[Cross-posted from The Left Coaster.]
United States militarism, not surprisingly, has always had a political ally and champion: the Republican party. The United States Army did not keep its objectivity or independence and became politically corrupted: the Army swore it never, ever take the brunt of a failed war with no mission again, but precisely that generation of Vietnam officers (Colin Powell) have utterly failed 35 years later. The Army continues to demonstrate its crippled leadership by providing an endless supply of toadies—Patreus is the latest—to kill their own troops with lies.
The Army at least had a very clear signal from Congress in the 2002 AUMF, a dysfunctional embarrassing document, but at least in its way a fairly unambiguous formal endorsement for war from democratically elected representatives. Even though the Army has horribly failed according to its own lights, they can hardly bear anything like full responsibility for Iraq with the President braying lies and Congress genuflecting the AUMF.
It is now abundantly clear—never mind the stratospheric insanity, the extreme risk, the rankly stupid thinking—that war with Iran is distinctly possible while Bush is in office. The evidence stretches out over a number years and is just fresh from yesterday: this isn’t some fantasy on a game board, war...with...Iran...could start at any time.
An "attack" on Iran’s nuclear facilities is not an exercise in targeting, it’s flat-out war, war with no Congressional authorization of any sort, no communication to the American people about why it has to happen, the murdering of foreign innocents on their own soil who had done absolutely nothing to us. It seems incredible the need to outline the reality of this heinously criminal and insane act, but there seems to such a casual acceptance about it, why, if Bush orders the Navy and the Air Force to bomb Iran it’s like flicking a light switch, click, off they go.
Given the behavior of the Army in Iraq and the rigid discipline of the armed forces it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that’s precisely what they’d do, even though an attack on Iran is criminality of the highest order. Any Navy or Air Force officer who thinks about it for five minutes (they already have, I assure you, how could they not?) knows how wrong war with Iran is, yet they will follow orders anyway, plunging our country and the world into chaos, the new century a fresh dark age of lying, war and death.
How truly likely is that scenario? Most liberals, I presume, would say very likely, yet I am not so sure. I vividly remember anecdotal evidence from a London Yank diary months ago when a carrier deployed to the Gulf with rumors of Iran war swirling turbulently everywhere, apparently some number of enlisted and officers wrote their representatives, demanding war with Iran not happen, it was possible they were deploying on an Iranian war mission in days.
The war in Iraq is a now a vast utter ruin, smashing whatever was left the Bush presidency and dooming the Republicans to searing defeat on all fronts in 2008. 3615 troops have been killed for nothing, tens of thousands more are horribly maimed, the Army is more broken every day in personnel and equipment. The president is loathed and one of the most unpopular of all time, the United States’ reputation and goodwill in tatters, half a trillion dollars spent to make everything very much worse.
The officers of the Navy and Air Force will look at all of this, knowing full well there is no legal authorization for war with Iran whatsoever, and yet still throttle up for the mission and let the ordnance go? These are highly intelligent, very well educated officers, in the Navy master’s degrees are required for advancement, they require one to advance, and officers are highly encouraged to obtain liberal arts masters to ensure an officer with a diverse education (check out the startling liberal masters choices from any general officer staff in any service, it really is quite impressive).
Perhaps I am just captured by wishful thinking, of course those highly educated officers will kill Iranians for nothing, the Army still does in Iraq and they’re just as educated. Being an officer doesn’t matter, service people dream of the mission their whole careers and will never pass up a chance to really do it.
Maybe I wonder about it so because our officers in the Navy and Air Force are our last hope, our last line of defense in stopping an insane killing cruelty done in our names, under our flag. If the orders ever really are given for Tehran I pray they look at Iraq, follow the goodness of their minds and souls and refuse. Please, refuse, that it the only outcome from your oath and this insanity, don’t let what happened to the Army stain your branches of the service forever.