The reason is thatcertain sushine patriots and hollow Americans aren’t interested in whether soldier’s lives are protected, used, spent, or wasted at all – they’re only interested in how it sounds and how it can be used to score points.
If a three-star general says “I won’t waste the lives of my men on <some liberal cause>,” he’s cheered and quoted in countless email forwardings. If a serious politician says “that was a waste of lives,” he’s vilified – IF he happens to be an eeeeeevil liberal.
Same words, same sentiment, but different political leverage.
I know that’s what my friend Bill believed with all of his heart and intellect. He lived an honorable life and sacrificed it in Vietnam for the Domino Theory. He will never know that his death was wasted on a theory that did not prove to be true. His wasted death does not dim his honorable sacrifice. But I will not perpetuate a myth that his death made us safe.
In memory of Capt. William Black, West Point, Class of 1964
Lives are always wasted when leaders stubbornly hold onto a theory despite clear signs that it is wrong.
In WWii Army Air Force Generals Arnold, Eaker, Spaatz theorized that daylight bombing could win the war and that our heavy bombers could defend themselves in daylight raids deep into Germany. Several thousand members of the 8th Air Force had to be needlessly killed before they admitted that they were wrong.
What makes us safe is the willingness of many men and women to sacrifice personal liberty, a willingness that is disconnected at the start to any particular conflict. The existence of that willingness, the fact that there are thousands of people who have made the commitment to allow themselves to be put in harm’s way, is what makes us safe. And, again, that willingness exists before the first marine lands.
I still assert that one can believe your friend Bill’s death was unnecessary, advancing no immediate cause that made us safer, and still hold that he died serving a higher cause, one not connected to Viet Nam or any other war. So, again, I don’t think Obama said anything truly controversial, but I understand why he’d clarify and I think I understand the sensibility that requires that clarification. I’ll say one more time that the majority of Americans do not support the war; a majority think it was not a war of necessity. Yet Obama still thought he should clarify. What myth, then, is he helping to perpetuate?
We safer safer when political leaders adopt policies that obviate such sacrifices. Calling for such sacrifice only as a last resort is good political leadership.
Plunging hastily into an ill-considered conflict is one thing that leads to the waste of lives. Another thing is stubbornly pursuing a plan, strategy and tactic that hasn’t worked and isn’t working.
The existence of that willingness gets filtered from our national gene pool every time we start a stupid war, and kill those that have the trait. Stupid wars make us less safe.
More so than “just” wars? BTW, to anyone who responds to my posts with some variation of, “But this is a wasteful, ill-conceived war” is missing my point completely. Sorry I can’t take up the other end of that argument for you.
Moto is one of those charming fellows who is cheered by the thought that dishonesty and confusion are part of our public discourse and instead of fighting it, simply reserves himself to commenting upon it with amusement.
as a matter of fact, yes. I don’t think our safety depends primarily on the willingness of people to die. I believe that our safety is tied up in the well being of the world at large. “Ask not for whom the bell tolls, …” and that sort of thing.
Your post said that
It seems to me that when we reach the point of requiring people to make such a sacrifice we are already unsafe.
I don’t believe I’ve offered anything that contradicts this, which I why I asked you what I did. Now you seem to be saying that having such sacrifice in our arsenal is not acceptable to you even as a last resort. Or I misunderstand.
i see now. Zoe’s post concerned someone who was killed which is a tad more than sacrificing “poersonal liberty.” I mistakenly assumed that your post was in reference to dying.
Actually, I’m not sure that military volunteers are thinking in terms of the liberty they will surrender by joining up. And I’m quite sure that even on the toughest mission only the morbid thing that they are actually going to die. Someone else might, but not me. It’s been my experience that everyone in advance of missions is still making plans for the future and figuring out what they will do after.
Yes, if we are going to have a substantial permanet military force we need volunteers but I doubt they are thinking in terms of saving the country from destruction by surrendering their personal liberty.