(be kind--haven't diaried before, and it gets contrarian!)
This morning I nearly spit my east-coast secularist liberal breakfast of hemp cereal and the blood of Christians out onto a Vietnam veteran when I found myself agreeing with Krauthammer in today's Post.
Even if he only means it as a cheap slam of Democrats, Neo-Con Head Cheerleader #1 (Go Team Go!) has a point about the nature of civilian control over the military. More broadly, the article touches on the question of how the military relates to society. So yes, even a busted-ass neo-con is right twice a day! (More below...)
Americans look at our soldiers and project. Andrew Bacevich points out a poll in which "two-thirds [of those polled] said they think military members have higher moral standards than the nation they serve..." After 9/11 in particular, the military has been elevated to a rank above the "civilian" both in terms of heroism and loyalty (which is somewhat legitimate) and as a keeper of the values of society (which isn't.) I'm not going to go deep into the psychological causes for this here; but it's the consequences that should trouble us.
There are two main ways that this mentality shows itself on the left today:
1) The call to leave war to the generals, and
2) The penchant to conflate military service with qualification to speak on national security matters.
As Krauthammer rightly notes, (and you have no idea how painful it is to write that,...) the left didn't used to be this way. War was seen as "too dangerous to be left to the generals", rather than "left to the politicians" as is preached today. As much as the civilian leadership was responsible for the Vietnam War, (that means you Bobby Mac!) the solution was to replace that leadership with better civilians, not to hand the war over to the military brass unsupervised. Clausewitz was right about war being "politics by other means." There are considerations apart from the immediate "winning" of any given conflict. The job of generals is winning; the job of politicians is handling those other questions. If winning were all that mattered, we'd have nuked Hanoi. (Like Nixon suggested on his tapes, before being talked out of it, oddly, by Kissenger.)
The newfound liberal adoration for leaving war to the generals is problematic. Civilian control over the armed forces is one thing that makes America great, and one of the few things left that Bush hasn't managed to repeal. America is America because Eisenhower can fire MacArthur, even when MacArthur is the most popular man in the country.
By rallying to a few retired generals, we on the left gain momentary credibility among those people who, as noted above, see the military as superior to the civilian population. However, the precedent is too dangerous to support in the immediate interest of sacking Rummy.
Let's put the shoe on the other foot: It's 2011, and President Edwards has dispatched 15,000 US troops to aid peacekeeping in, I don't know, Chad. Despite no expectation of casualties, a dozen are killed in a month and retired generals start screaming about how badly planned the operation was--and they're calling for the head of Defense Secratary Clark. Are we ready to accept that as legitimate? Imagine the retired brass on right-wing shout-radio berating President Hillary (a woman! and a LESBIAN to boot!) because well, the civilians just don't know how to run a war.
Does Rumsfeld suck at his job? Sure. Should he be replaced? Sure. Is there any reason to believe Bush will? Probably not. But, as bad as this sounds, we're better off with 2 more years of Rummy than we are with the precedent of a foray into politics by retired Praetorian Guardsmen.
The second issue is related, and it's the sudden hero-worship on the part of the left. It's no longer enough to have been in combat; you have to flaunt it politically. George McGovern has air force medals, but he didn't beat it to death in 1972; John Kerry, in contrast, "reported for duty" at the '04 convention.
To counter being seen as "soft on national security," Dems have decided to trot out people who most agressively advocate war. Rather than challenging the question, we're trying to answer it better. Nancy Pelosi criticizes the war? San Fran hippie chick liberal out of touch with Amurricah. Jack Murtha? Uh oh, he's trouble, because he's voted hawkishly enough in the past, so his opinion COUNTS.
It seems the only kind of identity politics that left right and center ALL accept is "trust me, I'm a soldier." This is the basis for the "Fighting Dems" program, not to mention the Kerry '04 campaign and the Clark '08 thing. Now don't get me wrong--I have no problem with the Fighting Dems project, so long as we're choosing people for their qualifications, not just because well gosh they've killed people! For that matter, I'd support Clark if I could be convinced he was the best progressive candidate; but I'm skeptical because I wonder if we'd even THINK of him based on his policies and political statements if he didn't look good in uniform. (Besides, ask General Jackson about World War III...)
This is my problem similarly with the "chickenhawks" argument. Here we start splitting hairs a bit. It makes sense to me to criticize those who have spent their whole lives profiting off war but have never gone; Dick "5 Deferments" Cheney, Rush "Ass Polyps" Limbaugh, Trent "So Many Minorities" Lott, etc. What troubles me is the corrolary -- that those who have BEEN to war are uniquely qualified to speak on national security.
I haven't served, so any of you who want to dismiss my argument based on that, I probably lost you earlier anyway. However, it seems apparrant that there are only certain, particular, issues that military experience qualifies one to speak on. Example: Bob is a combat veteran from Operation Whateveritscallednow. Bob probably understands more than most civilians the need for adequate armor and the usefulness of the VA hospital (an argument for socialized medicine if there ever was one.) Chances are though that Bob is no more qualified than a kid with an MA in Middle Eastern Studies to understand why the ethnic makeup of Iraq made the war a mistake. Nor do his experiences working with Kurdish villagers mean that he understands democratization processes any more than a soldier in Vietnam would get the dynamics of anti-colonialism because he talked to some peasants. His experiences are legitimate, unique to him, and absolutely valuable; they are not, however, qualifications for political office unto themselves.
And this is where the left is becoming complicit, intentionally or not. Rather than standing behind civilians who were right on the war on the merits of their argument, we're searching for people who we perceive to be more credible to MAKE the argument. This ties back into the question of civilian control over the armed forces, as the left rallies around generals and former hawks (as though they wouldn't be hawks the next time,) in order to form the vanguard of the opposition.
This may help the Democrats win seats in the short-term. I understand it, as an electoral strategy. What worries me is the social effects of having one party of neo-con militarists being countered by a party that trots out the most militaristic opposition it can find in order to counter them.
I don't claim to have a solution. The immediate need to win back congress and stop THIS WAR unfortunately lends itself to the worship of people more likely to start the NEXT ONE; ie. less McGovern and more Scoop Jackson. Is self-fluffing militarism really the best way to end a war? Will we need to beat down Iran to prove we were qualified to have been right about Iraq?
I hope this has raised some questions, if not answers. I would recommend Andrew Bacevich on the question of moral superiority of soldiers, and Chalmers Johnson generally. Let's just try and remember that as much as we can bash civilian control over the military today, the alternative is much scarier. A society that treats its military as superior to its civilian population is called a junta. And now I have to go back to Hating Our Troops & Freedoms (TM.)