| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Rump Ranger" |
| Date: |
19 Jan 2005 08:23:07 AM |
| Object: |
US military not as noble as they'd like to think they are |
http://www.lewrockwell.com/edmonds/edmonds177.html
I Don't Owe the Military Anything
by Brad Edmonds
I get impassioned emails from readers who are military veterans or
relatives of military veterans, saying, in essence, "You go ahead and
say your terrible things. The men and women of the armed forces will
continue risking their lives to defend your right to say it." These
readers claim that the only reason I'm free to say the things I do, and
the reason I owe the military all sorts of my money, is because the
military has for 200 years defended my freedom all over the world.
I say, Hogwash!
First, let me distinguish between "the military" and "the men and
women." The "military" is the administrative unit that constitutes the
careers of millions in the US, and gobbles up a huge chunk of our
federal budget. The "men and women" are individuals, all of whom
entered the military for personal reasons. Such people are often
honorable individuals. My father served 25 years in the Air Force,
running accounting and finance operations, and was so successful that
even as a lowly major, two- and three-star generals sought his advice
and ignored his bosses. Yes, I'm proud of my dad, and of his record.
I still don't owe the military anything, and my case is based on two
facts: (1) That these men and women served does not create a positive
obligation on my part to pay for their medical care or anything else
(it is dishonorable, by the way, when women are involved in any way in
combat; chivalrous men would not have women serve except in
administrative and medical positions, far away from combat). (2) The
military has failed in its duty to protect our freedoms.
With regard to (1): Most, probably nearly all, in the military entered
for personal reasons, not just to "protect our freedoms." I entered the
CIA for adventure, an income, and federal benefits. This would apply to
most, particularly those in the most dangerous and glorified jobs
(Seals, Rangers, etc.). I did not ask these people to serve, just as
nobody asked me to serve in the CIA; and the only people whose report
of self-sacrifice I believe are those who accept salaries far below
their potentials. How many Wharton MBA or Harvard law graduates run to
the military? I'm prepared to accept the self-sacrifice testimony of
careerists in the Salvation Army and the YMCA. Anyone else enjoys too
many personal benefits for me to accept much of the "selfless" claim.
With regard to (2), I have three questions:
If the military is supposed to be defending our freedoms in the US, why
is all the action in other countries? The only foreign action the US
has seen is Pearl Harbor, into which the Japanese were goaded by FDR
with his full knowledge and intent, as has been declassified only
recently; and 9/11, which was most plausibly retaliation for 40 years
of bombing women and children in the Middle East. I would be more
willing to believe that the military was about defending our freedoms
if they would limit themselves to defending our borders, and if they
would do so successfully. Remember, on 9/11, the military couldn't even
defend the Pentagon.
It is much more plausible that the military is merely a tool for
Congress and the White House to enact their foreign-policy desires.
"Defending American interests abroad" explains the last 200 years far
better than "defending freedoms at home." Unfortunately, Congress and
the White House lost track of the fact that entangling alliances with
none, and free trade with all, furthers individual Americans' interests
more successfully than the policy we've embraced since Jefferson:
Entangling alliances with whomever, free trade only with those with
whom we have entangling alliances.
Second question: If the military has done such a great job of defending
our freedoms at home, why do we need a Department of Homeland Security?
Wasn't the Department of Defense supposed to provide defense? Instead,
the Department of Fatherland Defense is an open, if unwitting,
admission that the Department of Defense is in reality the Department
of Offense, going abroad to force Congressional and White House foreign
policy on whomever they want, whether the foreign party is willing or
not. Just as one example: Hussein is accused of killing some 185,000 of
his own countrymen. The Sudan is accused of killing perhaps 2 million.
Why select Hussein for regime change? The 9/11 connection and WMDs (the
only ones of which Hussein ever had he was given by the US to begin
with) have both proven false. Oil interests are a much more plausible
explanation.
Finally, if the military were doing such a great job of defending our
freedom, why do we have so much less of it than we had in 1787? In
1865? In 1912? In 1932? In 1960? Our freedoms, particularly our
property rights (specifically, our right to our own earnings) have been
eroded dramatically. Our tax burden, approaching 50% for those of us
who pay taxes, is monstrously larger than it was in each of those other
years. The military has done nothing to keep Congress and the White
House from treating us as chattel slaves. Again, that the military
exists for the benefit of the White House and members of Congress
explains military events and outcomes of the last 200 years far better
than "defending our freedom" does.
An additional note: It is by this point uncontroversial that our
freedoms would have been better defended without a standing military.
The founders knew it; and Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto knew it,
saying, "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a
rifle behind each blade of grass." He didn't say you should not, or
that it would be costly or difficult. He said "you cannot." The gun
rights we had then have only been eroded since, hence the military has
done nothing for the real power of the US to defend itself.
I'm sorry that so many honorable military men and women have been
misled. I'm sorry that so many believe they fought for our freedoms.
I'm sorry that a smaller, but significant, percentage of those believe
that I personally owe them an involuntarily-taken chunk of my income.
Morally, I do not owe them this. I did not ask them to do what they
did; they already have been, and are being, paid; I believe my freedom
has only been eroded, not enhanced, by their presence; and I believe my
actual personal safety is more threatened by their existence, not less,
as a result of how they have been used by Congress and the White House.
I don't idolize, but I do admire those 99% of the members of the armed
forces who have served honorably. But I owe them nothing.
January 29, 2004
Brad Edmonds [send him mail] writes from Alabama.
Copyright =A9 2004 LewRockwell.com
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| User: "Vivapadrepio" |
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| Title: Re: US military not as noble as they'd like to think they are |
19 Jan 2005 10:35:45 PM |
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From: "Rump Ranger"
Date: 1/19/05 12:23 AM Pacific Standard Time
I Don't Owe the Military Anything
by Brad Edmonds
I get impassioned emails from readers who are military veterans or
relatives of military veterans, saying, in essence, "You go ahead and
say your terrible things.
Prayer For Servicemen And Women:
Lord, Jesus Christ, you have called all of us to serve one another in humility
and truth. Help our men and women in the military service to remain steadfast
in all efforts to assist the cause of peace and justice throughout the world.
Fill them with the strength and grace to be true peacemakers; fill them with
the courage to follow their consciences and your will in all things. Keep them
safe. Guide and protect them always. Stand by them whether they are home or
away from home, that they may always find you near, and that they may always
remain near to you. I ask this in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.
----------
Pray, hope, and don't worry.
Worry is useless.
God is merciful and will hear your prayer.
-- Padre Pio, Pietrelcina.
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| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
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| Title: Re: US military not as noble as they'd like to think they are |
20 Jan 2005 02:06:02 AM |
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In our last episode <20050119173545.27553.00000130@mb-m17.aol.com>,
Vivapadrepio lept out of the bushes shouting:
Proselytizing post can be reported to:
--
Mark K. Bilbo - a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
Alt-atheism website at: http://www.alt-atheism.org
-----------------------------------------------------------
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true,
by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."
-- Seneca the Younger
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| User: "Douglas Berry" |
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| Title: Re: US military not as noble as they'd like to think they are |
20 Jan 2005 05:20:14 PM |
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On 19 Jan 2005 22:35:45 GMT, (Vivapadrepio)
drained his beer, leaned back in the alt.atheism beanbag and drunkenly
proclaimed the following
Prayer For Servicemen And Women:
<snip blather>
Screw that, all you need is the Special Warfare 23rd Psalm:
"and lo, though I shall walk through the valley of death, I shall fear
no evil, for I am the meanest ***** in the valley."
--
Douglas E. Berry Do the OBVIOUS thing to send e-mail
Atheist #2147, Atheist Vet #5
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as
when they do it from religious conviction."
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pense'es, #894.
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| User: "Rump Ranger" |
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| Title: Re: US military not as noble as they'd like to think they are |
19 Jan 2005 08:30:30 AM |
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http://www.lewrockwell.com/edmonds/edmonds181.html
I Still Owe the Military Nothing
by Brad Edmonds
My article on the military drew more emails than I've seen since I
wrote a couple of years ago that Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry was a
commie rat. Then Paul Craig Roberts wrote this week a few good reasons
why it's sometimes no fun to be a columnist. Just because it's
enlightening and amusing (and a little informative), I thought it would
be interesting to discuss the responses to my military article.
Free Republic was the most fun. As Paul Craig Roberts pointed out, some
people will invent things they believe were in your article, and focus
on those. One reader acted offended that I considered the rank of major
"lowly," which I didn't suggest (I was putting it in relation to 2- and
3-star generals); another assumed my dad retired as a major, which I
didn't suggest, and which wasn't the case. Others understood that I
retired from the CIA, which I didn't. I was there for a relatively
short time, and left in 1990. There was little of substance - mostly
empty invective - on Free Republic, though one reader successfully
corrected my simplification of US foreign policy in the Middle East to
"40 years of bombing." I should have linked this article by Adam Young,
and referred to "50 years of ham-handed, violent, dictatorial,
capricious intervention" instead of "40 years of bombing." I stand
corrected. Freepers, as they're called, are self-selected, and
virtually all neocons; almost no libertarians are among them. I
counted, just for fun, about 70 different posters, 65 of whom were
opposed to my viewpoint (about 60 of those without substance).
My emails, also subject to self-selection, were just the opposite. I
counted, just for fun, and heard from 114 different people - so far.
105 were in agreement, nine disagreed. Of those who identified
themselves as military veterans, 32 agreed while only three wrote to
disagree. None of the three claimed to have been a combat veteran,
while many of the 32 mentioned the wars in which they saw combat.
Without exception, those who disagreed simply restated the point I
wrote to dispel: That we owe our freedom to the military. A few thought
they had me on a legal point: Since I noted that Americans' freedoms
have decreased, some readers thought I'd confused the purpose of the
military (defense from foreign invasion) with civil government (the
enactment of laws, the existence of which limits freedom). No, they
didn't have me; they made my point - that the military has little to
do with freedom.
The only thing the military can do for our freedom is to repel an
attack from an invader who, in occupying, would offer us a less free
society than we have now. I mean, we must consider the possibility that
an occupying force can increase our freedom, right? Isn't this Bush's
point in Iraq? So, for our military to have been effective in
protecting our freedom, the enemy must be (1) credible; (2) willing and
prepared to attack; (3) likely to reduce our freedom if he wins; and
(4) repelled by either the action, or the threat, of our military.
This circumstance has never obtained in our history, and probably never
will. The British, in 1812, were the single most credible invading
threat we've ever faced, and if the British invaded successfully they
still might not have had a tremendous impact on our liberty either way.
(Remember the Whiskey Rebellion? Our liberty was threatened by our own
government in 1791.) Further, the most effective defense we had in 1812
was privateers - private ships, paid only in captured booty (which
gave them incentive to preserve the enemy and his ships). So much for
the government's military there.
The next "invasion" was the Union army invading the sovereign CSA,
which only established once and for all that there was nothing
voluntary about the US government. We have never been in any credible
danger of being forced to speak Spanish, Japanese, German, or frankly,
Russian. (We were in some danger of being hit by Soviet nuclear
weapons, but the only deterrent was our own bombs - not men and
women, not command structures, since ICBMs could be launched on Moscow
from inside the US.)
The USSR was credible, likely to reduce our freedom, and somewhat
hampered, if not repelled, by our military (but really mostly by our
under-the-table payments to, for example, Osama bin Laden in
Afghanistan; and our placements of missiles in Europe), but the USSR
was never prepared to attack us. Hitler and Germany never constituted a
credible threat to the US, and Hitler himself made no secret that he
thought the new world order should consist of Germany, England, and the
United States. Japan was goaded into Pearl Harbor, starving and
desperate to break up our blockade of oil, steel, etc. against their
island; but Japan never had any wish to invade the US. (Freepers take
note: Yes, Germany, Japan, and the USSR were evil. Yes they were. I
agree. They were still never a threat to us, with our without our
military.)
What has made the US an uninviting target for 200 years is the oceans
and our gun ownership. As Iraq and Afghanistan have proven in the last
three years, making war halfway around the world is expensive, risky,
and difficult even for the US, even today, even when attacking
pathetically weaker opponents. Universal gun ownership means an
occupying force can never succeed. To occupy, you have to step out of
your planes and humvees and move on foot. The more the natives own guns
and want to resist, the more ground area you have to occupy
continuously. With a nation full of rifle-toting rednecks, a hostile
foreign power can never succeed. To obliterate us, they would be forced
to nuke us.
There is no incentive for any nation to do that to any other: There
would be nothing of value to steal afterward, and it would be costly
and dangerous for the nation using the nukes. America did it to Japan
because we knew Japan was already defeated, and we were the only ones
in the world who had nukes. Indeed, to prove the disincentives work:
Truman bombed Japan because the Japanese demanded as their only
condition of surrender that the emperor remain emperor. They continued
to demand this after both bombings, so Truman just gave in. The
bombings were for nothing. And with no retaliation for Truman or the US
to fear, Truman still stopped, and gave the Japanese what they wanted.
They didn't even have rifles.
We have rifles.
Heck, I'd be more prone to believe we owed our freedom to the military
if they were here, defending our borders (or even their own
headquarters). They're not.
And as to my point that the military is just a tool for Congress and
the president, you don't have to listen to me. Listen to a retired
Marine general, twice winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, on
the subject.
We don't need a standing federal military. If someone invades, militias
can pop up, with rifles and perhaps a government commission (while we
still have forcible government) to get the job done and then disband
until the next invasion. I'll be there, ready to go. Let me know when
it happens.
February 4, 2004
Brad Edmonds [send him mail] writes from Alabama.
Copyright =A9 2004 LewRockwell.com
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