We are becoming too pro-military in the US

Great Debates
1

This has been bothering me for a bit. I hope this thread doesn’t turn sour and end up in the pit, but you never know. The fact that I’m posting this on memorial day weekend is a coincidence, for the record. Its not meant to be offensive, but a rational debate on the role of the military is just as good for human and national interest as anything.

We seem to be getting a little too pro-military in the US. The media has lost its objectivity when it promotes the military as intensely as ours does. I don’t feel I can trust a media so blatantly pro military to give objective information on Abu Ghraib or Haditha. So far it seems like they are doing it though, but if media outlets were constantly singing the praises of G.E. I doubt they be as willing to report wrongdoing by the corporate staff at that company. Same with the military.

Another thing is this mentality that the military is automatically pro-freedom/human rights/everything good about humanity. The military is not pro-freedom. The military is a branch of politics, period. They are not some divine, independent, all good force out to protect us from evil and cruelty. The general and military strategist Clauzewitz said ‘war is politics by other means’ and that is all war and military are. They are tools to deal with political discussions and political issues. There is no guarantee that a war has anything to do with freedom, the only guarantee is that the politicans and figures who call the shots are disagreeing. the military is like a security dog, it isn’t good unless the building it is guarding is good. Even that is no guarantee.

Bridging onto that last point, another issue I have is that most military people are just kids. These aren’t superheroes, they are a collection of individuals and many are just 19 year old kids whose parents couldn’t afford college and who didn’t know how else to fund it and a collection of alpha males who you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. Some people are attracted to the military due to idealism and being pro human rights and pro freedom which is laudable, but alot are drawn to it for the money, career opportunities or because they want to kill something. You can’t have a society that holds impovrished college students and teenagers with anger issues as its heroes.

Yes the military fights to protect us. But without long distance truckers and farmers we’d all starve to death. Without engineers we’d all live in the stone age. Without doctors and public health workers (sanitation, etc) we’d all be dead. Everyone is necessary for society to function. The military serves a role, but so do endless millions of others. I can read because teachers taught me how, but I don’t take respect for teachers to extremes.

The military serves a puprose, but we are really taking this too far. It isn’t like every single military intervention is the difference between being conquered by the Nazis or unconditional freedom. And the soldier is no more necessary to a life with high quality than the farmer, the doctor or the engineer. Do you know how many lives were saved by the ideas of Normal Borlaug, Louis Pasteur or Maurice Hilleman? More than died in all the wars of the 20th century.

Soldiers do put their lives at risk, which is something to consider. But again, so do journalists who go to war zones. So do farmers who spray pesticides on crops. Long distance trucking, offshore fishermen and being a lumberjack are some of the most dangerous jobs on earth but we don’t hold them in the same esteem.

I’d like to see a more rational, non-emotional stance towards the military someday. We really seem to be tapdancing towards fascism with our blindly pro military attitudes. I’m bugged by these discovery channel shows that talk about how the new technology that is coming out soon will make ‘our boys’ better at killing people, like that is a good thing. Like finding better ways for a bunch of 19 year old kids who are in the military because they couldn’t afford college to kill a bunch of 20 year old Iraqi conscripts who are only in their military because Saddam threatened to kill their families if they deserted is a good thing. It may be a necessary thing, but it isn’t a good thing. People who don’t want to fight in a war are causing as much suffering as they can for other people who don’t want to fight in a war because their political leaders disagree. It isn’t something to brag about.

I admit the US military has done alot of good. It helped restrain communism while helping to overthrow fascism in Japan and Germany.

I think alot of this is just cognitive dissonance. As John Kerry said ‘how do you ask someone to be the last person to die for a mistake’? Cognitive dissonance theory states that if you make sacrifices, you have to convince yourself that they were worth it. Nobody wants to admit to suffering, destruction or pain for something small. Perhaps that is the whole motive behind our blindly pro-military attitude, to admit that all the destruction and pain on all sides is just due to poor politics and kids trying to pay for college or getting conscripted against their will is too painful, so we paint the military as this divine, independent force for good because anything less is too much to face. But hiding the truth doesn’t help in the long run. A nation or a planet that weaves webs of lies (If you read war propaganda you notice that every country is fighting for freedom and self defense) to justify horror and pain is not something to revel in. Supposedly this is one of the reasons Stalin is still so respected in Russia. To admit he was evil, incompetent and hurt so many people is too painful and hard to do, so people convince themselves he was good.

Then again perhaps it is just a response to the treatment of soldiers after Vietnam. That is more understandable, to want soldiers to be treated with respect. But even if that is our motive, we are still taking it too far.

Another issue I have is all the ‘support our troops’ things we have. If this is an effort to prevent another Vietnam where soldiers are spit on, then fine. I am all for treating people with respect. But it is also subtle propaganda.

http://www.rpi.edu/~verwyc/oh3.htm

The foot-in-the-door phenomenon
( Or, how people can get you to do more than you ever planned on)

If you want someone to do you a big favor, chances are you will be more successful in your request if you first ask them to do a small favor.

Freedman & Fraser (1966) – Studied how to get people to comply with requests.

D.V. – Whether the people would agree to let the researchers post a large sign, marked “Drive Carefully” on their lawn.

I.V. – Whether they asked to post the large sign, or first asked the people if they would display a 3 inch “Be a safe Driver” window sticker.

Results: Only 17% of people asked to post the large sign consented, but 76% of the people who agreed to post the 3 inch sticker later agreed to post the large sign in their yard.

Pliner et al (1974) found that the percentage of Canadiens who were willing to give money to the cancer society increased from 46% to 90%, when the people had been asked the day before to wear a lapel pin publicizing the fund drive.

Lipsitz et al (1989) - Increased show up rates for a blood drive from 62% to 81% by ending reminder calls to people who had previously agreed to donate blood by ending the reminder call with the sentence, “We’ll count on seeing you then, OK ?”

The Freedman & Fraser experiment is the most important. If you ask people to put a sign in their yard only 17% agree. However if you ask them to do something minor like put a small sign in their window most agree. But by doing so their opinions of themselves subtly change (I am acting like someone who supports safe driving, so I should start feeling like someone who supports safe driving) and as a result 2 weeks later 76% of those people agreed to the large sign in the yard, which is almost 5x as many people who agree to the sign alone w/o being softened up first.

There is another way this experiment is carried out. Instead of a small sticker, people are asked to sign a petition saying they are ‘pro safe driving’ as if anyone could be anti-safe driving.

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:t1FckC6YPiEJ:flightline.highline.edu/sfrantz/presentation/How%20to%20Become%20a%20Cult%20Leader.ppt+cognitive+dissonance+Freedman+%26+Fraser+sign+yard+sign+petition&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2

When that was done and 2 weeks later people were asked to put the large sign in their yard about 50% agreed to do so. Cognitive dissonance again.

So these subtle things like ‘support our troops’ may sound meaningless and maybe/hopefully they are just tools to prevent troops from being treated like dirt like they were in Vietnam, but they may be an insidious method to make everyone support the war. It is an easy jump to go from ‘supporting the troops’ to ‘supporting what the troops do’ and too small for most people to notice.

And again, since war and the military are just a branch of politics all this pro-military jingoism is arguably pro-politician jingoism at its root. If the politicians in iraq or the US were different there’d be no war.

2

Funny, the military folks I know all complain that there’s not enough support for the military in this country. I also don’t see the “pro-military media bias” that you talk about. NPR does pieces fairly regularly on fallen soldiers and every time I hear one, I have to ask myself if they’d be doing that if the war were more popular (You do know that the majority of Americans are unhappy about the current war, don’t you?). I certainly don’t recall hearing them do that for other military conflicts.

As for your statement that military folks are just kids, well, yeah, some of them are, but that’s pretty much the way it’s always been. What makes military folks more significant than farmers (and if a farmer’s risking death by spraying pesticides, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing), truck drivers, and the like, is that the military’s job is primarily dealing in death. Yes, trucker’s risk their lives when they get behind the wheel, but so do we, and we all know that the odds of us dying are pretty slim. Members of the military can’t say that with any certainty. If road conditions are too bad, a trucker can pull over to the side, but members of the military can’t simply decide the action’s too hot for them and go home. They’re stuck there until the war’s over.

3

I am in a quandary about this subject.

On the one hand, Dubya is a dickhead who started a needless, very costly war both in terms of money and lives lost.

On the other hand, the kids, and I do mean kids, who are out there risking their butts, day after day, didn’t ask for this shit - especially those who thought the National Guard was there to help in case of domestic disasters.

At any rate, it drives me crazy to see those lame yellow ribbon “Support Our Troups” magnets on cars. Are these people suggesting the reason these kids are in Iraq is valid? Or are they suggesting we should shut up and back Dubya? Either thought is stupid. But perhaps they are suggesting we should at least get those soldiers body armor and supplies and try to keep them safe while they are over there - that, I could understand.

Not all wars are just, and unless you are an idiot, you have to have at least some scepticism in the motives for this mess in Iraq. Yet, godforbid you should suggest the fact or some consider you a pinko-communist-traitor.

Are we becoming too pro-military in the US. The answer is unequivicably yes.

4

I think that a great deal of the veneration felt for the military comes from the degree of personal choice given up by military members as part of their service. These freedoms are not simply sacrificed to the open air as much as they are handed over to the government, and by proxy, to the American people.

This in my believe accounts for much of the “for their sacrifices” gratitude.

While military members make an initial choice to join the service, after that point they have relatively little say in the direction of their lives, where they live, what jobs they hold etc. Instead, faith is placed in the public’s will [expressed via the government] that they will be put to good use.

To put it simply, I believe that much of the “pro-military” sentiment felt in American stems from a tacit acknowledgement stewardship the public holds over the lives of servicemembers.

5

Yeah, the military people do make sacrafices that most of us never will make. However I think there are risks to unrestrained awe for the military in the form of

-people forgetting that the military is just a branch of politics and blurring blind support for the military with blind support of politics (this could be unfounded though as there is alot of distaste for the Iraq war but almost no distate for the soldiers)
-people believing the military is something it isn’t, namely a divine force for good and not a destructive tool of politics. People seem to be forgetting that the job of the military is to destroy things and cause damage, not to fight for freedom even though sometimes that destruction does protect freedom.
-a media and public too in awe to really pay attention to failings or human rights abuses (this is probably unfounded too as Abu Gharib proves)

My arguments may not hold water. Ah well.

6

I think I may understand what the OP is trying to say, or maybe I’m influenced by my own opinions. I spent 11 years on active duty, 3 or so in the reserves, and I’ve been a civilian employee of the Dept of Defense since 1985. This summer, I’ll have 32 years of federal service, all associated with the Navy. That probably colors my point of view.

I hate to say it, but I see all the “Support Our Troops” hubbub as fashion. It’s easy. I’m a “good American” because I have a magnet on my car. I bought a drink for a veteran. I gave up my first class seat on the plane so a soldier could fly home in style. Not that doing those things are bad - it just seems that people are getting their warm fuzzies superficially. That way, they can concentrate on the things that really matter - like American Idol or Brangelina… Or maybe I’m just cynical.

My job, quite literally, is to support the troops. But I don’t have a sticker on my car and I don’t think folks in uniform are any more special than anyone else who voluntarily takes a job and does it well. Granted, most jobs don’t take a person where death is so likely, but none of us have guarantees, do we? A good friend of mine was shot at work - in an office - by a coworker with issues. My friend survived and carries a couple of bullets in him still, but I’m pretty sure he never expected gunfire in the office that morning…

Anyway, no more rambling. Let me just say I admire anyone who chooses a military career. It does take a specific sort of person to do it and do it well - it’s definitely not for everyone. And I do admire someone who is willing to get out there and die for what they believe. I do have to take exception to the notion that our military is full of kids. Yeah, an awful lot of them are very young - I was 19 when I enlisted. But a good friend of mine, one who I served with in 1974, is a reservist, and she’s on her way back to the Middle East (she may be there already) at the age of 52. There are far too many grandparents out there…

Bless 'em all! Where would we be without them?

7

No, it isn’t. You even cited Clauswitz in your OP. Now, in the course of doing that job they may indeed destroy things, but it’s not their job. Indeed these days the emphasis for conventional weapons is on minimising destruction. You don’t need a big bomb if you can achieve the same result with a smaller bomb more accurately placed.

8

Personally I think people thinking of the military as a branch a politics at all is dangerous. Now, military action is a result of politics certainly but the military itself should not be a political entity except in as much as members are citizens.

I would agree that people thinking of the military as a divine force for good would be a bad thing. I’m not convinced that this is happening or that it threatens to happen in the near future.

I would agree the idea that the military exists to protect freedom is a popular but misleeding one. It’s also an understandable mistake. The military primary reason for existing is to protect the autonomy of the union. Now in ensuring autonomy the military does serve to protect from dominance by other countries and thus, provides second-hand support for freedoms but it’s certainly not it’s prime role.

On a daily basis I’d say defense lawyers perform the primary role in protecting freedoms.

Now, of course the military’s secondary purpose is to project the will of the nation via military means which is certainly not a defensive role. Likewise though, I don’t see people forgetting this function.

On the other hand, I do see a danger of the general population feeling seperated enough from the military and military actions that they forget that these actions occur at the behest of their government and by proxy, its people and thus forget their vested interests and/or cede their responsibilities as citizens.

As you said, a media and public too in awe of the military’s institutions and authority to challenge abuses would certainly be a dangerous situation. As you also implied though, I don’t see evidence that this state exists.

9

Well okay, and judges. And a bunch of other people.

10

Pinko.

:wink:

11

Off to Great Debates.

12

You have a very short memory. Just five years ago the military was regularly bashed on this forum and in the American media. It’s only since our latest war adventure that the media has decided to show a little respect once in a while.

Before this latest war it was very common to see headlines such as “Former Paratrooper Kills Twenty.” That’s right, the media liked to remind us how everyone who served in the military is a loose cannon waiting to go off. Never mind that the guy served for three years over twenty years ago, he’s a former paratrooper. That’s what made him a crazy killer, nothing that happened since then or even before then.

I remember reading a lovely editorial decrying the opportunities for young black men. The author was very dismayed that so many young black men end up in prison or the military. Hoo-rah, there’s some support for the military, there, equating it with prison.

Then there was the novel I read about a pandemic. In the early days of this horrible disease, states the narrator, nobody cared very much because it was only affecting the military. Whoo-hoo!

That’s the kind of mentality that’s been out there since the Vietnam war.

13

Independent of anything else that’s going to be typed in this thread, that really means absolutely nothing. All people think their particular role in life is (a) more important than it really is, and (b) underappreciated. Ask a schoolteacher how well appreciated they are and you’ll be lucky to escape with all your limbs.

[QUPOTE]I also don’t see the “pro-military media bias” that you talk about.
[/QUOTE]

Speaking as an outsider of sorts, trust me, it’s there. The U.S. media is still free, of course; we’re not talking about the North Korean “press” here talking up the Supreme Glorious Leader or whatever the hell it is they call Kim, so you can get every flavour of opinion you want somewhere. In general, however, there is a definite sense that the politically correct attitude to take is to “Honor the troops.” “Honor” in that sense appears to generally mean to treat them as heroes. bluethree has to rely in part on a novel - you know, fiction - to come up with evidence of an anti-military bias in the media.

That said, this isn’t just about “the media,” it’s something you see in all corners. A NASCAR race looks like a recruitment commercial; the commencement of the race always seems to involve color guards, shot-from-below views of brave-looking uniformed lads, and warplanes buzzing the stadium.

We have this is Canada too; it’s not as pronounced, but it’s definitely there, especially now that we’ve been fighting a low-intensity war if Afghanistan for four years. It’s simply, totally anathema to criticize soldiers publicly, unless they do something really bad and you can add the caveat that it was “an outlier” or “not representative of our fighting men and women.” If a news reporter or anchor in either the USA or Canada were to suggest our soldiers weren’t heroes, or be genuinely critical of the armed forces, they’d be hounded out of a job.

I think Dubious Weasle made some very good points; I like her/his use of the word “veneration,” which is really very apt.

How on earth can this be construed as being anything but PRO-soldier? I really, honestly don’t get this; why would avoiding talk about the fallen be supportive of them? If NPR was airing stories called “Pfc James Biggles Died In Fallujah Because The Military Lied To Him And To Us All” I’d agree that’s anti-military, but of course they do not air such stories.

Down on the waterfront of the little town I live in is a memorial to those who served in the Canadian navy and merchant marine during World War Two. On one side of the memorial is a list of all the ships we lost - every single one. Believe me, it’s an appallingly long list. Specific mention is made of the number of men who died (in the thousands.) Is this memorial therefore criticizing Canada’s joining the Allies in WWII?

The notion that admitting that soldiers are dying in combat, and talking about those who die in combat, is anti-military is plainly insane. It’s also a very recent form of political coirrectness; during WWII, papers carried stories about the fallen all the time. Every little town gave at least a few of its sons to the war, and the local paper would run detailed stories. Your big papers couldn’t keep up with the bodies to that level of detail but they ran the names of the fallen all the same. Nobody thought that was anti-war or anti-military - indeed, it was seen as being a very appropriate way to give thanks to those who gave their lives to stop fascism.

14

Oh please. I cited a novel because I’m talking about anti-military bias in America. My point, which I made in my opening sentence, was that America has been anti-military for decades, and has only been pro-military for about four years. Anyone whose memory goes back more than four years knows that.

15

A magnificent OP- I salute you. Or I would if I did salutes.

First of all, let’s put the spitting on the Vietnam vets myth to rest. It didn’t happen, according to a report for that bastion of pinkoism, Free Repulic.

Personally, I have as much respect for servicemen as I do for firefighters or policemen. Hazardous work deserves some respect. But that’s where it stops for me. I don’t value the life of an American serviceman one iota above an Iraqi civilian. I want the US to pull out so that the carnage stops on both sides. For this reason, I think the “support our troops” magnets on cars are counterproductive. If these magnets in any way sway public opinion toward supporting the war, then they do more harm than good.

You can’t deny the cheerleading by the US media from the buildup to the war up through the “Mission Accomplished” photo op. Even the right’s whipping boy, Dan Rather, joined in the mindless rah-rah through this period. Dissenting opinions on whether this should be undertaken were not aired.

Yes, there is far too much pro-military sentiment in this country. What continues to amaze me is the hypocrisy of how this is applied to politicians. A man like Kerry, who went to Vietnam, faced (and took) enemy fire and won three Purple Hearts was shunned by veterans in favor of a guy that dodged the draft by joining the National Guard and then didn’t even fulfill that obligation. Go figure.

16

Bad example on your part. School teachers in the US by the large part are underpaid. One could reasonably expect a number of members of the military to think that they weren’t given enough support under any circumstances, however, when you have an overwhelming majority of people saying that (often quite emphatically), then it bears examining.

Yet the media doesn’t hesitate to cover stories of military abuses such as Abu Graib.

Compare that with places like China and the former Soviet Union, where every parade would have not only soldiers in uniform marching, but also lots and lots of military hardware rolling down the street.

The same way the US military’s refusal to allow the media to photograph the returning flag draped coffins of dead service personnel can be said to protect the privacy of the families. The accusations the media makes about the black out is that the military is doing it to prevent people from seeing the costs of the war and losing support for it. For NPR to switch gears and give accounts of the fallen, when in past conflicts they remained mute on the subject indicates a change in attitude. One could argue that they’re doing it as part of a pro-military bias, but it can also be seen as a subtle jab in the sense of, “Look at the price we are paying for this stupid war.” Especially since they spend the bulk of the pieces on how the survivors are dealing with the loss of the soldier, and not on the soldier him/herself.

17

Except my memory does go back more than four years and my honest impression is that such a claim is utter nonsense. The U.S. has had a positive attitude towards the military for as long as I can remember - or, at least since the 1980s, anyway. Indeed, pro-military novels, TV shows and movies generally outnumbered, or at least strongly outsold, those that were anti-military.

If you want to talk fiction, look at the amazing popularity of Tom Clancy’s novels, which are as pro-military as you can possibly get, and the most popular of those all predate 2001.

“Top Gun” (1986) was pretty much a recruitment video for the United States Navy. In movie after movie we see brave, heroic U.S. soldiers doing battle with the forces of evil, often represented by evil, swarthy Muslims; see Navy Seals (1990) or Executive Decision (1996) or if you prefer Cubans in the role of bad guys, the Grenada War blowjob movie Heartbreak Ridge (1986.) I am reminded of the Stallone movie “First Blood,” where the script was actually rewritten to provide a more positive view of the John Rambo character (in the original book he was a psychopath; in the movie, a brave soldier misunderstood by ungrateful civvies.) Naturally, in subsequent movies Rambo then defeated the forces of North Vietnam and the Soviet Union.

As to the news media, if you don’t remember the 1991 Gulf War as being a giant lovefest for the armed services, your memory’s not as good as you think.

18

So? Does the media therefore have to ignore such stories in order to even remain objective?

I mean, we’re really jumping through the looking glass now, aren’t we? You can’t even report a huge, international story?

No, I think I’ll compare the United States, a free country and a democracy, against other free countries and democracies, as well as against itsself and its own history, so as to form a meaningful comparison.

Yes, you certainly could say that. You could also say that the government has a very strong vested interest in de-emphasizing casualties. Both seem to make sense to me. In either case, it remains preposterous to say that just talking about those who gave the ultimate sacrifice is anti-military. It’s reality denial on a grand, sweeping scale. You’re supposed to “Honor” those who serve, but only if they stay alive?

  1. Cite, please.

  2. “Anti-war” does not mean “anti-military.” Once again, we see the conflation of the two; they are not the same thing. The OP is not about the media being pro-Iraq War.

  3. We’re not talking about any one outlet specifically. Of course SOME outlets (though not necessarily NPR) will be anti-war, and some will be pro-war. In no way does this contradict the OP; anti-war, again, isn’t anti-military, and in any event the fact that you can find a media outlet that’s anti-military does not contradict a claim that American society in general is going through a very pro-military phase.

19

Oh, but Rush Limbaugh insists the chance of dying in the military is dying is lower than the morality rate in general. The REALLY brave folks, by his logic, are those that DON’T join the military.

20

Uh, no. By covering such stories the media shows that it is objective. Were the media in the US pro-military to a dangerous extent, they’d not cover such stories.

Why? Do think that it was only after 9/11 that the US had military demonstrations at sporting events? If so, you’re mistaken.

No, but again, if a media outlet switches gears, that says something.

Sadly, NPR’s online library only goes back to 1996, so there’s no way I can pull up anything from the Gulf War Era (which wouldn’t be there, since they didn’t do extensive coverage of the fallen soldiers).

So media coverage of people wanting the US out of the war in Iraq is “pro-military” because it means that people care about the troops and don’t want to see them harmed?

True, but I don’t see the level of pro-military support that we had in the wake of 9/11. The local news outlets have all pulled their reporters from Iraq and Afghanistan (I live not too far from the 101st Airborne’s base in Kentucky, so the media here was all over the conflicts when they began.). The local stations also don’t air messages during their newscasts from troops stationed overseas to their families in the area. I haven’t seen one of the cable networks or broadcast networks do a news program from a military base recently, and yet they used to do them all the time.