: “We will prevent and deter terrorist attacks and protect against and respond to threats and hazards to the nation.” Why, then, do we need a Department of Defense? And conversely, if the mission of the Defense Department is to defend the country, then why do we need a Department of Homeland Security? The truth of the matter is that the Department of Defense, which couldn’t defend its own headquarters, is misnamed. Rather than guarding our borders, patrolling our coasts, and protecting our citizens, the DOD is focused on — because of our interventionist foreign policy — invading the next country and fighting the next foreign war. This is not exactly the picture one gets from DOD 101: An Introductory Overview of the Department of Defense, found on the Department’s website. According to the opening paragraph of DOD 101, the Department of Defense is America’s oldest, largest, busiest, and most successful company. Although the DOD was actually created in 1949, two of its divisions are in fact quite old. The War Department was established in 1789 and the Navy Department in 1798. In 1947 the Department of War became the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force was created. These three departments were all united under the umbrella of the Department of Defense in 1949. Although the DOD should never be termed a company, it is indeed very large, employing over 1.3 million people on active duty, 669,281 civilian personnel, and 1.1 million in the National Guard and Reserve. There is also no question that the DOD is quite busy. But is the DOD America’s most successful company? The DOD failed to protect the country on September 11th, 2001. The DOD failed to protect its headquarters on the same date. The only thing of late that the DOD has been successful at is bombing, maiming and killing foreigners, and spending over $200 million a day of the taxpayers’ money on a failed war. Under the heading of “Our Global Infrastructure,” DOD 101 informs us that The Defense Department manages an inventory of installations and facilities to keep Americans safe. The Department’s physical plant is huge by any standard, consisting of more than several hundred thousand individual buildings and structures located at more than 5,000 different locations or sites. When all sites are added together, the Department of Defense utilizes over 30 million acres of land. There is no mention of the fact that there are over 700 U.S. military bases on foreign soil. However, we are told in “Worldwide Presence” that “Department of Defense employees work in more than 163 countries. 450,925 troops and civilians are overseas both afloat and ashore. We operate in every time zone and in every climate.” That is quite an admission. The presence of U.S. troops in foreign countries is something that I have written about many times (most recently here). For those critics of mine who continue to deny that my figures are accurate, will you also question this admission by the DOD? To show just how large the DOD is, the next section of DOD 101 compares the military budget and the number of DOD employees to the budgets and numbers of employees of Wal-Mart, Exxon-Mobil, GM, and Ford. But is it a good thing that the DOD spends more money and employs more people than the largest U.S. corporations? No one who works for Wal-Mart, Exxon-Mobil, GM, or Ford costs the taxpayers a dime. The military budget for fiscal year 2006 is stated to be $419 billion. But not only did the DOD actually spend $499 billion, economist Robert Higgs has estimated that the true amount spent by the United States on defense during fiscal year 2006 was actually $934 billion. This means that defense-related spending for fiscal year 2008 will actually top $1 trillion for the first time in history, accounting for about one-third of the total federal budget. Under the heading of “We Hire the Best,” we are told that “the Department of Defense mission is accomplished seeking out our nation’s best and brightest.” Is that why the Army has relaxed standards, lowered the physical fitness requirements for women, increased waivers for medical problems, and raised the maximum-age limit to 42? Is that why the Army now accepts lower entrance scores on aptitude tests, grants more “moral waivers” to allow convicted criminals to enlist, allows more applicants with gang tattoos, and allows non-citizens to gain their citizenship after only one year of active duty? And now it has come to light that military recruiters have helped applicants cheat on drug tests. According to DOD 101 section “We Instill Values,” the core values of the Defense Department are leadership, professionalism, and technical know-how. Furthermore, “We constantly build and reinforce core values that everyone wearing a uniform must live by: duty, integrity, ethics, honor, courage, and loyalty.” But are these the only values that the military instills? There is no mention in this section about other values like mistreating non-combatants, destroying civilian property, torturing prisoners, and not reporting the abuses perpetrated by fellow soldiers. Not only does DOD 101 compare the Defense Department to a company, it also uses the language of the corporate world. Under the heading of “Who We Work For,” we are informed that the chief executive officer is the president, the members of Congress serve as the board of directors, and the American people are the stockholders. But what kind of a corporation ever forced people to own its stock? The section titled “Services Train and Equip” contains some startling admissions. The Army is said to defend “the land mass of the United States, its territories, commonwealths, and possessions.” But then we are told that the Army “operates in more than 50 countries.” Although our Navy’s aircraft carriers are “stationed in hotspots that include the Far East, the Persian Gulf, and the Mediterranean Sea,” there is no mention of our Navy patrolling our coasts. The Air Force “routinely participates in peacekeeping, humanitarian, and aeromedical evacuation missions, and actively patrols the skies above Iraq [and] Bosnia.” We also read that “Air Force crews annually fly missions into all but five nations of the world.” One would get the impression in reading DOD 101 that the Air Force doesn’t do anything related to defending the United States. The National Guard and Reserve are also mentioned in this section. In addition to providing “wartime military support” and undertaking “humanitarian and peacekeeping operations,” the Guard and Reserve “are essential to, and are integral to the Homeland Security portion of our mission.” Here is an admission by the DOD that the security of the homeland is only a portion of its mission. There is no mention, of course, about reenlistment rates for the Guard and Reserve being at an all-time low because of the war in Iraq. In the section titled “Unified Commanders,” we read about the Northern Command, which “oversees the defense of the continental United States.” But why do we have a European Command, which “covers more than 13 million square miles and includes 93 countries and territories, to include Iceland, Greenland, the Azores, more than half of the Atlantic ocean, the Caspian sea, and Russia”? There is also a Central Command, which “oversees the balance of the Mid-East, parts of Africa and west Asia, and part of the Indian Ocean,” a Southern Command, which “guards U.S. interests in the southern hemisphere, including Central America, South America, and the Caribbean,” and a Pacific Command, which “covers 50 percent of the Earth’s surface including Southwest Asia, Australia.” The longest section in DOD 101 is titled “September 11, 2001: Day of Terror.” Here we discover that although “there are currently 70 nations supporting the global war on terrorism,” to date “21 nations have deployed more than 16,000 troops to the U.S. Central Command’s region of responsibility.” No countries are listed, probably because the “coalition of the willing” includes such world powers as Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Poland, and Romania. We are also told that “though there has been significant progress, the war on terror continues.” I don’t know what the DOD means by progress, unless it is referring to the over 3,700 soldiers who died for a lie in Iraq, the 152,000 veterans who filed disability claims after fighting in the war on terror, the 70 female U.S. soldiers who have now been killed fighting in Iraq, or the estimated 655,000 Iraqis who have died since the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The next part of DOD 101 is called “Homeland Security and Homeland Defense.” This section contains more lies than any other:
I think rather that the Department of Defense contributes to the instability of the world through its military
missions overseas. I believe instead that ongoing military operations abroad have increased terrorism. And if the
Department of Defense is responsible for homeland defense, then why do we need a Department of Homeland Security?
Under the heading “What We Do,” the closing paragraph reads: “Whether it’s saving lives, protecting property or
keeping the peace, the U.S. military stands at the ready to keep America strong and free.” Saving lives? Protecting
property? Keeping the Peace? Does the Defense Department really think that Americans are that naïve? In actuality,
the DOD does just the opposite: wasting lives, destroying property, and destroying the peace.
Do Violence to No Man
“And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages” (Luke 3:14) This message of John the Baptist to soldiers is more critical today than at any other time in American history. When John the Baptist began his ministry in “all the country about Jordan” (Luke 3:3), the multitude of people who came to him were told to “bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance” (Luke 3:8) and to give to those in need (Luke 3:11). He then instructed the publicans not to collect any more than they were required to. And finally, he said to the soldiers what is quoted above. In his seminal article, “None Dare Call It Genocide,” Lew Rockwell has courageously termed the U.S. invasion of Iraq genocide:
And all this is after the “500,000 children and old people killed by the US-UN anti-civilian sanctions in the 10
previous years.” Who is responsible for all the death and destruction in Iraq? Who is dropping the thousands of
tons of bombs? Who is firing the guns to the tune of 250,000 bullets for every Iraqi “insurgent” killed? Who
has paved the way for the sectarian violence that makes it unsafe to walk down the street, go to the market, or
attend a wedding? Who is responsible for this genocide in Iraq? It isn’t George Bush; he hasn’t fired a shot
outside of his Texas ranch since his days in the National Guard. It isn’t Dick Cheney; he targets only hunters. It
isn’t the current secretary of defense, Robert Gates; he hasn’t been on active duty since 1969. It isn’t the former
secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld; he left active duty back in 1957. It isn’t the Republican-controlled
Congress that funded the war for several years or the Democratic-controlled Congress that is funding it right now;
most members of Congress have never set foot on Iraqi soil. It isn’t Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle, Abrams, Powell, Rice
and the other architects of the Iraq War; most of them have left the Bush administration to follow other pursuits.
It isn’t the chickenhawks who quibble about strategy; they would probably faint at the sight of blood. It isn’t the
Values Voters who support killing Iraqis while claiming to be pro-life; they are too busy campaigning for
constitutional amendments against abortion and same-sex marriage. It isn’t the conservative warmongers who warn us
about Islamofascism; they prefer to let others do their dirty work. It isn’t the armchair warriors who call for
more bombs and bullets with Iraqi names on them; they never personally directed any towards Iraqis. It isn’t the
neocons; most of them have never even been in the military. The terrible truth is that the U.S. military is
responsible — the troops, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marine Corps — U.S. soldiers. They may have been
just following orders, obeying the powers that be, wearing a uniform, serving in the military, supporting their
commander in chief, or fighting a war — but they are still responsible. As unpleasant as it sounds, as horrible as it is,
and as much as we don’t want to admit it: It is the U.S. military that is responsible for the destruction,
brutality, and murder in Iraq. It doesn’t matter if a soldier joined the military with the best of intentions, it
doesn’t matter how careful he is to minimize civilian casualties, it doesn’t matter if he thinks he is defending
our freedoms — he is still participating in what Lew Rockwell dares to call genocide. U.S. soldiers need to stop en
masse their waging of this war. Short of a commander in chief who practices a noninterventionist foreign policy,
the war won’t end any other way. I fully realize that many U.S. soldiers are in a position where they feel they
must shoot first and ask questions later, kill or be killed. But they must acknowledge that the reason for this is
that they are invaders and interlopers, and do whatever it takes to get out of Iraq — regardless of the
consequences. If it is done for no other reason than to save their own neck, fine; they just stop fighting and get
out of Iraq any way they can.
Should Anyone Join the
Military?
I have maintained in a number of
articles over the past several years that no Christian — whether he terms himself a conservative, an
evangelical, a fundamentalist, or a Bible-believer — has any business in the U.S. military, including the
National Guard and the chaplaincy. Although the same goes for anyone else who
names the name of Christ, I have always emphasized these particular Christian groups because of the unholy
relationship that exists between them and the military. But what about American Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and
Hindus? Would it be okay if they joined the military? And what about the members of the various cults and sects
that abound in the United States? Is the military a good place for them? And let’s not forget about atheists,
agnostics, infidels, witches, Satanists, and the irreligious. Should they be discouraged from joining the
military as well?
Don't Enlist
Over 181,000 people joined the U.S. military during the fiscal 2007 recruiting year. This is more than joined the military during fiscal years 2006 and 2005. All four of the services met or exceeded their recruiting goals for 2007, as did four of the six reserve components. Why? Why are all these people joining the military? Why, in spite of multiple duty tours, ever-increasing deployment terms, an increase in sexual assaults, post-traumatic stress disorder, the breakup of military families, and the suicide rate, and almost daily reports of U.S. military personnel being killed or maimed in Iraq, are so many men and women joining the military? It could have something to do with the military:
But it could also have to do with the military:
Then there is the career training, the world travel, the thirty days of vacation every year, and the free
medical and dental care. And who can forget the GI Bill, VA loans, and the generous retirement benefits. After the
September 11th terrorist attacks, many people joined the military because they believed the president when he said:
“Freedom was attacked, freedom will be defended.” Others, ignorant of the blowback we reaped after decades of an
interventionist foreign policy, joined the military because they thought they were actually going to take part in
defending the United States against unjust aggression. Some actually supposed that by joining the military they
were participating in a religious crusade against Islamofacism. But what about now? After almost five years of
needless destruction, senseless deaths, and billions of wasted dollars, after all the lies of the Bush
administration have been exposed, after the principle of “blowback” has been thoroughly explained and proved, after the
genocide that the Iraq War has
become — why do American men and women continue to join the U.S. military? There are some things that they know.
They know that they may be put in harm’s way. They know that being deployed will take a toll on their family. They
know that they may be put into a situation where they will have to kill or be killed. They know that there is no
end in sight to the war.
Veterans Day
We have too many veterans. We have too many living veterans. We have too many dead veterans. We have too many
wounded veterans. We have too many disabled veterans. We have too many veterans who have fought in wars. We have
too many veterans who have never fired a shot. Any way you look at it, we have too many veterans. Veterans Day
began as Armistice Day — a day to commemorate the signing of the armistice on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the
11th month that ended fighting on the Western Front in World War I, “the war to end all wars.” A few years after
World War II, the holiday was changed to Veterans Day as a tribute to all soldiers who fought for their country.
Veterans Day has now become a day to honor, not just those who have served in the military during wartime, but
those who have served during peacetime or are serving now. It has also become a day — even though we have
Armed Forces Day — to recognize all things
military. Why? Why do most Americans hold veterans and current members of the U.S. military in such high esteem?
Why is there such a military mindset in the United States? One reason people feel this way is because they
falsely believe that those who serve in the military are somehow defending our freedoms. They are convinced that
it is the military that stands between a free society and subjugation by some foreign power. They think that it
is because of the military that we still have our First Amendment rights. It is inevitable that whenever I write
about the military I receive an e-mail or two from a current or former member of the military who closes his
rebuke (which usually argues that I have the freedom to write the “trash” that I write because of the U.S.
military) with this simplistic cliché: “If you can read this e-mail, thank a teacher. If you can read it in
English, thank a Marine.” Has anyone ever thought this through? Are we are supposed to believe that the German
army that couldn’t cross the English Channel to invade Great Britain and make its population speak German was
going to cross the Atlantic Ocean to invade the United States and make us all speak German if it wasn’t for the
Marines? Or was it Japanese that the Marines kept us from speaking? Or perhaps it was Spanish because of the
tremendous threat we faced from Spain during the Spanish-American War? Were we in danger of having to speak
Russian during the Cold War? Looking at the history of U.S. military interventions, there is one thing we can
thank the Marines for: We can thank the Marines for helping to carry out an evil, interventionist U.S. foreign
policy. Thanks a lot, jarheads. Semper Fi and all that jazz. Our freedoms, our liberties, and our Constitution
that all Marines swear to uphold are under attack by our government. The state is a greater enemy than any
foreign country or ruler. If the Marines are to really defend our freedoms, then they should be deployed to
Washington D.C. After they oversee the closure of most federal agencies and expel the bureaucrats from the city,
they can protect the Constitution (with fixed bayonets) from its daily assault by the members of Congress. In
that case I would even say with you: “The few, the proud, the Marines.” Another reason the military is held in
such high esteem is that most Americans wrongfully assume that the military is actually engaged in defending the
country. They don’t know about the hundreds of U.S. military bases on foreign soil. They don’t realize that
there are thousands of U.S. troops stationed abroad to defend other countries. They have no idea that the United
States has troops in 150 different regions of the world. Instead, they think that it is because of the military
fighting terrorists “over there” that we don’t have to fight them “over here.” The threat of a conquest of
America by foreign invasion is nonexistent. And if we were attacked with nuclear weapons, even the Marines would
be helpless to defend us. Although the purpose of the U.S. military should only be to defend the United States
from genuine attacks and credible enemies, it has primarily been used to intervene in the affairs of other
countries. When all of the troops come home and start guarding our borders and patrolling our coasts then, and
only then, can we say that the military is defending the country. Even the Coast Guard, which actually patrols
our coasts, is tainted — thanks to another unconstitutional, unwinnable war that the government is engaged in
that is more destructive than the “enemy” we are fighting: the war on drugs. Still another reason for the
military mindset is that members of the military are viewed as “public servants.” Members of Congress like to
brag about how they have been in public service their whole life. Some policemen and firemen have jumped on the
“public service” bandwagon as well. But if you want to be a policeman or a fireman, fine, just don’t expect us
get excited about the fact that you have a job. And plenty of jobs are just as dangerous. Veterans are looked
upon as special because they “served” in the military. It didn’t take any special education, experience, or
accomplishments to land a job in the military — they just signed on the dotted line. We don’t bestow any special
honors on bricklayers, mechanics, and accountants; yet, we see plenty of bumper stickers that say things like:
“My son is in the Air Force.” We never see “My son is a plumber” or “My son is a garbage collector” or “My son
is a waiter”? And why not? The people in those occupations don’t drop bombs on anyone. They “serve” some
important needs of society. Shouldn’t we honor them as least as much as soldiers? It is unfortunate that some of
the most vocal defenders of today’s military are Christians. It is even worse that churches fawn over current
and former members of the military on Veterans Day. In response to my recent article “Should Anyone Join the Military,” I was chastised by two
detractors. The first asked if I could read the Old Testament and still say that no one should serve in the
military. I was also told that God instructed the Jews and others to destroy people. It is not hard for me to
read the Old Testament and still say that no one should serve in the military. America is not Israel, and the
U.S. military is not God’s army. And telling me that God instructed the Jews and others to destroy people is
like telling George Bush that he is the decider. There is no denying that God instructed the Jews and others to
destroy people. But George Bush is not God, America is not the nation of Israel, and God didn’t command the U.S.
military to kill anyone.
Have a Non-Military
Christmas
Are you having a merry Christmas or a military Christmas? Most Americans will be having a merry Christmas
this year. Families will get together, trees will be decorated, lights will be hung, gifts will be exchanged,
children will get the latest toys, eggnog will be served, cookies will be baked, massive amounts of food (and
spirits) will be consumed, employees will receive a paid day off, parades will be marched in, Christmas movies will
be watched, churches will be attended, carols will be sung, the biblical Christmas story will be read. Some
Americans, however, will be having a military Christmas this year. Even if they partake of some of the above
activities, they will still be having a military Christmas. This is for one of two reasons. It could be because
families are separated due to someone in the family being in the military and deployed overseas. But it could also
be that someone is no longer in the family because he or she was killed fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. Almost
four thousand U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq and almost five hundred have died in Afghanistan. Both of these
situations could have and should have been prevented from happening. Every year at this time, and especially every
Christmas since we invaded Iraq, we hear much ado about how U.S. troops overseas are lonely, how they miss their
families, how they have to spend Christmas away from home, and, of course, how the troops are making our Christmas
celebrations possible by keeping us safe from terrorism and defending our freedoms. I am not moved. U.S. troops
have absolutely no business overseas, period. They should not be fighting in Iraq, drinking beer in Germany, or
playing golf in Okinawa. Everyone in the military joined voluntarily, knowing that he might be deployed overseas.
Yet, even in the midst of an unpopular debacle of a war in Iraq, over 181,000 people still joined the military this past year. What we don’t hear
much about this time of year is the emotional pain and heartache felt by parents, grandparents, spouses, siblings,
and children who have to suffer through a military Christmas because one of their loved ones is either thousands of
miles away or dead — courtesy of the U.S. military. One thing we certainly never hear about is the grieving loved
ones of all the foreigners we have killed in their own country. The Marine Corps Toys for Tots program distributes toys as Christmas gifts to needy children
in communities all across the United States. Too bad no toys are distributed to the children of dead Iraqis. Just
like no toys were ever distributed to the children of dead Vietnamese.
Heroes or Dupes?
Americans love their war heroes. It doesn’t matter where the war was fought, why it was fought, how it was
fought, or what the war cost. Every battlefield is holy; every cause is just; every soldier is a potential hero.
But what is it that turns an ordinary soldier into a war hero? Since it obviously depends on the criteria employed,
is it possible that American war heroes are not heroes at all? Could it be that, rather than being heroes, they are
instead dupes? Democrats who loathe John McCain because he is a Republican and Republicans who consider him to be a
lukewarm conservative are united in their belief that, whatever his politics, McCain is a genuine war hero because
he spent five years as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese. But one does not have to be a prisoner of war to be
considered a war hero. The Department of Defense maintains a website that highlights “the military men and women who
have gone above and beyond the call of duty in the Global War on Terror.” Every soldier who died fighting in the
debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, otherwise known as Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, is
also considered to be a war hero. After McCain graduated from the Naval
Academy in 1958, he became a naval aviator. During the Vietnam War he rained down death and destruction on the
people of Vietnam during twenty-three bombing missions. After being shot down, he was imprisoned instead of
receiving the death sentence his bombs delivered to the Vietnamese. So why is he considered a war hero? If he got
what he deserved, there would be 58,257 names on the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial in Washington D.C. instead of 58,256. Pilots like McCain who drop napalm from the safety of their
cockpit are lauded as heroes by the government, the media, and Americans ignorant enough or gullible enough to
swallow the myth that there can be heroism in the performance of evil. McCain was even well received by the
Vietnamese government in 2000 when he traveled to Vietnam in pursuit of a
bilateral trade agreement. Begun in September of 2006, the DOD “Heroes’ Archive” contains the names of 116 U.S. soldiers
who performed some heroic deed fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. Of the four soldiers currently featured, two were
awarded the Bronze Star, one was awarded the Purple Heart and the Distinguished Service Cross, and the fourth was
awarded the Bronze Star, the NATO Medal, the Afghan Campaign Medal, and the Outstanding Service Medal. Now, unlike
General Petraeus, at least these soldiers earned
their metals during real combat. Yet, the fact remains, as Catholic Eastern Rite priest Charles McCarthy has recently stated, “Murder decorated
with a ribbon is still murder.” Both IraqWarHeroes.org and
AfghanistanWarheroes.org are “dedicated to our deceased
Heroes that have served in Iraq & Afghanistan.” The list of “deceased Heroes” contains the names of 4,591
U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. I don’t know where these sites are getting their
information from. The “Casualties in Iraq” page at Antiwar.com
shows a total of 4,528 deaths. But regardless of the exact number, the point is that every soldier who died
fighting in the war on terror is said to be a hero. It doesn’t matter if they were killed by enemy fire,
roadside bombs, friendly fire, disease, accident, or carelessness — they are all heroes. But since the war in
Iraq is senseless, immoral, and criminal does it really matter how these soldiers died? Again, I refer the
reader to Father McCarthy: Authentic heroism is
freely taking a grave risk in order to try to do good. Evil does not become a scintilla less evil because a
person put his or her life in jeopardy to do it and is subsequently designated a hero. This means that whatever
we call U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq, we should not call them heroes. Some of these “heroes” are mercenaries.
The “large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny” that our
Founding Fathers protested against in the Declaration of Independence are now fighting for the United States in
Iraq. Since 9/11, the United States has granted citizenship to over 32,000 foreign soldiers. All it takes now is
one year of service in the military to be granted citizenship. Many of these “heroes” are killers for hire. For
them, the enlistment bonuses, the tuition assistance, the student loan repayment plans, the assignment incentive
pay, the career training, the thirty days of vacation each year, the free medical and dental care, and the
generous retirement benefits are enough to erase any concerns about the morality of traveling thousands of miles
away from U.S. soil to kill people they have never met or seen, and that posed no threat to America or
Americans. Most of these “heroes,” however, are dupes. They think they are fighting for our freedoms when
instead they are helping to destroy our freedoms. They think they are retaliating for 9/11 when instead they are
paving the way for another terrorist attack. They think they are preventing terrorism when instead they are
making terrorists. They think they went to Iraq to fight al-Qaeda when instead al-Qaeda came to Iraq because of
them. They think they are protecting Israel when instead they are contributing to increased hatred of Israel.
They think that our cause is just when instead it violates every just war principle ever formulated. They think
they are fighting injustice when instead they are committing a crime against the Iraqi people. They think they
are defending the United States when instead they are helping to destroy it. One of the saddest cases of a duped
hero is that of Marine Staff Sergeant Marcus Golczynski. He died fighting in Iraq on March 27 of last year while
assigned to the Marine Forces Reserve’s Third Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, Fourth Marine Division, in
Nashville, Tennessee. He had been in the Marine Reserves for twelve years, and was thirty years old when he
died. About a week before he died, Golczynski sent home this e-mail: I want all of you to be safe. And
please don’t feel bad for us. We are warriors. And as warriors have done before us, we joined this organization
and are following orders because we believe that what we are doing is right. Many of us have volunteered to do
this a second time due to our deep desire to finish the job we started. We fight and sometimes die so that our
families don’t have to. Stand beside us. Because we would do it for you. Because it is our unity that has
enabled us to prosper as a nation. At his funeral in Lewisburg, Tennessee, the eight-year-old son he left behind
was presented with the flag from his father’s casket. This was captured in a heart-rending photograph that has circulated around the
Internet. But Golczynski was not the only one who was duped. Instead of being outraged about his son’s death,
his father said that “we owe a debt of
gratitude that we will never be able to pay.” And instead of resenting the government that sent the father of
her son to fight and die in a senseless foreign war, his wife said that her husband “made the sacrifice for my
freedom.”
The Most Unnecessary Job in the
World
Garbage collector, septic tank cleaner, janitor — the most necessary jobs are often the least glamorous. Some
jobs, however, are not only unglamorous; they are completely unnecessary. Marine Colonel Steve Beck has the most
unnecessary job in the world. He is a Casualty Assistance Calls Officer. He is the one who comes knocking with a
message that no military family wants to hear. Colonel Beck’s story is told in a just-released book by journalist
Jim Sheeler.Final
Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives (Penguin Press, 2008) is a continuation of Sheeler’s Pulitzer
Prize-winning Rocky Mountain News series written about his experiences in following Beck over the course of a year
on his visits to the families of fallen Marines. Sheeler was recently interviewed about his book on NPR’s Fresh Air. Beck learned each dead
Marine’s name and nickname. He embraced their grieving mothers. He attended the funerals. He shed his own tears
when he returned to his family. All after unintentionally serving as the death angel. According to Beck, the
families always know why he pays them a visit: “The curtains pull away. They come to the door. And they know. They
always know.” This is a sad and depressing book. Not just because of the pain it records that was experienced by
the wives, parents, and children of dead Marines, but because their pain was so unnecessary. And because the events
recounted in the book were so unnecessary, the more I read the angrier I became. Although I never finished the
book, and don’t even recommend that anyone read it, I feel compelled to mention it because, if nothing else, it
serves to remind us just how unnecessary and senseless this war in Iraq is.
War Hero or War Criminal?
“The date was Oct. 26, 1967. I was on my 23rd mission, flying right over the heart of Hanoi in a dive at about 4,500 feet, when a Russian missile the size of a telephone pole came up — the sky was full of them — and blew the right wing off my Skyhawk dive bomber.” ~ John McCain Over and over again it has been said or inferred that one of the reasons John McCain deserves to be president is
because he is a war hero. Even Barack Obama has called McCain “a genuine American hero.” Make that an American war
criminal. John McCain graduated (near the bottom of his class) from the Annapolis Naval Academy in 1958. After
flight training in my city of residence, Pensacola, Florida (where he admits he frequented strip clubs), to “become
an aviator and an instrument of war for my country,” McCain spent some time on aircraft carriers in the Caribbean
and Mediterranean Seas before volunteering for combat duty. In 1967 Lieutenant Commander McCain began bombing runs
over North Vietnam from the deck of the USS Forrestal. After a bad fire that put the ship out of commission, McCain
switched to bombing North Vietnam from the deck of the USS Oriskany (which was recently sunk off the coast of
Pensacola to make an artificial reef). McCain was shot down on his twenty-third bombing mission over North Vietnam
and then held as a prisoner of war for five years. After his release in 1973, McCain resumed his naval service
until his retirement as a captain with a disability pension in 1981.
The Blame Game
September 29, 2008
Soon after the Virginia Tech massacre in April of 2007, a myriad of articles and blogs began to appear, each
seeking to blame someone or something for the actions of the shooter. One cynical blogger has compiled a list of links to seventy-three articles
espousing just as many theories on who or what was to blame for what remains the deadliest shooting rampage by an
individual in U.S. history. The blame game is also being played when it comes to fighting the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Some say Cheney is to blame. Others blame Bush the commander in chief or the Bush administration
collectively. No, say some others, it is the fault of the big oil companies or the defense contractors. Still
others maintain that the neocons are to blame, or perhaps the Project for the New American Century. It’s all about
religion, insist some. It is the fault of the Zionists, the Israel Lobby, the Muslims, or the warmonger faction of
the Evangelicals. None of these is right, says another, Congress and Congress alone is to blame. No, others reply,
the blame lies with Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden or al-Qaeda. A few still think it is all the fault of those
9/11 hijackers. The same thing goes for the Vietnam War. Johnson is to blame. LBJ should share the blame with
Nixon. The fault lies with the hawks in the Johnson and Nixon administrations. McNamara should receive most of the
blame. Eisenhower and Kennedy sent in military advisers so they are responsible. We should blame the Vietcong or Ho
Chi Minh or Mao, says the super-patriot. When all else fails the Vietnam War can be blamed on the politicians.
Maybe no men are to blame at all: Communism is to blame. But what about U.S. troops? Don’t the ones doing the
actual fighting get any of the blame? After all, neither Bush nor Cheney has killed anyone in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Just like neither Johnson nor Nixon bombed Vietnam or Cambodia. Judging from some of the responses I received to my
recent article “War Hero or War Criminal?,” some
people believe that U.S. troops should not be blamed for the death and destruction they dispense — even in an
unconstitutional, immoral, and unjust war: If your country calls you to service you should go… it is not a
soldier’s job to determine the moral virtue of military policy. ~ Critic No. 1 I cannot accept that those who fight
these wars are responsible (morally or otherwise) for them. The politicians and leaders who argue for and encourage
such wars are wholly responsible. ~ Critic No. 2 I can’t criminalize all of our soldiers, marines, and airmen
because the political basis for the war was unjust. ~ Critic No. 3 This isn’t the first time I have received mail
like this. I get basically the same song whenever I write about the military and mention U.S. troops being
responsible for the death and destruction they mete out: The politicians are the ones you should be opposing, not
the soldiers. The soldiers are there to do what they are told. They perform terrible acts because they are told to
do so. A soldier don’t make the decisions. They are told. You are simply a limp d**k sorry communist a**hole.
Morality is for the simple pukes like you and not for the soldier. I can agree with you on the point of not
fighting illegal and unjust wars. But those are not the soldiers fault. I oppose the war far more than you do. The
fault is not that of soldiers sent to war. The soldier does not commit an actual sin unless he chooses to break a
moral law while in the military…. Military service is morally neutral. The song is a little different each time,
but the chorus is the same: The troops are just following orders so don’t criticize the troops. Some are ambivalent
about the troops, but would never condemn them. Others will strongly denounce the war in Iraq, but never disparage
the troops fighting it. Still others not only are not critical of the troops, they enjoin us with signs, ribbons,
and exhortations to respect, support, and pray for the troops. Everyone gets livid if you make any critical remarks
about the troops (unless they do something particularly evil that embarrasses the United States). Unless one
believes that the state is God or that the state should always be obeyed unconditionally, I fail to see how
soldiers should get such a free pass. And what a free pass this is: killing with impunity and immunity. Have U.S.
troops been deceived by the U.S. government about the necessity of sending them halfway around the world?
Definitely. Have they been duped about the nature of threats to the United States? No doubt. Have they been pawns
in the game of U.S. imperialism? Certainly. But does this excuse them from being responsible for killing people and
destroying their property when not directly engaged in the defense of the United States? Of course not. Ignorance
is no excuse — just try to claim ignorance the next time a cop gives you a speeding ticket. And public school
education or not, how could they possibly be ignorant, given the history of U.S. foreign interventions in the
twentieth century? But not only is ignorance no excuse, it is a point that is rarely raised by my detractors. My
critics are united in their belief that morality is put off when a uniform is put on. Not so? Then what else are we
to conclude? If U.S. soldiers should not be blamed for their killing of tens of thousands Iraqis, Afghans,
Vietnamese, and Cambodians (who never lifted a finger against the United States until U.S. troops starting bombing
them) because they should just do what their government tells them without regard to the morality of killing
foreigners in their own country (again, who never lifted a finger against the United States until U.S. troops
starting bombing them), then it is the uniform that makes all the difference. No one but the most ardent
anti-Islamo-fascist super-patriot would excuse me, a civilian not in the employ of the U.S. government, if I
boarded a plane for Iraq, landed, kicked in a few front doors, and opened fire — even if I tried to justify my
actions by saying that I was fighting terrorism. But U.S. troops are lauded for “defending our freedoms” as they do
this very thing. I can hear the howls of protest from those who say that they are being misunderstood. U.S. troops
cannot just kill indiscriminately. A uniform does not mean that all morality goes out the window. U.S. troops can
only kill whom the U.S. government says to kill; they can only destroy whatever property the U.S. government says
to destroy. I see. No soldier is responsible for the death and destruction he inflicts as long as it is
state-sanctioned death and destruction. I guess Voltaire was right: “It is forbidden to kill; therefore all
murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” But is there anything U.S.
soldiers shouldn’t do if commanded by the government? Few would say there isn’t. So, morality is not just for
liberal, commie, pacifist, traitor, simple pukes like me after all. Morality does come into play — even in wartime.
The problem is that some people have such a flawed view of the military that it has warped their morality. They
would make a difference between the U.S. government ordering an American soldier to go to Iraq and kill a man
clutching a gun and the U.S. government ordering the same soldier to go and kill a woman cradling a baby. But why?
No U.S. soldier has any business killing in either case. And no U.S. soldier has any business in Iraq in either
case. The only reason an Iraqi would be pointing a gun at an American soldier in the first place is because the
soldier traveled thousands of miles from the United States to invade and occupy Iraq at the behest of his
government. If no actions of soldiers obeying orders should be criticized because “it is not a soldier’s job to
determine the moral virtue of military policy,” then what are we to do if U.S. troops are used against American
citizens? What will those who think that soldiers should always do as they are told do when these same soldiers are
ordered to march through their neighborhood and break down their front doors while participating in the war on
drugs, the war on terror, the war on illegals, or the war on dissent? Will they still insist that “military service
is morally neutral”? If so, then they are fools; if not, then they must believe that U.S. troops are not immune
from criticism. There exists a terrible inconsistency when it comes to troops following orders. To be consistent,
no one in America should get upset with individual soldiers from other countries bombing, maiming, injuring, or
killing Americans, military or civilian. They should be honored as war heroes for defending the freedoms of the
people in their countries. Our anger and hatred should be limited to the politicians and leaders of the countries
that order them to wage war against the United States. Why should U.S. soldiers always be considered liberators,
peacekeepers, and defenders, but foreign soldiers invaders, occupiers, and attackers? I also think that many
people, including some veterans, are naïve about the military. First, some soldiers (I didn’t say all soldiers or
even most soldiers) don’t need to wait for an order from the U.S. government to kill. They just plain like killing
what they consider to be ragheads, sand niggers, or camel jockeys, and have fun while they are doing it (“hedonists
with guns” is how one Marine Corps veteran described it to me). Second, most young people today join the military,
not because they are willing to follow orders to keep the country safe, but because they are willing to follow
orders to get enlistment bonuses, tuition assistance, educational allowances, help with student loan repayment,
incentive pay, career training, world travel, thirty days of leave, free medical and dental care, the GI Bill, VA
loans, and a pension.
George Bush is an arrogant, egotistical, hypocrite. But he is not alone. Every U.S. president, secretary of state, diplomat, congressman, military commander, and other advocate of the highly interventionist American foreign policy of the last fifty years is just as arrogant, just as egotistical, and just as hypocritical. A few days before he ordered U.S. dupes to invade Iraq back in 2003, Bush the decider delivered an address to the nation from the White House. As usual, the speech was full of lies: The United States and other nations did nothing to deserve or invite this threat. In a free Iraq, there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. Some observations. First, if it means anything, fifty years of U.S. intervention in the Middle East means that the United States invited any “threat” that we faced from that region of the world. Second, if in a free Iraq there will be no more aggression and torture, then, since the United States has an aggressive foreign policy and is guilty of torture, can we call America a free country? And third, speaking of the most lethal weapons ever devised (which, of course, we know that Iraq never had), the United States not only has more of these weapons than any other country, we are the only country to have used them. But it gets worse. In this same speech Bush instructed foreign soldiers to do something that he would never want American soldiers to do: And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen carefully to this warning. In any conflict, your fate will depend on your action. Do not destroy oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people. Do not obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, including the Iraqi people. War crimes will be prosecuted. War criminals will be punished. And it will be no defense to say, “I was just following orders.” So, the former commander in chief believes that soldiers should sometimes disobey orders from their commanding officers. I have no doubt that the current commander in chief believes likewise. But what about American soldiers? Can they ever disobey orders? What would happen if they refused to obey an order? What if they refused an order to deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan? What if they refused an order to launch a cruise missile, drop a bomb, throw a grenade, or pull a trigger? What if they refused an order to harshly interrogate a prisoner? We know what would happen: A U.S. soldier would be called a traitor and a coward; he would be ridiculed and ostracized; he would face court-martial or time in the brig; he would be called un-American and un-patriotic. But what if an American soldier thought an order was unjust? Wouldn’t he be excused? First Lt. Ehren Watada wasn’t. In fact, when he publicly refused to fight in Iraq, the Army tried to court-martial him, but it ended in a mistrial. Although a new court-martial date was later set, rescheduled, and postponed, a federal judge ruled that the Army could not prosecute Watada a second time because that would be double jeopardy. A federal appeals court judge recently allowed the Army to drop its appeal. Watada could still face charges of “conduct unbecoming an officer” for public statements he made against Bush and the war. But if soldiers should always obey orders then why aren’t Iraqi soldiers defending their homeland lauded as heroes? Aren’t U.S. soldiers who obeyed orders to invade Iraq all said to be heroes? Why the double standard? And what a double standard it is. This is American exceptionalism at its worse and most deadly. No soldier in any of the world’s other 193 countries is supposed to follow an order to fire a weapon at an American soldier, sink an American ship, shoot down an American plane, drop a bomb on American territory, invade American soil, mine an American harbor, occupy an American city, torture an American, or kill an American. Those that do are considered terrorists, insurgents, and enemy combatants, all worthy of torture. But if an American soldier is ordered to launch a preemptive strike against Iraq, he should just follow orders. If an American soldier is ordered to bomb Afghanistan, he should just follow orders. If an American soldier is ordered to drop napalm in the jungles of Vietnam, he should just follow orders. If an American soldier is ordered to invade Korea, he should just follow orders. If an American soldier is ordered to put down an insurrection by Filipinos, he should just follow orders. If an American soldier is ordered to firebomb a German or Japanese city, he should just follow orders. If an American soldier is ordered to help the CIA remove a foreign leader, he should just follow orders. If an American soldier is ordered to intervene in some country’s civil war, he should just follow orders. If an American soldier is ordered to destroy a city and kill its inhabitants in a country that he cannot locate on a map, he should just follow orders. Just think what it would mean to the peace of the world, not to mention the U.S. defense budget, if American soldiers limited their activities to actually defending the United States — guarding American borders, patrolling American coasts, protecting American citizens, enforcing no-fly zones in American skies — and refusing to follow orders to do otherwise. That would truly be an America First foreign policy, a constitutional foreign policy, a Jeffersonian foreign policy, a Ron Paul foreign policy. Since it is soldiers the world over who do the actual fighting, we would all be better off if none of them followed orders, including Americans.
About Laurence M. Vance:
Laurence M. Vance is an author, a publisher, a lecturer, a freelance writer, the editor of the Classic Reprints series, and the director of the Francis Wayland Institute. He holds degrees in history, theology, accounting, and economics. The author of twenty-seven books, he has contributed over 900 articles and book reviews to both secular and religious periodicals. Vance's writings have appeared in a diverse group of publications including the Ancient Baptist Journal, Bible Editions & Versions, Campaign for Liberty, LewRockwell.com, the Independent Review, the Free Market, Liberty, Chronicles, the Journal of Libertarian Studies, the Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society, the Review of Biblical Literature, Freedom Daily, and the New American. His writing interests include economics, taxation, politics, government spending and corruption, theology, English Bible history, Greek grammar, and the folly of war. He is a regular columnist, blogger, and book reviewer for LewRockwell.com, and also writes a column for the Future of Freedom Foundation. Vance is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, the Grace Evangelical Society, and the International Society of Bible Collectors, and is a policy adviser of the Future of Freedom Foundation and an associated scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. See here for some articles by Laurence M. Vance that provide an overview of his worldview and philosophy. Independent Baptist Churches can contact Laurence M. Vance about hosting a King James Bible Conference. Laurence M. Vance: "Champion of liberty and peace"--Lew Rockwell, chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute Laurence M. Vance: "The gold standard in understanding war and peace"—Andrew Napolitano, Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst
Buy Laurence M. Vance Books
Here: War, Empire, and the Military: Essays on the Follies of War and U.S. Foreign Policy http://www.vancepublications.com/wem.htm
War, Christianity, and the State: Essays on the Follies of Christian Militarism http://www.vancepublications.com/wcs.htm
Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State (2nd. ed.) http://www.vancepublications.com/cw2.htm
Laurence M. Vance Books: http://vancepublications.com/books%20by%20lmv.htm
Laurence M. Vance Website:
Things the Marine Corps Forgot to
Mention (Excerpt) U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler (1881—1940) — a Congressional Medal of Honor winner who could never be accused of being a pacifist and the author of : War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket. It may seem odd for me, a military man, to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent 33 years and 4 months in active service as a member of our country’s most agile military force — the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to Major General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. Butler also recognized the mental effect of military service: Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups.
The Corbett Report First published at 13:16 UTC on January 22nd, 2020 SHOW NOTES AND MP3: https://www.corbettreport.com/?p=34783 Have you heard of Major General Smedley Butler? If not, you might want to ask yourself why that is. As one of the most highly decorated Marines in the history of the US Marine Corps and as a passionate and eloquent speaker about the racket that is war, Smedley Butler deserves to be a household name. Find out more in today's edition of Questions For Corbett.
Waging Peace in Vietnam: Columbia SIPA | Oct 25, 2019 The Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies presents the panel "Waging Peace in Vietnam: U.S. Soldiers and Veterans who Opposed the War" on Friday, October 18, 2019. Learn more: https://events.columbia.edu/cal/event...
SIR! NO SIR!
In the 1960’s an anti-war movement emerged that altered the course of history. This movement didn’t take place on college campuses, but in barracks and on aircraft carriers. It flourished in army stockades, navy brigs and in the dingy towns that surround military bases. It penetrated elite military colleges like West Point. And it spread throughout the battlefields of Vietnam. It was a movement no one expected, least of all those in it. Hundreds went to prison and thousands into exile. And by 1971 it had, in the words of one colonel, infested the entire armed services. Yet today few people know about the GI movement against the war in Vietnam. http://www.sirnosir.com/the_film/synopsis.html
LINKS: [ AL-QAEDA EXPOSED!! ] , SYRIA , YEMEN , RAND Corporation , Troops Protect Government Drug Dealing
No war on Iran: The Grayzone | Jan 7, 2020 Red Lines host Anya Parampil speaks with Ben Becker, an organizer with the ANSWER coalition, to discuss the growing anti-war movement in the US. Over the weekend, thousands of US citizens took to the streets in up to 90 cities in order to voice their opposition to the Trump Administration's push to war with Iran. Ben and Anya talk about the struggles faced by the anti-war movement over the years what makes organizing massive resistance to war policy possible.
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...Or, They Can Continue To Be Pawns.
"Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." - Henry Kissinger -
“If soldiers were to begin to think, not one of them would
remain in the army.”
Christian,
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Now more than any time in history, the majority of Americans are in love with the military. It
doesn’t seem to matter how many countries the United States has bases in. It doesn’t seem to matter how many
countries the United States has troops stationed in. It doesn’t seem to matter that the United States has had
troops in some countries since the end of World War II. It doesn’t seem to matter what the reason is for each
war or intervention. It doesn’t seem to matter how many foreign civilians are killed or injured. It doesn’t
seem to matter how many billions of dollars are spent by the military. It doesn’t seem to matter what the
troops are actually doing — Americans generally believe in supporting the troops no matter what. I don’t
support the troops. I don’t support the troops in this war, and I won’t support them in the next one with Iran
or any other country. 
The typical view of the U.S. military held by the average American is the one expressed by the
My daughter, a high school senior, was just sent in the mail a slick advertisement from the Army
National Guard “introducing up to 20,000 new reasons to join the National Guard.” Every one of them is a
dollar bill. In addition to the pictures of U.S. currency on the front of the envelope, there are pictures of
six smiling Guard members on the back. Inside is a reply card, some information on what the Guard has to
offer, and a letter from a colonel who is the Guard’s chief recruiter. On the reply card is a redemption code
to get a free iTunes music download and the promise of a free Army National Guard t-shirt and an American
Soldier DVD. Inside the envelope there is an information card about the National Guard’s College First
Enlistment Option:
But is this what the National Guard is being used for? An increasing number of Guard members are
being sent to the quagmire in Iraq. After the Army 
I wonder how many people would join the Army if the gentleman in this picture were a recruiter?
Since he left his legs in Iraq — or what was left of them — for what will go down in history as the lie of the
century, perhaps he would be more inclined to give a little more information to potential recruits than Sgt.
Christenson. Instead of talking about the amount of a sign-in bonus, he could talk about the more than 3,000
U.S. soldiers that have been killed in Iraq. Instead of speaking about the free health care that the military
provides, he could speak about the hundreds of disabled soldiers who are missing body parts like he is.
Instead of discussing the amount of money available from the military for college, he could discuss the costs
of the war in Iraq — now over $200 million a day. Instead of mentioning the structure and stability that the
military provides, he could mention the tens of thousands — and perhaps hundreds of thousands — of Iraqis who
have been killed since the U.S. invaded Iraq almost four years ago. Instead of conversing about how the
military has lowered enlistment standards, he could converse about the evils of an interventionist U.S.
foreign policy that sends young men to die for a lie. And instead of informing potential soldiers about the
variety of positions available in the military, he could inform them about the animosity that exists between
the Sunni and Shiite Muslims that has now erupted — thanks to the United States — into a civil war. Perhaps
some disabled soldiers who now realize that they gave their limbs in vain should sue the U.S. military under
the Americans with Disabilities Act for the right to be a recruiter. I wonder what employing handicapped
soldiers would do for enlistment quotas? Protect your children and the children of everyone you know: Warn
them about child predators — and especially those in uniform.
Should anyone join the military? Here are seven reasons why I think that no one, regardless of
his religion or lack of it, should join today’s military. 1. Joining the military may cost you your limbs,
your mind, or even your life. There is no end in sight to the Iraq war. Over 3,800 U.S. soldiers have been
killed in Iraq. Many thousands more have been wounded. Hundreds of these have had limbs amputated. An
increasing number of soldiers are committing suicide. Untold numbers suffer from post-traumatic stress
disorder. Some soldiers will spend the rest of their lives unable to work or drive a car. Others will live out
their days as physical and/or emotional basket cases. What makes you think that you or one of your loved ones
will not be sent to Iraq or will emerge unscathed in body and mind? Don’t trust the recruiter who tells you
that you won’t be sent to Iraq. They are getting so desperate for cannon fodder that they are 
All wars are not created equal. An unjust war is criminal, and soldiers who participate in it are
murderers. No North Vietnamese gook (McCain referred to them as gooks in a U.S. News & World Report
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