Recently I wrote that the AIG bonuses were just a bright shiny object to distract attention from issues that matter. I asserted that, in the great scheme of things, $165 million is basically nothing. Many people disagreed, pointing out that it was a lot of money, or that it wasn't the money it was the principle or any number of other reasons that we should be demanding answers from the president about gratuitous gratuities.
However, when the Pentagon has cost overruns totaling $296 BILLION, the Times gives it little more than a related article link in a space devoted to Robert Gates. Meanwhile, the WaPo consigns it to the "more headlines" section. Here at Kos, there is a conspicuous lack of outraged diaries.
Why do people make such a big deal out of $165 million and remain almost silent about an amount more than 1000 times that?
Put bluntly, I think the reason is cowardice, or if you prefer, Falstaffian discretion.
Frankly, I think the reason that the AIG guys have gotten so much flak is not just that they did something outrageous (which they surely did). However, I think a larger reason is that they are an easy target. They have no real political backing from anyone, save Limbaugh the Hutt. The military on the other hand, has become sacrosanct. No one will attack the military, and anyone who can pretend to an association with "our troops" has become beyond criticism.
Frankly, this worship of the military is unAmerican. It is a pernicious tendency and one our founders warned strongly against. Alexander Hamilton, who himself was almost addicted to putting himself in harm's way, saw it and warned his countrymen against it. In the Federalist VIII he wrote:
...the violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free. The continual necessity for their services enhances the importance of the soldier, and proportionably degrades the condition of the citizen. The military state becomes elevated above the civil. The inhabitants of territories, often the theatre of war, are unavoidably subjected to frequent infringements on their rights, which serve to weaken their sense of those rights; and by degrees the people are brought to consider the soldiery not only as their protectors, but as their superiors. The transition from this disposition to that of considering them masters, is neither remote nor difficult; but it is very difficult to prevail upon a people under such impressions, to make a bold or effectual resistance to usurpations supported by the military power.
Since September 11, when the entire country has become, we are incessantly reminded, "the theatre of war", we are all expected to worship those in the armed services, never forgetting the sacrifices of those who "serve their country," as if that were something that required one to be in uniform and packing a weapon. Even Jon Stewart, that stalwart of free expression, in his interview of former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard B. Myers, a man who, under the precedents that our own country was instrumental in establishing at Nuremberg and Tokyo, bears command responsibility and is therefore indictable for the war crimes committed at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and elsewhere, did nothing but engage in six minutes of apple-polishing when given the opportunity to ask him about those issues. Attacking an oily stock manipulator, well that's one thing, but a man in uniform? Well, that's just beyond the pale. You see, these men and women are no longer merely our protectors, they have become our superiors.
And that is both unacceptable and unAmerican.
This is not meant to denigrate the very real sacrifices that our servicemen and women have to endure to secure the country. It is merely to remind people that they are, in point of fact ours, that they work for us.
Warfare is forever tied up in the language of sacrifice, but that is fundamentally dishonest. As George Patton once bluntly, but elegantly stated, "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for HIS country."
Warfare, successful warfare, is not about dying. It is about killing. The soldiers, marines, airmen and sailors who serve us best are not those that die for us. They are those who kill for us and they do so in our names. Failing to hold those who do so accountable to us, failure to recognize that "serving your country" is not just a lot of soft soap, but has very real meaning and that WE are the country and that the armed forces serve US, is a failure of basic civic duty.
No one wants to die, and so we are rightfully grateful to the people who risk that fate to protect us.
But we are grateful for another thing. We are grateful to these people, however subconsciously, because they relieve us from moral hazards as well as physical ones. As long as we pretend that sacrifice is the main component of warfare we can deny that our way of life requires atrocity to maintain it.
That is the real reason so many hold military personnel in such high regard. They bear our moral burdens for us. They, in our place, subject themselves to the brutalization of warfare, to the end of innocence, and allow us to continue our lives of comfort and complacency.
They allow us to think of ourselves as pure.
As a whole, those who label themselves "progressive" are intensely uncomfortable with contemplating the use of violence to achieve diplomatic goals. Warfare is distasteful. It's something that only evil people do (or at least plan). As a result of this unfortunate intellectual tendency, we as a group are absolutely unequipped to debate strategy or tactics with those who do think about these things. The best the left muster is generally some half-assed cliche about "the lessons of history" like Afghanistan being "the graveyard of empires" even though most mouthing that pablum cannot name five Afghan historical figures. The left doesn't like to think about the efficient use of lethal force and so most of us would no more question the military judgment of a military man than we would bicker about a surgeon's choice of scalpel as he is about to operate on us.
And so, we miss $296 billion dollars and instead divert ourselves with the mischief of bankers.
As a group we don't actually know what it would take to secure the country because we haven't really thought about it. When it comes to matters military, the Democrats either give in to the GOP bully boys or devolve into guttersnipes, the military Party of No, complaining about how things have gone wrong rather than presenting an alternative path to success.
President Obama has begun to reverse this trend. He actually is taking seriously the need to kill in order to achieve security. Thus it is no surprise that he is the first Democrat in a long time that is willing to shine a light into the corruption of the "defense" establishment.
It is time for Democrats to recognize that just as anarchy leads to despotism pacifism leads to militarism.
If we want to stop things like giving the Pentagon billions of dollars and not getting anything in return, it is not enough to point out what is wrong with what the GOP did. We must think about how to fight and win wars efficiently. Only then will we be able to demystify the military and put a stop to the creeping militarism of American society.
UPDATE: Edited to eliminate infelicitous expression ("human sacrifice" changed to "atrocity").