It’s a difficult issue, because we clearly need to have a strong military. There are many things that we need that incur some risk to people: firefighters, police officers, construction workers… But we need lots of other things as a society as well, so some will have to do higher risk jobs while others do not.
There are circumstances when I think that the use of military force is justified, even though my first inclination wouldn’t be to sign up to carry out that particular mission myself. For instance, intervention in Darfur would be, in my opinion, a reasonable use of military force, but I haven’t shown up at my local recruiters station yet. On the flip side, I wouldn’t like to think of what might happen if people in the military were given the option of opting out of a military force in Darfur if they didn’t feel that it was a worthwhile mission.
I guess where I struggle with some measure of belief in the assertion that those who support military action should go and sign up is with those who foment wars that don’t seem to be particularly in our best interests, and those who seem to celebrate some kind of bloodlust about military action somewhere else. I recall with Desert Storm some numbnuts running around saying, “I’d fly a thousand miles to smoke a camel!” and similar braindead things. “Why haven’t you?” would be my reply.
With our Iraq adventure, there seems to be a whole contingent of people who are just super-gung ho about writing about how great it is and worthwhile it is and how we should keep at it and people who oppose it are in league with the enemy or the devil or both. This seems to take “supporting” to a whole new level, and I really don’t have too much difficulty referring to them derisively as the 101st Keyboard Commandos and some such.
Similarly, there are elected officials who wrap themselves in the flag, grow teary eyed about service members, and flop their dick out on the table very forcefully when pushing us towards military action, but who not only never served, but took evasive maneuvers when others were being called upon to serve. I don’t feel too badly thinking of them as chickenhawks. In contrast, those who actually have served generally seem a bit more deliberative when considering military force.
I also can’t honestly agree with the idea that we entered this war democratically. I know that we had a vote on the AUMF and it passed. I also know that people disagree, but I honestly believe that the concerted effort, mere weeks before the vote, to lie about the current threat presented by Iraq rendered decisions made by our elected officials less than informed consent. I also believe that the AUMF wasn’t a clear path to military force, and that the other steps were not followed by Bush prior to using military force, but I recognize that most reasonable people should have known when casting that vote that they were essentially giving up the right to complain later. That vote was a political vote, not a democratic one, and this war is a political war, not one of national interest.
Personally, I’ve said this before, but when I took those Cooter* Preference Tests, four of my top five recommendations were for the military. It sure made me think about the military as an option, but I never did serve.
So, I don’t know the clear answer. I know that I feel that we need a strong military, so if we didn’t have one, I’d feel morally obligated to do my part to make one. I know that we need leeway in terms of using military force for purposes that not everyone will agree with, so we need to ask members of the military to put themselves on the line even if they aren’t completely down with the whole program. I know that there is a spectrum of appropriate uses of military force, and the Iraq war is on the far end of it, perhaps setting a new benchmark for inappropriate use of the military, so there may be times when it is more morally appropriate to mutiny, abscond or just downright refuse.